Gottlob Ziegler. A life of quiet effectiveness marked by a record of many duties well done and many responsibilities faithfully fulfilled was that of the late Gottlob Ziegler, best known by his long residence at Marysville, but who died in Salina November 20, 1911. While he never held an important public office and was not identified with the conspicuous activities of the world, he rendered a faithful and intelligent performance of every task that was allotted to him during his long life. He left a record that may well be envied and admired by the generations that follow him.
He was born March 16, 1843, in Wuertemberg, Germany, and at the time of his death was sixty-seven years, eight months, four days old. While he died in Salina, he was laid to rest in Marysville cemetery. When he was four years of age his parents had come to the United States and located at Sidney in Shelby County, Ohio. Gottlob Ziegler grew up in Ohio, gained a common school education, and though only a boy at the time proved his patriotism and devotion to his adopted country by enlisting in the Union army on September 5, 1861. He went out with Battery M of the First Ohio Light Artillery, and was in active service for three years. At the close of the war he returned to Sidney and resumed a place in the country store where he had been employed before the war.
Mr. Ziegler was one of the early settlers in Northern Kansas, having located in Marysville in 1868. He was at first in business as a merchant with Alexander Campbell, and in 1872 formed a partnership with Alvin A. Arand, under the name Arand & Ziegler. This firm was in existence four years, and for the next two years Mr. Ziegler conducted a grocery store at St. Joseph, Missouri. He then resumed the partnership with Mr. Arand, and they were actively associated together until 1888. Mr. Ziegler then gave his attention to various lines of business and during the last three years of his life had lived in Salina.
A formal recital of Mr. Ziegler’s business activities, however detailed, would not reveal his real character. That is best told in the words of an old friend who had written the following appreciation which should be included in this sketch. “The death of Gottlob Ziegler,” says his old friend, “had removed from earthly scenes an old resident of our city of whose real character the careless and superficial observer knows but little. He was a modest, quiet and unobtrusive man. He shunned publicity, pomp and display. His manner appeared to many no doubt as timid and retiring, but in the defense of principle and what he conceived to be right he was unflinchingly firm. His nature was kindly and sympathetic and while he did not ‘carry his heart on his sleeve for daws to peck at,’ no man ever failed to secure from him a kindly response to a worthy appeal. He was schooled in the matter of fact world of business. His lips were mute as to his own personality, his ambitious, his hopes and his aims in life, until the outer guard had been penetrated. Then and not until then were revealed his manly qualities, his love of truth, his loyalty to justice and right.
“In his business relations he was shrewd, honest and capable, and his success in a material way was marked. Some might characterize his profitable investments as lucky. There was no luck there. He won through good judgment and not chance. His ample fortune was accumulated in a clean manner and the taint of dishonesty never blackened his character or reputation. His life’s work stands forth as proof of the fact that a man may accumulate a goodly fortune and still be honest.
“While jealously mindful of his good name, Gottlob Ziegler cared little for the encomiums of the mob but strove through a long life to live honestly and uprightly as it was given him to understand the meaning of honesty and uprightness. To say less of the departed than is here written would be an injustice of his memory; to write a fitting obituary would be no commonplace task; for Gottlob Ziegler was one of the few men of whom it can truthfully be said he was faithful to every trust. He was an honest man and his loyalty to his adopted country was proved on many a battlefield.”
At St. Joseph, Missouri, on June 23, 1874, Mr. Ziegler married Miss Lydia Banks. Mrs. Ziegler was born April 28, 1855, in Pennsylvania, a daughter of John and Lydia (Boyer) Banks, also natives of that state. Mrs. Ziegler was one of thirteen children, four daughters and nine sons. Five of them died in infancy, and the three now living besides Mrs. Ziegler are Fremont, Jonathan and Emma, the last named being the wife of William Schoeneshofer of Marysville, Kansas. Mrs. Ziegler since the death of her husband had continued to reside at her home, 142 North Ninth Street, in Salina. She is well known in that city, and is especially active in the Lutheran Church.
Mr. and Mrs. Ziegler had only one child, a daughter, Ora, who was born April 16, 1875, at Marysville. Ora was married June 30, 1902, to Christopher D. Hurst. Mr. Hurst was born May 20, 1874, and is an active business man of Marysville. Mr. and Mrs. Hurst have one child, Wilfred, who was born July 29, 1904. This boy is probably the youngest traveling salesman in Kansas. At the age of eleven years, after his father was injured in an automobile accident, the boy started out to cover his father’s territory as a traveling salesman, and not only succeeded in getting business but also in making his collections in a very thorough and business-like manner.