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 JOHN M. SCHILTZ. The high awards that are attainable in fortune, character and influence through a life of industry, guided and regulated by a sense of moral obligation, are illustrated in the career of John M. Schiltz, of Des Moines, manager of the J. H. Cownie Company, manufacturers of gloves and clothing. With no extraordinary endowment of faculty, unaided by inheritance or friendly support, he was content to enter into the business life which a rising community offered in a humble station and to follow up the opportunities that opened before him with steadiness and industry, gaining, step by step, the rare fruits of well directed enterprise, until he finds himself in a position of recognized importance among his fellows. Mr. Schiltz was born in Greene County, Iowa, December 4, 1881, and is a son of Michael and Catherine (Weis) Schiltz. Peter Schiltz, his paternal grandfather, was born in Luxemburg, Germany, and was a young married man when he immigrated to the United States and became a pioneer settler of Bellevue, Jackson County, where his industrious labors brought him the ownership of a farm. Michael L. Schiltz was born at Bellevue, Iowa, where he grew up on his father's farm and received his education in the rural schools during the short winter terms, while assisting in the farm work during the rest of the year. When he reached his majority he branched out for himself and purchased land at six dollars per acre, which he acquired on time payments. A man of great industry, he acquired two valuable properties in Kossuth County, Iowa, which he operated with success until within a few years of his death, when he retired and settled at Bancroft, where his death occurred. He was a member of the Catholic Church and a Democrat in his political views. Mr. Schiltz married Catherine Weis, who was born in Luxemburg, and first came to the United States with her brother after the death of their parents. She remained here for three months and then returned to her native land, but eventually came again to America and settled in Iowa, where she met and married Mr. Schiltz, by whom she had nine children, of whom six are living, John M. being the eldest. She survives her husband and is a resident of Bancroft. It is evident that Mr. Schiltz came of industrious and thrifty stock, and the influences of his parents and the home environment in which he grew up were calculated to discipline him in these virtues, which first and last are the greatest insurance of success. During his boyhood he attended a little country school in the vicinity of his father's farm. He worked on the farm with his father and later for himself until he was twenty-three. He then attended Drake College for six months, after which he returned to Bancroft and for the next six months was employed in the general store o Kennedy Brothers. With a view to entering the business world, he then took a six-month course in shorthand and bookkeeping, and in 1903 entered the employ of the J. H. Cownie Company in the capacity of stenographer, at a salary of thirty dollars a month. He has remained with this concern to the present, and for several years was vice president, becoming manager and one of the owners at the time the company was incorporated. The company manufactures sheep-lined clothing, leather garments, both for sport and work, overcoats and mackinaws, and work shirts and work pants. Forty-four salesmen are scattered over thirty-four states, and 125 people are employed in the large and modern plant at Des Moines. The company's products meet with a ready and consistent sale all over the country, and much of its success is due to the ability and energy of Mr. Schiltz, who entered the business at a time when he was three hundred dollars in debt, and who is now one of the substantial men of the community, honored and respected in business circles. He is a member of Saint Augustine's Catholic Church, the Knights of Columbus and the Des Moines Club. His hobby is the raising of flowers and gardening at his beautiful home on Thirty-seventh Street. On June 15, 1910, Mr. Schiltz married Miss Nell Grace, who was born in Adair, Iowa, daughter of Michael and Mary Elizabeth (O'Neal) Grace. Her father was born in Canada and her mother in Ireland, and both are now deceased. To Mr. and Mrs. Schiltz were born two daughters and a son: Mary Elizabeth, born in 1911, who graduated from Saint Joseph's Academy in the spring of 1929; John Michael, born in 1913, who is attending Des Moines University; and Catherine, born in 1915, who is attending Saint Augustine's School. All the implications complimentary of character, application and honest effort contained in the phrase "self-made man" belong in full measure to Mr. Schiltz. Hard work with him has been a pleasure at all times in his life, even while he was on the farm. After he joined the business of J. H. Cownie Company he never neglected an opportunity or chance to improve himself. For a long period of years it was his habit after the day's regular routine to put in several nights a week and frequently Sundays, not only to do something necessary but as a means of broadening his own diversified knowledge of the business and increasing his experience in business routine in general. Long ago he won from his superiors the tribute of being one of the most loyal and trusted employes of the company, and that loyalty has carried over into his relations as an executive, and he has shown a rare capacity for transferring some of the same qualities to his subordinates. To his material success must be added a high degree of personal satisfaction that enables him to justify and find pleasure in that period of eight or ten years when he was at his post of duty four or five nights a week and every Sunday, grounding himself in the details of the business and preparing himself for the bigger and more important responsibilities that have come to him. Debbie Clough Gerischer Iowa History Project _http://iagenweb.org/history/_ (http://iagenweb.org/history/) Scott County, Iowa _http://www.celticcousins.net/scott/index.htm_ (http://www.celticcousins.net/scott/index.htm) **************A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy steps! 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