PLENNY ANDREW HOLLENBECK.
Plenny Andrew Hollenbeck, now a well-known farmer and a progressive, broad-minded citizen of Melville township, this county, was born in Linn county, Iowa, on November 27, 1859, one of the eight children of Andrew J. and Susanna (Yates) Hollenbeck. Andrew J. Hollenbeck was a native of Indiana and his wife of Maine. He was a young man when he came to Iowa and located at Cedar Rapids, then a very small town, and there he operated a cooper shop. Subsequently, he engaged in the mercantile business at Cedar Rapids, and after being engaged in that business for a number of years, moved to Paoli, Iowa, where he engaged in farming. After remaining at Paoli for some time, he moved to Dallas county, Iowa, and farmed there until his removal to Audubon county, where he homesteaded one hundred and twenty acres of land. He broke the sod and put many improvements upon the farm, where he lived until 1880, in which year he moved to Kansas, locating near Scanda, where he spent the rest of his life.
Plenny A. Hollenbeck received his education in the schools of Dallas county, Iowa, and after leaving school, took up farming with his father. He was associated with his father during a period of nine years and at the end of that time rented a farm and farmed it for a period of four years. In the meantime, Mr. Hollenbeck had saved considerable money from his labors and was able to buy the place upon which he now lives. His first purchase, however, consisted of only eighty acres, for which he paid twenty-two dollars and fifty cents an acre, but he has enlarged his original holdings, from time to time, until now he owns two hundred and forty acres, on which he raises eighty acres of corn each year and feeds about eighty-five head of hogs.
In 1880, Plenny A. Hollenbeck was married to Ella Wilgus, the daughter of John and Deborah (McFadden) Wilgus, to which union eight children have been born, Irene, Edna, Mary, Carlos, Earl, Elsie, Bessie and Joe. Irene married John Griffith and has two children, Myron and Louis. Edna, now deceased, married William Griffith and left three children, Harold, Donald and Grace. Mary married William Martins and has three children, Mabel, Merrill and Elsie Mae. Carlos married Flay Searls. The remainder of the children are unmarried.
Mrs. Hollenbeck's father, John Wilgus, was a shoemaker by trade. His wife was the daughter of Joseph and Mary (Jamison) McFadden, and to their union were born but two children, Ella and Adeline. Mrs. Hollenbeck's mother having died in 1867, she was reared by her Grandfather McFadden. Mrs. Hollenbeck's father died in 1913. Her grandparents, Joseph and Mary McFadden, were natives of Ohio and Pennsylvania, respectively. They were married in the Keystone state, where he was a blacksmith by trade. Later they settled in Illinois, where the grandfather took up farming and where he lived for six years, or until 1872. In January, of that year, he located in Leroy township, this county, where he purchased forty acres of land and farmed until his death, in 1886. His wife, the grandmother of Mrs. Hollenbeck, died in 1889. They were the parents of fourteen children, all of whom are now deceased.
Mr. Hollenbeck has served a term as township trustee of Melville township and is identified with the Republican party. Mr. Hollenbeck is a man of strong convictions and no man in Audubon county has warmer friends than he. Being a man of strong convictions, he is possessed of natural powers of leadership and is recognized as one of the leading farmers of the county. He gives liberally, though wisely, to the support of all worthy public movements and enterprises. Mr. Hollenbeck has worked hard for the snug fortune of which he is possessed and well merits the respect of his neighbors.
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Transcribed by Cheryl Siebrass, September, 2019 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. 580-581.
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