Xavier Schaefers
Xavier Schaefers came to Clayton
county in the earlier sixties and through his resourceful
and energetic activities as a farmer and stock grower he
laid the foundation of large and worthy success. He was
one of the extensive landholders of this section of Iowa
at the time of his death, and his widow still resides on
the fine old homestead, which is situated in section 6,
Garnavillo township, and which is one of the splendidly
improved and valuable landed estates of the county. Here
Mr. Schaefers wedded the young woman who proved his
devoted companion and helpmeet until he passed from the
stage of life's mortal endeavors, and they reared an
exceptionally large family of children, of whom nine
survive the honored father; sterling citizens who have
well upheld the high prestige of the family name. Xavier
Schaefers was born and reared in Germany and was
seventy-five years of age at the time of his death, which
occurred on the 10th of February, 1910. His remains rest
in the consecrated ground of the Catholic cemetery at
Garnavillo and his memory is honored in the county that
long represented his home and the stage of his earnest
endeavors, all of which were governed by the highest
principles of integrity and fairness. Mr. Schaefers was a
youth of nineteen years when he severed the ties that
bound him to his native land and set forth to win for
himself a position of independence and prosperity in the
United States. He remained for a time in the city of
Buffalo, New York, and then went to Minnesota, where he
found employment for a time and where he finally took up
a homestead claim and initiated the development of a
pioneer farm. On this claim he lived several years, his
habitation having been a primitive log cabin, and he
finally came to Iowa and established his residence in
Clayton county. Here his marriage was solemnized in 1865,
and he then purchased the nucleus of the extensive landed
estate that is still held by the family and upon which
his widow still resides, the old home being endeared to
her by the hallowed memories and associations of the
past. At the time of his demise, Mr. Schaefers was the
owner not only of seven hundred and ninety-four acres of
valuable Iowa land but also of three hundred and twenty
acres in the Canadian northwest and a residence and block
of buildings in the village of Garnavillo. His civic
loyalty and liberality were ever of insistent order, his
political support was given to the Democratic party and
he was an earnest communicant of the Catholic church, as
is also his widow. On the 21st of February, 1865, Mr.
Schaefers wedded Miss Anna Mary Berns, who was born in
Germany and who was but six months old at the time of the
family immigration to America. She is a daughter of Henry
and Anna M. (Knuber) Berns, who came to this country in
1847 and who were numbered among the very early settlers
of Clayton county. The father obtained a tract of wild
land in Jefferson township, and the original family
domicile was a rude log house, the first barns on the
place being mere sheds with straw roofs, though clapboard
roofs were supplied as soon as possible. Mr. Berns became
one of the prosperous farmers and valued citizens of the
county and here both he and his wife passed the residue
of their lives, both having been devout communicants of
the Catholic church. Of their eight children four are now
living. Mr. and Mrs. Schaefers became the parents of a
fine family of fourteen children, of whom nine are
living. The eldest of the number is Henry T., of Emery,
S. D.; Mary H. is the wife of Henry Berns, a resident of
Clayton county; Mary A. is the wife of Henry Hagermann,
and they now reside in California; Xavier H. remains in
his native county; Herman is deceased; Matilda R. is
deceased; Theodore P., Joseph H., and Wilhelmina are now
residents of the state of South Dakota; George F. and
Louis are deceased; Guido has established his home in the
state of Montana; Jacob and Regina C. are deceased; and
Regina H. remains with her widowed mother. Mrs. Schaefers
retains the finest mental and physical vigor and with
much circumspection and ability, gives her general
supervision to the affairs of the home farm and to her
other large and important financial interests. She is
active and liberal in the supporting of the various
features of work in the Catholic church at Garnavillo,
has a host of friends in the county that has been her
home from childhood and has the distinction not only of
having carefully reared her large family of children, all
of whom accord to her the deepest filial solicitude, but
also of having twenty-six grandchildren and one
great-grandchild at the time of this writing, in 1916 - a
truly remarkable record and one in which this veritable
"mother in Israel" takes great pride. source: History of Clayton
County, Iowa; From The Earliest Historical Times Down to
the Present; by Realto E. Price, Vol. II; pg 360-361 |
