Scheidemantel, Theodore A. 1856 – 1951

SCHEIDEMANTEL

Posted By: Joy Moore (email)
Date: 4/27/2015 at 12:59:03

THEODORE A. SCHEIDEMANTEL.

Theodore A. Scheidemantel, who is one of the extensive landowners and prosperous farmers and stock-raisers of Winneshiek county and also controls important landed and financial interests in various parts of Oklahoma, was born on the old Scheidemantel homestead in Military township on the 20th of October, 1856. He is a representative of one of the oldest and most prominent pioneer families in this section of the state, being a son of Henry and Kunigunda Scheidemantel, of whom extended mention is made on another page in this work. The parents were natives of Bavaria, Germany, the father born on the 20th of October, 1820, and the mother on the 16th of June, 1832. In their family were eleven children: Eva J., whose birth occurred on the 18th of June, 1853; William, born January 7, 1855; Theodore A., of this review; Mary E., born October 9, 1858, Clemence, born on the 7th of December, 1860; Andrew H., born October 29, 1862; Caroline C, January 9, 1865; Henry J., January 25, 1867; Edward J., November 9, 1868; Joseph F., May 1, 1871; and Emilie M., born July 19, 1873.

Theodore A. Scheidemantel was reared upon the family homestead and throughout the period of his boyhood and youth assisted with the work of its cultivation, gaining in this way knowledge and experience in the details of farm operation which has proven invaluable to him in after life. In 1880 he left home and went to St. Paul, Minnesota, and thence to Minneapolis, where he became connected with the mercantile business as clerk with Engram & Company, wholesale dealers in dry goods. After remaining in this connection for about a year he went to Grafton, North Dakota, and there for two years engaged in the butcher business, building up a large and profitable trade before he disposed of his enterprise. When he did so, he turned his attention to the development of a fine farm of one hundred and sixty acres which he had taken up in Pembina county, North Dakota, a property which he afterward sold. Upon the death of his father he returned to Winneshiek county and when the estate was divided inherited two hundred and forty acres, known as the old McKinzie Hall farm. To this he has since added forty acres, making this a property of two hundred and eighty acres, practically all of which is under a high state of cultivation. Mr. Scheidemantel has also bought the old Carl Brouch place, consisting of one hundred and sixty acres on sections 13 and 14, Military township, and he gives a great deal of time and attention to the further development and improvement of these two farms, which are among the finest agricultural properties in the state. He engages in general farming and stock-raising and, being a reliable, farsighted and discriminating business man, has made both branches of his activities important and profitable. In addition to his extensive holdings in this county, he also has important landed and business interests in Oklahoma, having become interested in the development of that state in 1900, when he bought one hundred and sixty acres of land in Washita county at the time when the Choctow, Oklahoma & Gulf Railroad was constructed through that part of the state. He has gradually extended the scope of his interests, having been carried forward by his initiative spirit, his keen sense of business opportunity, his excellent administrative and organizing ability into important relations with financial affairs. In 1902 he organized in Canute, the Canute State Bank, of which he is now president and in which he owns a controlling interest, and he was also the leader in the founding of the German State Bank of Elk City, Oklahoma, an institution organized during the panic of 1907 with a capital stock of fifty thousand dollars. Mr. Scheidemantel is not now connected with that enterprise, having sold his stock in 1909. He assisted his brother Henry in organizing the Silver Springs Creamery Company and although they met with great opposition at the time, it was carried to a successful issue and our subject remained as general manager until success was assured.

Mr. Scheidemantel is a member of the Roman Catholic church and fraternally is connected with the Knights of Columbus and other organizations affiliated with his church. He is a democrat in his political views and a stanch supporter of the party's principles, although he never seeks public office for himself. A man of broad views, modern ideas and progressive spirit, he has left and is still leaving the impress of his work and personality upon the agricultural development of Winneshiek county and upon the financial history of that section of Oklahoma in which he is active, and he is in all respects a man of action and initiative—valuable as a factor in the promotion of the growth and advancement of the community in which he has spent his entire life.

Source: History of Winneshiek County, Iowa Vol. II Chicago the S. J. Clark Publishing Company 1913

St. Francis de Sales cemetery gravestone
 

Winneshiek Biographies maintained by Jeff Getchell.
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