NEGenWeb Project
Hall County
EDWARD BOLTZ. - In meeting the representative and substantial men of Hall County who came here as early settlers, much that is interesting and historically instructive is learned from the recital of their experiences. Very few of them came here with any considerable amount of capital, and their present state of comfortable independence is a result of their own industry, prudence and good judgment. Edward Boltz, one of the county's big feeders of cattle may be cited as an example.

Edward Boltz was born in Holstein, Germany, June 22, 1870, the son of Claus and Johanna Boltz, both of whom were natives of the same country. They came to the United States with two children, in May, 1873, having incurred a debt of $200 in order to make the voyage. The father located in Hall County, Nebraska, on Schimmer's Lake, near Grand Island, where he engaged in farming until his accidental death, which was occasioned by a runaway team of horses. He was then forty-five years of age and the father of nine children, the eldest being seventeen years old and the youngest aged but eighteen months. This calamity fell heavily on the mother and during the following years when pioneer hardships added to her troubles, all her resources of strength, cheerfulness and frugality were heavily taxed. Edward Boltz in recalling those times makes mention of the great snowstorm in the winter of 1888. He was eighteen years old at the time and when the storm assumed violence, started some distance away to get his brothers and sisters who were in he schoolhouse. Fortunately on the return he found a fence and only by following that, hand over hand, was he able to bring the little ones home safely. The mother survived to the age of sixty-four years.

Edward Boltz has always been a farmer and more or less interested in stock. He now owns three hundred and sixty acres of fine meadow land, for some of which he paid $38 and (sic) acre. He has placed fine farm improvements here. For many years he has been an extensive feeder and now averages three cars of cattle annually and fifty head of hogs. All the horses he raises find a ready market. Mr. Boltz has experienced some hard times and would be sorry indeed to see a recurrence of the furious storms that once swept over this section of the country within his memory, or the return of such a devastating plague as the grasshoppers.

In 1897 Mr. Boltz married Miss Minnie Nubert. Her parents were residents of Hall County where her father died at the age of sixty-four years and her mother when seventy years of age. Mr. and Mrs. Boltz have seven children: Mrs. Freda Gulzow, who lives on a farm in Kimball County, Nebraska; Mrs. Emma Mattisen, who resides on a farm near Overton, Nebraska; and Bertha, Amelia, Walter, Freddie and Gladys, all of whom are at home. The children have had school advantages and some of them have special talents. Mr. Boltz belongs to the South German societies and to the American Order of United Workmen. He is not particularly active in politics but occasionally has served in public office, for a number of years being especially efficient as supervisor of roads.

[Transcriber's note: "Freda" is more likely "Frieda", "Nubert" should be "Neubert", "Mattison" should be "Matthiesen".]

Transcribed by Larry Coates