George Holtapp is one of the conspicuous factors in the modern agricultural activities of Champaign County. The name is one that has been identified with Champaign County history for many years, and he is one of the younger generation and with a brother is managing the resources of a fine farm in Harwood Township in section 33. The home is on Rural Route No. 3 out of Rantoul.
Mr. Holtapp was born in Hamilton County, Ohio, a son of Joseph and Barbara (Hoffman) Holtapp. His parents were natives of Germany. There were seven sons in the family, George, Fred, Charles and John, residents of Iowa, and Frank, Lewis and George of Champaign County.
Joseph Holtapp passed away in 1914. He had spent many years of usefulness and was a man of neighborly kindness and enjoyed a large circle of friends. He lived to see his sons well reared and all of them splendid citizens. The mother died in 1900 and her remains are interred in Maplewood Cemetery at Rantoul. She was an active member of the Baptist Church, while her husband was a German Lutheran in faith.
George Holtapp married, in 1915, Miss Elizabeth Moore. She was born in eastern Kentucky, a daughter of John and America (Johnson) Moore, her father a native of North Carolina and her mother of Kentucky. Mrs. Holtapp was educated in the Kentucky public schools and when a young lady she came to Vermilion County, Illinois, to visit her aunt, Flora Hogge. While here she became acquainted with George Holtapp, and the acquaintance ended in her changing her name from Moore to Holtapp. After their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Holtapp started life on his father’s farm near Dillsburg, the old homestead of his parents. They have shown many excellent and commendable qualities as farmers and home makers and as factors in local society. Mr. and Mrs. Holtapp have one child, a bright and attractive boy named George Mervin.
Mr. Holtapp and his brother Frank are now running the old homestead of 160 acres. They are practical farmers and have made mother earth respond bountifully to their touch. Last year they raised 1,750 bushels of oats and 5,250 bushels of corn, their crop averaging fifty-three bushels of oats and seventy bushels of corn to the acre.
In 1915 Mrs. Holtapp’s widowed mother came from Kentucky with her daughter Evelyn, and they have since made their home with Mr. and Mrs. Holtapp. Mr. Holtapp is a stanch Republican in politics and believes that the principles of that party best express American ideals.