Alfred A. Lenocker, with varied business interests, is accounted one of the most alert, energetic and prominent citizens of Oakland, where he owns and conducts a drug store. As the growth and prosperity of any community depends upon its business men, it is easily seen that Mr. Lenocker may well be termed one of the foremost residents of Oakland.

He was born in Holmes county, Ohio, in 1861, a son of Jacob Lenocker, a native of Switzerland, who is now living in Dexter, Iowa, at the age of seventy-five years. He was brought to the United States at the age of seven by his parents, who located on a farm in Holmes county, Ohio, and he was reared to agricultural life, which he chose for an occupation when he started out in business on his own account. For many years he carried on farming but is now living retired in Dexter. He dates his arrival in Iowa from 1869, at which time he took up his abode in Madison County, where he carried on the tilling of the soil and became prosperous. He was also a large cattle raiser and shipper and owned a farm of four hundred and forty acres, which is one of the finest in the state. He belongs to the Odd Fellows Society and gives his political allegiance to the democracy. It married Barbara Drushal, who was born in Pennsylvania and died in 1879 at the age of thirty-eight years. She was a member of the German Lutheran Church. Their family numbered seven children, of whom four survive: Henry D., who follows farming at Fort Morgan, Colorado; Alfred A.; Mary E., the wife of J. J. Larky, a farmer of Oxford, Nebraska; and Carolyn S., the wife of R. H. Rankin, a stock raiser and buyer of Cambridge, Nebraska.

Alfred A. Lenocker was reared to farm life and attended the country schools. In 1881, abandoning agricultural pursuits, he turned his attention to the drug business, entering a store in Dexter, in which he acquainted himself with pharmacy. In 1885 he removed to Oakland, where he established a store of his own and has since been successfully engaged in its conduct, his modern business methods and his well known reliability securing him a liberal patronage. He is, moreover, a stockholder and director of the Oakland Savings Bank and was the builder of the Lenocker Rural Telephone lines, which he built in 1901. He is likewise a stockholder in the Council Bluffs Telephone Exchange and the Harlan and Avoca Exchanges and has acted as manager of the Oakland Exchange. His property holdings embrace four hundred acres of land in Furnas County, Nebraska, and two hundred and forty acres in Yuma County, Colorado. His business interests are thus varied and extensive but the ability which enables him to readily solve intricate business problems qualifies him for the successful control of all these interests and he is justly accounted a representative citizen of Pottawattamie County.

Mr. Lenocker was married in 1883 to Miss Effie L. Frantz, who was born in Ohio in 1862, a daughter of William and Margaret Frantz, the former a farmer by occupation. He came to Iowa in 1870, settling in Mills County, where he carried on general agricultural pursuits. Mr. and Mrs. Lenocker have one son, Ivan, who was born in 1888 at Oakland and is now with his father in the drug store.

The parents are members of the Congregational Church and Mr. Lenocker is an Odd Fellow and a Woodman. His political allegiance is given to the democracy and he has served as treasurer and clerk of the town. Aside from any official service he has done active work for the community in support of its progressive public measures and the good qualities which he has manifested as a citizen, as a business man and in private life will entitle him to the regard in which he is so uniformly held.