DEDICATION
Centennial Reminiscences of Battle Creek would never have reached the printer had it not been for the dogged persistence of Charles C. Zimmerman. It was Charlie who dug through the files of the County Register of Deeds for the names of homesteaders of the 60’s and 70’s, names long forgotten or never known by the present generation. It was Charlie who visited cemeteries for miles around and deciphered nearly obliterated names and data on old headstones. It was Charlie who drove day after day to interview the descendants of early settlers and gather letters and pictures for the Reminiscences.
Charlie’s father was Pete Zimmerman who came to Battle Creek in the 80’s, served as County Commissioner, and established an implement business here. It was in his father’s store that Charlie as a child met many of the old settlers and heard their stories that he repeats in the Reminiscences.
One of the first jobs as he grew older, was with the Howard Miller Lumber Company. Here he weighed in horse drawn wagon loads of corn, wheat, oats and rye and listened to the give and take of old timers who added to his store of Battle Creek lore.
From 1911 until 1919 he had a rural mail route, broken by a hitch in the U. S. Army in World War I. In 1917, while he was still with the rural mail service the Battle Creek Mutual Insurance Company elected him secretary. For fifty years he has been an officer in that company, serving more than half of those years as its president. He is presently chairman of the board. He is also Secretary of the State Association of Mutual Insurance Companies of Nebraska, an office to which he was elected in 1954.
Charlie’s business has always made heavy demands on his time, but it would be hard to point to any major community improvement that he and his family have not been part of, school buildings, library, hard surfaced roads, improvements that took months, and sometimes years to be realized. But busy as he continues to be, fortunately for the Battle Creek Centennial Committee, Charlie was one who did the compiling, writing and editing of the Reminiscences.
It was a hundred years ago this year that the first settlers homesteaded here. They were young men and women when they came and many of them lived well into the present century. Naturally there are some of us who remember them. But doubtless there are few of us
who have had the constant and intimate contact with the people of this community and more appreciation and affection for them than has Charlie Zimmerman.MARION PREECE