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A Narrative History
of
The People of Iowa
with
SPECIAL TREATMENT OF THEIR CHIEF ENTERPRISES IN
EDUCATION, RELIGION, VALOR, INDUSTRY,
BUSINESS, ETC.
by
EDGAR RUBEY HARLAN, LL. B., A. M.
Curator of the
Historical, Memorial and Art Department of Iowa
Volume IV
THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY, Inc.
Chicago and New York
1931
BENJAMIN F. KAUFFMAN. In the lexicon of business men there is to be found
no such word as luck, for experience has taught them most convincingly that
success is the result of persistent application of intelligent methods that
require time for their proper development. To executive ability and organizing
sense must be added public confidence and a thorough knowledge of the field
to be covered, which latter can be gained only by gradual and steady
approaches. In any event, none would intimate that Benjamin F. Kauffman, president of
the Bankers Trust Company of Des Moines, owes his distinction to any
adventitious aid. His present enviable position is due to thrift, energy, sterling
honesty and intimate acquaintance with business methods.
Mr. Kauffman was born at Des Moines, in 1874, and is a son of Benjamin F.
and Anna O. (Le Bosquet) Kauffman. His paternal grandfather was Daniel W.
Kauffman, who was born in Pennsylvania, where he was engaged in farming for some
years in Lancaster County, but in later life came to Van Buren County, Iowa,
and eventually became a nurseryman at Keosauqua. On the maternal side Mr.
Kauffman's grandfather was Henry Le Bosquet, who was born in Virginia, where he
was engaged in the grocery business, and finally came to Iowa, where he
spent the remainder of his life in retirement.
Benjamin F. Kauffman, the elder, was born on a farm in Lancaster County,
Pennsylvania, in 1846, and was still a child when brought by his parents to
Iowa, where he secured his early education in public schools. Later he attended
the University of Iowa, from which he received the degree of Bachelor of
Laws, graduating with the first law class from that institution. He then settled
down to practice at Des Moines, where he had a large and representative
clientele up to the time of his death in 1893, when he was one of the leaders of
his calling in the city. He was a member of the Polk County Bar Association,
the Iowa State Bar Association and the American Bar Association, was a
Republican in his political allegiance, and was an active member of the First
Methodist Church. Mr. Kauffman married Miss Anna O. Le Bosquet, who was born in
Virginia, in 1847, and died in 1907. They became the parents of four
children: Benjamin F., of this review; Alice, who became the wife of H. H. Polk;
Mary, the wife of Harold M. Bowman, son of Major Bowman, of the famous Des
Moines pioneer family of that name; and Ray B., whose death occurred in 1908.
Benjamin F. Kauffman, the younger, attended the public schools of Des Moines
and Amherst College, at the latter of which one of his fellow students was
ex-President Coolidge. Graduating with the degree of Bachelor of Arts in
1896, he spent the next three years in the employ of the Des Moines Savings Bank.
He next embarked on his own account, and during the next eighteen years
built up a large and substantial business and established himself as a shrewd,
resourceful business man of high integrity and moral worth. In 1917 Mr.
Kauffman became the founder of the Bankers Trust Company, of which he has since
been president, and which has also taken its place among Des Moines'
progressive and conservative institutions, located at the corner of Sixth and Locust
streets. Mr. Kauffman occupies a position of recognized prominence in the
business and financial world, and is a member of the directorates of the Des
Moines Gas Company, the Northwest Bell Telephone Company and the Equitable Life
Insurance Company of Iowa. Politically he is a Republican. Mr. Kauffman is
affiliated with St. Paul's Episcopal Church, is a Mason and Shriner, a member
of the Des Moines Club and the Wakonda Club, and has been a member of the
Greater Des Moines Committee for twenty years and its president twice. He also
belongs to the Commercial Club, of which he has been president. During the
World war he served as chairman of all the Liberty Loan drives except the
first, was president of the first Red Cross Chapter prior to the entrance of the
United States in the war, and chairman of all the Red Cross drives.
In 1900 Mr. Kauffman was united in marriage with Miss Mell Howell, of Des
Moines, Iowa, a daughter of J. W. Howell, a member of the firm of Warfield,
Pratt and Howell Grocery Company of Des Moines, and who is still active in the
business. To this union there have been born three children: John H. was
educated at Lake Forest Academy, Lake Forest, Illinois, and the University of
California, and is now a horticulturist of Florida, where he is engaged in the
raising of fruits and flowers. He married Alice D. Shaw, and they have two
sons, John Howell, Jr., and Franklin Darrow. Ray Franklin, educated at Culver
(Indiana) Military Academy and the University of Iowa, is now connected with
the firm of Warfield, Pratt and Howell Grocery Company. Anna Malvina, a
graduate of Vassar College, class of 1928, was married in June, 1929, to Edwin
T. Meredith, Jr., a son of the late Hon. Edwin T. Meredith, one of Iowa's great
leaders, and former United States commissioner of agriculture.
Posted at this site with Debbie's permission
http://iagenweb.org/history/index.htm
*Check your facts, don't know how accurate.
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