Dohrmann, Fred

HEUER, FRESE, KUHRT, DRENKHAHN, WESTENDORF

Posted By: BCGS
Date: 1/2/2010 at 11:01:27

Fred Dohrmann has lived in Bremer county since 1871 and during the intervening period has worked his way steadily upward to a place among substantial and representative agriculturists, his career furnishing many excellent examples of the value of resolution, courage and perseverance in the attainment of success. He was born in Hanover, Germany, July 5, 1851, and is a son of Fritz and Christine (Heuer) Dohrmann, both of whom died in the father land. Fred Dohrmann came to the United States in 1871, settling immediately in Bremer county, Iowa, where he worked on a farm, receiving for his services ten dollars per month. In 1876 he purchased eighty acres of his present farm, the tract being all wild prairie land. In the following year he bought the adjoining eighty acres and upon this was a small house twelve feet high made of boards with clapboard roof and a log stable with a thatched roof. Mr. Dohrmann has since replaced these buildings with modern and substantial ones and has added to his property a forty acre tract across the road, owning today two hundred acres. He engages in general farming and dairying and because of his unremitting industry and the practical method which he employs has met with a gratifying measure of success.

Mr. Dohrmann has been twice married. He wedded first Miss Mary Frese, who was born in Germany, a daughter of Henry Frese, of Fremont townshiip. Mrs. Dohrmann died in 1885, leaving two children: Christine, the wife of Henry Kuhrt, of Tripoli; and W.H. a farmer of Fremont township. Mr. Dohrmann's second wife was in her maidenhood Miss Wilhelmina Drenkhahn, also a native of Germany, and they became the parents of six children: Fred, who is engaged in farming in Fremont township; John, who died at the age of three months; Hermina, the wife of Otto Westendorf, of Franklin township; Alma; Ewald; and Raymond.

Mr. Dohrmann is a member of the Lutheran church and is indepentdent in his political views, voting for men and measures rather than parties. Through his own efforts he has risen to be one of the leading farmers of the township and he holds the esteem and confidence of a wide circle of friends.

History of Bremer County, Iowa Vol. II 1914