Will County IL Archives Biographies.....Koelling, William F 
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Deb Haines http://www.rootsweb.com/~archreg/vols/00003.html#0000719 February 6, 2008, 3:56 am

Author: Past and Present of Will County, IL; 1907

William F. Koelling, cashier of the Crete State Bank, in which connection he 
has gained a creditable position in financial circles, although one of the 
younger business men of the town, was born in Monee township in 1877. His 
father, Ernest Koelling, was a native of Germany and is now living in Chicago 
Heights at the age of sixty years. He came to the United States in 1857, 
settling in Monee township, Will county, where his parents purchased a farm. 
He was reared upon the old family homestead there and attended the country 
schools. Throughout his active business life he carried on the work of tilling 
the soil and after he had spent sometime in this county he rented a farm in 
Washington township, while in 1886 he removed to a farm in Crete township. 
There he resided until 1901, when, he retired from active business life, 
making his home in Chicago Heights. He was practical and enterprising in all 
that he did and thus won a goodly measure of success as an agriculturist, 
acquiring a handsome competence that now enables him to live retired from 
further labors. He belongs to the Lutheran church and was a democrat in 
political faith until 1904, when he cast his ballot for Theodore Roosevelt. 
His wife, who bore the maiden name of Lizzie Wedel, was born in Germany and is 
now fifty-six years of age. She came to the United States in 1875 and after 
living for one year in Chicago she was married in 1876 to Ernest Koelling. 
She, too, is a member of the Lutheran church. They have one son and four 
daughters: William F.; Louise; Anna; Emma; and Alvina. The daughter Emma is 
the wife of George Merker, who is engaged in the ice business at Chicago 
Heights. William F. Koelling was reared upon a farm and attended the district 
schools. He spent a year in a Chicago business college to further equip 
himself for life's practical duties and upon leaving the farm in 1900 he 
accepted a position in a grain office at Chicago Heights, where he remained 
for year. He was afterward for two years with a lumber firm at that place, on 
the expiration of which period he entered the real estate office of Ernest W. 
Balgeman of Chicago Heights, and in 1904 they organized the Crete State Bank 
with a capital stock of twenty-five thousand dollars, which was later 
increased to fifty thousand. Mr. Balgeman is the president, with H. C. 
Wehmhoefer as vice president and William F. Koelling as cashier. The bank has 
done an excellent business from the start and its deposits have reached one 
hundred thousand dollars. They own a beautiful bank building, a one-story 
structure with a stone front, built in Grecian style of architecture and 
supplied with with modern fixtures. Mr. Koelling is a member of the American 
Bankers' Association and of the Illinois Bankers' Association, and has shown 
excellent business discernment in the control of the institution which is now 
under his management. In 1903 occurred the marriage of William F. Koelling and 
Miss Mary Luecke, who was born in Washington township, Will county, in 1877, 
and is a daughter of Fred and Frederika Luecke, who came to the United States 
in an early day, settling on a farm in Washington township, her father 
becoming one of the successful agriculturists of that locality. He died in 
1883, while his widow still resides in Crete. Mr. and Mrs. Koelling have two 
children: Arthur Howard, who was born August 20, 1904; and Mabel Alice, born 
December 11, 1906. The parents are members of the German Lutheran church. Mr. 
Koelling is a republican who is now serving as treasurer of the village. He is 
one of the men of enterprise and business activity who are doing much for the 
village in which he is located and he has become popular in both business and 
social circles. 

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

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