OBER P. VIERSEN
Ober P. Viersen was born in Holland, March 6, 1839, and is a son of Peter Viersen. His parents emigrated to America in 1847, landed at New York, and went directly to St. Louis, where they remained a short time, then came to Iowa and located in Marion county, where they were among the early settlers. Mr. Viersen, Sr., followed farming in that county until 1878, when he moved to Des Moines, where he still resides. His wife died in 1851. Ober P. Viersen and Mary Starr were married October 18, 1859, in Marion county. She was born in Colchester, Chittenden county, Vermont, August 18, 1841. Her parents, Lovell and Betsy Starr, moved to Canton, St. Lawrence county, New York, when she was very young, and in 1858, to Marion county, Iowa. Mr. Starr died July 26th, of the same year. His wife died in St. Lawrence county, in 1844. In 1864, Mr. and Mrs. Viersen moved to Nebraska, bought land and farmed two years, then sold out and came to Cass county. They bought the farm made by the pioneer settler, H. B. Roselle, consisting of one hundred and twenty acres on sections 28 and 29. Mr. Viersen has since sold forty acres and bought eighty. His farm now contains one hundred and sixty acres, all highly improved. There is an orchard on the place, planted by Mr. Roselle, with trees which he brought from the east. It is now in splendid bearing condition, and probably the oldest orchard in the county, having been planted in 1856. Mr. and Mrs. Viersen have had eight children---George, born in 1860, and died at the age of fourteen months; Mary A., born in 1862, now the wife of William P. Wilson; Lovell S., born in 1863, and was married the 8th of October, 1884, to Miss Estella Roland, in Stanton county, Nebraska, where he lives; Minnie, born in 1868, and died in infancy; Milton E., born in 1867; Edgar B., born in 1871; Anna E., born in 1874; Jennie G., born in 1877; Lillian A., born in 1880, and Ada Jane, born in 1883, Mr. Viersen has served as school director, and is one of the substantial citizens of the town.
Mrs. Viersen is a member of the Starr family, who have quite a history of their own. The first of the family came from England in 1628. He was the only son of wealthy parents, but falling in love with a Scotch girl, whom he was not permitted to marry, he ran away with her and carrying off, at the same time, his father's gold-headed ivory cane, and gold snuff box. The cane had his father's initials, C. S., upon it, his name being Comfort Starr. The old gentleman, as was often the case in those good old days, cursed his son bitterly, praying that he and his descendants should suffer the pangs of poverty. There are now some five hundred of these descendants living, and among them are many who have outlived the curse. Reunions are held at the old home in Vermont, and the old cane and snuff box are always present. There has always been a Comfort Starr to own the cane; the youngest one now is twelve years old, and is living in Brown county, Nebraska.
Contributed by Lisa Varnes-Rex from "History of Cass County, Iowa. Together With Sketches of its Towns, Villages and Townships, Educational, Civil, Military and Political History: Portraits of Prominent Persons, and Biographies of Old Settlers and Representative Citizens." Springfield, Ill.: Continental Historical Company, 1884, pp. 729-730.
