ROBERT F. AIKMAN.
To the honest, hard-working, law-abiding citizen, there is bound to come the inevitable success which goes hand in hand with such a character, and no man has been more plentifully provided with these qualities than Robert F. Aikman, an outline of whose history is here briefly given. Being especially interested in agriculture and all that pertains to it, the task, if it might be called such, of writing a biographical sketch of a man who has been wise enough to live so near to nature, gives an unusual amount of pleasure, especially in view of the fact that the desired results are not accomplished without a full share of discouraging obstacles.
Robert F. Aikman, general farmer and stock raiser, of Lincoln township, was born in Clinton county, Iowa, March 29, 1866, the son of R. D. and Sarah Aikman. He attended the public schools in the county, quitting school at the age of eighteen years, to go to work for his father on the farm, and remained with him until he was twenty-one years old. He then rented a farm of eighty acres from his father for three or four years, when he gave this up and moved to Audubon county. When he was twenty-one years of age, his father gave him a farm of eighty acres, and Mr. Aikman has invested about five thousand dollars in improvements on his farm. His principal crop is grain, all of which he feeds to the stock on his place. He devotes his attention principally to thoroughbred Duroc hogs, of which he sells about two carloads annually, netting him about one thousand five hundred dollars. In 1914. he built a fine barn thirty-four by forty-six, which holds sixty tons of hay.
R. D. Aikman, father of our subject, was born in Pennsylvania, and his wife is a native of Canada. They were united in marriage in Clinton county, Iowa, where he owned and cultivated a farm of one hundred and sixty acres. After a time, he moved from this place to Illinois, about the year 1866, remaining there some twenty or twenty-one years. He bought four hundred and twenty acres in Whiteside county, Illinois, which he later sold and moved back to Iowa, where he bought two hundred acres in Audubon, where he spent the remainder of his life. They were the parents of seven children, as follow : James, Almeda, A. F., Nettie, Josephine, Irena, and Robert F.
Robert F. Aikman was married in 1897 to Jennie Andre, daughter of Harvey and Mary E. Andre, of Crawford county. They are the parents of the following children : Vera, Floyd, Olive, Donald and Myron, all of whom are still at home.
In religion, Mr. Aikman's views are of the Methodist belief, and he is a regular attendant of that church at Gray. Politically, he votes the Republican ticket.
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Contributed by Cheryl Siebrass, April, 2016, from History of Audubon County, Iowa Its People, Industries and Institutions With Biographical Sketches of Representative Citizens and Genealogical Records of Many of the Old Families, by H. F. Andrews, editor, Indianapolis: B. F. Bowen & Company, 1915, pp. 772-773.
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