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AUGUST ISAAK, MERCER COUNTY PIONEER, PASSES ON

On Monday, March 6, 1933, August Isaak died at his home in Compton, California, due to heart trouble, of which he had been ailing for many years.  His wife and two younger daughters were present at his bedside when he past away.

He was born a Michaelfeld, South Russia, on the 2nd of November 1870.  He came to the United States with his parents and family in 1877, where they homesteaded a farm near Yankton, South Dakota.

In 1892 he married Katharina Breitling and two years later they moved to North Dakota, where he took up a homestead 5 miles northwest of the present site of Hazen.

In the fall of 1900 he moved to the river town Mannhaven, where he was employed as grain buyer and where he also operated the first ferry plying the Missouri river north of Bismarck.

Three years later in 1904, he bought a farm on the Fort Stevenson Military Reservation, lying along the Missouri seven miles northwest of Mannhaven.  He added to this farm from time to time, as opportunity offered, until he was operating quite a large farm.  Being very adapt with machinery, he did quite  a little of his farm work with a steam engine and may be considered the pioneer tractor farmer of Mercer County.  And he made it pay.

In 1923 he rented his farm to his son, David, and together with his sons Richard and Arthur, engaged in the farm implement business in Krem.

As his heart troubled him more and more, he decided a change of climate might be advantageous and he and his wife moved to California in 1929, where they bought a home in Compton (near Long Beach) and where they have spent the winters since.

Mr. Isaak was an outstanding pioneer of Mercer County, always a leader in his community, a generous open handed neighbor, a very hard worker at all times, respected an honored by all who knew him.

He took great and active interest in politics and was elected for three successive terms (1914-1915-1916) as member of the House of Representatives.  As a legislator he worked always industriously for what he considered the best interest of the county and the state, putting the welfare of the people above factional strife.  He was chairman of Mercer County’s Old Settler’s Association from the time it was organized.

In his passing Mercer County has suffered the loss of a man, whose life was devoted to the furtherance of every good and worthy cause for the betterment of his local community, county and state.  While we mourn his untimely death, we commend his sturdy citizenship.

He leaves to mourn, his wife; five sons, David, Richard, Arthur, Fred and Herbert; five daughters, Mrs. Reinhold Guenthner, Mrs. Adam Guenthner, Anna, Esther, and Hilda; many grandchildren and very many friends.  His remains are being shipped to Mercer County.

~Contributed by Stanley Sailer