Will County IL Archives Biographies.....Balgeman, Ernest W 
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/il/ilfiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Deb Haines ddhaines@gmail.com December 3, 2007, 5:31 am

Author: Past & Present, 1907

Ernest W. Balgeman is president of the Crete State Bank and has laid out and 
improved a subdivision to the city which has been an important element in its 
growth and development. A native son of Illinois, he displays the enterprise 
and alertness which have been special elements in the upbuilding of the state. 
His birth occurred in Elmhurst, DuPage county, in 1874, and he comes of German 
lineage. His father, Ernest Balgeman, was born in Hanover, Germany, and is now 
residing in Elmhurst at the age of fifty-six years. He came to the United 
States in 1854 in company with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Fred Balgeman, who 
were pioneer farming people of DuPage county, and established their home at 
Elmhurst. Ernest Balgeman had common school advantages and was reared to farm 
life, early becoming familiar with, the duties and labors that fall to the lot 
of the agriculturist. Since 1873 he has been engaged in business as a 
contractor and builder with headquarters at Elmhurst and has met with 
gratifying success. He holds membership in the German Lutheran church, of 
which he is an active worker, and in which he has long served in official 
capacity. He has always voted the republican ticket and has been a member of 
the village board of Elmhurst. He married Maria Hoeppner, who was born in 
Mecklenburg, Germany, and is now living at the age of fifty-three years. She 
was brought to the United States by her parents when about five years of age, 
the family home being established on a farm in DuPage county. She, too, holds 
membership in the German Lutheran church. By her marriage she has become the 
mother of nine children: Ernest W.; Paul, deceased; Emil, cashier of the 
Citizens State' Bank at Elmhurst; Emma, the wife of Theodore Hied, an artisan 
of Elmhurst; Edwin, who is with his father in business; Emmerich, assistant 
cashier of the Citizens State Bank of Elmhurst; Ewald, who is with the Corn 
Exchange National Bank of Chicago; Ellen and Edna, at home. While spending his 
boyhood days in his parents' home in Elmhurst Ernest W. Balgeman was a student 
in the common and high schools of that village and afterward learned 
carpentering. In 1899 he went to Fulda, Minnesota, where he engaged in 
contracting and in the real estate business, there remaining until 1903, when 
he removed to Chicago Heights, where he continued to operate in real estate, 
handling Minnesota farm lands. In 1904, in connection with William Koelling, 
he organized the Crete State Bank, of which he became president. He also 
engages in the real estate business and in the summer of 1906 he bought thirty-
two acres of land adjoining Crete on the south. He then laid out a subdivision 
to the town, which he called the Enterprise subdivision of Crete. These lots 
are now being sold and the district is being well improved in a most 
satisfactory manner. Mr. Balgeman is also a member of the department store of 
H. F. Ruhe & Company, of Crete, and is the owner of the building in which the 
business is carried on. He is now vice president of and holds the controlling 
interest in the Citizens State Bank of Elmhurst and is also the owner of farm 
lands in Minnesota. He thus has many and varied investments in business 
enterprises and shows a keen disposition for successful management. On the 
29th of January, 1900, Mr. Balgeman was married to Miss Fredericka Thurnan, 
who was born at Eagle Lake, in Washington township, in 1877, and is a daughter 
of an early settler of that locality. Mr. and Mrs. Balgeman attend the German 
Lutheran church. In polities he is an ardent republican, with firm faith in 
the principles of the party, yet has never sought or desired political 
preferment. The consensus of public opinion regarding him is altogether 
favorable and the high regard in which he is uniformly held comes as a tribute 
to his business and personal worth. 

Additional Comments:
Past and Present of Will County, Illinois, by W. W. Stevens, President of the 
Will County Pioneers Association. Chicago: The S. J. Clarke Publishing 
Company, 1907.

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/il/will/bios/balgeman1905nbs.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/ilfiles/

File size: 4.6 Kb