ADELBERT VON OVEN, b 9 Apr 1842

VON OVEN, HEYNEN, NOTTEBOHM

Posted By: Donna Moldt Walker (email)
Date: 1/24/2005 at 15:12:11

The creamery industry in Jackson County, Iowa, was practically established by this gentleman, who is one of the pioneers of the business, having the principal charge of the Miles Pioneer Creameries, with which he has been connected since they were left on the hands of his partner and brother-in-law, O.W. Heynen, who is represented elsewhere in this work. Mr. Von Oven is a gentleman of education and refinement, with excellent business capacities, and is conducting his present enterprise very successfully. He has had considerable experience as a farmer, having owned and operated land in Saltillo Precinct, Neb., before his removal to Miles. As a man and citizen he is held in high esteem; he is a strong Republican, has a fine army record, and is a very efficient Sunday-School worker. Personally he commands respect, being of fine appearance and address.

The little village of Hattingen, in the Province of Westphalia, Germany, was the native place of our subject, where his birth occurred April 9, 1842, and he lived there until the age of six years, when his father moved to near Duesseldorf, on the Rhine. He was brought up on a farm, and attended what was then called the gymnasium, which corresponds to the American academy for boys. He acquired a good practical education, and later assumed charge of his father's farm until after the death of the latter in 1859. In the meantime his two elder sisters and one brother had emigrated to America, settling at Naperville, Ill., and were joined by their brother Adelbert in 1861.

After the outbreak of the Civil War, Mr. Von Oven enlisted as a Union soldier in Company B, 105th Illinois Infantry, which spent two or three weeks in drilling at Dixon and Chicago. They then received marching orders, and proceeding to Louisville, Ky., were assigned to the army of Gen. Buell, took part in all the marches, fights, countermarches after Gen. Morgan, and spent the winter of '63 in Ft. Negley, Nashville, Tenn. Thence the army marched to Lookout Mountain in Tennessee. The 11th and 12th Corps being consolidated formed the 20th Corps, commanded by Gen. Jos. Hooker, his regiment belonging to the 3d Brigade, 3d Division. The regiment had its share in the battles of the Atlanta campaign, commencing with Resaca, where the 3d Brigade captured a battery of four guns. Our subject participated in the march to the sea, and was at Raleigh, N.C., at the time of the surrender of the Rebel Gen. Johnston. His comrade, Ernest Heynen, a patriotic foreign-born citizen, fell in the last battle of the regiment, being the last man killed in it.

Mr. Von Oven, although escaping wounds and capture, experienced his full share of the hardships and privations of a soldier's life, but bore them with the sturdy courage which has been one of the leading elements of his makeup. After the events above referred to he went with his regiment to Washington, participating in the grand review, and later received his honorable discharge at Chicago, after a service of two years and nine months. In due time he and his brother Ernest started a nursery and berry farm at Naperville, but Mr. Von Oven not liking the business sold out in 1869, and settled upon a farm at Naperville, Ill., where he sojourned until 1879.

In the meantime our subject was married, in March, 1869, to Miss Anna, daughter of Ernest and Matilda (Heynen). Mrs. Von Oven was born at Naperville, Ill., in JUne, 1851, and is the sister of O.W. Heynen. They left Illinois in the spring of 1879, and removed to the vicinity of Lincoln, Neb. Mr. Von Oven buying a farm in Centerville Precinct near Rora, and battled with the elements of a new soil until in the fall of 1881. Then the climate of Nebraska not being favorable to his health, he leased his farm, and coming to this county assumed the management of the Miles Creamery, becoming the partner of Mr. Heynen.

This creamery was in a very sad condition at that time, the business having been bankrupted, and at least $1,000 owing to the farmers around. By the exercise of unremiting labor and excellent judgment Mr. Von Oven in due time succeeded in lifting it out of its troubles, and placing it upon a sound footing. It required no small amount of ingenuity to regain the confidence of the people, but this was accomplished, and the creamery is now an established business. A great many improvements have been effected in the apparatus and equipments, last but not least being the Separator system. Its patronage has more than doubled in one year, and it is now a matter of public pride and congratulation.

Messrs. Heynen & Von Oven are also the proprietors of a creamery at Spragueville, and are likewise carrying on one at Andover. During the first year of Mr. Von Oven's connection with the Miles Creamery they put out 40,000 pounds of butter, but in 1885 had increased this product to 192,000 pounds. Their pay roll that year averaged $1,000 per week. Mr. Von Oven in 1884 sold his farm property in Nebraska, and has since purchased a nice home in Miles. His family includes four children, all sons - Oscar, Hugo, Edmund and Adelbert. The eldest is attending the Northwestern Business College at Naperville. The others are attending the district school. There were born to them two other sons in Naperville who died at the ages of three years and fifteen months.

The parents of our subject were Frederick William and Elizabeth (Nottebohm) Von Oven, both also natives of Westphalia, where they were reared and married, and spent their entire lives. The father died in 1859, aged fifty-eight years, and the mother in 1886, ages eighty-two. Their household included four sons and four daughters, three of whom are living and residing in Naperville, Ill., and the eldest son and two daughters in Germany. Mr. Von Oven, politically, is a stanch Republican, and has been of great assistance to his party in this section, frequently officiating as a delegate to the various conventions, and giving an active support to the principles in which he thoroughly believes. Both he and his excellent wife are members in good standing of the Congregational Church. Socially, Mr. Von Oven belongs to the G.A.R., and is Past Commander of the Post at Miles.

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