Charles Green
GREEN, BAUER, PLUMER, BRANDT, SPETMAN, KIERSCH
Posted By: Dave Dunston (email)
Date: 6/28/2026 at 16:51:10
PIONEER OF TWO COUNTIES
Chares Green Had Resided in Mills and Pottawattamie for Seventy-two Years—Burial in Plumer Settlement Cemetery.
Charles Green
A real pioneer of southwestern Iowa has answered the call of death. Charles Green, 91 year old citizen of Mills and Pottawattamie counties, died Monday at his home in Lewis township, after an illness of a day and a half. Death was due to paralysis.
He had lived in southwestern Iowa for seventy-two years and built some of the first houses in the section. He saw, in his younger days, deer and buffalo, and in his later days, speeding trains and the radio.
His was the typical life of the adventurous spirits who carved counties and townships out of virgin prairie lands.
When a boy of 19 he came from Schleswig, Germany to America, crossing the ocean in a sailing vessel which was nearly wrecked in a storm on the seas. The ship leaked water for days and passengers as well as the crew took turns in pumping water out of the hold. For six weeks the disabled vessel was buffeted in the seas before reaching port.
He and a companion journeyed to Davenport and it was from this place that Green obtained an ox cart and traveled on out to the little settlement of St. Mary’s in Mills county. There he met the girl who was to become his wife, Julia Anna Elizabeth Bauer, who is still living. Her mother was Caroline Plumer Bauer, a granddaughter of John Plumer.
He took up his trade as carpenter in the little settlement, building houses for the pioneers who were making homes in the wilderness. Later he purchased farms in Mills county and near Mineola in Pottawattamie county. Still later he bought land in Lewis township, this county.
Immediately after his marriage with Miss Bauer he began farming in Mills county on a tract of eighty acres which he had pre-empted. He remained there for seven years, when he sold out and purchased 240 acres of improved land, where they resided until 1875.
In that year Mr. and Mrs. Green moved to Pottawattamie county, where he had purchased a farm of 280 acres, the most of which was prairie land. There was a small frame house on the place, where they lived until 1876, when he erected a frame residence. He also erected barns for stock and grain and planted groves and orchards. In the civil war he served in Company C, Thirtieth Iowa infantry, serving nine months.
Mr. Green is survived by his widow, three sons, John A. of Lincoln, Neb.; Henry of Dumfries and Chris of Lewis township; and three daughters, Mrs. Mary Brandt of Alamo, Tex., Mrs. Martha Spetman of Dumfries and Mrs. Ella Plumer of Dumfries; and one sister, Mrs. Nicholas Kiersch of Mineola. Thirty-six grandchildren and twenty-one great-grandchildren also survive him.
Funeral services were held from the home at 10 a.m. today (Thursday) and burial was made in Plumer settlement cemetery near Dumfries. Rev. Hoff of Treynor conducted the services.
Page 1 of Mills County Tribune, published in Glenwood, Iowa, on Thursday, July 16th, 1925
http://millscounty.historyarchives.online/viewer?i=f&d=01011868-12311950&k="charles%20green"&m=between&ord=k1&fn=mills_county_tribune_usa_iowa_glenwood_19250716_english_1&df=1&dt=10&cid=3121
Mills Obituaries maintained by Karyn Techau.
WebBBS 4.33 Genealogy Modification Package by WebJourneymen