IAGenWeb Project - Clayton co.

Henry Palas

Henry Palas is to be designated with all consistency as one of the representative farmers and popular and influential citizens of his native country and township, and is the owner of a well improved landed estate of two hundred and eighteen acres, eligibly situation in Monona township and devoted to well ordered operation along the lines of diversified agriculture and the raising of high-grade live-stock. The major part of this fine farm was purchased by Mr. Palas in 1896, when he was a young man of twenty- five years, and to the original tract of one hundred and ninety-eight acres he added by the subsequent purchase of a contiguous tract of twenty acres. He has been specially successful in the raising of Angus cattle, of which he keeps an average of about fifty head, and in the raising of good grades of swine, of which he has about one hundred head at the time of this writing, in the summer of 1916.

Mr. Palas is a stockholder of the Luana Savings Bank, in the Farmers’ Co-operative Stock Company and the Farmers’ Co-operative Creamery Co. at Luana, and also in the Town Hall Association of Luana. He is unfaltering in his allegiance to the Democratic party, is well fortified in his opinions concerning matters of public import, is serving as president of the school board of his district and is giving characteristically effective administration in the office of township trustee, both he and his wife being communicants and liberal supporters of the German Lutheran church at Luana, from which village their attractive farm home receives service on rural mail route No. 1.

Of the parents of Mr. Palas — John and Caroline (Voss) Palas — honored pioneers of Clayton county, adequate mention is made on other pages of this work, in the sketch dedicated to their son, Arthur Palas.

Henry Palas, the immediate subject of this review, was born in Farmersburg township, on the 21st of November, 1871, and after having profited fully by the advantages afforded in the public schools of the county he continued to be associated in the work and management of his father’s farm until he had attained to the age of twenty-five years, when, as previously noted, he purchased his present farm, to the successful operation of which he has since given his close attention and upon which he has made many high-grade improvements, so that the place is one of the model rural homesteads of Clayton county.

On the 25th of February, 1898, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Palas to Miss Emma Buckmann, who was born in Farmersburg township, on the 23d of October, 1876, a daughter of John and Frederica (Otting) Buckmann, both natives of Germany. John Buckmann was a child of three years at the time of his parents’ immigration to America, and after residing for a time in the city of Cleveland, Ohio, the family came to Clayton county and settled in Read township. Mr. Buckmann and his wife still reside on their old homestead farm, in Farmsburg township, where their daughter Emma, Mrs. Palas, was reared to adult age, her educational advantages having included those afforded in the village schools at National.

Mr. and Mrs. Palas became the parents of eight children, all of whom remain at the parental home save Lloyd, who was the fourth in order of birth and who died at the age of five years. The name of the children who remain members of the ideal home circle are here noted in the respective order of birth: Arthur, Herbert, Ella, Leroy, Henry, Helen and Margaret.

-source: History of Clayton County, Iowa; From The Earliest Historical Times Down to the Present; by Realto E. Price, Vol. II; page 316-317
-OCR scanned by Sharyl Ferrall

 

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