The young couple lived in Ohio for a short time after their marriage, then removing to Peoria County, Ill., they made for themselves and their growing family, a pleasant and comfortable home by their frugality and close application to business. At the same time they managed to give to each of their children a good education, by which they have been well fitted for the battle of life. Before moving from Ohio they were blessed with one daughter, Margaret, who is now the wife of John B. Look, also a very old German family. This couple now have five children and are among the prosperous farmers of the county.

The oldest member of the parental family born in Peoria County is Mary Ann, now the wife of H. J. Neumiller, a prosperous liveryman of Peoria and the mother of one child. William P., the eldest son, now owns a fine farm adjoining the old homestead, his family including two children. Peter, who is married and has one child, is also located on a farm near the old home; Louie E., a young man of fine education and great promise, a graduate of the Normal School at Valparaiso, Ind., is head book keeper for a large iron mining firm at Ironwood, Mich., his present salary being $100 per month. Conrad, our subject, is the only one of the family left at home, he being the youngest and unmarried.

Our subject found it necessary at the death of his father, which occurred in 1887, to leave school and take charge of the farm for his mother, who is now well advanced in years. He has been a student in the college at Valparaiso, from which he still expects to be graduated whenever circumstances will allow him to complete the course of study there. He is the possessor of a first grade certificate for Peoria County and has taught several terms in the neighboring schools. He is a young man of very studious habits, with a mind capable of great acquisitions, and ambitious to develop his capacities to their full extent. With his attainments, a strict integrity, and zeal in any calling he may choose, we predict for him a bright future in the great world which lies before him.

From the small beginning made by the father of our subject, he was able to rear his family to be come useful members of society and leave his widow in easy circumstances. With the help of his boys, as they became able to assist him, he reclaimed his estate from the woods by continuous hard labor, making it one of the most highly-cultivated farms in the township. He had the satisfaction of knowing that he had done his whole duty to his family ere called from time to eternity. He was a son of John and Eva (Sniderfritzer) Bontz. The maternal grandmother of our subject also came to Peoria in 1851, spending the remnant of her days in this neighborhood.

Pages 519-520