Eminent Farmer
County: Brown
Titus C. Wenz, farmer and pure seed grower of Bath, Brown County, was born in Watertown, Wisconsin, March 12, 1867. He came to South Dakota with his parents in March 1882 settling on a farm just across the road from his present home. He married Bertha Gottwald of Ohio, in 1889, who came as a school teacher to South Dakota. The Wenzs are the parents of two sons. He remained on the old home place until 1915 at which time he built a large modern, farm home. He retired from active farming in 1942.
Wenz operated 280 acres, specializing in raising pure seed grains such as barley, oats, wheat and alfalfa.
He was a member of the Farm Bureau and of the Crop Improvement Committee of Brown County. Both individually and through farm organizations, Wenz did much to eliminate smut and other injurious infestations in wheat and other small grains. He was successful in the introduction of alfalfa and sweet clover.
As a member of the Bath school board for nine years, from 1909 to 1918, Wenz helped to promote the four-year high school. Vocational training received a prominent place in the curriculum and Bath was the first country school in the state to put in that work. The school district experimented with alfalfa on school plots and tried out many varieties to determine which were the best for that region. In this manner the young people were helped to understand the value of leguminous crops and rotation in Brown County agriculture.
For six years Wenz served on the township board of supervisors and was assessor for more than 15 years. For several years he was a member of the county tax committee endeavoring to get a correct valuation of farmland in Brown county.
Wenz has been intensely interested in fostering the best interest of his community, trying always to promote practices which would bring prosperity and happiness to his family and neighbors.
The Wenzs celebrated their 15th wedding anniversary in 1949.