Charley Hawker owns and operates a tract of land comprising two hundred acres on section 5, Hazel Green township, were he carries on general farming and stock raising with excellent success. His birth occurred in Germany on the 15th of October, 1859, his parents being John and Sophie (Bort) Hawker. The year 1892 witnessed their emigration to the United States. John Hawker is now deceased, but his wife still survives.
    In 1882, when a young man of twenty-three years, Charley Hawker crossed the Atlantic to the United States and made his way direct to Iowa, locating in Delaware county. During the first nine years of his residence in the new world he was employed as a farm hand and subsequently cultivated rented land for three years. On the expiration of that period he purchased his present place of two hundred acres in Hazel Green township and has been busily engaged in its operation continuously since. He cultivates the cereals best adapted to soil and climate and also devotes considerable attention to stock raising, this branch of his business contributing materially to his annual income. He has erected all the buildings on his farm and has made other improvements which greatly enhance its value and attractiveness.
    On the 8th of July, 1888, Mr. Hawker was united in marriage to Miss Amelia Steinkopf, a daughter of Fred and Martha (March) Steinkopf, by whom he had twelve children, as follows: John, who is deceased; Emma, the wife of George Meyer, of Littleport, Iowa; Clarence; Paul; Edith; Bertha; Carl; Minnie; George; Herbert, who has passed away; Amelia; and Edgar.
     Mr. Hawker is a stanch republican in politics but has never sought nor desired office as a reward for his party fealty. In religious faith the family are Lutherans. Our subject has never had occasion to regret his determination to seek a home in America, for through the wise utilization of the opportunities here afforded he has won a gratifying measure of prosperity and has also gained many friends in the community where he has now resided for nearly a third of a century.