L. Scott Lieberknecht

LIEBERKNECHT, CROW, DEAN, GRAHAM

Posted By: Volunteer (email)
Date: 12/22/2018 at 17:50:28

Wapello Republican, July 18, 1935, page 1

L. Scott Lieberknecht aged 40, native and life-long resident of Grandview, died at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, at Bellevue hospital, Muscatine, after a week's illness with pneumonia.

His death came as a shock to his host of friends over the county, many of whom did not learn of his illness until his death was announced. There is a general sadness over the loss of one of the county's finest young citizens.

Lewis Scott Lieberknecht, son of Lewis Lieberknecht and Anna Crow Lieberknecht, was born on his father's homestead in Grandview township, Louisa county, Iowa, on December 24, 1895. He passed away on July 16, 1935, at the Bellevue hospital in Muscatine, Iowa, and at the time of his death he was residing on the farm of his birthplace.

He was preceded in death by both of his parents, his mother having died in Colorado Springs in the year 1909, and his father in 1928. Surviving him in his immediate family are his widow, Merle Dean Lieberknecht, whom he married on October 30, 1925, a sister, Ina Lieberknecht Graham, and a brother, Don Lieberknecht, and besides these a number of aunts, uncles and cousins mourn his untimely death.

Scott received his early education in the country school near Grandview, and when, on account of his mother's health, the family moved to Colorado Springs, he received further preparatory work in the Cutler Academy in that city. He later entered Colorado college where he was a proficient scholar and athlete, and upon his family's return to Iowa, he entered Iowa State College at Ames, where he graduated from the department of animal husbandry in the year 1921. While in college, he was affiliated with Phi Delta Theta fraternity. While not a member of any church himself, Scott was raised in the Congregational faith.

Scott had prepared himself by his education to follow up and carry on the large agricultural interests of his father and after his graduation, his father's health soon failing, the full burden of this task was placed upon his shoulders. While grieved by his father's passing, he often expressed his gratification for the fact that the father had not been forced to bear the pain and disappointment of disaster to his estate and to the agricultural industry in general. At that time, prepared as he was, Scott could easily have passed into other fields of opportunity, but he loved the soil. He felt a deep-seated responsibility toward carrying out the plans and directions of his father's will, and in the face of the most adverse conditions, he assumed the obligations of his father's estate and set out to make the soil beat the depression.

In spite of the size of his own burden, his interests were unselfish, and he found time to participate forcibly and effectively in the activities of his community, and to assist in those things which he believed to be for the common good. He was township trustee for his township for several terms, was president of the Louisa County Farm Bureau through one of its most effective administrations and when the corn-hog committee for Louisa county was created, he was chosen as its chairman and to this work which was a new and untrodden path, though hindered by misunderstanding and criticism, he gave unstintingly of his time and of his health in order that his brother-farmers of the county might receive the consideration to which he felt them entitled. His associates upon that committee could attest the fact that he spent days and nights in this work when he was physically unfit to do so.

In the lesson of Scott's life lies the epic of the modern farmer--that man whose soul is so entwined with the soil and with the joy of growing things that he will cling to his acres through the harshest adversity, with the confidence in himself and in his land that together they could defeat a depression. Treading as he was, the path to victory in that endeavor, his should be an inspiration to the people of a farm community; in the spectacle of a young man who had the courage and the industry to turn aside defeat and to rise above it, his life is an inspiration to youth everywhere.

His death was untimely and yet he died with all man's fullest endowment, for to the edge of his grave and beyond--will go the love of his family and friends, and the wholesome respect of his community and acquaintances--and none can take more than these from this earth.

Funeral services will be held this afternoon at 2 o'clock from the home. The Rev. Victor A. Bloomquist, pastor of the Columbus Junction Methodist Episcopal Church will officiate. Two numbers, Sleep With Jesus", and "Alone With God", will be sung by Earl Peterson, Louisa county farm bureau agent.

Burial will be in the Grandview cemetery.