IAGenWeb Project - Clayton co.


William F. Reinecke

William F. Reinecke has been a resident of Clayton county since his childhood and has here found in his maturer years ample opportunity for the bending of his energies and ability to the achievement of definite success and the winning of an honorable name. He served three consecutive terms as treasurer of Clayton county and since his retirement he has been prominently and influentially identified with banking interests in the county. He is now cashier of the Strawberry Point State Bank, and has been resourceful and progressive in the upbuilding of the substantial business controlled by this representative financial institution.

He is a son of Charles and Frederica (Wagner) Reinecke, sterling citizens concerning whom specific record is given on other pages of this publication, so that a repetition of the data is not demanded in this connection. He whose name initiates this review made good use of the advantages afforded in the public schools at Elkader, including those of the high school, though he left the same prior to graduation. As a youth he found employment in the country printing office of his father, and this association with newspaper work proved an effective supplement to his educational discipline. He continued his connection with his father's printing and publishing enterprise until the spring of 1898, when he formed a partnership with Vilas L. Gilje, under the firm name of Gilje & Reinecke, and they purchased the clothing stock and business of J.K. Molumby, at Elkader. Mr Reinecke continued to give his attention to this prosperous business enterprise until 1904, when he sold his interest to his partner, as he found insistent demands upon his time and attention in the administration of the affairs of the office of county treasurer, to which he had been elected in the autumn of 1902. The most effective voucher for the efficiency and acceptability of his management of the fiscal affairs of the county is that afforded in the fact that he was re-elected county treasurer in 1903 and 1906, so that he served three consecutive terms, his retirement being essentially a matter of his own volition, as he declined again to become a candidate for the office in 1908. In the autumn of that year he was elected cashier of the Clayton County Bank at Guttenberg, and on the 1st of December of the following year he formed his present alliance as vice-president and cashier of the Strawberry Point State Bank. As a broad-minded and progressive citizen of well fortified political convictions, Mr. Reinecke has been influential in the councils of the Democratic party in Clayton county and has given effective service in behalf of the party cause.

He was reared in the faith of the Lutheran church, and both he and his wife maintain affiliation with the same the time-honored Masonic fraternity he is identified with Strawberry Point Lodge, Ancient Free & Accepted Masons. He has received also the thirty-second degree of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, in Iowa Consistory, No. 2. He is affiliated also with the Knights of Pythias and the Modern Woodmen of America.

May 3, 1897, recorded the marriage of Mr. Reinecke to Miss Emma Scholz, who was born and reared in this county and who is a daughter of William H. Scholz, the subject of individual mention on other pages of this work. Mr. and Mrs. Reinecke have two children, Lorenz and Herold, whose respective ages at the time of this writing, in 1916, are seventeen and fifteen years.

source: History of Clayton County, Iowa; From The Earliest Historical Times Down to the Present; by Realto E. Price, Vol. II; pg. 347-348

-OCR scanned by S. Ferrall

Note, conflict: this biography gives his middle initial as F, but when named in his father's bio, it is given as C.

 

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