Emil H. Pufahl
Emil H. Pufahl, who is engaged in dairy farming in Linton
township on a property comprising one hundred and sixty acres,
has taken his place among the substantial farmers of his
district. He understand the dairy business thoroughly, having for
many years been manager of various creameries, and as the years
have passed has made his farm one of the most attractive and
paying in the neighbor hood, his particular grade of brand of
cattle being high-grade Guernsey's. He was born in Guttenberg,
Clayton county, Iowa, December 21, 1871, and is a son of Gottlieb
and Wilhelmina Pufahl, both natives of the province of Posen,
Germany. The father was born April 2, 1831, and passes away May
9, 1913, having passed his eighty-second birthday, and the mother
is still residing at Guttenberg. They crossed the Atlantic in
1871, coming directly to Guttenberg, where the father worked for
others in a sawmill and continued in that occupation until he
retired in 1898. From that time until his death he lived in the
enjoyment of a comfortable competency, which his former labors
had brought him. While yet in Germany he served with the army and
after delighted to recall incidents from his early military life.
Mr. and Mrs. Pufahl had eleven children, of whom six are living
and seven grew to maturity: Gustav, who resides in Luana, Clayton
county, and follows farming; Bertha, who married Fred Williams
and resides at Steamboat Springs, Colorado, where her husband is
engaged in the hotel business; Julius, who made his home near
Guttenberg until his death on November 7, 1910; Herman, who
resides at Bolivar, Missouri, where he is a prominent attorney;
Emil H., of this review; Otto, who is an art decorator at Butte,
Montana; and Hulda, the wife of Orrin Burke, of Los Angeles,
California. The four others died in infancy.
Emil H. Pufahl received his education advantages in Guttenberg,
where he attended high school. He left that institution at the
age of seventeen and then for one year worked in Chicago,
Illinois, where he operated a milk route. Coming back to Clayton
county, he was employed on a farm for a short time and then
became manager and secretary of the Luana Creamery Company,
continuing so for six years. At the end of that time he set
himself up independently, conducting a creamery at Nora Springs,
Iowa, for four years. Upon selling his plant he bought his
present farm comprising one hundred and sixty acres of valuable
land, which he operates as a dairy farm, keeping a number of high
grade Guernsey cattle. His barns and buildings are substantially
built and modernity equipped and in every way sanitary. Mr.
Pufahl is a progressive farmer in the best sense of the word and
is ever ready to embrace new methods if they promise improvement
over older ones. He has made his property one of the most
valuable and profitable in his section, and this is the more
creditable to him as it has been brought about by his own labors
alone. Mr. Pufahl is a stockholder in the Farmers Creamery
Company at Monona, an organization formed with the object of
affording the farmer an opportunity to dispose of his products in
the best possible way.
The date of the marriage of Mr. Pufahl was May 30, 1900, when he
wedded Miss Carrie Biggs, the ceremony taking place at McGregor,
Iowa. She is a daughter of David and Elizabeth (Fitch) Biggs, the
former born in Holmes county, Ohio, November 4, 1831, and the
latter in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, June 18, 1840. In 1853 the
father came to Iowa, settling in Volney, where for a number of
years he engaged in saw milling, He conducted an enterprise of
this kind in partnership with his sons with excellent results
until 1860, when he went to the Rocky mountains, spending two
months in the vicinity of Pike’s Peak. Upon his return to
Iowa he purchased one hundred and sixty acres in Linton Township,
which he continued to cultivate until 1908, becoming a prosperous
farmer in this neighborhood. In that year he retired and now he
and his wife reside in Rossville. David Biggs comes of an old
American family which has been in this country since
Revolutionary times, his grandfather having come to the colonies
as a soldier in the English army. After his arrival here,
however, he and his brother joined General Washington and they
gave their service to the Continental cause. Mr. and Mrs. Pufahl
have three children: John Kenneth, born October 17, 1903; Paul
Wesley, May 16, 1911; and Florence Eugenia, August 19, 1912.
Mr. Pufahl was born in a Lutheran family and reared in that
faith, although he is not now a member of church. Politically he
is a republican, giving his allegiance to the progressive
movement in that party. He serves at the present time as clerk of
Linton township. Fraternally he is affiliated with the Modern
Woodmen of America, holding membership in the Nora Springs camp.
Careful of his own interests, Mr. Pufahl is always considerate of
those of others and ever views his actions from the point of
their effect upon the general prosperity. He has done much toward
raising agricultural standards in Allamakee county and is
therefore a forceful factor in community life.
-source: Past & Present of Allamakee County; by
Ellery M. Hancock; S. J. Clarke Pub. Co.; 1913
-transcribed by Diana Diedrich
Return to 1913 biographies index