THEODORE C. DECKER, who, in his farming operations, has made a specialty of the growing of tobacco and of sugar beets, makes his home on section 3, Roscoe township. New York has furnished a large settlement to this part of the county, many of the leading and substantial representatives of Roscoe township being native sons of the Empire state. To this class Mr. Decker belongs, his birth having occurred in New York, in 1851. His father, Cornelius S. Decker, who was a native of New York, born in 1819, is now living in Janesville, Wisconsin, at the advanced age of eighty-six years. He married Miss Elizabeth J. Ashby, who was also born in the same state, and has now reached the age of eighty-four years. They have a farm of forty acres near Janesville, Wisconsin, making their home in that locality with two of their sons, Jonathan and John. In his political views the father was for many years a stalwart democrat, active in support of the party, and for a long period filled the office of supervisor of his township in a most acceptable manner. In his family were ten children, of whom five are yet living: Jonathan, of Wisconsin; Frank, a resident of Nebraska; Theodore C., of this review; John, of Janesville, Wisconsin; and Anna, the wife of David Mould, a prominent attorney of Sioux City, Iowa.
Theodore C. Decker was a lad of only ten years when he accompanied his parents on their removal to Wisconsin. He was reared to manhood in Wisconsin. He was reared to manhood in Janesville, early becoming familiar with all the duties and labors that fall to the lot of the agriculturist, and he saw no reason to change his occupation when he had reached manhood and started out in life on his own account. In 1873, he bought twenty acres of land on section 3, Roscoe township, in the northern part of Winnebago county, bordering the boundary line between Illinois and Wisconsin. Here he has followed farming continuously since, and for twenty-one years he has made a specialty of the growing of tobacco, having ten acres planted to that crop, with which he has been very successful. He has also made a specialty of the production of sugar beets. Owing to his careful cultivation, the rotation of crops and the most improved modern methods of farming, he has been very successful in his work and possesses a comfortable competence that is the merited reward of his labor.
In 1871 Mr. Decker was married to Miss Mary McNamara, a native of Massachusetts, and they have one child, Frank D., who was born in Janesville, Wisconsin, and married Ora Turnay, a native of Beloit. Mr. Decker and his family attend the Congregational church and his political allegiance is given to the democracy, but while he keeps well informed on the questions and issues of the day, as every true American citizen should do, he has never sought or desired office, preferring to give his undivided attention to his business interests.
Source: Charles A. Church, Past and Present of the City of Rockford and Winnebago County, Illinois (Chicago: S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1905), pp. 538-539.