NORTHWESTERN IOWA ITS HISTORY AND TRADITION VOLUME II 1804-1926 J. W. SCHUNCK One of the most important concerns in Sioux City is the Hanford Produce Company, which from a small beginning, less than forty years ago, has grown to be the largest single manufacturing plant of creamery butter in the world, its output for 1925 having been over nineteen million pounds. It has a large and steadily increasing ice cream department, covering a broad surrounding territory. The company buys eggs, poultry and cream, through six hundred stations scattered over four states, and buys direct, paying millions of dollars annually to the farmers for their products. They also have one of the most modern poultry feeding and dressing departments in the west, with a daily feeding capacity of thirty thousand chickens, and also maintain their own ice-making plant and their own power and retinning plants, while the purest of water flows from their own wells. Over four hundred persons are employed in this great plant, which is one of the showplaces of Sioux City. To a very great measure the splendid growth and prosperity which the Hanford Company is enjoying is due to the sound judgment and careful direction of its manager, John W. Schunck, to a brief review of whose life the following lines are devoted. Mr. Schunck was born in Sioux City, June 18, 1882, and is a son of John H. and Louise (Forstner) Schunck, natives of Germany, who came to the United States in 1880 in their youth. The father located in New York city, where for a number of years he was traveling salesman for a butcher supply house. Later he worked out of Sandusky, Ohio, and eventually out of Dubuque, Iowa, where his marriage occurred. In 1880 he came to Sioux City, entering the employ of the Booge Packing Company, the pioneer packing house of Sioux City, in which he had charge of the sausage department. In later years he engaged in the retail meat business here, in association with Charles Ibs, John Tucker and John Geiser. He died in 1903 and his widow survived him a number of years, passing away in 1917. John W. Schunck was educated was educated in the German Lutheran parochial school and the Webster public school of Sioux City. On April 1, 1895, in his thirteenth year, he entered the employ of the Hanford Produce Company as office boy and has remained with that company continuously since, rising step by step through the various positions, serving in practically every capacity in the plant until about fourteen years ago, when his efficiency and faithfulness were recognized in his election to the position of general manager of the business. He has devoted himself indefatigably to his duties and has eminently proven the right man in the right place. In October, 1903, Mr. Schunck was united in marriage to Miss Lena C. Holdenried, of Sioux City, a daughter of John Holdenried, one of Sioux City's early pioneers. To Mr. and Mrs. Schunck has been born a son, Arthur H., who is a senior in Culver Military Academy, Indiana. Mr. Schunck is a member of Landmark Lodge, No. 103, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons; Sioux City Consistory, No. 5, Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite; Abu-Bekr Temple, Ancient Arabic Order of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine; Sioux City Lodge, No. 112, Benevolent Protective Order of Elks; and Columbian Lodge, No. 13, Knights of Pythias. He also belongs to the Chamber of Commerce, the Sioux City County Club and to Trinity Lutheran church and is a member of its board of trustees. Mr. Schunck has just reason to be proud of the splendid record he has made since entering the hanford Produce Company, for he has been a potent force in its growth and success, a fact which is generally recognized by all who are familiar with the splendid history of this great establishment. Because of his ability, his sterling character and his fine personality, Mr. Schunck enjoys the confidence and esteem of all who know him. Debbie Clough Gerischer Iowa Gen Web, Assistant CC, Scott County http://www.celticcousins.net/scott/ IAGENWEB: Special History Project: http://iagenweb.org/history/index.htm Gerischer Family Web Site: http://gerischer.rootsweb.com/