This early photo of Great Grandpa Shoeman was taken at a photography studio on Walnut Street in downtown Des Moines, Iowa in either 1876 or 1877 when he first came from Pennsylvania to Polk County, Iowa. He would have been 18 or 19 years old. John moved to Dallas County, Iowa in 1877. On October 7, 1880, he married Charlotte Amanda Hawbaker of Dallas Center, daughter of Daniel and Charlotte (Niswander) Hawbaker. The photo below is a tin type wedding photo that was with my extended Shoeman family in Pennsylvania. It was generously given to me by a cousin as I am John and Amanda's great granddaughter. No other wedding photo was ever found in Iowa so I am extremely grateful to have this photo.
John Smaltz Shoeman was a self made man, working to make a better life for himself and his family. He owned a great deal of land and would probably be termed wealthy by 1931 standards at the time he passed away. The following article was written about him in Past and Present of Dallas County, Iowa (from the S.J. Clark Publishing Company, 1907)
Iowa with its splendid agricultural possibilities offers excellent opportunity to him who wishes to earn his living in the tilling of the soil. Devoting his time and energies in successful manner to the cultivation and improvement of a farm, John S. Shoeman has become well known as a prominent and progressive citizen of Walnut township, where he owns and operates three hundred and twenty acres of excellent land. He also has fifty acres in addition to this. He has been a resident of Iowa since 1876, and of Dallas County since 1877. He was born in Blair County, Pennsylvania in 1857 and his father, Henry Shoeman, was also a native of that county, where he was reared. He was a shoemaker by trade and thus provided for his family. In the place of his nativity he married Louisa Smaltz, a native of Germany, who came with her parents to the new world, settling in Blair County, Pennsylvania.
John S. Shoeman is the third in order of birth in a family of eleven children. His opportunities for attending school were very meager and he is largely a self-educated man. When eighteen years of age he came westward to Iowa and worked by the month at farm labor in Polk County for one year and then came to Dallas County, where he worked by the month for three years.
In October, 1880, Mr. Shoeman was married to Miss Amanda Hawbaker, a native of Franklin County, Pennsylvania, and a daughter of Daniel Hawbaker, who came to Iowa from Pennsylvanie in 1879. After his marriage he continued to work by the month for six months and then began farming on his own account on rented land. Sixteen years passed in this way and during that time he saved from his earning a sum of money sufficient to enable him to purchase land. Since 1880 he has made his home upon the farm which is yet his place of residence and after renting it for seventeen years he made purchase in 1897 of the tract of three hundred and twenty acres which he had been cultivating. In the previous year, however, he purchased fifty acres at Waukee, which was the first land that he ever owned. He is now one of the substantial and prosperous citizens of the county with well developed business powers and keen discernment. Everything about his place is neat and thrifty in appearance and in 1903 he built a good two story frame residence, while upon the farm there are also two good barns, cribs, and outbuildings. He has been feeding and raising cattle and hogs for thirty years and markets from eight to ten carloads of cattle and two carloads of hogs annually. He feeds all of his grain and his stock-raising interests are very remunerative, bringing him an excellent return as the years have gone by. In all his business interests he is practical and enterprising, and his success is well merited.
Unto Mr. and Mrs. Shoeman have been born six children: Henry I., who is now operating the home farm; Walter H., who operates a farm adjoining his father's place, and who married Effie Campbell, by whom he has one daughter, Florence; Mary, the wife of Earl Burkett, a resident of Waukee; Robert M., Eva and John D., all at home.
Mr. Shoeman votes with the Republican Party where national issues are involved but casts an independent local ballot. He has never sought or held office, preferring to give undivided attention to his business affairs, and he has justly earned the proud American title of a self-made man. He started out in life empty-handed but he realized that labor is the basis of all success, and his close application and unfaltering diligence have given him rank with the leading farmers of his county. He was among the first to tile the land and has thoroughly drained the place, which is now among the best improved farms of Walnut Township, and is the visible evidence of his life of thrift and industry. His record should serve as a source of inspiration and encouragement to others, showing what may be accomplished when one has the will to dare and to do.
This wonderful family photo share with my by my Pennsylvania cousin, Karen, is of the John and Amanda Shoeman family. It was taken sometime in 1928 during some special family occasion. My father, Gordon, is in the back row to the left and is wearing a bow tie. My cousin Miriam helped me identify everyone and I have a numbered copy with an ID chart. Everyone pictured here is now deceased.
My cousin, Miriam, once related to me that Great Grandfather Shoeman, never gave his two daughters, Eva and Mary, a middle name on purpose. He wanted them to carry the name "Shoeman" as their middle name when they married. He died on May 15, 1931 of stomach cancer at a hospital in Des Moines, Iowa and is buried next to his wife, Amanda, in the Waukee Cemetery south of Waukee, Iowa.
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