Pike Township Family Stories
ROY CONRAD BRAUN FAMILY HISTORY
Nichols, Iowa Centennial Book 1884-1984, page 278
By Monica PetersenThe year is 1902. In a white house mounted on a hill, a baby boy is born to Henry Braun and Etta Schlarbaum Braun. It would be in that house Roy Braun would live for twenty-eight years of his life.
As a boy, Roy rose each morning around 5:30 to do chores. A mile walk to the nearby Buffalo Bluff school brought him to the country school before lessons began at nine.
Lunches were carried to school in pails and left in the front hall. In the winter lunches often froze while morning classes were being taught. The students and teacher had to depend on the warmth of the room to thaw the food.
Roy Braun attended country school until seventh grade. To continue his education, he was required to take and pass an exam. The passing of this test allowed him to enter high school as an eighth grader. Students had eleven class levels at that time.
Living a couple of miles from Nichols, Roy Braun and his older sister, Elsie Braun, usually drove a horse and buggy to school and parked it at the site where the Elder Implement company now stands [1984].
The original high school, which was located where the Christian church is now, burned down, so classes were held in the town hall for the few months of that year.
Roy missed school for a short time during World War I when he was needed at home to work on the farm. This was due to the shortage of men available at home.
Roy graduated in 1920, with five people in his graduating class. Later he graduated from Brown’s Business college in Muscatine.
As a young man of ten or twelve, Roy ran a “Waterloo Boy” tractor. “Waterloo Boy” changed its name to John Deere after 1924. The Braun’s tractor, model D31246, was the second model sold in Iowa and the 1246th model of its type in the country.
Early tractors had steel wheels. They were still being made until 1924, when the family purchased another tractor. By 1926 or 1927 tractors came off the production line equipped with rubber tires.
Roy Braun married Cecelia Florang, daughter of George Florang and Elizabeth Greaser Florang, in Iowa City. The couple lived with his parents until 1930. Eventually their family expanded to include Clifford Braun, now living in Plainfield, Iowa, and Carol Braun, who married Milton Petersen, and later resettled in Nichols, and a daughter, Delores Braun, who died at three months.
Roy died in 1999 at the age of 97 years, and Cecilia died in 1965 at the age of 63.
The Braun’s first home was financed by borrowing on a thousand dollar insurance policy from the Lone Tree bank. This system was frequently used, with the policy used for collateral. The interest rate at that time was 4 %.
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Page created December 5, 2010 by Lynn McCleary