Representative Abraham Christian Reck View All Years

HON. A. C. RECK

MR. SPEAKER—Your committee appointed to prepare a memorial to properly commemorate the life and service to the state of the Honorable A. C. Reck, a member of the Eighteenth General Assembly, beg leave to submit the following report:

A. C. Reck was born in Stark County, Ohio, April 3rd, 1834, and died at the home of his daughter in Spokane, Wash., March 31st, 1921, hence at the time of his death lacked but three days of his eighty-seventh birthday.

The story of his life is the story of a young man going west and growing up with the country and that country Decatur and Wayne counties, Iowa.

After the admission of Iowa as a state into the Union, emigration began to flow from Ohio and other eastern states and to settle in the new country west of the Des Moines river. They traveled overland either by team or down the Ohio river by boat to Keokuk and then on by team. Among them came the subject of this sketch. At twenty years of age he left his native state, and came to Iowa, settling at Garden Grove in Decatur county. The next year, 1855, he married the daughter of the proprietor of the first hotel conducted in that place, Miss Ann Maria Dawes.

At that time Wayne and Decatur counties had no towns, not even platted villages. Soon after his marriage he moved to a farm near Sandy Point, Decatur county, about eight miles northwest of Lineville in Wayne county, and for about ten or twelve years ran a grist mill and saw mill and manufactured coffins out of walnut lumber.

In those days a mill was a business center. Reck’s Mill was a name as familiar to those who patronized it as the name of our towns and cities are to us. In truth, the acquaintances made were far more intimate than anything we know nowadays. Many people traveled so far to mill that they had to sojourn all night with the miller and return home the next day and Mr. Reck’s hospitality was unlimited.

Soon after the close of the Civil War, Mr. Reck moved to a farm in Wayne county about eight miles west of where Allerton now is. In 1870 came the first railroad to Wayne county, and Judge Aller of Leavenworth, Kansas, one of the owners of said railroad located the town of Allerton on 160 acres of land owned by him in said county. About 1871, P. M. Phillips who had been running a dry goods store in Corydon moved it to Allerton and took Mr. A. C. Reck in as a partner. The business was conducted under the firm name of Phillips & Reck.

This firm was dissolved after about ten years and Mr. Reck formed a partnership with his son-in-law, J. B. Rankin and engaged in the drug business in Allerton under the firm name of Reck & Rankin.

At one time in his life he had accumulated a considerable fortune, but twice in his mercantile experience, he suffered a heavy loss by being burned out and with a proportionately small amount of insurance. He served as Mayor of Allerton and for a number of years as Justice of the Peace, and for a while was owner and editor of the Allerton News.

Mr. Reck had practically no public school education but he was a great reader and became self educated. He taught a country school while living in Decatur county.

His home life was the most pleasant, and for more than sixty-five years he journeyed through life with the wife of his youth and was ever a faithful husband.

He was elected on the Republic ticket, Representative to the Eighteenth General Assembly and served in that body with marked efficiency. He was chairman of the committee on enrolled bills and a member of other committees.

Coming to Iowa in her infancy he ever after remained one of her loyal citizens. It was “Beautiful Iowa’’ when he came and it is “Beautiful Iowa” now. But what a change from the wild state he served as a pioneer to the various activities of her teaming millions within her borders now. He was a pioneer and he was more, he has served Iowa through all these years.

He is survived by his wife, three sons and four daughters.

In recognition of the value of his life and service to the state of Iowa, and in expression of our appreciation of his character and example,

Be It Resolved, by the House of Representatives of the Thirty-ninth General Assembly, that we express our high esteem of his life and character and that we extend to his bereaved widow and children, our sincere sympathy.

Be It Further Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be spread upon the Journal of the House, and that the Chief Clerk be directed to send an enrolled copy to his widow.

C. W. ELSON,

R. O. MILLER,

R. L. RUMLEY,

Committee.

Adopted April 6, 1921.