Andrew Rahe Bio

Andrew Rahe

Biography of Andrew Rahe taken from Portrait and Biographical Record of Dubuque, Jones and Clayton Counties, Iowa. Chicago: Chapman Publishing Co. 1894. Pages 164-165.

ANDREW RAHE

Andrew Rahe is a well known and wealthy farmer, living in New Wine Township, Dubuque County, 
adjoining the village of New Vienna. Our subject was born at Munster, Westphalia, in the 
United Kingdom of Prussia, in May, 1824. His parents both died when he was but a child, hence 
but little can be learned of them. He was taken by relatives to bring up and passed his 
boyhood on the farm, receiving only a limited education. When he attained his majority, in 
1845, he set sail for the New World, and on landing in the United States first located at 
Hamilton, Ohio, where he remained until 1847, in the spring of which year he came to Iowa, 
and for a time worked on the mill then being built by Schimmel Bros., near the present site 
of New Vienna.

In August, 1848, Mr. Rahe was united in wedlock with Mrs. Catherine Weekman, a widow, who was 
born in Oldenburg, Germany, and came to America with her parents when a child. In 1843, with 
her husband, she made the journey from Ohio to Iowa, making the trip by ox team. Mrs. Rahe has 
one daughter by her first marriage, Mary, now the wife of Clarence Buchenstete, a wealthy 
farmer in Delaware County, of this state.

Directly after his marriage Mr. Rahe located on the farm where he has ever since resided. 
Coming to this county as he did, without means, he early set about making for himself a 
competency, and now aside from the large farm on which he makes his home he owns several farms 
in Dubuque and Delaware Counties, being one of the wealthiest residents of this vicinity. To 
Mr. and Mrs. Rahe have been born the following children: Clement, who wedded Mary, daughter 
of Joseph Schimmel, and is engaged in farming near Dyersville; Henry, whose wife died, leaving 
four children, and who now resides with his father on the farm; Frank, a farmer of Delaware 
County, who wedded Miss Mary Wesell; and Annie, the wife of Theodore Brockmann, a well known 
agriculturist of Delaware County. Our subject was brought up in the Catholic faith, to which 
he still belongs. He uses his right of franchise in favor of the Democratic party, and both as 
a business man and for his own well known qualities of true worth is held in the highest 
respect by one and all.  

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