JOHN M. ROWSER
John M. Rowser, the oldest son of Samuel Smith Rowser, in company with A. B. Safley, went to O’Brien county, Iowa, in the spring of 1878, where they rented a farm of one hundred and sixty acres. They bought wheat at a dollar and at a dollar and a quarter a bushel and sowed one hundred and forty acres in wheat, giving one-half of the crop as rent, the ground having been broken and the landlord agreeing to furnish machinery to take off the crop. They cut and threshed what could be got and their share was six hundred bushels of such poor quality that it only brought thirty cents a bushel. In 1882 Mr. Rowser went by wagon to Wyoming territory, where he engaged in the business of farming and stock-raising.
In 1890 Mr. Rowser married Miss Margaret Mahnken, who was born in Vernon county, Missouri, her parents being Herman C. and Sarah (Rosenbum) Mahnken. Her father was born in the city of Bremen, Germany, in 1836 and was but seventeen years of age when he came to America, finally settling in Missouri. He served three years in the Federal army as a butcher, receiving his discharge in 1864. He was married in Fort Scott, Kansas, and in 1880 moved with his family to Wyoming territory, where he engaged in farming and in the cattle business until the death of his wife on the 25th of October, 1901. They had four children, namely: John C., of Alzada, Montana; Margaret C., the wife of our subject; W. L., of Bellefourche, South Dakota; and Thomas F., of Merced, California, with whom the father lives.
Our subject and his wife have four children: Ruth, born November 18, 1899; Margaret, born November 14, 1901; Edwin born June 28, 1904; and Melvin W., born September 18, 1909. Mrs. Rowser was for several years a student in the Spearfish Normal School of Spearfish, South Dakota, and before her marriage was a successful teacher in the public schools of Crook county, Wyoming. Mr. Rowser with his family returned to Cedar county in December, 1909, after twenty-eight years in the west. Disposing of his interests there, he purchased a farm of one hundred and sixty acres in Red Oak township, where he now resides.
