(Source: “As Time Goes By”, Odebolt, Iowa 1877-1977,
printed by The Odebolt Chronicle May, 1977, p.50)
Oliver Mackey was born in 1840 in Londonderry, Ireland, son of William and Elizabeth (Lindsay) Mackey. Before he was fourteen years of age he made up his mind to come to America and cast his fortune in the "land of the free and the home of the brave". With four pounds of English money he purchased his passage on an old-fashioned sailing vessel. History can tell strange stories and there is no stranger story than one which tells of the career of Oliver Mackey and thousands of other young men who came from foreign lands to this country under similar circumstances.
He worked in New York one year and saved enough money to go to Minnesota, where he homesteaded on a farm for two years and proved his claim. He at once sold it for seven hundred dollars and a drove of cattle and two years later he was in Postville, Iowa.
He was married by this time, 1856, only sixteen years of age, to Mary Love. They had one son John. His first wife Mary died in 1873.
In 1858 he bought 160 acres of land in Allamakee County (Iowa) and sold it in 1889 for nine thousand six hundred dollars and came to Sac County, Iowa and bought one hundred sixty acres in Clinton Township. By this time he had married Helen Mitchell (in 1874). They had three children: Mabel (Mrs. George Long); Edna (Mrs. Fox); and Mrs. Alta Downey. This second wife died in 1883. In 1886 Mr. Mackey married Laura Deering, who was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1867, daughter of Charles and Caroline Deering. Oliver and Laura Mackey were parents of four children; Ethel (Mrs. Arch Quirk); Leonard; Laura, who died at six months; and Leland.
(Source: “As Time Goes By”, Odebolt, Iowa 1877-1977,
printed by The Odebolt Chronicle May, 1977, p.50)
John Mandernach, Jr., son of John and Albertina (Saak) Mandernach, was born at Cedar Lake, Indiana, in 1852 and died at Odebolt in 1923. John married Mary Wagner, daughter of Ernest and Elizabeth Wagner, who was born at Crown Point, Indiana 1855 and died at Odebolt in 1934.
Less than one month after John and Mary were married in February of 1876, they came to Odebolt and settled on a farm in Richland Township purchased by John Mandernach, Sr. in 1875. John and Mary came from Indiana by train to Storm Lake, Iowa, the nearest railroad station. They shipped a team of horses and a cow by rail.
It is interesting to note how friends and relatives followed each other to these new frontiers. Dr. Groman, a personal friend of John Mandernach back in Indiana, came to Odebolt in 1878, as soon as he had finished his medical training. He often would borrow a horse from John to make his house calls.
These were the days of simple living and hard tasks.
In 1880 John and Mary purchased a farm in Richland Township two miles north of Odebolt, where they resided until their retirement, in 1903, when they built a new home in Odebolt, living the remainder of their days there.
John and Mary were parents of Flora (Mrs. John Kessler); George; Albert; Jose (Mrs. George Hix); Nora; Ernest; Earl; and Mabel.
Flora under Kessler history and Jose under Hix history.
George married Rose Hoefling, who were parents of Mae (Mrs. Magnus Craford); Ethel; and Robert, married Lee Jons and Maxine Rector.
Albert married Magdalena Hoefling, who were parents of Mildred (Mrs. Harry Iverson); Howard, married Louise Brucker; Glen, married Rebecca Bye; Florence (Mrs. Albert Herrig); Floyd, married Dorothy Richardson.
Ernest married Gertrude Hoefling.
Earl married Clara Godberson, who were parents of Raymond, married Irene Mahler; Dorothy (Mrs. Russel Anderson); and Earl, married Bonnie Murray.
(Source: “As Time Goes By”, Odebolt, Iowa 1877-1977,
printed by The Odebolt Chronicle May, 1977, p.51)
Joseph Mattes, born 1855, in Comanche, Clinton County, Iowa, son of Roman and Mary (Moore) Mattes, natives of Germany. They were born, reared and married in the father land and emigrated to America in 1854, settling in Comanche, where the father conducted a grocery business until 1861, when they moved to Lyons, Iowa. Roman and Mary were parents of Mrs. F.P. Motie; Mrs. B. Stoessenger; Mrs. George Keiser; John R.; and Joseph. Three who died in childhood are Roman; Helen and Gertrude.
Joseph came to Odebolt in 1879 and worked for Mr. Van Dusen, a hardware merchant. He then became a partner of J.H. Ketterer, the new firm purchasing the stock and good will of Van Dusen. In 1887 Mr. Mattes became the sole proprietor of the business.
He was elected a member of the legislature in 1900. In 1906 he was elected to the Iowa State Senate.
In 1879 he married Catharine Shelley of Lyons, Iowa. They were parents of Grace (Mrs. Joseph Young); Howard; George, married Isabel McCorkindale; and Hattie.
(Source: “As Time Goes By”, Odebolt, Iowa 1877-1977,
printed by The Odebolt Chronicle May, 1977, p.51)
John Mattes, born in Comanche, Iowa, son of Roman and Mary (Moore) Mattes (history under Joseph Mattes.)
In 1883 John married Mary Regina Hartman, born 1862 at Fulda, Indiana, who came to Iowa in 1873 with her parents. In 1875 they came to Carroll County where Mary and John were married. They lived all their married life in Odebolt. Their children were Barbara (Mrs. Edward Powers) and Frank.
Frank Mattes married Dorothy Hall and are parents of Barbara (Mrs. Robert Mason) and Sally (Mrs. Vernon Anderson).