Samuel Burton Clift

CLIFT KOCHERT

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 4/12/2010 at 21:44:36

Woodbury County History 1984

Samuel Burton and Matilda Kochert Clift
By Ethel Clift Phillips

Samuel Burton Clift, born on February 8, 1864, in Ohio, was the second son born to Charles Wesley and Elizabeth Miller Clift. On August 30, 1883, he married Matilda Kochert, the daughter of German immigrant parents, Friedrich Kochert and Elisabeth Nieb Kochert, at Marr, Bethel township, Monroe County, Ohio. Matilda was born on November 7, 1865.

The couple resided in the parental Clift home until 1888. Their first three children were born there: Lewis Oscar on February 2, 1884; Charles Otto on September 7, 1885; and Flora Victoria on April 27, 1887.

In 1888, the family migrated to Willow township, Woodbury County, Iowa, by train, joining other families from Monroe County, Ohio, who had earlier settled about a community that came to be known as ‘German City’. The move occurred one year after the Milwaukee Railroad was completed form Manila to Sioux City, Iowa.

The ‘Burt’ Clifts were first welcomed to the home of Matilda’s sister and brother-in-law, Charles and Elizabeth Steinhoff. Their abode at that season was a dugoout in the ‘Sugar Loaf’ with a frame addition, east of Hornick, Iowa.

The Clifts were to spend the first winter in Iowa on the Philip Weber place (a site east of Hornick in the bluffs), and ‘Burt’ Clift hauled hay and picked corn for $1.00 per day to earn money to purchase a team and wagon.

In the spring of 1889, the Clift family moved t a rented farm of 120 acres southeast of Hornick, called the Duffield Place for the landlord, a blacksmith in Oto. The family circle grew by the birth of Ernest Elmer Clift on May 30, 1889, and Annabelle Jean Clift on August 28, 1891. The dwelling was a three-room structure with a white maple floor. An open well of 15 feet depth was dug for their water supply. Chickens and eggs were sold, traded for necessary groceries at the general store at ‘German City’. The older boys first attended school at the Hopper School down the bluffs past the ‘Sugar Loaf’. Corn was shelled by hand and it was taken to Smithland or Oto to be ground into meal. In a winter of heavy snow, ‘Burt’ built sled runners for a wagon to make the trip over the drifts.

In February 1892, Burt Clift purchased a farm in Section 3 of Willow township and the family moved to this ‘Jim Taylor’ place. Another son, Forrest Watson was born there on June 8, 1893. Subsequently the ‘Thompson Place’, the Southwest ¼ of Section 11 was acquired and the family moved to that farm in 1896, across from the Willow township cemetery and in clear view of the German City Church on its hilltop northeast of Holly Springs. The family circle grew to number eight children with the births of Minnie Emeline on July 13, 1898, and Nettie Adeline on August 19, 1902.

Burt Clift fed our cattle with the corn produced on the farm and shipped them by rail to the Chicago market, riding the freight train caboose during the trip. One time he returned from Chicago carrying the proceeds of his sale in gold coins.

As farming became increasingly mechanized, Burt Clift, who was self-taught carpenter and a natural born mechanic, was often called to help other farmers with mechanical problems. He shelled corn in the winter on a custom basis to make extra money, and lost several fingers while doing so.

Matilda Clift in the early years in Iowa made all the clothing for the growing family. She raised big gardens each year, canned, preserved, dried and stored its produce. One friend of the family said he tried to be at Clifts, as often as possible on Sunday, because he was sure thre would be chicken and home-made noodles and apple pie!

The sons all married and set up farming in Willow township, as did the three older daughters. Lewis O Clift married Elizabeth Jane McLarty on January 20, 1909; Charles O Clift married Emily Lockwood on February 25, 1906; Flora V Clift married Frank Arnold on June 12, 1907; Ernest E Clift married Grace Forney; Annabelle J Clift married Orval D Forney on February 19, 1914; Forrest W Clift married Pauline Sulsberger on October 8, 1914; Minnie E Clift married Earl B Johnston on October 20, 1914; and Nettie A Clift married Carl Jensen on May 8, 1930. Carl and Nettie Jensen settled at Geneva, New York.

In 1916, the parents retired to a home at 1929 South Olive Street, Sioux City, Iowa. Burt Clift died on May 30, 1924. Matilda Clift and her youngest daughter lived for a time in Marysville, California; but after Nettie’s marriage in 1930, her moterh returned to Sioux City. Matilda Clift died on January 26, 1946. She was laid to rest beside her husband in the Willow township cemetery across the road from their farm home.

Dozens of descendants of Burt and Matilda Clift continue to reside in the greater Sioux City area.

The legacy of our pioneer grandparents is not to be measured in dollars and cents, but in the attributes of hard work and perseverance, the striving for self and family improvement they personified; and with which they wrought a verdant and productive life from the wind-swep prairie grassland of Woodbury County.