Elmer J. Creviston
Grant County ahs reason to be proud of its many fine rural homes, some of which are the envy of the wealthier city residents. A place which combines the comforts of the city with the charms of the country is the Creviston homestead, located on the Washington and Van Buren Pike in Washington Township, on the farm extending over portions of sections ten and eleven. This is the home of Elmer J. Creviston, who is proprietor of the farm, and a former business man in Marion but now a practical and successful farmer, who has surrounded himself with all the comforts of real living. He has two hundred and forty acres in the farm, all of it improved, except forty acres, and engages chiefly in grain farming. He raises about eight hundred bushels of wheat and about two thousand bushels of corn every year, has a small orchard planted two years ago, and keeps considerable stock. The Creviston residence is a nine room house built by his father in 1900. There are three drilled wells in the immediate vicinity, and the house is supplied with that modern equipment of water-pipe, so that running water is as familiar a feature of this home as in a city residence. In the basement is a plant for acetylene gas, supplying lights to all parts of the house. There are also three natural gas wells situated on the farm. The father of Mr. Creviston put up both barns during his lifetime, and there are other facilities in keeping with those already mentioned.
Elmer J. Creviston was born in 1866, on a farm just half a mile east of his present home. His father E. W. Creviston, who now resides on North Washington Street in Marion, was born in Ohio, in 1839, and when an infant one year of age was brought to Grant county, by his father Daniel Creviston, who was one of the pioneers of the county. Daniel Creviston entered one hundred and forty-nine acres of land from the government, and an interesting fact of the family record is that this land was never transferred from its original ownership until the grandfather's estate was divided in 1909. Daniel Creviston died in 1888, and his wife survived until 1909, to a very great age. E. W. Creviston, the father, moved to the latter in 1866. He was a substantial farmer and good citizen, and showed his patriotism during the Civil war by enlisting in the Thirty-Fourth Indiana Infantry. The maiden name of his wife was Margaret Coulbertson. Their two children are Alma Lugan, who resides south of Landersville and Elmer J.
Elmer J. Creviston spent his youth in Washington Township, and when old enough to go to school he became one of the scholars in what was known as number one school house of this township. His first experience in farming was on one hundred acres of and belonging to his father and lying south of the present place. He remained there from 1889 to 1892, and then moved to Marion, and engaged in business affairs. He was in the livery business for three years, in 1895 spent six months again in farming, and in the latter part of the same year established a restaurant business, which he conducted until 1897. He was then from 1897 to 1905 in the grocery business, and in the latter year came to the present estate of which he is practically the proprietor.
Mr. Creviston was married in 1890 to Miss Myrtle Ballard, daughter of Dr. J. R. Ballard, a native of Ohio. They have one son, Daniel, aged nineteen years. The politics of Mr. Creviston is Progressive, and he and his family worship in the United Brethren Church.
Centennial History of Grant County Indiana 1812-1912. The Lewis Publishing Co., 1914.