Robert W. Duff, the popular
incumbent of the office of postmaster at Volga, has
been prominently concerned with civic, industrial and
general business activities in his native county, is
a scion of an honored pioneer family of Clayton
county and in both the agnatic and distaff lines
traces his ancestry back to the staunchest of Scotch
origin. As an influential and loyal citizen who
commands unequivocal confidence and esteem in his
native county, Mr. Duff is well entitled to
recognition in this history.
He was born in Highland
township, this county, on the 3d of December, 1882,
and is a son of William and Cecelia (Probert) Duff,
both natives of Scotland. William Duff was a lad of
ten years when he accompanied his parents on their
immigration to America, and the family home was
established in the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
He was a young man when he numbered himself among the
pioneers of Clayton county, where he settled in the
early '50s and where he became one of the prosperous
and representative farmers of Highland township.
He was a man of superior
mental gifts, was a citizen whose aid and influence
were given to those enterprises that tended to
conserve the social and material advancement of the
county, his political allegiance was given to the
Democratic party and he was an earnest member of the
Presbyterian church, as is also his widow, who now
resides at Volga and who is one of the loved pioneer
women of the county. Mr. Duff met a tragic death,
being killed by a bull, this deplorable accident
having occurred January 17, 1899.
Of the children the
first-born was William, Jr., who died at the age of
four years; Nettie, the next born, lives with her
mother; Mayme is the wife of William Glasgow, of
Garden City, Kansas; George is deceased; John is a
resident of Highland township; Isabel remains with
her widowed mother; Mary is the wife of Arthur R.
Kunzman, of Volga, and her twin brother, Albert,
resides at Volga, Iowa.
Robert W. Duff was reared
under the sturdy discipline of the home farm and
after profiting by the advantages afforded in the
public schools he continued his studies in a college
at Fayette and in Lenox College, at Hopkinton, this
state, in the normal department of which latter
institution he was graduated as a member of the class
of 1904. In the meanwhile he had made an excellent
record as a teacher in the schools of his home
county, and after his graduation he continued his
services in the pedagogic profession for seven terms.
He then engaged in the
general merchandise business at Volga, and in
connection therewith developed a large and prosperous
business in the buying and shipping of live poultry
for C. E. Lovett. He shipped most of the poultry to
New York City, and in connection with his operations
had occasion to make twenty-seven trips to the
national metropolis.
In 1911 Mr. Duff was elected
secretary and general manager of the Farmers'
Co-operative Commission & Creamery Company at
Volga, and to the duties of this dual office he gave
his careful and effective attention until the 1st of
January, 1915, when he assumed his present office,
that of postmaster of Volga, his appointment having
been made on the 17th of the preceding November. This
preferment in itself indicates that he has been
influential as a Clayton county representative of the
Democratic party, and his administration in the
office of postmaster has been marked by
progressiveness and by the bringing of the service up
to the highest possible standard. Both he and his
wife hold membership in the Presbyterian church.
On the 2d of October, 1908,
was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Duff to Miss
Augusta Brabandt, who likewise was born and reared in
Clayton county, and the one child of this union is a
fine son, Cecil W., who was born May 10, 1910
source: History of
Clayton County, Iowa; From The Earliest Historical
Times Down to the Present; by Realto E. Price,
Vol. II, 1916; pg. 97-98
-OCR scanned by S. Ferrall
