Amelia Falk
(Mrs. Adam Falk)
FORMER RESIDENT CALLED
Lewis Falk has received word of the death of his mother, Mrs. Amelia Falk, at her home at Sioux City. Mrs. Falk lived here a number of years ago and is well known to many of our citizens. Mr. Falk has the sympathy of his many friends in his bereavement.The following concerning the life of Mrs. Falk is taken from the Sioux City paper:
- Sixty-five years ago a side-wheeler steamboat, plying from St. Louis, Mo., to the unsettled new states of the northwest, made its usual stop at Sioux City. From the colorful group of passengers stepped forth a man and his wife carrying the cumbersome baggage of the days just before the Civil war. They were of good persevering German stock -- natives of Saxony.
Wednesday night, carrying with her pleasant reminiscences of pioneer days in Sioux City when it was but a village -- days when she and her husband homesteaded on land now worth millions, where Sioux City's most valued buildings now stand -- the wife, Mrs. Amelia Falk, died. Death followed an illness of a year and was due to the infirmities of old age. She passed away at her home at 30 South Court street, property which it had been predicted in pioneer days was to become the business center of Sioux City. She was 86 years old.
Romance of the growth of Sioux City was entwined in the lives of Mr. and Mrs. Falk. When she and her husband Adam Falk came here in 1860, they homesteaded along Pierce street and owned property extending from Third street to Sixth street. A time came when they could not meet a $100 tax payment on the land and the land was forfeited. Where the Martin hotel stands now Mrs. Falk led her cows to pasture and nearby she hoed daily in a vegetable garden.
All this valuable property, because of the belief of the pioneers that the business district of Sioux City would be on Leech street, was relinquished, because it was difficult to raise the $100 for taxes.
Adam Falk died 20 years ago. He was Sioux City's first barber, opening a shop on Water street in 1860. It was a time when the frontier village was still being attacked by renegade bands of Indians.
With the death of Mrs. Falk go reminiscences of hurried rushes to the old fort here for protection against Indian attacks; and later, of T.S. Martin as a clerk in a small store, and Ben Davidson, president of the Davidson Brothers Company, a young struggling peddler, with a pack on his back selling tinware from house to house. She was one of the first members of the First Presbyterian church of Sioux City.
Of 11 children born to Mr. and Mrs. Falk, she is survived by three sons, Fred and Ollis, of Sioux City, and Louis B., of Lowell, Ind., and three daughters, Mrs. Oscar Winan, of Minneapolis, Minn., Mrs. W.C. Irvin, of Prazo, Wyo., and Miss Jennie Falk, of Sioux City. There are nine grand-children.
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