Carl Schaefer, the owner of a quarter section of land in Farmington township, has won a well merited measure of prosperity in the conduct of his agricultural interests and has long been numbered among the substantial and respected citizens of the community. His birth occurred in Germany on the 8th of September, 1854, his parents being Carl and Elizabeth Schaefer, who spent their entire lives in that country. He acquired a good practical education in the schools of the fatherland and after putting aside his text-books learned the stone-mason’s trade, working at that occupation for four years prior to his emigration to the new world.
The year 1870 witnessed his arrival in the United States and for about three months afterward he was employed as a stone mason. Subsequently he began work as a farm hand in Scott county, Iowa, being thus busily engaged for ten years. On the expiration of that period he rented one hundred and twenty acres of land in Scott county, devoting his attention to its cultivation until the time of his removal to Muscatine county, where he rented a farm of three hundred acres. By dint of unremitting industry and good management he eventually accumulated capital sufficient to enable him to purchase land of his own, coming into possession of a tract of one hundred and sixty acres in Farmington township, Cedar county, where he has carried on his agricultural interests continuously since. He has erected a fine new residence and has made improvements on the place until it is now lacking in none of the equipments and accessories of a model farm of the twentieth century.
As a companion and helpmate on the journey of life Mr. Schaefer chose Miss Caroline Sharfe, whose parents spent their entire lives in Germany. Unto our subject and his wife have been born seven children, all of whom still survive, namely: Tillie, who is the wife of George Reimers and resides in Durant; Lizzie, at home; Minnie, who wedded Louis Krebs, of Scott county; and Tina, Louis, William and Caroline, all of whom are yet under the parental roof.
Mr. Schaefer is a democrat in politics and has served as school director for nine years, the cause of education ever finding in him a stanch champion. His fraternal relations are with the Knights of Pythias at Sunbury, while his religious faith is indicated by his membership in the German Lutheran church, to which his wife and children also belong. The period of his residence in this part of the state now covers four decades and he is therefore widely and favorable known here. He is numbered among those who left the fatherland to identify themselves with American life and institutions, who have pushed their way to the front and who are a credit alike to the land of their birth and that of their adoption.
