Representative Oley Nelson View All Years

HONORABLE OLEY NELSON

MR. SPEAKER: Your committee, appointed to prepare resolutions commemorating the life, character, and public services of the Honorable Oley Nelson of Story county, begs leave to submit the following memorial:

Oley Nelson was born in a log cabin in Rock county, Wisconsin, August 10, 1844, and passed from this life at his home in Slater, Iowa, on April 15, 1938. His father served in the Civil War and died in service.

He enlisted June 17, 1864, in Company D, 49th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, which was known as the University regiment. He was discharged September 16, 1864, after illness rendered him unfit for further service.

In 1867 he came to Iowa in a covered wagon with his mother. For a few years he worked in Des Moines and at one time he worked for a contractor, hauling material to build the state capitol. He later engaged in mercantile and banking business in Slater, always displaying keen interest in his community. He represented Story county in the Twenty-first and Twenty-second General Assemblies and for fourteen years served as sergeant-at-arms of the House of Representatives.

He was a member of the Grand Army of the Republic Post No. 30 at Ames, Iowa, for forty years, and was a member of Grenville M. Dodge Camp, Sons of Union Veterans for twenty-seven years. He was department patriotic instructor and in 1927 was elected Department Commander of Iowa. In 1931 he was National Chief of Staff, and was elected senior vice-commander-in-chief the same year. He was elected national commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic in 1935—the third man from Iowa to attain that office.

While a member of the General Assembly, Mr. Nelson was one of the foremost advocates for the establishment of a soldiers home. It was largely through his efforts that one was established at Marshalltown, Iowa.

Mr. Nelson was not only a good soldier, a loyal statesman, but he lived up to every measure of a real citizen. He contributed to the civic welfare of his home town, Slater, Iowa, which place remained his residence until the time of his death. Though he gained national recognition as National Commander of the Grand Army of the Republic he always remained, to his neighbors and friends, just plain “Oley Nelson.”

A fitting tribute was paid to Mr. Nelson by Ray Murray in the following lines:

OLEY NELSON

“He shall not die!”

Although I stood beside his bier

And dropped a tear

To see the soldier I once knew,

Still garbed in blue,

Asleep beneath the flag that he

Had fought to keep unstained and free.

Asleep he lay, nor knew nor heard

A single, solitary word

Of all the praise we offered here

To one so dear;

Just lay asleep, his fighting done,

Now mustered out with victory won.

The lights are out, ‘tap’s’ echo creeps

Across God’s camp, our soldier sleeps;

But all the things for which he fought,

The ideals that he ever sought

Have been passed on to you and I;

He’s answered Taps,

But shall not die!”

Therefore, Be It Resolved, That in the passing of the Honorable Oley Nelson, the county of Story and the state of Iowa has lost a valuable and honored citizen and the House of Representatives of the state of Iowa, Forty-eighth General Assembly, tender, by this resolution, its sincere sympathy to the surviving members of his family in their sorrow, and

Be It Further Resolved, That a copy of this resolution be spread upon the Journal of the House of Representatives and that the Chief Clerk of the House of Representatives, Forty-eighth General Assembly, be instructed to send an enrolled copy to the family of the deceased.

ALBERT STEINBERG,

JAMES E. IRWIN,

E. M. LICHTY,

Committee.

Unanimously adopted, April 12, 1939.