Thomas Valentine Wilson

As printed in 1905

THOMAS VALENTINE WILSON.

Thomas Valentine Wilson, whose name is familiar to the old residents of Lee county as native to the soil and reared in the community in which he was born, has seen the county transformed from a sunny and flowers prairie to the settled home of a great ]3epulation, a result which his industrial habits and many vigor have helped advance. In the history of a nation a period of fifty years has no great importance; time is an element of national greatness. In the making of the West, however, time has not been so important. In 1849 Iowa was but a fringe of settlement with promise as to the future; in 1904 it is an imperial state, with a splendid development not elsewhere accomplished in hundreds of years. Then Lee county was mostly uncultivated prairie with little towns and hamlets that hardly hinted future prosperity; now it is a rich and fertile part of a magnificent commonwealth. And all this easily within the life of the man whose name appears at the opening of this article. He has seen it, and has been a part of it.

[This passage is too damaged in the scanned book to reproduce. See the original book.]

Mr. Wilson was married to Miss Henrietta Schlagenbusch November 23, 1871. She was a daughter of John and Henrietta (Eppers) Schlagenbusch, and as a wife and mother is beyond criticism. To her union with Mr. Wilson have come eight children: William Alva, born October 3, 1872. married Miss Mary Buhner; Wa!ley Lovinia, born May 30, 1876, she is now Mrs. Eugene Smith; Ethel Ottie, born February 15. 1878. She is Mrs. Granville L. Arnold, and the mother of two children, L'\a Orvia and Orville Valentine; Geneva Salome, born.August II, 1880, and Thomas Valentine, born March 10, 1883. Ollie Ann, born March 3, 1885, is the wife of Louis Weisbruch. Her-

2/4 bert Elmer, born September 9, 1886; the next died an infant; Hazel Edna, born August 22, 1892, and Delbert Bi-yan, born July 22, 1896, are the two younger children.

Mrs. Wilson's father came to Lee county from Germany in 1852, but she was born in Braunsweig, Germany, February 3, 1853. The father settled in Jefferson township, where he died when Mrs. Wilson was thirteen years of age. Her mother entered into rest July 22, 1879. They were the parents of two children, one of whom is Mrs. Wilson, and the other a son, John, who was born February 23, 1858.

Mr. and Mrs. Wilson are quiet and unpretentious people, little given to display, but of genuine worth and character, to which their many friends bear ready testimony. They pay their debts, help the poor, speak the truth, and are always kind and generous. We write them among the solid and substantial citizens of the town, and commend their history as worthy of study.

As printed in Biographical review of Lee County, Iowa; (1905). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.