BECKER, CHARLES L.

BECKER, BERNHARD

Posted By: Jean Kramer (email)
Date: 5/25/2004 at 16:42:09

Biography reproduced from page 417 of Volume II of the History of Kossuth County written by Benjamin F. Reed and published in 1913:

Charles L. Becker owns and operates one of the model farms in Kossuth county, well equipped with modern machinery and highly improved along most modern agricultural lines. His holdings comprise one hundred and sixty acres on section 11, Burt township, and their development and improvement rank their owner among the useful and valuable citizens of the section.

Mr. Becker dates his residence in Iowa from 1883 and has been located in Kossuth county since 1901. He is a native of Germany, his birth having occurred in Baden, December 11, 1863. He grew to manhood in the fatherland and received his education in the public schools. He came to America in 1883 and immediately joined his uncle in Clayton county, Iowa, where he worked as a farm hand for three or four years. During this time, he carried on his studies by himself, learning the English language and adapting himself to new and unknown customs. He later went to Buena Vista county, where he farmed six or seven years, and became proficient as a practical agriculturist. He married in 1901 and came immediately to Kossuth county, where he settled on the farm which he now operates. He has always carried on his work of development along the most modern and progressive lines and is known throughout Kossuth county as a man who advocates the highest and most efficient standards. He has at various times during his career added to the buildings upon his property, has erected cattle sheds, granaries and silos and has also added a hog house. He has fenced his entire farm, has tiled it according to a modern drainage system and has a large portion of his acres under cultivation as orchards and groves. He has entirely remodeled his house and has made it one of the comfortable and commodious dwellings in Kossuth county. Beside general farming, Mr. Becker makes a specialty of raising high-grade cattle, horses and hogs. He does an extensive dairy business and sells the product of his branch of his enterprise to the Burt Creamery Association in which he is a stockholder. He is a worthy representative of the modern type of farmer, actively interested in every new movement which makes agricultural methods more efficient. He is a member of a company which operates a steam threshing machine with which they thresh their own grain during the season and also do an extensive business throughout the township and county. Mr. Becker is a successful and prosperous agriculturist, but his attainment in this respect does not in any way detract from his business ability. He is a stockholder in the Farmers Elevator Company of Burt, Iowa, and this is only one of his commercial connections.

On February 14, 1901, Mr. Becker was united in marriage to Miss Lydia Bernhard, who was born and reared in Clayton county, but who is of German ancestry. To Mr. and Mrs. Becker have been born two children, Theodore and Ruby, both students in the public schools of Burt township. Mr. Becker gives his political allegiance to the republican party but has always refused public office. He is a member of the German Methodist Episcopal church. He owes his success to the progressive standards of agriculture which he advocates and to his personal experience in the many details of his labor.