Alois Meusburger (1852-1936)

MEUSBURGER

Posted By: Karon Velau (email)
Date: 3/24/2022 at 23:32:06

Alois Meusburger
(November 14, 1852 – February 14, 1936)

It is astonishing to witness the success of young men who have emigrated to America without capital and have worked their way upward to a position of affluence. The readiness with which they adapt themselves to circumstances and take advantage of opportunities offered brings to them success and wins them a place among the leading men of the community in which they reside. To this class belongs Alois Meusburger, a prominent farmer of Garfield Township, Calhoun County, Iowa.
He was born in Austria. November 14, 1852, and is a son of Alois and Mary (Buchele) Meusburger, who spent their entire lives in that country. The father, who was a farmer by occupation, died at about the age of seventy years, and the mother was somewhat younger at the time of her death. They were the parents of twelve children, all of whom reached years of maturity. The father was twice married.
Mr. Meusburger of this review grew to manhood in the land of his birth and was educated in the home schools. He also learned the cheesemaker's trade, but never followed it after coming to this country. At the age of twenty he crossed the Atlantic and first located in Chicago, Illinois. He soon found work on a farm, where he received eleven and later thirty-five dollars per month, and was thus employed for about one year. At the end of that time he commenced farming for himself upon rented land in Dallas County, Iowa, and subsequently purchased eighty acres of land, making his home there for ten years. In March, 1882, he removed to Calhoun County, and bought an eighty-acre tract of wild land in Garfield Township, on which he has since made his home. In his farming operations he has steadily prospered and has added to his land from time to time until he now owns four hundred acres in this county and three hundred and twenty acres in North Dakota. He now rents the most of his land, it being operated on shares, but still has charge of the cultivation of eighty acres. He has made all of the improvements upon the home place, and today has one of the best and most desirable farms in his section of the county. For many years he has been interested in the feeding of stock for market, and annually ships from two to four carloads of both cattle and hogs. He makes a specialty of Hereford cattle, and keeps about one hundred head upon his place. He is one of the most extensive farmers and stock-raisers of Garfield Township.
In 1876 Mr. Meusburger was united in marriage to Miss Anna Kronowichter also a native of Austria, who died in 1886, leaving two children, Joseph and Albert. He was again married in 1889, his second union being with Mrs. Emma Moran DeLong who was born in Canada and is a daughter of John and Mary (Thompson) Moran, the former a native of New York state, the latter of England. Her father followed farming and spent most of his life in Canada, where he died at the age of sixty-five years, and his wife at the age of seventy. They were the parents of seven children, of whom six are
still living. By her first marriage Mrs. Meusburger had two sons, Edward B. and Stalhe W. Delong.
Our subject and his wife attend the Methodist Episcopal church and he affiliates with the Republican party. For five years he efficiently served as school director, and has always taken an active interest in promoting those enterprises calculated to advance the moral, intellectual or material welfare of his adopted county. His life affords an excellent example to the young in that he commenced life in the new world without money, but having a determination to succeed he industriously applied himself until he has acquired a handsome property and comfortable competence. [Source – Biographical Record of Calhoun County, Iowa, by S. J. Clarke, 1902, p.255]