OLTHOFF, WILLIAM C.

OLTHOFF, PULS, FOLKERTS

Posted By: Jean Kramer (email)
Date: 12/1/2003 at 13:08:43

Biography reproduced from page 560 of Volume II of the History of Kossuth County written by Benjamin F. Reed and published in 1913:

William C. Olthoff is successfully engaged in general farming and stock-raising in Lincoln township, where he owns three hundred and twenty acres of land located on section 4. He is a native of Germany, his birth having occurred on the 12th of February, 1865, and the only child born of the marriage of Charles and Henrietta Olthoff. The parents emigrated to the United States when their son was about a year old, and located in the vicinity of Freeport, Stephenson county, Illinois. There the father bought eighty acres of land which he cultivated during the remainder of his active life. The mother passed away when she was sixty-four years of age and was buried in the cemetery at Pearl City, Illinois. The father subsequently married Miss Fredericka Puls, who is still living and continues to reside on the old homestead in Stephenson county. Mr. Olthoff died when he was seventy-two and was laid to rest beside his first wife in the Pearl City cemetery. Both parents were members of the Methodist Episcopal church and the father voted the democratic ticket.

The boyhood and youth of William C. Olthoff were passed on the home farm in Illinois, in the cultivation of which he began to assist while still pursuing his lessons in the district schools. He removed to Kossuth county with his family on the 14th of October, 1891, first locating in German valley, where he farmed for nine years. At the expiration of that time he purchased his present farm from the Farmers’ & Drovers’ State Bank at Ledyard, and has ever since been engaged in its cultivation. The majority of the improvements on the place have been made during the ownership of Mr. Olthoff. His land is well drained and tiled and the greater part of it under high cultivation, his field annually yielding abundant harvests.

Mr. Olthoff married Miss Dena Folkerts, who was born and reared in Stephenson county, Illinois, and to them have been born four children: Henry and Rufus, who were born in Stephenson county, Illinois; and Esther and Eleanor, who are natives of Kossuth county.

Fraternally Mr. Olthoff is a member of the Modern Woodmen of America, and in politics he is a republican. He has been a trustee in Lincoln township for nine years, during four of which he has been chairman of the board and he has served as school director for two terms. He is a stockholder in the Farmers Elevator Company and the Farmers Cooperative Creamery Company of Germania, and of the Farmers Lumber Company of Buffalo Center. As a business man Mr. Olthoff is capable and energetic and is meeting with the success in his undertakings that invariably rewards intelligent effort.