Background
Jay G. Sigmund was born on December 11, 1885, to farmers Herman R. and Sarah Jane (Bruce) Sigmund on a farm about one mile south of Waubeek, Iowa, northeast of Cedar Rapids, on the Wapsipinicon River.
Jay G. Sigmund
Jay G. Sigmund was born on December 11, 1885, to farmers Herman R. and Sarah Jane (Bruce) Sigmund on a farm about one mile south of Waubeek, Iowa, northeast of Cedar Rapids, on the Wapsipinicon River.
Jay G. Sigmund attended one-room country schools and then two years of high school in Central City.
After high school, Jay Sigmund moved to Cedar Rapids and took a job unloading sugar for the Winfield-Pratt-Howell Company. At age 19, he moved to Cedar Rapids, eventually entering the insurance business and rising to the position of vice president of the Cedar Rapids Life Insurance Company. When that company merged with Mutual of Omaha in 1936, Jay Sigmund was offered a vice presidency in Omaha. However, he remained in Iowa and joined son James in operating the Minnesota Mutual Life Insurance Company in Cedar Rapids.
After that, Jay Sigmund took up writing and his work was published in various newspapers such as the Cedar Rapids Republican, Dubuque Telegraph Herald, Waukon Republican and Standard, and the Witness. His first book of poetry was published in 1922. His short stories appeared in such magazines as the Tanager, Overland Monthly, Hinterland, the Gammadion, the Frontier, and The Hub. He often published in the Midland, a literary journal.
Jay Sigmund believed in the profound importance of folk and local culture to the overall American character, and he emphasized the close relationship between people, their community, and the land.
Throughout his life, Jay Sigmund cultivated his many interests and abilities. He is remembered as a quiet man who had a tremendous influence on the people around him.
Jay Sigmund married Louise B. Heins of Cedar Rapids on August 9, 1910. They had three children.