John Ahlers, b. 10 Jan 1841

OTTENS, LAHMEYER

Posted By: Donna Moldt Walker (email)
Date: 2/21/2004 at 12:14:42

The flight of time works great changes in human life, and that life which has been spent honestly, uprightly and industriously, seldom fails to reap its reward. The subject of this notice, one of the leading citizens of Bellevue and a lifelong farmer, is now retired from active labor, and enjoying the comforts of a pleasant home in town, surrounded by friends and blest with a fair portion of this world's goods. His elegantly-furnished residence is located on Third street, in the north part of the city, and forms an attractive resort for scores of friends.

Many thrifty German citizens, during the early settlement of Iowa, found their way thither as to most sections of the Great West, and bore no unimportant part in developing her rich resources. Mr. Ahlers, one of these, first opened his eyes to the light in the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg, Jan. 10, 1841, and is the son of John H. and Adelaide (Ottens) Ahlers, both also of German birth and parentage. He received a good education in the common-schools of his native country, and was reared with the intention of becoming a farmer. He remained under the parental roof until ready to establish a home of his own, and was then married to Miss Caroline Lahmayer, a maiden of the same Province. To them there were born five children, four of whom are living, viz.: Charlotte, Oswald U., Otto and Clara. Lizzie died at the age of seven years.

Our subject had more than ordinary ambition to do something and be somebody in the world, and seeing little prospect of realizing his hopes in his native land, set out with his family, in the fall of 1866, for America. They took passage on an ocean steamer at Bremen, and after a stormy voyage of seventeen days landed safely in New York City. Thence they emigrated to Wisconsin, and Mr. Ahlers for a short time was engaged as a teamster in the vicinity of Milwaukee. Shortly afterward, however, he crossed the Mississippi into this county, and secured employment on a farm in Tete des Morts Township, where he sojourned until the 1st of April, 1867.

Mr. Ahlers now set out on a exploring expedition to the Farther West, visiting Omaha and other important points in that region, and worked for a time with a gravel train on the Northwestern Railroad. He then returned to Tete des Morts Township, where he was soon afterward joined by his wife, and in the spring of 1868 purchased a farm in Richland Township. He first secured 160 acres, and subsequently doubled the amount of his real estate, so that at one time he owned a half-section. He brought the greater part to a state of cultivation, and effected good improvements, occupying it about seventeen years. Then thinking it wise to lay aside some of his arduous labors, he left the farm in the spring of 1885, and moved to his present comfortable home in Bellevue.

The people of Bellevue Township were not backward in recognizing worth and reliability, and Mr. Ahlers is now serving his second year in the Town Council. While a resident of Richland Township he officiated as School Director, and was always found on the side of those enterprises calculated to advance the people socially, morally and financially. Politically, he votes the straight Democratic ticket, and while not a member of any church gives his support and encouragement to religious institutions, believing that they form the foundation stone of all morality and the better things of life. Socially, he belongs to the Masonic fraternity. Personally, he is a man of prepossessing appearance, one whose health has not been impaired by dissipation of any kind, and whose heart and soul beams forth genially from an honest countenance. He is fully deserving of the success which has attended him through life. In addition to the property already mentioned he owns 424 acres of land in Palo Alto County, which is partly under cultivation, and 304 acres in Emmett County, besides a half-section in South Dakota.

("Portrait and Biographical Album of Jackson County, Iowa", originally published in 1889, by the Chapman Brothers, of Chicago, Illinois)