For
Muscatine County Iowa
1911
| Biographies For Muscatine County Iowa 1911 | |
Source: History of Muscatine County Iowa, Volume II, Biographical, 1911, page 542
HANS FOHRMANN....In the long list of brave boys whom Iowa sent to the front in those dark days in the ' 60s stands the name of Hans Fohrmann. The son of Hans and Anna ( Legers ) Fohrmann, both natives of Germany, he was born in the fatherland on the 2d of November, 1840. His parents spent their entire lives in the old country, the mother dying at the age of fifty-five years, but the father had passed the eighty-fifth milestone in life's cycle before he died. They has six children, three of whom are living and have become residents of the United States, as follows : Hans, our subject ; John, who resides in Marshalltown, Iowa ; and Anna, who has been twice widowed, her first husband being Tice Hanson and her second Henry Worth.Hans Fohrmann spent the first twenty-three years of his life in the land of his nativity and there he acquired his education. He early became convinced, however, that the United States offered such advantages to young men as could not be obtained elsewhere and, crossing the Atlantic ocean, he landed on American soil on the 27th of August, 1863. He came west to Davenport, Iowa obtaining employment on a farm by the month and after several years he engaged to work by the day on the railroad. He pursued the latter occupation for several years, but at length met with an accident which caused him to sacrifice his right leg.
Mr. Fohrmann had not yet acquired the full rights of citizenship, having been a resident of this country less than two years, when in order to show his allegiance to the country of his adoption he volunteered his services in the cause of the Union. In January, 1864, he enlisted in the Twentieth Iowa Infantry under General Smith and went to the front with his regiment. Later he was transferred to the Twenty-ninth Iowa Infantry and served with this regiment until the close of the war, when he was honorably discharged and returned to Iowa in August, 1865.
In that year Mr. Fohrmann was united in marriage to Miss Mary Wise, a native of Iowa, her parents both being deceased at the time of her marriage. One child was born to them in 1881, Anna, now the wife of Henry Houghtman of Davenport, Iowa, but the mother died when her little daughter was only one year of age. Mr. Fohrmann was again married in 1890, his second wife being Mrs. Annie Mier, the widow of James Mier, but she too passed away in 1905.
Two years ago Mr. Fohrmann took a trip through the north and west and while away bought a farm of ninety acres in South Dakota, but continues to make his home in Stockton, where he has lived for many years and has many friends. Ever since granted the right of suffrage he has given his party allegiance to the republicans, but while he always fulfills his obligations as a citizen by casting a ballot at every election, he has never been an office seeker.
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