GREEN, Charles

GREEN, BAUER, PLUMER, DUMFRIES, BRANDT, SPETMAN, KIERSCH

Posted By: Karyn - Volunteer
Date: 6/29/2026 at 09:32:08

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

Transcribed by Dave Dunston