Kaufman, Alvin I.

KAUFMAN

Posted By: Karon Velau (email)
Date: 6/29/2021 at 12:45:11

History of Warren County, Iowa from Its Earliest Settlement to 1908, by Rev. W. C. Martin, Clarke Publishing Co., Chicago, Illinois, 1908, p.659

ALVIN I. KAUFMAN
A. I. Kaufman resides on a desirable and well improved farm of eighty acres located on section 28, Lincoln Township, which he has acquired wholly through his own efforts and which, taken in connection with his stock-raising and feeding, yields him a substantial income and an independent livelihood. He was born near Princeton, in Bureau County, Illinois, November 12, 1847, the son of D. M. and Louisa (Van Ormer) Kaufman. His father was a native of Juniata County, Pennsylvania, where he was born on May 4, 1829, and where he remained until after his marriage, his wife being also a native of the same county and state. He first engaged in farming in Pennsylvania, but in 1860 removed to Illinois, where he bought land near Princeton and opened up a new farm. He also ran an omnibus line and transfer wagon between Wyanet and Pond Creek. In 1870 he disposed of his Illinois interests and removed to Iowa, where he first bought land in Marion County but afterward, in 1873, he removed to Warren County and invested in a piece of land in Greenfield Township. Later he sold that place and bought a farm in Lincoln Township, where he remained for a number of years and here his family was reared. Eventually he sold this farm and removed to Wharton County, Texas, where he remained until the time of his death.
A. I. Kaufman was actively identified with his father's interests until he was twenty-eight years of age. His boyhood and youth were spent on the farm in Warren County, to whose school system he is indebted for a sound, practical education. On starting out for himself he not only assumed the responsibility and management of a part of his father's place, but he also took a ten years lease on a four hundred acre unimproved tract of land, which he cleared and broke, paying his rent with a certain percentage of the crops raised. After his marriage he bought a portion of this place and built a good substantial residence thereon, together with a barn, fences, outbuildings and stock scales. He also made other necessary improvements, converting it into an ideal stock and grain farm. He set out an orchard and planned it all with the determination of making out of it an ideal home for the future.
On January 14, 1891, was celebrated the marriage of Mr. Kaufman and Miss Lou Graham, daughter of J. M. Graham, one of the early, settlers of Warren County, who came here from Indiana in 1849. Mrs. Kaufman was born, reared and educated in this county. Unto this union have been born two sons, D. M. and Frank E., both of whom reside at home with their parents.
In national politics Mr. Kaufman is a Democrat, but in local affairs he votes for the man whom he believes best qualified to fill the office, regardless of party ties. He has never aspired to public office for himself, though his interest in educational matters has prompted him to serve on the school board as one of its directors. His estimable wife attends the United Presbyterian Church in Indianola, in which faith she was reared. Mr. Kaufman has now lived in this county some thirty-five years, and in reflecting on its wild and un­cultivated state at the time he chose it as the place of his adoption, it must afford him no small amount of satisfaction to feel and know that he has played no unimportant part in its growth and development.