Ferdinand Krogmann, 1899 Biography

KROGMANN, SCHRÖDER, SCHROEDER

Posted By: David Reineke (email)
Date: 1/20/2007 at 14:26:08

I translated the following biography from Der Carroll Demokrat, a German-language newspaper published in Carroll, Iowa, between about 1874 and 1920. It was originally published in a special 25th Anniversary Edition of the paper on Friday, 20 September 1899. Words in quotations are original. Any information in brackets or notes at the end are my own explanations. It reads as follows:

Ferdinand Krogmann

The bearer of this name is a simple, straightforward farmer, but also a well-traveled and experienced man who has sailed the Seven Seas, and on his travels he often met danger bravely and stared death in the face.

Mr. Krogmann was born on 12 December 1829 in the district of Steinfeld, Oldenburg, Germany. He attended the schools there, and after he was released from school, he worked for three years as a sheep herder. He then served a few years as a farmhand on an agricultural property, and then he enlisted on a merchant ship. During his voyages at sea, he was in Sweden and Norway, the East Indies, twice in China, three times in Brazil, and twice in Australia. There was often the danger that the ship would break up on the rocks and that he would find a watery grave with the rest of the crew. But Mr. Krogmann survived all danger, and as he had plowed through the waters in his younger years, so he now plows the ground of Roselle Township, the difference being that the ground is safer and more fertile than the waves of the ocean. But not to digress, after he arrived in America he settled first near New Vienna and near Petersburg [Iowa], where he worked at farming for eight years, and then he moved to Washington Township, Carroll County, where he purchased 160 acres of land. He later purchased 160 acres in Roselle Township, and Mr. Krogmann still lives on this farm today, well-liked and respected by all his acquaintances. His first marriage was to Miss Katharina Schröder [Schroeder]. However, she was taken from him by death. His second wife is Katharina Schwerter, with whom he lives happily married and surrounded by five daughters and a son.