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LOUIS LEHMAN

Among the native sons of Pleasant Valley township, Fayette county, who have benefited alike himself and his neighbors through his persistent application to worthy lines of endeavor is Louis Lehman, who was born in 1864 on the farm he now occupies and owns. He has an excellent and honored ancestry, being the son of Benjamin and Elizabeth (Lehman) Lehman, both born in Switzerland where they grew to maturity and were educated and came to America in 1852. They penetrated to the interior and located southeast of Elgin, Pleasant Valley township, Fayette county, Iowa, on a farm of one hundred and seventy-three acres on which they spent the rest of their lives, making most of the improvements on the same, erecting the buildings and there reared their family, Mr. Lehman engaged in general farming and stock raising and was very successful. To Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Lehman nine children were born.

Louis Lehman, of this review, was educated in the public schools of his native community, working on the home farm during the summer months, remaining under his parental roof until he was twenty-one years of age. After reaching his majority he began farming for himself near Clermont, this county, which he continued for several years and got a good start. Believing that larger opportunities existed in the newer state of South Dakota, he moved there and purchased one hundred and sixty acres and engaged in farming for two years; then he returned to Lyon County, Iowa, in 1894, where he rented land. In 1903 he returned to Fayette county and bought the old homestead, consisting of one hundred and seventy-three acres, which he has so skillfully tilled and carefully managed that it has retained its original fertility and has yielded abundant harvests from year to year. Besides general farming, Mr. Lehman is a successful breeder of Shorthorn cattle, which he has been dealing in for several years.

Mr. Lehman was married in 1886 to Louise Muehlethaler, the daughter of an excellent old family, and this union has resulted in the birth of the following children; Cornelia, Max, Clara, Eva, Louis.

Fraternally, Mr. Lehman is a member of the Yeoman lodge, and, politically, he is a Democrat, but he is too deeply engrossed in his business affairs to devote much time to political matters, though he is always ready to support any measure that has for its object the up-building of his community.

~transcribed for the Fayette Co IAGenWeb Project by Chuck Taylor