August G. Meiners

One of the most active and enterprising young men in public life in Allamakee county is August G. Meiners, now in the second term of his able service as clerk of the district court., He is a native son of Iowa, born in Union City township, Allamakee county, February 22, 1822, a son of J. Gerhard Meiners, born in Prussia, Germany, in 1836. The father grew to manhood in his native country and there married, following his occupation of farming in Prussia and continuing his agricultural pursuits after his arrival in America. He crossed the Atlantic in 1868 and came direct to Iowa, making a permanent location in Union City township. He here purchased a tract of raw land and opened up a farm, later adding to his holdings until he now owns two hundred and eighty acres, well improved and equipped in every particular. He there reared his family of ten children and still resides upon the homestead. He has survived his wife since 1891.

August G. Meiners grew up on his father’s farm and acquired his elementary education in the common schools of Union City township. He was later for two years a student in a German Evangelical school in Minnesota and afterwards attended a business college for two years and supplemented this by a year in the State Normal School at Cedar Falls and during summer school in the State University at Iowa City. He early turned his attention to teaching and for ten years continued in this occupation, teaching in rural schools, as principal of graded schools and for three years as principal of the Waukon Business College. In 1910 he was nominated and elected clerk of the district court and after serving one term of two years was in 1912 reelected without opposition. He is still serving and is discharging his important duties in an able, conscientious and far-sighted way.

Mr. Meiners is still greatly interested in educational affairs and does all that he can to promote public educational advancement. He was one of the founders of the Farmers Institute and served for two terms as secretary of the organization. Fraternally he is connected with the Knights of Pythias and the Modern Woodmen of America. He is well known in Allamakee county, where he was born, reared and educated and where he has been identified with important phases of public life since beginning his active career. He has never been found faithless to a trust and is upright, straightforward and honorable in all things, a native son of whom the county has every reason to be proud.

-source: Past & Present of Allamakee County; by Ellery M. Hancock; S. J. Clarke Pub. Co.; 1913
-transcribed by Diana Diedrich

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