Biography E.F. Potratz, Sumner, Bremer Co., Iowa
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	Transcribed by Barb Braun, February 12, 2000.  
	Questions, please Email: seawave8@hotmail.com

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This material was obtained from a book entitled: The History of Bremer County, Iowa.  
Published in 1914. The book is located at the Waverly Public Library, Waverly, Iowa.
 
BIOGRAPHY
________

E. F. POTRATZ.


   E. F. Potratz, for the past twenty-four years prominently connected with commercial 
interests of Sumner as a successful shoe merchant, was born in Pomerania, Germany, 
February 12, 1860.  He is a son of August Potratz, a shepherd by occupation, who 
lived and died in the fatherland. 

   When E. F. Potratz was three years of age his parents moved to Posen, one mile 
from the Russian line, near Inowratzlaw, and seven years later they returned to 
Pomerania, settling in Redestow, Kreis Lauenburg.  After laying aside his books 
their son learned the shoemaker's trade and he followed it successfully in various 
parts of the empire untill 1881, when he entered the German army, enlisting in 
Regiment No. 17, Heavy Field Artillery.  He was a canoneer at Colberg, on the 
Baltic sea, where his father had been stationed through his period of enlistment.  
E. F. Potratz left the army in 1884 and in the following year emigrated to the 
United States, joining his mother and two brothers who were at that time living 
in Sumner.  In this city he secured a position as shoe repairer for Wynhoff & 
Wahlmann and he afterward rented a room in their store and followed his trade 
for four years.  At the end of that time he opened his own store and this he 
has since conducted, each year bringing him increased success and prominence.  
He has an up-to-date shoe shop and keeps a well assorted stock of goods, 
supplying the demands of a discriminating and representative trade.  There 

   In 1884, in Germany, Mr. Potratz married Miss Martha Dallmann, who was born 
in Pomerania, and they have become the parents of nine children:  Bertha, the 
wife of A. W. Laabs, of Fredericsburg, Iowa; Minnie, who married Otto Kretzschmar, 
of Sartoria, Buffalo county, Nebraska; Annie, the wife of Oliver Capper, of sumner; 
Clara, who married in Davenport, John Mangin, of Erhardt, Marie and Ruth, at home.  
The wife and children are members of the German Evangelical Lutheran church.  
Mr. Potratz is well known in Sumner, where his quarter of a century of close 
connection with mercantile interest has brought him a gratifying reputation for 
integrity and straightforward dealing. 

	This material was obtained from a book entitled: The History of Bremer County, Iowa.  
Published in 1914. The book is located at the Waverly Public Library, Waverly, Iowa. 
Transcribed by Barb Braun, February 12, 2000. Any questions, Email:  seawave8@hotmail.com