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Jasper County, Iowa
Historical and Genealogical Data Exchange
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Robert
Melvin Morris Mariposa
Township, Jasper County. Iowa, has no more progressive or painstaking
agriculturist and stock raiser than Robert Melvin Morris, a man who is eminently
entitled to the success he has attained, for he has worked hard in the face of
obstacles and has dealt honestly with his fellow men, according to those who
have long known him. Mr.
Morris was born on February 8, 1873, in this Township and he has been contented
to spend his life right here at home, knowing that no better place was to be
found for the calling, which he selected. Here
he was educated in the common schools, obtaining a good education and he spent
his boyhood on the home farm in the summer months, making a hand when but a lad;
however, the training he thus received augured for his future success. Mr.
Morris is the son of Stephen and Charlotte R. (Wilson) Morris, the father born
in Tuscarawas County, Ohio, on July 3, 1838, and the mother was born in Arkansas
on November 27, 1840. The
paternal grandparents, Paten and Martha Morris, lived and died in Ohio.
The maternal grandparents, Robert W. and Johanna Wilson, left Arkansas in
1842 and moved to Clark County, Indiana, and lived there until 1854 when they
drove through with wagon and team to Jasper County, Iowa. R. W. Wilson entered a
farm from the government just east of Rushville in Kellogg Township and there he
and his wife, resided until their deaths. The
mother of the subject was two years of age when she accompanied her parents from
Arkansas to Indiana and she came west with them, later moving to Jasper County,
spending her girlhood days in Kellogg Township.
She received a good education and taught the first school in district No.
4, in Mariposa Township, when the district was opened in 1863.
She and Mr. Morris were married on February 11, 1866, he having come to
Jasper County from Ohio in 1860. Early
in the Civil War the father, Stephen Morris, enlisted in Company I, Tenth Iowa
Volunteer Infantry, in which he served most creditably for a period of three and
one-half years. He was in the
hospital a great deal of the time from eye trouble, which bothered him all the
balance of his life. Stephen Morris had bought a farm in Jasper County before he
came to Iowa, and after the war he traded that for the home place of one hundred
and sixty acres in Mariposa Township, to which he later added forty acres.
He was a Republican in politics and all the family were members of the
Methodist Church. The death of
Stephen Morris occurred on February 4, 1901, and since then the mother has been
living among her children. Nine
children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Morris, named as follows:
Mrs. Sarah Elvira Pennington, of Colton, South Dakota; Ame Clair died in
infancy; Mrs. Hilaria J. Altemeier, of Mariposa Township; Robert M., of this
review, the fourth in order of birth; Jesse Paten is living in Newton, Iowa;
Herbert S. is deceased; Mrs. Edith J. Snodgrass is living in South Dakota;
Clarence is deceased; Harvey Rice lives in Worth County, Iowa. When
twenty-one years of age Robert M. Morris, of this sketch, began renting land for
agricultural purposes and, having gotten a start in that manner, he was enabled
to buy a farm of one hundred and sixty acres in 1902, in Mariposa Township,
known as the old Jimmy Lee farm, which he has greatly improved and, as stated,
is making a success as a general farmer. Politically,
Mr. Morris is a Republican, but takes little active interest in public affairs. Mr. Morris was married on February 8, 1900, to Cora Hammer, who was born in Kellogg Township, Jasper County, Iowa, on March 12, 1880, the daughter of Zachary and Jane (Tharp) Hammer, the father a native of Tennessee and the mother of Indiana. The following children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Morris: Velma, born December 14, 1900; Olive, born December 29, 1902; Russell, born August 31, 1904; Merlin, born May 24, 1907; Doris, born July 11, 1910. Past and Present of Jasper County Iowa, Gen. James B. Weaver, Editor-In-Chief, B.F. Bowden & Company, Indianapolis, IN, 1912, p. 882. |
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