Grawe, Joseph F.

WAITE

Posted By: BCGS
Date: 12/19/2009 at 08:42:26

Joseph F. Grawe, of Waverly, has for the past twenty-three years been identified with journalistic interests as the publisher of The Bremer County Independent, which was established in 1867 and is the official county paper. He was born in Germany on the 6th of July, 1843, and was a little lad of five years when he accompanied his parents on their emigration to the United States in 1848, the family home being established in Stephenson county, Illinois. In 1862, when a young man of nineteen, he enlisted for service in the Union army as a member of the Ninety-third Illinois Regiment, remaining with that command until the cessation of hostilities and participating in all its marches and battles. At Allatoona, Georgia, on the 5th of October, 1864, he was wounded and taken prisoner. In the fall of 1865 he took up his abode in Chickasaw county, Iowa, and for a period of four years after the war attended school. He subsequently acted as county superintendent of schools in Chickasaw county for five years. In February, 1873, he bought The Nashua Post and successfully published that journal for seventeen years. It was in 1890 that he purchased The Bremer County Independent at Waverly, of which he is still at the head. This paper has the largest circulation in the county.

On the 3d of June, 1873, Mr. Grawe was united in marriage to Miss Blanche A. Waite, by whom he has three sons and six daughters. Two sons and one daughter assist their father in the publication of The Independent, while four of the daughters teach school and the other children help in the household duties.

History of Bremer County, Iowa Vol II 1914