William F. Reinecke has been
a resident of Clayton county since his childhood and
has here found in his maturer years ample opportunity
for the bending of his energies and ability to the
achievement of definite success and the winning of an
honorable name. He served three consecutive terms as
treasurer of Clayton county and since his retirement
he has been prominently and influentially identified
with banking interests in the county. He is now
cashier of the Strawberry Point State Bank, and has
been resourceful and progressive in the upbuilding of
the substantial business controlled by this
representative financial institution.
He is a son of Charles and
Frederica (Wagner) Reinecke, sterling citizens
concerning whom specific record is given on other
pages of this publication, so that a repetition of
the data is not demanded in this connection. He whose
name initiates this review made good use of the
advantages afforded in the public schools at Elkader,
including those of the high school, though he left
the same prior to graduation. As a youth he found
employment in the country printing office of his
father, and this association with newspaper work
proved an effective supplement to his educational
discipline. He continued his connection with his
father's printing and publishing enterprise until the
spring of 1898, when he formed a partnership with
Vilas L. Gilje, under the firm name of Gilje &
Reinecke, and they purchased the clothing stock and
business of J.K. Molumby, at Elkader. Mr Reinecke
continued to give his attention to this prosperous
business enterprise until 1904, when he sold his
interest to his partner, as he found insistent
demands upon his time and attention in the
administration of the affairs of the office of county
treasurer, to which he had been elected in the autumn
of 1902. The most effective voucher for the
efficiency and acceptability of his management of the
fiscal affairs of the county is that afforded in the
fact that he was re-elected county treasurer in 1903
and 1906, so that he served three consecutive terms,
his retirement being essentially a matter of his own
volition, as he declined again to become a candidate
for the office in 1908. In the autumn of that year he
was elected cashier of the Clayton County Bank at
Guttenberg, and on the 1st of December of the
following year he formed his present alliance as
vice-president and cashier of the Strawberry Point
State Bank. As a broad-minded and progressive citizen
of well fortified political convictions, Mr. Reinecke
has been influential in the councils of the
Democratic party in Clayton county and has given
effective service in behalf of the party cause.
He was reared in the faith
of the Lutheran church, and both he and his wife
maintain affiliation with the same the time-honored
Masonic fraternity he is identified with Strawberry
Point Lodge, Ancient Free & Accepted Masons. He
has received also the thirty-second degree of the
Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, in Iowa Consistory,
No. 2. He is affiliated also with the Knights of
Pythias and the Modern Woodmen of America.
May 3, 1897, recorded the
marriage of Mr. Reinecke to Miss Emma Scholz, who was
born and reared in this county and who is a daughter
of William H. Scholz, the subject of individual
mention on other pages of this work. Mr. and Mrs.
Reinecke have two children, Lorenz and Herold, whose
respective ages at the time of this writing, in 1916,
are seventeen and fifteen years.
source: History of
Clayton County, Iowa; From The Earliest Historical
Times Down to the Present; by Realto E. Price,
Vol. II; pg. 347-348
-OCR scanned by S. Ferrall
Note, conflict: this
biography gives his middle initial as F, but when
named in his father's bio, it is given as C.
