Louis J. Palas Louis J. Palas was born on the 25th of July, 1875, and the place of his nativity was the fine farmstead on which he now resides, sections 29 and 30, Farmersburg township, where he is the owner of a splendidly improved and well ordered landed estate of two hundred and forty acres, besides which he holds in his possession a valuable tract of thirty acres of timber Iand, in Section 24, of the same township. This fine old homestead, known as the Stone Wall Farm, has been the stage of his vigorous and progressive operations as an agriculturist and stock-grower, and in these important industrial lines he has added to the prestige which his father had long enjoyed in the same field of enterprise. He gives special attention to the raising of Red Polled cattle and Berkshire swine, and has achieved not only marked success but also more than local reputation in this department of his farm operations. Mr. Palas is emphatically one of the liberal and progressive citizens native county, where he is a popular representative of an honored pioneer family, and his prominence and influence in connection with civic and business affairs are indicated measureably by the fact that he is a director of the Clayton County Telephone Company, the Garnavillo Insurance Association, and the Clayton County Stock Association, besides which he is treasurer of the Farmersburg Creamery Company and the St. Olaf Creamery Company, of which latter he was formerly president. He is serving as a member of the board of trustees of Farmersburg township, is a stalwart in the local camp of the Democratic party and both he and his wife are communicants of the Lutheran church at Farmersburg. Their home is an attractive modern residence with the most approved appointments and facilities, including an individual electric light system. The beautiful home is the acme of comfort and pleasing surroundings, and is further known as a center of hospitality. Mr. Palas was reared to manhood on the fine farm of which he is now the owner and is indebted to the public schools of his native county for his early educational training. Soon after attaining to his legal majority he purchased the old homestead farm, to the supervision and improvement of which he has since given his attention with all of zeal and enterprise, so that he stands forth as one of the essentially representative exponents of agricultural and live-stock industry in Clayton county. He is a son of John and Caroline (Foss) Palas, both natives of Germany. Upon coming to America, in 1851, the parents became pioneers of Clayton county, and later they came into possession of the farm now owned by the subject of this sketch, the father having reclaimed the same from the primitive wilds and having become one of the substantial, well-known and highly-honored citizens of Farmersburg township. John Palas passed forward to the life eternal in the year 1903, and his widow was summoned to eternal rest in 1910, both having been devoted communicants of the Lutheran church. Of their fourteen children all are living except two. On the 26th of February, 1901, was solemnize the marriage of Louis J. Palas to Miss Mary Lenth, who likewise was born and reared in this county and who is a daughter of Carl and Dorothea (Schmalfeld) Lenth, both natives of Germany and both numbered among the honored pioneers of Clayton county, where the father continued his association with agricultural pursuits until his death, which occurred in December, 1915. The widowed mother still resides on the old homestead and of the family of twelve children seven survive the honored father. The names and respective dates of birth of the four children of Mr. and Mrs. Palas are here indicated: Luther, May 22, 1904; Harley J., January 29, 1906; Iva C., April 22, 1908; and Sylvan L., August 10, 1910. source: History of Clayton
County, Iowa; From The Earliest Historical Times Down to
the Present; by Realto E. Price, Vol. II; page
317-318 |