Nitardy, Otto

GERMANN, TOETER

Posted By: BCGS
Date: 12/5/2009 at 10:35:02

Otto Nitardy, local manager at Waverly for the Wartburg Publishing House, printers of Lutheran church and school books, of the Kirchen Blatt and the Lutheran Herald, was born in Tribsees, Germany, on the 24th of February, 1865. He is a son of Ferdinand and Pauline (Germann) Nitardy, the former a native of Danzig and the latter of Seehausen, German. On both sides the family can trace back the genealogy to the seventeeth century.

Otto Nitardy acquired his education in the public schools of his native country and after serving in the Prussian army as a volunteer from 1883 to 1886 came to America in 1886 and took up the study of theology in the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Mendota, Illinois. He was ordained to the ministry in 1888 and was sent out on missionary work in North Dakota, continuing thus for two years. At the end of that time he came to Iowa and for a period of three years was located at Grafton, after which he moved to Baden, Ontario, Canada. In 1896 he went to Minnesota and, having been obligated to abandon preaching on account of throat trouble, turned his attention to the lumber business there. He continued at this until 1901, in which year he moved to Lincoln, Nebraska, where he followed farming. In 1903 Mr. Nitardy disposed of his Nebraska interests and came to Waverly, where he resumed his connection with the lumber business, continuing until 1906. He then moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, and engaged in the newspaper business there until 1908. In that year he accepted the position of local manager of the Wartburg Publishing House and he has held this office since that time. His firm prints Lutheran church and school books both in German and English, the Kirchen Blatt, a semi-monthly publication in the interests of the German Lutheran church, and it is also the publisher of the Lutheran Herald. The concern does its own printing, using the Mergenthaler linotype machines, one of three decks and another of two. The same equipment is used for printing in both German and English and the plant give employment to thirty hands.

On the 24th of October, 1890, Mr. Nitardy was united in marriage to Miss Alice Toeter, of Toeterville, Iowa, a town named after her father, who operated a farm on its present site. Mr. and Mrs. Nitardy have three children, Elizabeth, Rudolph and Carl.

Mr. Nitardy is an energetic, farsighted and reliable businessman and he is, moreover, a man of exemplary character, holding to high ideals in commercial and personal affairs. He has become widely known in Waverly and has the esteem and confidence of all who are associated with him.

History of Bremer County, Iowa Vol. II 1914