Franklin County IA Archives Biographies.....Lemke, Louis September 5, 1858 - 
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Author: A HISTORY OF CLAY AND NORMAN COUNTIES, MN, VOL. 2, B. F. Bowen and Company, 1918

      Louis Lemke, one of the most substantial farmers of Clay county and
proprietor of all of section 31 of Elkton township, the seat of his pleasant
home just north of the village of Baker, is a native of Germany, but has been a
resident of this country since he was fourteen years of age. He was born on
September 5, 1858, son of Carl and Christina (Blomk) Lemke, both natives of that
same country, who came to the United States in 1872 with their family and
settled on a farm in the vicinity of Chicago, in Cook county, Illinois, where
the father spent his last days. His widow died at the home of one of her sons in
Charleton county, Minnesota. Carl Lemke and his wife were the parents of three
sons, the subject of this sketch having two brothers, John Lemke, now a resident
of Martin county, this state, and August Lemke, of Nebraska.

      As noted above, Louis Lemke was fourteen years of age when he came to this
country with his parents in 1872 and for nineteen years thereafter he made his
home in Cook county, Illinois, engaged in farming. In 1892 he moved from
Illinois to Iowa and located on a farm in Franklin county, that state, where he
remained for eighteen years and where he developed a fine farm of one hundred
sixty acres. In 1909, Mr. Lemke disposed of his interests in Iowa and came up to
Minnesota, locating on a farm just north of Baker, where he is now living and
where he and his family are very comfortably situated. Mr. Lemke owns the whole
of section 31 in Elkton township and has improved the place in fine shape,
having erected an entirely new set of farm buildings there since taking
possession of the same, a hen-house being the only structure of the old set of
buildings remaining. In addition to his general grain farming, Mr. Lemke has for
some time given considerable attention to the raising of potatoes and has done
much to encourage the cultivation of that crop in that neighborhood.

      In 1881 Louis Lemke was united in marriage to Sophia Possehl, a sister of
H. C. Possehl, a biographical sketch of whom is presented elsewhere in this
volume, and to this union have been born fourteen children, all of whom are
living, namely: Fred, who lives in Franklin county, Iowa; Amanda, who married
Fred Fahrmann and is living in Elmwood township; Minnie, wife of Louis Lenthe,
of Elkton township; Herman, who is at home; Eddie, also at home; Martha, wife of
George Meyer, of Franklin county, Iowa; Anna, wife of Carl Carr, of Elkton
township; and Edna, Louie, Alvin, Arthur, Albert, Melinda and Lillie, who are at
home. The Lemkes are members of the German Evangelical Lutheran church at Sabin
and take a proper interest in church work, as well as in the general good works
and social activities of the community in which they live, helpful in promoting
all agencies having to do with the advancement of the common welfare thereabout.

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