- FERDINAND W. GOSSE, farmer and stock raiser of Cicero township, whose fine farm of eighty acres, located in section 22, shows the skilled management of its operator, was born March 18, 1844, near Berlin, Germany, and is a son of Fred and Dorothea (Breitzk) Gosse, farming people of the. Fatherland. Mr. Gosse has two brothers, Charles and Frank, and a sister, Amelia. Fred Gosse died in Germany in 1854, and in 1871 the mother brought her family to the United States, settling in Ellington township, where Ferdinand W. Gosse worked in the lumber woods for three years, thereby earning enough money to invest in a piece of timber land in Cicero township, which he has since converted into his present excellent farm. In 1874 he built a log shanty, in which he lived alone for five months, and then married Rebecca Kittner, and the young couple began to make a comfortable home for themselves in the wild, uncultivated country. A new house was built, 16x22 feet, then a barn 36x70 feet was erected, and eventually a basement was put under the latter. When the farm had been put on a paying basis, Mr. Gosse decided he should have a better home, and subsequently he enlarged his residence to nine rooms and made it modern in every respect. Other buildings on this fine property are a substantial granary, a wagon shed 25x50 feet, a chicken house 14x22 feet, and a hog barn 30x56 feet, the latter built in 1910. In addition to engaging in a general line of farming, Mr. Gosse raises good cattle, hogs and horses, and is known to be an expert judge of live stock. The valuable property which he now owns has come to him as a result of years of industrious labor, and he takes pardonable pride in the fact that he is a successful self-made man. Mr. and Mrs. Gosse have had nine children: Anna, Lena, Ida, Bertha, Eddie, Wilma, Robert, Arnold and Stella, of whom Lena is deceased.
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1844 - 1914 (70 years)
1880 Census
