DUFELMEIER, WILLIAM, one of the representative farmers of Cass County, is comfortably located at Beardstown where he is enjoying the fruits of a life of hard work and frugality. He was born in Hanover, Germany, May 7, 1848. His parents died when he was a child, and an aunt, who had come to Beardstown, Ill., sent him the money to join her, when he was seventeen years of age. Arriving in Cass County, he found employment among the farmers by the month, and worked in this manner for seven years. On March 21, 1872, he married Mary Meyer of Arenzville, Ill., and then rented land from his father-in-law for a few years. He then bought 120 acres of prairie land, and twenty acres of timber, four miles northwest of Arenzville. Moving on this, he improved the place, but on account of a succession of crop failures could scarcely keep up his interest on the money he had borrowed to make the purchase. However, his steadfast efforts brought about desirable results, and in time he had his land paid for and was making money. Burdened with the continued ill heal of his wife, however, he retired from the farm and moved to Beardstown, where she died in 1901, having had not children.

On November 14, 1901, Mr. Dufelmeier married (second) Sophia Broeker, born at Beardstown, June 15, 1868, and they have the following children: Marie, born Nov. 13, 1902; alma, born Jan. 16, 1906, and Paul and Clara, who died in infancy. After his second marriage, Mr. Dufelmeier returned to his farm and continued to improve it, but in 1911, once more came to Beardstown, renting his farm to others, and since then has remodeled his residence, which is one of the fine homes in the city.

Mr. Dufelmeier has had some interesting experiences during his life, and is a well informed man, although he had very little opportunity to attend school, and that only in Germany. In crossing the ocean, his ship took seven weeks and two days on the trip, and met with some very heavy weather, there being a storm which nearly wrecked it. When he arrived at Beardstown, in the fall of 1866, he had bur one cent left, but as he was a willing worker, that made but little difference to him, and he has lived to see the day when he is prosperous and highly respected in the land of his adoption. He belongs to the Lutheran church. A Republican, he has served as a school trustee for two years in the Arenzville Precinct. He has the satisfaction of being able to say that he has never had a law-suit nor any court trouble in his life.