BOCHMANN, Theodore

BOCHMANN

Posted By: Karon Velau (email)
Date: 5/31/2021 at 11:20:52

Theodore Bochmann

Theodore Bochmann, an enterprising and prosperous farmer residing on 234 acres of land in section 1, Battle township, Ida County, Iowa, has been identified with the agricultural interests of this place since 1881. Mr. Bochmann was born in the year 1839, and, like many of the thrifty farmers of this vicinity, is a native of Germany. His parents, Frederic and Minnie Bochmann, came with their family to the United States when he was small and settled at Buffalo, New York. They spent the rest of their lives in New York, the mother dying while Theodore was yet a mere lad. After her death he went to Chicago, and in the vicinity of that city spent his youth and early manhood, engaged in farm work and other employment. During the rebellion he enlisted in the Union army and served until the close of the war, when he was honorably discharged and paid off at Chicago. During his service he was in the thickest of the fight, and, although never wounded, had a bullet shot through his hat and one through his coat. After the war Mr. Bochmann located in Cook County, Illinois, and engaged in farming. From 1871 to 1881 he farmed in Butler county, Iowa, and from there came to his present location, first purchasing 160 acres of land at $8.50 per acre, and afterward buying eighty acres more. He now has one of the best improved farms in the neighborhood. He has a nice frame residence, 16 x 24 feet, a story and a half, with an L, 16 x 18 feet, one story; nice grove and orchard of three acres and vineyard; barn, 24 x 36 feet; granary, 16 x 22 feet; hog-house, 24 x 48 feet; and good fences, etc.; everything kept in first-class order. He keeps on an average sixteen horses, twenty-five cattle and fifty hogs.
When he was twenty-six years of age Mr. Bochmann was married, in 1866, in Cook County, Illinois, to Maria Riebesel, who died in 1882, leaving four children: Gustav, Hermann, Charley and Caroline. In 1883 our subject took as his second wife Emma Eichler, and she became the mother of three children: Clara, Otto and Brouno. Mr. Bochmann is, religiously, a Lutheran; politically, a Republican; and socially, a member of Holstein Post, G. A. R., No. 423. He is a good example of the Americanized-German citizen of Iowa.
Source: Biographical History of Crawford, Ida, and Sac Counties, Iowa, 1893, p.544