Platcy A. Cajacob

CAJACOB, BROWN, KENNEDY, FUNK

Posted By: Volunteer Transcriber
Date: 3/5/2007 at 20:38:27

Biographies from the 1914 "Past and Present of O'Brien and Osceola Counties of Iowa"

PLATCY A. CAJACOB.

A pioneer farmer, business man, public official and booster for Osceola county, Iowa, is Platcy A. Cajacob, an adopted son of this county. For more than forty years he has lived within the limits of this county, and in that time has endured as many hardships as any of the men who came here in the early seventies. He has seen the time when it seemed that there was no hope for success for a farmer in this county, and yet he had the determination to remain here, and now has the satisfaction of knowing that his foresight was not mistaken. Much of the land which he held thirty-odd years ago and could not sell at all, is now worth from one hundred to two hundred dollars an acre. As a public official he has been one of the most efficient and faithful servants which the county has ever had, and in every capacity where he has been found he has given a good account of himself.

Platcy A. Cajacob, who is now living a retired life in Sibley, Iowa, was born January 1, 1843, in the little mountainous country of Switzerland, in Europe. His parents, Martin and Margret Cajacob, lived in the little village of Sunvicks, Canton of Groeson, which was situated high up in the Alps. In this lovely Alpine scenery Mr. Cajacob was reared to manhood. In the little schools of his neighborhood he received a good education, for there are no better schools in Europe than those of Switzerland. The success of Mr. Cajacob is due in a great measure to the excellent training he received at the public schools of his native land. However, upon reaching manhood he felt that better opportunities awaited a young man in America than in his own country and, with the intention of verifying this fact, he came to this country in 1866, when twenty-three years of age. He at once went to Ohio, where he worked on a railroad for a few months at Piqua, and from thence he went to Wapakoneta, Auglaize county, Ohio, where he worked at the cabinet trade for two vears. He then went to Tiffin, Ohio, where he was engaged in the dairy business for one year, and while in Tiffin met and married Christina Brown.

In the spring of 1869 Mr. Cajacob and his young wife went to Grant county, Wisconsin, where they bought a farm and for four years worked the same. He cleared the land, built a rude log house and barn, put up many rods of rail fencing, and was on the road to a successful career in that state as a farmer. However, hearing of the lands to be purchased in Iowa at a low rate, he decided to sell out his holdings in Wisconsin and go farther west. With this idea in mind, he disposed of his interests in Wisconsin, and in the fall of 1872 came to Osceola county, Iowa, where, he homesteaded on section 22, in Holman township. For several years things often looked very gloomy and many of the settlers who came here full of faith left their land to the grasshoppers and severe wind storms. In common, with all of the other settlers who lived in this section of the state in the latter part of the seventies, Mr. Cajacob had to suffer the horrible grasshopper period. For the first ten years it seemed that he could not get a start. If the grasshoppers did not eat things up, it rained so that he could not get in any crops at all. Many of the settlers left the county, but a few stayed and among these few were Mr. Cajacob and his family. Within four years after he came here, Mr. Cajacob was so downhearted that he practically gave away his land. In fact, he sold one farm for four hundred and twenty-five dollars. For the next seventeen years he engaged in the retail meat business and gradually became interested in land again and bought here and there over the county until he became the owner of four hundred and fifty acres near Sibley, the county seat. While operating his meat market Mr. Cajacob continued farming and in 1885 moved back on his farm, where he lived until 1908. Since that time he has been living in the county seat.

The history of the agricultural success of Mr. Cajacob is only a part of his history since coming to this county. For the past twenty years he has been an important factor in the public life of the county. In 1891 he was elected county supervisor on the Democratic ticket and in 1901 was re-elected to that responsible position. He was one of the officials who helped build the new seventy-one-thousand-dollar court house which now graces the county seat. This appropriation not only included the building of the court house, but the construction of the jail, as well as the grounds on which these two buildings are now standing. An evidence of his worth as a man and his popularity as a citizen of the county is shown in the fact that he was elected over one of the strongest Republicans in the county and the first Democrat ever elected in the county, it being a strongly Republican county. Nothing can speak higher of a man than the confidence which his fellow citizens repose in him, and in no other way is it so plainly shown as when a man runs for some public- office.

Mr. Cajacob was married in 1858 to Christina Brown, and to this marriage have been born six children: Mrs. Mary Kennedy, of Sibley, Iowa; Magdalene, deceased; John Robert, a druggist of Colusa, California; Mrs. Lorenca Funk, who is living in Chicago Heights, Illinois; Arthur and George are proprietors of a large and well-stocked hardware store at Sibley.

Mr. Cajacob and all the members of his family are loyal members of the Catholic church and render to it their earnest and zealous support at all times. The life of Mr. Cajacob shows what can be accomplished by a young man who comes to this country with no capital whatever, and with no assets but a willingness to work. He has shown the possibilities of farming in this county, and had the good judgment to perceive many years ago that land would rise in value. His good judgment told him when to buy and when to sell, with the result that he is today regarded as one of the most enterprising and substantial men of his county. He has keen business ability, which distinguishes the successful man from the one who is barely able to make both ends meet. His life is but another example of the many citizens of this county who have come from foreign lands and made a pronounced success in this favored state of the Union.

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