To protect, collect, preserve and promote the written, oral and tangible items of historical importance to Winneshiek County and to cooperate with other organizations to accomplish common goals. and Sarah Mulholland Landers arrived in Decorah in 1855 after spending a year in Dubuque, Iowa where Frederick was employed by P.H. Frederick, who originally came from Bethlehem, New York, a township near
Albany, had been on his own since age 12 and early on exhibited the boundless energy and enterprising nature that became his trademarks. Sarah and Frederick were married in June of 1850 in Sarah’s hometown of Canisteo, Steuben County, New York. But prospects in western New York were not encouraging so in 1854 Frederick made his way west to Dubuque, and thence to Decorah about a year later. Apparently Sarah and their two daughters remained behind with her parents in Canisteo during Frederick’s preliminary venture to Dubuque as the census lists she and the daughters as living with her parents. In Decorah Frederick was first associated with McHenry, Packard, and Company. Ellsworth in the mercantile firm of Ellsworth & Landers and the pair were in business together for around 15 years. Later son Frank joined Frederick in business and the firm was known as Landers and Son. An innovation in the Landers and Son store was a special “five and ten cent counter,” which preceded the “dime store” concept by several years. While Frederick established his downtown business during their early years in Decorah, Sarah was busy at home tending their two daughters born in Canisteo before their move west; Kysse arrived in 1852 and Florence in 1854. Frank Samuel was born in 1856 after their move to Decorah. A second son, Charlie, was born in February of 1859 but lived only six weeks, dying in March of the same year. In 1860 Frederick and Sarah built a Greek Revival home at 509 W. Broadway, its style reminiscent of those they were familiar with in upstate New York. The house, however, had an interesting Italianate detail, paired roof brackets under its wide eaves. By 1860 the Italianate style had begun eclipsing Greek Revival in popularity so the Landers home evidences that national transition in taste. Sarah had brought furniture and even plants with her from her native New York and they added beauty to her existence as a busy young mother. The Landers family welcomed another daughter, Mary, in August of 1861, but tragedy struck in November of 1862 when firstborn daughter Kysse contracted scarlet fever and died at 10 years of age. A son, Fred Dighton, was born in September of 1863 but died the next year in September of 1864 just five days after his first birthday. Nell Priscilla Landers was born in 1865, Kathryn (Kate) in 1869, and Winnie Van Campen in 1873. Youngest child Sarah Plato was born sometime after 1873 but did not survive. Daughter Mary (May) who had married William S. Beebe when she was 20, died just five months later of an infected appendix. Of the ten children born to Frederick and Sarah, only five survived to live full adult lives. Frederick was described as a “born trader” and an excellent salesman, public-spirited and always ready to promote the prosperity of the city. His obituary credited him with being largely responsible for bringing electricity to Decorah “and other enterprises that might be named.” His penchant for boundless energy and hard work was respected by those who knew him, and he is said to have remarked, “I do not know what ‘tire’ is.” First and foremost, he was a devoted husband and father. Sarah Landers came to Decorah as a young wife and mother just after “land office times” and was influential in the social life of Decorah as it grew from a village to a full-fledged town. She was lauded as a woman of “genial disposition, liberal hospitality, and overflowing good nature,” a positive influence in the lives of those around her. She experienced the loss of five of her ten children, two of her young sons-in-law, as well as her husband in 1887, but persevered despite those sorrows to emerge a “faithful mother and sincere friend.”
The Landers home at 509 W. Broadway remains today as part of the Broadway-Phelps Park Historic District as does their downtown building, now the east part of the Rubaiyat Restaurant.
© Winneshiek County Historical Society 2017
