My Genealogy Hound

JOHN SACK, one of the representative citizens of Johnson County, is a native of Prussia, Germany. He was born on the 4th of May, 1849, and is one of the eight children of Frank and Elizabeth Sack, all of whom still survive. The father was born and reared in Prussia, and during his youth served an apprenticeship to the blacksmith’s trade, after which he went to the town of Naumburg, where he opened a smithy and carried on business until his death, which occurred when he was about forty years of age.

The gentleman whose name introduces this review was reared to manhood under the parental roof and acquired his education in the common schools of the neighborhood. He heard much of the advantages and privileges which were afforded young men in the New World, and when he attained his majority resolved to try his fortune in America, embarking on a steamer bound for Portland, Me., where he arrived after a voyage of eleven days. He not only had no money, but also owed for his passage, but he was young, full of courage, hope and ambition, and resolved to win success. The greater difficulties he had to encounter, the more he exerted himself to overcome them. After four months’ work as a farm hand in Lincoln County, he had paid off all indebtedness, and from that time forward his labors more directly benefited himself.

For seven years Mr. Sack resided in Lincoln County, and then went to St. Louis, where he secured employment in a tin shop. He had learned the trade of a tinner in Germany and followed it for two years in that city, after which he removed to Arkansas. During the first nine years of his residence in America he lived frugally, worked earnestly, and on his arrival in Arkansas, with the capital he had thus acquired, was enabled to purchase a farm. For three years he cultivated his land, but, becoming dissatisfied in that locality, he sold out and returned to St. Louis, where he spent the succeeding year. On leaving that city he came to Johnson County and purchased his present valuable farm of one hundred and twenty acres, which, well cultivated and highly improved, yields to him a golden tribute in return for the care and labor he bestows upon it, and he is numbered among the leading agriculturists of the community.

On the 7th of February, 1877, Mr. Sack led to the marriage altar Miss Anna Hilke, daughter of Henry and Mary Hilke, a most estimable lady, who finds her greatest pleasure in making her home pleasant and her family a happy one. Eight children have been born of this union, six of whom are living, namely: Lizzie, Otto, Henry, Bernard, Christopher and Joseph. In his religious belief, Mr. Sack is a Catholic, and in his political affiliations is a Democrat. He is a man of pleasing address, genial manner and gentlemanly deportment, and throughout the community has a wide circle of friends and acquaintances.