Victim was soft-spoken, meticulous farmer

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BY JOE DUGGAN / Lincoln Journal Star

BENNET — August Meyer kept his farmstead as neat as a pin.

The 70-year-old semi-retired farmer had spent his entire life on the property east of Bennet. He never married, but he stayed so his mother could remain living on the farm throughout her life.

“I always remembered him as a hard-working farmer,” said his nephew Mervin Meyer, 71, of Walton.

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August Meyer

August Meyer

Bob Gloe, 78, of Lincoln remembers boyhood visits to the Meyer farm. The property had a creek running through it where Gloe and his brother caught bullheads. He remembers playing softball after sunset, thanks to a yard light near the farm house.

And he remembers his soft-spoken great-uncle, who never got in the center of the gatherings, preferring to listen instead.

August Meyer learned to work the land before the introduction of tractors and combines. He continued to use horse-drawn equipment until he turned the farming over to a renter.

The old farmer always kept livestock on the land and continued tending cattle and his team of horses after he rented out the crop land. He cut firewood and saved corn cobs and hauled them to customers in Bennet.

He was a man of faith who attended Trinity Lutheran Church near Walton.

And he took pride in keeping up the home place.

“He always kept things in repair,” Mervin Meyer said. “You could say he was neat and orderly.”

And he would share his land with others, granting permission to hunt there to Guy Starkweather and his sons.

It bothers Mervin Meyer that a gesture of kindness by his uncle apparently lured in a killer on Jan. 27, 1958.

“The thing I always think about is I’m sure he trusted Starkweather.”

August Meyer died on the farm that was his life.

Reach Joe Duggan at 473-7239 or jduggan@journalstar.com.