Charles F. Schramm

As printed in 1905

CHARLES F. SCHRAMM.

CnAR[,ES F. ScHR.vM.M. Starting out to make his own living at the age of thirteen years. is now, a half century later, one of the most prosperous and prominent merchants of Burlington, having since 1863 been connected with the large dry-goods business, of which, conducted under the name of the Schramm & Schmieg Drygoods Company, he is the vice-president. A large ])percentage of the leading business men of this city are of German birth, and among those whose lifework has been creditable alike to the land of their birth and the land of their ado]>tion, Mr. Schramm is foremost.

native of Bavaria, Germany, he was born in 1823. and when eleven years of age, accompanied his parents, J. C. and Margaret Barbara (Kiesling) Schranun. to

America. They were also natives of the Fatherland, and were there reared and married. In 1837 they started with their family for the New World, crossing the ocean in a sailing vessel, which was seventy-seven days in making the voyage. Mr. Schramm, as a member of the Prussian army, had served in the famous battle of Jena, in 1806. He followed both farming and merchandizing, and after emigrating to the United States engaged in the grocery business in Circleville, Ohio. Later he came to Burlington, arriving on the 9th of May, 1849. He died the following day of cholera, being at that time sixty-seven years of age. His wife survived him until 1850, when she, too, died of cholera. A sister of Qiarles F. Schramm, Mrs. IMargaret Teuscher, resides in Burlington. Her husband, who was at one time engaged in the retail grocery business, and served as county treasurer of Des Moines county, is now living retired in Burlington.

Charles F. Schramm had no opportunity to attend school after leaving the Fatherland, and the education he has acquired, making him a well-informed man, has been gained through reading, observation, and experience. When thirteen years of age he began serving as clerk in the postoffice at Circleville, Ohio, and later engaged in clerking in the dry-goods store of S. & B. Olds, of that city, with whom he remained until 1843, when he came to Burlington, and accepted a position as salesman with the firm of Postelwaite & Craigen, drygoods merchants. He afterward went to Farmington, Van Buren county, where he clerked for his brother, George Schramm, who is now living retired in Des Moines, at the advanced age of ninety years. Charles Schramm remained in Farmington until

1853, when he returned to Burlington, and entered mercantile life on his own account with J. S. Schramm as a partner, this continuing until 1859. Having lost his wife and three children within a Aear, he went to Texas, where for one year he lived the open life of the plains for the benefit of his own health. Returning to Iowa, he joined Mr. Schmieg, in 1863, in the establishment of the business which has since had a continuous existence.

During the period between 1861 and 1862, Mr. Schramm spent two months with the Second Iowa Regiment as clerk to J. T. Stewart, a lieutenant at Bird's Point, Ky., and Cairo, Ill. He was also one month with the Seventh Iowa Regiment as sutler, and with J. R. Nelson as a clerk.

[This passage is too damaged in the scanned book to reproduce. See the original book.]

As printed in Biographical review of Des Moines County, Iowa (1905). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.