Stoik, Theodore

STOIK, RAUBER, WOODARD

Posted By: Volunteer Transcribers
Date: 2/14/2003 at 16:08:10

THEODORE STOIK

Among the leading railroad men who make their home in Clinton is Theodore Stoik, a conductor on the eastern Iowa division of the Chicago & Northwestern Railway. He was born in Manitowoc county, Wisconsin, June 19, 1861, and is one of a family of eleven children, whose parents were Frank and Catharine (Rauber) Stoik, both natives of Germany, and among the very earliest settlers of Wisconsin. The mother’s people came to this country in 1830, and located in New York. She is still living at the age of seventy-three years, and makes her home in Michigan, but the father died in Wisconsin about 1888.

In 1879, at the age of eighteen years, Theodore Stoik entered the employ of the Chicago & Northwestern Railway Company in the capacity of brakeman, on the Peninsular division, running out os Escanaba, Michigan, where he made his home for some years. In 1882 he was promoted to conductor, and contimued to run a train on the division until November, 1885, when he removed to Belle Plaine, Iowa, and was given a train on the old middle division. When it was consolidated with the eastern Iowa division, in the spring of 1897, he came to Clinton, and has since run a train from this place to Boone, being in charge of No. 14, going out of Clinton, and a refrigerator special, coming back, at the present time. Prior to this he was for two years conductor on No. 9, the fast mail west, and east on No. 20. The schedule time of No. 9 is seventy-five minutes for seventy-nine miles to the first stop of Clinton. Mr. Stoik has never met with any serouus accident and has never had a man fatally injured on his train. In this he has been exceptionally fortunate.

Mr. Stoik was married, September 22, 1886, to Miss Lulu J. Woodard, of Belle Plaine, Iowa, and to them were born two children: Lloyd W., now ten years old; and Vivian P. He is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and the Order of Railway Conductors, having been connected with the latter fraternity for sixteen years. Religiously he, with his wife, are members of the Baptist church, and is a man highly respected and esteemed by all who know him.

Mrs. Stoik is a daughter of Laughlin and Lovena (Wilson) Woodward, the former born in Allegheny county, Pennsylvania, but who came to Mercer county, Illinois, at the age of twenty-two years, where he married Lovena Wilson, whose wife Henrietta, lived to be one hundred and three years old. Mr. Woodard was at New Boston, Illinois, until the Civil war, was for three years in the service, and in 1865 moved to Belle Plaine, Iowa, where Mrs Stoik was born and educated. He was in the grocery business there for a number of years, but now is a resident of Chicago. Mrs. Stoik is active in all the societies of the church, and is also a member of the Rebekah Lodge.

Source: The 1901 Biographical Record of Clinton Co., Iowa, Illustrated published: Chicago : S. J. Clarke Pub. Co., 1901.