Carl Rikert

RIKERT, JANSEN, WENDLE, WOLF, STROHBEHN, DOSE

Posted By: Tammy (email)
Date: 11/13/2011 at 13:12:00

CARL RIKERT is numbered among the leading farmers of Black Hawk Township, Grundy County, where he owns a good estate of eighty acres. Beginning his career in this locality with but very little capital, he has, with ability and energetic enterprise, worked his way to assured success. Mr. Rikert was born on the island of Fehmarn, Holstein, Germany, in 1858, where also his parents, Peter and Ann (Jansen) Rikert, were born. His paternal grandparents bore the names of Jacob and Dora (Wendle) Rikert, and were farmers by occupation in their native land, Germany. They resided upon the same island on which our subject was born, and owned property there to the amount of two hundred acres.

The family of the grandfather of Mr. Rikert consisted of the following children: Franz, Peter and Hans (twins), Catherine, Jac and Nicholas (twins). Jacob Rikert died when the father of our subject was quite young, and by his mother’s union with J. Wolf she became the mother of two children, George and Gertrude.

The father of our subject was born in 1817 in Germany, and after receiving a good education attended a naval academy, and soon afterward received a Captain’s commission. He was sixteen years of age when he went to sea, and he followed the life of a sailor until nine years ago. He was the owner of two coasting vessels, and when again making his home on land, in 1864, located in London, England, his wife having previously died. His vessels were afterward lost at sea, and he worked as a ship hand, sailing to almost every port in the world.

The maternal grandfather of our subject, Jacob Jansen, had an uncle by the name of Godfried Jansen, who was a very wealthy man, and after coming to the United States was never afterward heard from. The parental family included six children, of whom Henry, Dora, August, Edward and Herman are deceased. Peter Rikert has made his home with our subject for the past nine years. He is a member of the Lutheran Church, as was also his wife.

Our subject attended school in Germany until reaching his sixteenth year, and then, in company with his brother Herman, came to the United States and made his home in Scott County, this state. There he began as a farm laborer, working out for $16 per month for about six years. When ready to establish a home of his own he was married to Miss Emma Strohbehn. The young couple made their home on a rented tract of eighty acres in Scott County, which Mr. Rikert cultivated for two years, and then, in 1883, came to Grundy County, and spent the four years following in Black Hawk Township, where he also rented a farm. At the expiration of that time he was enabled to purchase his present place, and now has one of the best cultivated tracts in the township.

Mrs. Rikert is the daughter of Dettleff and Margaret (Dose) Strohbehn. She became the mother of seven children: Anna M., William P., Bertha C., Herman A., Emil D., Elmer C. and Frank Henry. In religious matters, both Mr. and Mrs. Rikert are members of the German Lutheran Church. Our subject is active in political affairs, and as a member of the Democratic party he was chosen Assessor of Black Hawk Township in 1892.

Source:
Portrait and Biographical Record
of Jasper, Marshall and Grundy Counties, Iowa
1894