Alton Charles Hartman

HARTMAN ODONNELL DIMMEL

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 8/26/2010 at 22:13:56

History of Woodbury County, Iowa 1984

Alton Charles Hartman
By Margaret Koster

Alton Charles Hartman, son of Y A and Margaret (O’Donnell) Hartman, was born November 13, 1895, died December 15, 1977, and is buried in Acacia Park Cemetery in Chicago, Illinois. He worked in the Sioux City Stockyards and was the first stockyards mean to see active service in World War I. He served as a courier for General Douglas Mac Arthur. (He wasn’t a general at that time; I don’t know what his rank was then.) Hartman’s job was to carry messages from Mac Arthur to the men in the trenches. Years later, Mac Arthur visited Alton in Boston where he was living at the time and gave him some tickets to the Army-Navy football game that year.

Alton married Katherine Dimmel. (I think she was from Sioux City.) They had a daughter, Antonette, who died at six months, and a son, Robert Hartman, who lives in Chicago now. Katherine was formerly married to a Hagan (I think of Hagan Plumbing in Sioux City) and she had a son, Ward Hagan. Ward was in the Air Force when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. He and three other men were running, trying to get to their planes, and were in front of the Administration Building when a bomb struck and killed the other three men. Ward received a very serious head wound; he has a metal plate in his head. He now lives in Florida.

Alton and family lived for many years in Chicago, where he was in the Customer Relations Department for Swift and Company.