Henry C. Brandes

BRANDES

Posted By: Debra Scott Hierlmeier (email)
Date: 11/8/2008 at 07:27:18

Henry Brandes Pioneer Settler Passes Away
Successful Farmer, County Commissioner and a Member of the Iowa General Assembly

Henry C. Brandes, one of the best known men in East Pottawattamie county passed away at the Jenny Edmondson hospital at Council Bluffs Saturday after an operation.
Mr. Brandes had been in poor health the past several months but his case was not considered serious by his family, until the past few weeks, when he was taken to the hospital.
The news of his death is a severe blow to his many friends all over the state, as he was a man of large acquaintance all over the state.
Henry C. Brandes was born in Brunswig, Germany on the 14th day of April, 1852, making him 72 years, seven months and three days old at the time of his death. He was raised in the town of his birth until he was sixteen years old, where he attended the public schools. At the age of sixteen he came to America, taking his abode in LaSelle county, Illinois, where he took advantage of the opportunity offered him by his adopted country. For several years he worked as a farm hand and afterwards engaged in farming on his own account on a rented farm.
In 1874, Mr. Brandes came to Pottawattamie county, Iowa, and with the money he saved by hard work he purchased the farm on which he lived at the time of his death located near Hancock, Iowa.
Mr. Brandes returned to LaSelle county, Illinois where he lived until 1877, then returning to his farm in Pottawattamie county with his family, having been married in the meantime to Miss Magdaline Miller on the 11th day of March, 1874. To this union eight children were born. By attending strictly to business, Mr. Brandes’s land holdings increased until he was the owner of over 500 acres of Iowa’s choicest land.
In 1896, Mr. Brandes was elected a member of the county commissioners of this county, a position he held with credit to the county and himself. He served as a he member of that body until 1906. He was elected as a member of the state legislature in 1906 and served two terms, where he was recognized as a man of ability, honesty, and fine character, a power in his community for the better things of life.
Henry Brandes was a man who was honest in all dealings with his fellow man, he would much rather give the other fellow a little of the best of a bargain than to have him think he was trying to beat him.
One of the best compliments we have heard of Mr. Brandes was said by Felix Setz to us Monday. Mr. Setz said he had known Henry Brandes most all his life and never knew of one dishonest act he ever did.
In the death of Henry Brandes our county has lost an influential citizen, the community a true friend and neighbor and the family a good husband and father.
The funeral was held Monday at the Silver Creek church seven miles southwest of Hancock, where a large number of his friends and neighbors assembled to pay their last respects to one who had made the world better that he had lived and whose life was lived as to be un-reproached.

From the Scrapbooks of Bessie Gross Gustafsen
Source: Avoca Journal Herald