Representative Abram Pearson View All Years

HON. ABRAM PEARSON

MR. SPEAKER—Your committee appointed to prepare resolutions commemorating the life and services of the Hon. Abram Pearson, late of Washington county, Iowa, beg leave to report the following memorial:

At his home in Washington county, Iowa, at seven-thirty p. m., Wednesday, September 20, 1922, Hon. Abram Pearson passed away after a brief Illness. Mr. Pearson was born near Kansas City, Kansas, on July 15, 1837. He was the son of Moses and Sarah Pearson of Miami county, Ohio, who, with a man named Henry Harvey, were sent out in 1835 by the Friends (Quakers), of which church they were members, to establish schools among the Indians of Indian Territory. They worked in the west for three years, during which time Mr. Pearson was born, and then returned to their home in Ohio.

Abram Pearson was one or a family of eight children and was the last to pass away. He attended the Friends’ school near his home and this education was supplemented by two years of study at Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio. After completing his education, he engaged in teaching and farming in Miami county until the time of his marriage to Miss Julia Appelgate, of Yellow Springs, Ohio, which occurred in 1862. After his marriage he moved to Kokomo, Indiana, where he spent one year, and then came to Washington county, Iowa, in 1863, engaging in the occupation of farming, locating on a farm in Jackson township and living on it continuously for almost sixty years, where he died. Mr. Pearson took an active part in public affairs and was always conscious of the welfare of his community. In all his public work he encouraged progress and good government and a careful and wise expenditure of public funds. He had an extensive acquaintance over the county and among public men in the state. Through his activities he became interested in politics and the welfare of the state. He was urged by his friends to become a candidate for representative in the state legislature, and was elected and served as a member of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth sessions of the General Assembly of the State of Iowa.

Mr. Pearson served as secretary of his home school district continuously for forty years.

He retained his Quaker belief but in the absence of a Friends’ church in his home community, he became a member of the Bethel Presbyterian church in his neighborhood in which he was teacher of the Bible class for thirty-two years. He was a devout Christian and was regularly in attendance at all services in his church. Having a splendid education and devoting his full time to his dally duties, he was eminently successful in his farming activities, feeding stock and raising full blooded horses. He accumulated a fortune of several hundred acres of land, upon which he built a beautiful modern home, and with the fine barns and other improvements it is a model farm home.

To review the life of Mr. Pearson would be to recount the growth and progress of his community, so closely was his life devoted to the welfare of his fellowmen.

He was faithful and efficient in public service and one of the best known and most prominent men in Washington county. Surviving him are two daughters and three sons, his beloved wife having departed from this life several years prior to his death. He will be missed by all, but mostly by those who knew and loved him best. His passing away is a distinct public loss; to his home community, because he was ever alert to its best interest; to the state and nation, because his interest was always exerted to make and keep them what they are.

Therefore, Be It Resolved, By the House of Representatives of the Fortieth General Assembly of the State of Iowa, that the foregoing memorial be and the same hereby is adopted as its appreciation of the life, character and public services of Hon. Abram Pearson, a distinguished former member, and that the same be spread upon the records and printed in the House Journal and a copy properly enrolled, signed by the Speaker and Chief Clerk, be mailed to the surviving members of the family of the deceased at their respective homes.

C. F. LETTS,

NELS PETERSON,

WM. L. LONG,

Adopted April 12, 1923.

Committee.