Nellie Harder Block

BLOCK CLARK HARDER

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 4/18/2010 at 23:04:47

Woodbury County History 1984

Nelle (Harder) Block
By Katherine Wolpert

Nelle Harder Block (1887-1982) was the sixth child of Abram and Catherine Clark Harder. She was born in Weedland and attended the Weedland School, sergeant Bluff High School, and N.B.T. in Sioux City.

She was employed by the Westphal Phone Company in Sergeant Bluff, and was one of the early telephone operators.

In 1910, she married William Carroll Block of Chittenango Station, New York. He was the son of John B Block and Sophia Struck, grandson of Christian Block and Fredricka Kennetz, grandson of Christian Block and Maria Nemitz. All were of Chittenango except great grandfather Christian who died in Mecklenberg, Germany, before Maria and their eight children came to the United States in the early 1850’s. William attended Chittenango and Syracuse schools and worked as a telegrapher on the New York Central. He was working in the station in Buffalo when President McKinley was assassinated September 6, 1901. He came west to visit his maternal grandmother, Mrs Charles Sievert, of Lake City, Iowa, and his Uncle Charles Struck and Aunt Emma Thresher (Mrs. Bill) of Sioux City. He stayed and worked in the depot in Sergeant Bluff.

The Blocks lived on a claim in the Rosebud for a few years, but William could not forget the lush Hudson and Mohawk Valleys of New York. They moved to Albany where he returned to the New York Central.

After William’s early death, Nelle owned and operated the West Side Café in Sergeant Bluff and then she moved to Onawa where she owned the Block Dress Shoppe for over forty years.

She loved to travel and took her grandchildren on many trips through out the United States. She went to Europe in 1955 with her granddaughter Mary Katherine Wolpert.

In later years she told many Weedland stories and remembered that as a teenager she had walked up the railroad tracks to attend the dedication of the Floyd Monument.

The three daughters of William and Nelle Harder Block are: Willamina Elizabeth Bisbee, Katherine Sophia Wolpert and Carole Lucile Winkel.