CHARLES W. JENKINS.
The grandparents of Charles W. Jenkins were the first people to bring with them their family for permanent residence in Audubon county. Mr. Jenkins' grandfather drove overland to Audubon county in a very early day from Kentucky. The Jenkins family, therefore, has been associated with the growth and progress of Audubon county from the very earliest times.
The father of Charles W. Jenkins was Benjamin F. Jenkins, who married Josephine Gilbert. Benjamin F. Jenkins was a native of Kentucky. He was brought to Audubon county, Iowa, when he was nine years old by his parents. He received his education in Audubon county and after leaving school, farmed for some time. He entered land from the government, paying one dollar and twenty-five cents an acre, and at the time of his death, December 25, 1873, he had six hundred and thirty-six acres. Mrs. Benjamin F. Jenkins died the following year, June 25, 1874. At this time Charles W. was not yet a year old. Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin F. Jenkins were the parents of six children, namely: Olive married Kees Hallock; Hayden is unmarried and lives in Idaho; Margaret married Charles Sykes, of Oakfield township; Mary married Ernest Cotton; Pearl, and Charles W., the subject of this sketch.
Charles W. Jenkins, who is an extensive farmer in Exira township, and who owns a farm of two hundred and fifty-six acres, was born in Oakfield township, Audubon county, January 2, 1873. He received his education in the schools of the county and after leaving school, he took up farming. He began on the old homestead and farmed there for three years, after which he was engaged in buying and selling stock in Brayton for a period of four years. At the end of this time he went to Oklahoma and was there married. He engaged in farming and stock raising in Oklahoma, having leased a ranch of three thousand acres. After remaining in Oklahoma for seven years, he came back to Audubon county and for five years lived on the old home place and farmed there. He then went to Canada and took up farming in that country for two years. In 1912 Mr. Jenkins purchased the farm on which he now lives. He is engaged in general farming and stock raising. He raises about one hundred and fifty acres of corn each year and about eighty acres of small grain. He raises seventy-five acres of hay and purchases about twenty-five hundred bushels of corn each year, which he feeds to about two hundred and fifty head of hogs.
Charles W. Jenkins was married on July 16, 1902, to Eva Walker, the daughter of William Walker. To this union four children have been born: Keith, Laura, Elouise and Charles. Mrs. Jenkins was born on the farm where she now lives. Her parents were early settlers in Audubon county. Her father was one of the largest landowners in this section of the state, having owned seventeen hundred acres in Audubon county. Mr. and Mrs. Walker had nine children: John, who lives in Cass county; Schuyler, who lives at Anita; Laura, who lives in Canada; Lulu, who resides in Des Moines; Olive, who lives in Exira; Eva, who is the wife of Mr. Jenkins; Jay, who also resides in Canada; and two who died when small.
Mr. Jenkins owns three hundred acres of land in Canada. He is now serving as a school director in Exira township. Politically, he is a Republican.
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Transcribed 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. 869-870.
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