NORTHWESTERN IOWA ITS HISTORY AND TRADITION VOLUME III 1804-1926 W. J. Bock William J. Bock, who passed away September 7, 1926, was recognized as one of the able and influential lawyers of Spirit Lake and his section of the state. He was born in Walcott, Scott county, Iowa, on the 26th of February, 1882, and is a son of Henry and Charlotte (Stockdale) Bock, who were married in 1870 in Davenport, Iowa, to which city the Stockdale family had moved some years previously from Cleveland, Ohio, where the mother was born. The father was a native of the province of Schleswig-Holstein and in 1854, at the age of ten years, was brought to the United States by his mother, his father having died in Germany. The mother settled with her family of five children in Geneseo, Illinois, where her son Henry was reared. After completing his school education, he learned the trade of harnessmaking and after his marriage settled in Walcott, Iowa, where he ran a harness shop for a number of years. Later he moved to Lake Park, Dickinson county, where he was engaged in general mercantile business for about twenty years, but in 1922 sold his store and moved to Sioux City, where he and his wife are now living retired, at the respective ages of eight-two and eighty-one years. They also have a home at East San Diego, California, where they have spent the winters for a number of years. William J. Bock attended the public schools and graduated from the Lake Park high school in 1898. He then entered the State Normal College, where he received a degree in didactics in 1900, completing a four-year course in two years and six weeks. He next became a student in the law school of the State University of Iowa, where he took the three-year course in two years and was graduated, with the degree of Bachelor of Laws, in 1903. He had planned to enter Yale University, but at that time a brother who had been assisting his father in business died and William J. Bock took his place in the store, assisting his father until the business was sold. In 1906 he began the practice of law, opening an office at Lake Park, where he remained for fifteen years, building up a large clientage and a splendid reputation as a successful lawyer. On November 1, 1921, he moved to Spirit Lake, where he remained until his demise, taking his place in front rank of the attorneys of this city. On October 17, 1920, Mr. Bock was united in marriage to Miss Madge Rukenbrod, of Decatur, Illinois, She was for four years a teacher in the Spirit Lake public schools and for nine years a teacher in the Sioux City schools. Fraternally Mr. Bock was affiliated with the Masonic order, belonging to Lake Park Lodge, No. 527, A. F. & A. M.; Zaraphath Consistroy, No. 4, A. A. S. R. of Davenport, Iowa; and Kaaba Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S., at Davenport. He was also a member of Minnewaukan Lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. In his political views he was a republican and was prominently identified with political affairs but never sought public preferment, his only public office being that of county attorney, in which he served for four years. He was a man of forceful personality, a strong and effective speaker, and during the years of his professional work in this county was identified as counsel with most of the important cases in the local courts, in which he enjoyed a very gratifying measure of success. Debbie Clough Gerischer