John J. Simmons
SIMMONS
Posted By: Gordon Felland (email)
Date: 1/10/2014 at 16:21:04
John J. Simmons, county treasurer of Worth county, was horn in Vang. Norway, on the 12th day of May, 1873. When but one year of age his parents came to America and settled on a farm in Silver Lake township. Worth county which has ever since been the family home. In his early youth the subject of this sketch attended the district school and received an excellent common school education, which was in 1892, supplemented by a year in Breckenridge school at Decorah, Iowa. After teaching for 15 terms the desire for further knowledge became so strong that he, in the autumn of 1899, enrolled as a student in St. Ansgar seminary. He graduated from this institution in June 1900 and returned to Worth county.
In the summer of 1903 he became a candidate before the primaries for the republican nomination to the office of county treasurer. He was chosen at the primaries, which choice was duly ratified at the poll. The biennial election law served to add a year to his first term, and in 1906 he was again chosen. That he has rendered the county good service is shown by the fact that in 1906, the delinquent tax sale list was the smallest in the history of the county.
Treasurer Simmons is a son of John Simmons, a prosperous farmer of Silver Lake township who died in 1904. His mother, whose maiden name was Gertrude Troe, still resides on the old home farm. He has one brother, Nels Simmons, who is a farmer in Silver Lake, and two sisters. Anna, wife of Ole T. Groe of Lake Mills and Gertrude, wife of Olavus T. Groe of Silver Lake. Mr. Simmons is unmarried.
Source: The Semi-centennial Souvenir of Northwood, Iowa, 1907, page 13.
Worth Biographies maintained by Karon S. Velau.
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