Whitaker Brothers, consisting of J. M. and J. B. Whitaker, conduct a prosperous real estate, insurance, money lending, brokerage and dry-goods business at Falls City, Richardson county. They are men of known business integrity and reliability, and their enterprise and progressive methods give them a large leverage in trade circles of the town and county. This business was established in Falls City on April 13, 1898, by J. B. Whitaker, the junior member, and in July, 1901, he was joined by his brother. They have built up a large patronage, and are both successful men. That their careers have deserved large rewards will be understood from the history of the elder of these brothers, who are both natives of Tennessee and who outgrew the narrow limits in which they were reared and pushed forth in a bigger world outside the confines of their native state, finding both opportunity and a worth place in life.
James M. Whitaker was born on his father’s farm in Tennessee, May 22, 1861, a son of John H. and Amanda (Welch) Whitaker, who were both born in the same part of Tennessee, the former in 1843. There were ten children in the family. The youngest, Jesse, died at the age of three years, having been named for his uncle, Jesse Crook, one of Fall City's worthy citizens and a pioneer to this county in 1854. Neither Mr. Whitaker nor his brother had more than the most meager schooling during youth, three months in the poor and ineficient [sic] public school during the winter and supplemented by a very brief subscription school. He often contrasts conditions in his native state with those prevailing in Nebraska when he arrived here. In Tennessee he received only eight dollars a month for hard work, and half of that was in store pay, and as to advantages, he was able to do only long division in arithmetic at the age of twenty-three.
Mr. James M. Whitaker was the first one to leave the old home, which he did in 1880, and went to Texas, where he entered the employ of a wholesale and retail firm engaged in the grain, hide and fur business. He remained three years, but returned home because of a brother’s serious illness. Soon after his brother’s death he told his parents that prosy old Tennessee was no place for him, and that he was going west. Accordingly, in February, 1884, he arrived in Richardson county, Nebraska. He began his career in this state by working on a farm, which was, however, only a means to an end, for he was not at all satisfied with his educational equipment, and determined to get at least a tolerable training for life and business. During the winter he attended a select school in Falls City taught by Professor Corey, and then during the other seasons of the year he labored on the farm. He soon obtained employment from F. W. Ingham, who was among the first to introduce the manufacture of pumps and windmills in this part of the country. For four years he alternated this employment with going to school during the winter. He attended the Morrell Normal College of Kansas under Principal J. M. Real, and for his last school the normal at Enterprise, Kansas. He received forty-five dollars a month while working at the windmill business, which was almost a fortune to what he had earned by manual labor in his native state.
His father gave the boys part of their time each year after they were eighteen years old, and the first money that he had worth mentioning was sixty-five dollars received for a little mule, which he had bought by clearing a patch of timber on his father's sterile farm and growing corn thereon, using the proceeds to trade for his mule. When he reached Texas he had but thirteen dollars of that sum, and his first outlay was one dollar for a poor breakfast. Those days of privation and even hardship have long been past, but Mr. Whitaker takes much comfort from his present situation by comparing it with his early life.
In 1892 he came to Falls City and engaged with Cook and Company to learn the hardware business, receiving his board in compensation. A short time later he bought in with Julius Schoenfeldt, publisher of a Nebraska journal, and Mr. Whitaker added a job printing outfit, which enterprise he conducted very successfully for a year, and then sold to his partner. He returned to the hardware business, which he continued until 1896. In December of that year he got mixed up somewhat in politics. He went to the Republican state convention and helped nominate J. H. Cornell for state auditor, and on the latter’s election to that office he was appointed one of the deputies. He lived during the four years’ term in Lincoln, and during the last two years was chief clerk in the insurance department. In 1897 he was the prime mover in having Nebraska represented at the Tennessee Centennial, which he attended in company with the distinguished W. J. Bryan, Senator Allen, Governor Holcomb and staff, and others. He was a Republican in politics for a number of years, but is now a Bryan Democrat. He and his brother each resides in his own home, and they own other town property and farm lands.
Mr. J. M. Whitaker was married in July, 1894, to Miss Margaret Deachy, of Morrill, Kansas. Her father, Mahlon Deachy, was a pioneer of Kansas, coming from Somerset county, Pennsylvania.