E. F. JOCKHECK

View Portrait of Mr. & Mrs. E. F. Jockheck

For a long period E. F. Jockheck was closely associated with the farming interests of Iowa, but since 1883 has lived retired. Aside from effort put forth in his own behalf, however, he has done effective work for the public welfare, cooperating in many measures that have been of inestimable value to the community. He is now eighty-two years of age, enjoying excellent health, and he keeps in touch with the progress of the times, wide reading promoting his familiarity with the leading questions and issues of the day.

He is one of the worthy citizens that Germany has furnished to this country, his birth having occurred in Westphalia, August 25, 1828. His parents were Johann Frederick and Anna Maria Elizabeth (Stasing) Jockheck, who were likewise natives of Germany. The father died in 1832 and the mother in 1845, so that E. F. Jockheck was but a lad in his teens when left an orphan. His education was acquired in the schools of Germany, which he attended to the age of fourteen years, when he began working upon a farm, being thus employed until after he had attained his majority, when he came to the United States. From the 16th of November, 1849, until the 1st of June, 1851, he worked in a sugar refinery in New Orleans and through the succeeding four years was employed in a soap factory in Quincy, Illinois. He removed from the latter city to St. Louis, where for one year he was employed in a soap factory owned by Anheuser, the great beer manufacturer.

Mr. Jockheck reached Davenport, Iowa, on the 5th of May, 1856, and for a year worked in a sawmill or at anything that he could get to do in that city; but the desire to engage in business on his own account led him to rent land and thus he began farming in Scott county in 1857, there remaining for six years, during which period he carefully saved his earnings until his capital was sufficient to enable him to purchase land. In 1863 he broke prairie and leased one hundred and sixty acres for four crops, thus gaining a start, and in 1864 raised twenty-seven hundred bushels of wheat, fourteen hundred bushels of barley and an extra crop of oats, corn, potatoes and onions. He then bought one hundred and thirty-seven acres of wild prairie in Muscatine county and broke the sod with oxen. He also built a house and barn upon the place and otherwise improved the farm, making it his home until 1883, when he retired and removed to Durant. In the meantime he diligently prosecuted the farm work, rotating his crops and utilizing modern methods in carrying on the work of the fields, so that his labors were crowned with substantial success and he became the possessor of a comfortable competence, enabling him to live a retired life. When he set sail for the United States he had eleven dollars in South American money, which in New Orleans he changed into the currency of this country. He has been a hard worker and more than ordinarily successful, and as the years have gone by he has purchased property from time to time, while his generous spirit has been manifest in the gift of one hundred and sixty acres of land to each of his children. He still owns valuable property, from which he derives a substantial annual income.

Mr. Jockheck was married in New Orleans, on the 22nd of December, 1850, to Miss Sophia Steinhagen, who was born in Germany, November 11, 1827, and came to America in 1849. They have five living children, namely: Mary, the wife of Ferd Peterson, of Cedar county; Emma, who is the wife of George Hamann and likewise resides in this county; John L., who is a resident of Sioux City, Iowa; Louisa, who is the widow of Louis Moeller and makes her home in Scott county, Iowa; and Ernest F., living in Durant, Iowa.

While Mr. Jockheck has won success in business and has given much time to the promotion of his own interests, he has yet found opportunity for cooperation in public affairs and his section of the county has profited much by his efforts. He has taken an active part in many works of a public nature. He helped build the first bridges at Walcott, Iowa, hauling the timbers for fifty miles. In 1865 he organized school district No. 7 in Blue Grass township, Scott county, and built the schoolhouse. The cause of education has ever found in him a warm and helpful friend and for four years he efficiently served as president of the school board in Fulton township, Muscatine county. Since living in Durant he has served for the past ten years as justice of the peace and for one year he was street commissioner and for one year mayor of the city, exercising his official prerogatives at all times in support of measures of progress and reform. He has been a lifelong democrat and had a personal acquaintance with Stephen A. Douglas. In 1900 Mr. and Mrs. Jockheck celebrated their golden wedding and if both live to December, 1910, they will have traveled life’s journey together for sixty years—a record seldom paralleled. Both are still enjoying excellent health and it is the wish of their friends that they may be spared for many years to come. Mr. Jockheck keeps in touch with the movement of the times and is a well informed man who reads much, while his mind is as clear as it was fifty years ago.