Alexander Zike

ZIKE TRIPP

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 10/15/2010 at 19:42:39

History of Woodbury County, Iowa 1984

Alexander Zike
By Arvid Olson

Alexander Zike was born November 2, 1836 at Jefferson, Kentucky (2-23). He married Elizabeth Ann Tripp in Michigan. His second marriage was in 1916, formerly Mrs. Hannah Cook of Boyd County, Nebraska, in Norfolk, Nebraska. Alexander died September 12, 1921, at age 84, at Butte, Nebraska. He died of stomach cancer. Burial was at Norfolk. Occupations: Civil War soldier (Iowa Army Division) and farmer.

Children: Elroy, August 18, 1872; Steve, April 27, 1874; Frank, May 1863, died August 1910; Lydia Zike Roth, November 12, ?; and Blanche Zike Stockwell, May 19, 1880, died April 29, 1961, a resident of Sioux City, Iowa; and Francis Delbert Roth, March 13, 1881, died February 28, 1897.

Alexander’s father was Wilhelm or William Zike born in 1800 in Lexington, Kentucky. He was a farmer in Tennessee and married Lydia Goforth. His mother was Lydia Goforth, born possibly in Wisconisn. Alexander crossed the Missouri River and by wagon settled first Holt County, Nebraska, and took a claim in Lynch, Nebraska. The Norfolk, Nebraska newspaper, September 20, 1898, described him as a road master ‘who is looking after roads down in the land of snakes and floods’. Alexander Zike’s wife, Elizabeth Ann Tripp and their son, Steve, ‘Now realize what Job suffered, for they are afflicted in like manner’. ‘Mrs. Alexander Zike thinks there must be a sausage factor located somewhere in this vicinity as she has lot four dogs in a very short time’.

Alexander drank after the Civil War and used to take a nip before he got up in the morning but he quit drinking. Alexander would get up and walk two miles before breakfast. He had long legs and he was six feet tall or more. He was sore looking and yet had a twinkle in his eyes; a kind of merriment as though he was trying to get someone’s goat. He kind of smiled with his eyes. He was a spendthrift and was well-to-do. He handled farms in Lynch, Nebraska and sold them. He had in his Norfolk home fruit trees, berry bushes and chickens.