HENRY MILDENSTEIN, b 16 Jun 1838

MILDENSTEIN, SCHMALFELD, MACKEPRANG

Posted By: Donna Moldt Walker (email)
Date: 7/10/2004 at 17:35:24

The farm property of this well-to-do German citizen of Iowa Township is situated on sections 19, 29 and 30, upon which he has lived and labored since the spring of 1881, effecting first-class improvements, and bringing the soil to a thorough state of cultivation. He has labored through many difficulties and drawbacks, but is now considered quite wealthy, having sufficient to surround himself with the comforts and luxuries of life, and the wherewithal to provide against want in his declining years. His dwelling is neat and comfortable, and his barn especially fine, while he has all the other buildings necessary for the prosecution of his calling in a profitable manner.

The native place of our subject was the island of Fehmarn, formerly belonging to Denmark, but now belonging to Prussia, and his birth occurred June 16, 1838. He is the son of Hans and Margaret (Schmalfeld) Mildenstein, who were natives of the same place as their son, and whose family consisted of eight children, five of whom are living. Those besides our subject are Charlotte, Nicholas, George and Hermann. One daughter, Amelia, died at the age of twenty years at her father's house in Germany. She was an interesting young lady, and greatly beloved by her family and friends.

In common with the youth of the Fatherland, young Mildenstein was placed in school at an early age, and gained a good education in his native tongue. Thereafter he occupied himself at farming until setting sail for the United States in the summer of 1857, when a youth of seventeen years. After reaching America he came directfly to Iowa, and settled in Iowa Township, this county, of which he has since been a resident. In November, 1873, he crossed the Atlantic to visit his old friends in his native place, remaining there until the spring following. He was most gladly welcomed after his absence of sixteen years, and felt that the time and money thus employed were well spent. There had naturally occurred many changes, and he missed many of the pleasant faces which he had been wont to meet during his boyhood days.

Our subject after coming to this county employed himself at farming, and remained a single man until nearly forty-three years old. He was then married, April 17, 1881, to Miss Dora M. Mackeprang. This lady, also of German birth and ancestry, was a native of the village of Heringsdorf, in the Duchy of Holstein, and came to the United States with her sister in the summer of 1874, settling in Chicago. Of this union there have been born three children: Emma, April 5, 1882; Maggie, Sept. 10, 1885, and Laura C.W., March 8, 1887. Mr. and Mrs. Mildenstein do not belong to any church organization, but lean toward Congregationalism, which was the faith of their fathers.

Mr. Mildenstein bears the reputation of being a first-class farmer, and an upright and straightforward business man. He is pardonably proud of his achievements in agriculture, and has an estate second in value to none of its size in this county. He makes a specialty of stock-raising, his favorites being full-blooded Short-horn cattle, Poland-China swine, graded Morgan, Percheron, Norman and English draft horses, and he has a valuable flock of sheep, a cross between the Cottswold and Leicestershires. He has been at considerable expense in gathering these together, but they are yielding him a handsome income annually.

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