Andreas, Fred C., Jr.

ANDREAS, CASTORF, ROHRDANZ, WASS, KLING, SHERMAN, SCHNELL, TALBOT, WATTS

Posted By: Volunteer (email)
Date: 5/23/2007 at 20:44:13

The everyday life, with its cares, necessities and duties, affords ample opportunities for acquiring experience of the best kind and its most beaten paths provide a true worker with abundant scope for effort and improvement. This fact was recognized early in life by Fred C. Andreas, Jr., one of the enterprising and esteemed citizens of Sully, Jasper County, who seized the small opportunities which he encountered on the rugged hill that leads to life's lofty summit where lies the ultimate goal of success, never attained by the weak, inactive and ambitionless. Mr. Andreas is carrying on the Bank of Sully with that discretion and energy which are sure to find their natural sequence in definite success, and in such a man there is particular satisfaction in offering in his life history justification for the compilation of works of this character.

Mr. Andreas was born in Elk Creek Township, Jasper County, on December 20, 1875. He is the son of Fred C., Sr., and Mina (Castorf) Andreas, both natives of Germany, the father born on April 1, 1843, and the mother on June 23, 1848. The maternal grandparents of the subject were Charles and Anna (Wass) Castorf, natives of Germany, where they grew up and married and from which country they emigrated to America in 1858, locating in Jasper County. Frederick and Sophia (Rohrdanz) Andreas were the paternal grandparents of our subject.

Fred C. Andreas, Sr., grew up in Germany and there learned the blacksmith's trade. In 1857 the family immigrated to Jasper County, Iowa, the grandfather buying a farm in Elk Creek Township, where he lived until his death. He gave his son, Fred C., the father of the immediate subject of this sketch, eighty acres of land here, in view of the fact that he, being the eldest son, had helped his father since a small boy. Fred C., senior, kept adding to his farm until he had five hundred and forty acres of valuable land at the time of his death, on March 18, 1911, and he was one of the leading farmers of the Township and one of its most highly respected citizens. He took an active interest in the affairs of the Democratic Party, and served his Township very ably as trustee and he was treasurer of the independent school district. He was reared in the German Lutheran Church, from which faith he never departed. His widow is still living on the home place. The parents of the subject were married on January 11, 1868. This union resulted in the birth of three sons and seven daughters, namely: Mrs. Emma Rohrdanz, Mrs. W. J. Kling, Mrs. Ella Sherman, Mrs. Martha Schnell, Fred C., William J., Mrs. Cora Talbot, Frank, Mrs. Mary Watts and Stella.

Fred C. Andreas, Jr., grew up in his native community and he attended the district schools in Elk Creek Township. When only about twelve years of age he began driving a team on the home farm and assisting with the general work on the same. When twenty-two years old his father gave him one hundred and twenty acres just west of the home place and here the subject resided until March 1, 1912, when he moved to his commodious home in Sully and took active management of the Bank of Sully, of which he has been president since March 1, 1911. He had the farm under excellent improvements and in 1905 built a commodious and pleasant dwelling.
In connection with general farming he fed large numbers of hogs and bred and raised Norman horses of such a fine quality that they always found a very ready market.

Mr. Andreas is a Democrat politically and he has served as township clerk for four years and as assessor for two years, giving eminent satisfaction in each. He belongs to the German Lutheran Church.

Mr. Andreas was married on January 10, 1900, to Amelia Marie Schnell, who was born in Buena Vista Township, this County, on April 5, 1877. She is the daughter of August Schnell and wife, a highly respected family. One child has been born to Mr. and Mrs. Andreas, Percy Lee, who died when six months old.

Mr. Andreas is a man of excellent business qualifications and he has succeeded in whatever he has turned his attention to, being a man of sound judgment and wise foresight, and he is one of the well known financiers of his Township, being president of the Bank of Sully, to which position succeeded in 1911, upon the death of his father (who had been president of the bank for four years preceding his death), and the duties of which he has discharged with a fidelity and ability which reflects much credit upon himself and to the satisfaction of the stockholders and patrons the bank. Personally, he is a very pleasing gentleman to know, cultured, well informed, genial and honorable in all the relations of life.

Past and Present of Jasper County Iowa, Gen. James B. Weaver, Editor-In-Chief, B.F. Bowden & Company, Indianapolis, IN, 1912, p. 690.