Representative Irving P. Bowdish View All Years

HON. IRVING P. BOWDISH

MR. SPEAKER: Your committee, appointed to prepare resolutions commemorating the life, character and public service of the Hon. Irving P. Bowdish, late a member of the House of Representatives in the Seventeenth and Nineteenth General Assemblies, beg leave to report the following:

Irving P. Bowdish, son of Bailey Bowdish and Sarah Paine Bowdish, was born November 19, 1838, in the town of South Dover, Dutchess county, New York. In 1854, the father, Bailey Bowdish, bought a farm near the village of Waubeek in Linn county. Irving P. Bowdish, with his father’s family, came to Iowa on April 15, 1856. He located with his parents on the farm, January 18, 1858. At that date Linn county was only partly settled and Cedar Rapids was a village. At this pioneer home, on April 19, 1858, Irving P. Bowdish was married to Sarah F. Harrison, who survives him.

He attended the public school in New York and completed his education in an academy at Litchfield, Connecticut, his last examination having been under the noted educator, Horace Mann. He early became prominent in the promotion of education in local and state affairs, and for many years was retained as treasurer and counsellor of the township school board.

He was intensively active in promoting the interests of the farmer. Having increased his farm in acreage, he bought registered stock, permitting it to run on the open prairie, then bought the increase at advanced prices to convince his people of the importance and better profits of improved herds. He was one of the earliest and largest shippers of livestock and was, at his death, the oldest continuous shipper to the Chicago Union Stock Yards, having sold stock there on the opening day of the yards, December 20, 1865. Many of the principal officials of the Union Stock Yards were his boyhood associates.

During the Civil War, presenting himself for service and being physically barred, he sought to aid the impoverished families of the boys in the army by advancing money on their expectant crops as soon as planted and before the seed had sprouted in the ground.

While merely a farmer, he became so versed in our laws as to become the counsellor and advisor in many local disagreements, but especially was he sought to write wills and to act as executor. Some of the wills he wrote were contested, but none were ever broken. This result added to demands upon him from men of large estates.

Twice elected to the legislature from the Democratic party and overcoming large adverse majorities, he served as Representative from Linn county in the Seventeenth and Ninteenth General Assemblies, becoming a recognized minority leader when the minority party had considerable strength.

He came, with his parents, into this state in young manhood. All that has taken place in the development of this region, he saw; part of it, he was. He saw the faint prairie trails become the paved highways of today, the automobile displacing the horse, the tractor supplanting the ox team at the plow. He saw the wilderness turned into the garden spot of the United States; he saw the many changes of progress marching through like a victorious army, and all in the lifetime of one man.

He thought, spoke and wrote with all the vigor of disciplined manhood. No man in the community carried more warm personal friends than this master pioneer. If he had enemies, they were only among those who could not use him for questionable purposes. He enjoyed the confidence of his region for unbroken integrity, fidelity to friends and moral virtues. He turned many of the youths of his acquaintance into paths of success and Christian living. He gave of all his energies to the service of betterment for his community and Iowa, the state he loved. He lived continuously for seventy years in the one house in which he was married. He belonged to the order of Masons, and was a member of the Baptist church. He passed away May 11, 1927, in his eighty-ninth year.

Therefore, Be It Resolved, That the House of Representatives take this occasion to present this tribute to the memory of a faithful public servant, and to express appreciation of his character and public service, and at the same time extend to relatives most sincere sympathy.

Be It Further Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be printed in the Journal of the House and that the Chief Clerk be directed to forward to the family of the deceased an enrolled copy.

D. R. MCCREERY,

W. WALTER WILSON,

J. E. MCMILLAN,

Committee.

Unanimously adopted April 8, 1929.