Margaret Ackerman, widow of the late John Ackerman, an industrious and frugal German farmer of Meredith township, is a native of Germany, born June 13, 1834. She came when a young woman to America with her parents and located in the German settlement of Guttenburg, Iowa. They afterwards moved to Grant county, Wisconsin, where she was married to Mr. Ackerman and resided until 1883.

That year they came to Kansas and bought land which they put under a high state of cultivation. Mr. Ackerman was an extensive traveler. He spent two years in England, one year in France, one year in Algiers and one year in Africa. He had followed the occupation of mining until after his marriage, never having plowed a furrow or harnessed a horse. His wife had been reared on a farm in Germany and she assisted him very materially. Mr. Ackerman was one of the group of eighty-four relatives who came to America on the same vessel; all young Germans who prospered and are representative people. Mr. Ackerman died September 30, 1898.

To Mr. and Mrs. Ackerman four children have been born, viz: Annie Mary, who lives on a farm in Ottawa county. Peter, unmarried, lives with his mother, controls her business interests and operates the farm. Gertrude, wife of Patrick O'Reily. Rosa, the youngest child, deceased in 1895.

Mrs. Ackerman and her son own a tract of four hundred and eighty acres of land all under cultivation. They have been raising corn extensively until the present year (1901) when they have sowed one hundred and seventy acres of wheat. They raised one thousand five hundred bushels of corn on two hundred and seventy acres of ground in 1901, when the crop was almost a failure. They keep from seventy-five to one hundred head of Shorthorn cattle; have raised and fed as high as five hundred hogs, and keep on an average two hundred head. They owe their financial success to cattle and hogs.

Their land is situated on Pipe creek and no more fertile soil can be found in the country. In 1898, this farm produced fourteen thousand bushels of corn; two rows eighty rods in length shucked out twenty-eight bushels. They have had ground that produced one hundred bushels to the acre. The Ackermans are members of the Catholic church, St. Peter's congregation.