Representative Nathan Edward Kendall View All Years

HONORABLE NATHAN E. KENDALL

MR. SPEAKER: Your committee appointed to prepare a resolution commemorating the life, character and public services of the late Honorable Nathan E. Kendall of Monroe county, Iowa, beg leave to submit the following:

Nathan E. Kendall was born in Greenville, Lucas county, Iowa, March 17, 1868. As a boy he worked on his father’s farm near Greenville, and attended rural school. Possessed of a keen and receptive mind, as a youth, he read and reread eagerly such books as he could obtain. His environment as a boy was that of the pioneers who immediately after the Civil War peopled the prairies and forests of southern Iowa. They were a strong and resourceful people among whom leaders in the law and politics attained special prominence.

To this youth, fired with ambition and blessed with a pleasing personality, it was thus natural that he turned to the profession of the law. He had the good sense to see that his career would be advanced by learning shorthand, in which he early became proficient. He entered the law office of T. B. Perry, then a leading attorney at Albia. There he studied and in 1887, was admitted to the bar. He began in Albia, and, aside from his absences while holding public office, continued the practice there until his removal to Des Moines. At his home city, his fine presence, genial personality and evident ability made him popular everywhere. Everyone soon called him “Nate” with democratic familiarity. He served one term as City Attorney, was elected County Attorney in 1893, and served thus until 1897.

In 1896, he was married to Miss Belle Wooden, of Centerville, Iowa. Mrs. Kendall died in Naples, Italy, March 18, 1926, from a stroke of apoplexy, while on a tour of Europe with her husband. She was a woman of rare beauty and charm. In her memory, Mr. Kendall gave to the Little Theatre Group of Des Moines, what is known as the Belle Kendall Community Playhouse on 35th Street. He was a man of generous impulses and made various gifts, notably his present later of his private library of over 7,000 volumes to the City of Albia, together with the funds for the enlargement of the library to twice its previous capacity.

In 1899, Mr. Kendall was first elected to the Iowa House of Representatives, and was returned again and again. He served in the Twenty-eighth, Twenty-ninth, Thirtieth, Thirty-first, and Thirty-second General Assemblies, and the Thirty-second Extra Session. He was elected Speaker at the Thirty-second Session. In 1908, he was elected to the Congress of the United States, where he promptly took rank as an orator and debater. He was re-elected in 1910. He was renominated for a third term, but withdrew following a heart attack. He was not again an aspirant for office until his nomination for Governor of the state in 1920, and was re-elected in 1922. As Governor, he was a popular and able executive. He retired at the end of his second term with a record that met the hearty approval of the citizenship of the state. In the meantime, he had taken up his residence in Des Moines, having purchased what had been the home of the late Senator Albert B. Cummins.

On June 28, 1928, he was married to the widow of William F. Bonnell, of Cleveland, Ohio. Mrs. Bonnell was the former Miss Mabel Fry. The wedding was solemnized at the home of Mrs. Bonnell’s parents at Point Chautauqua, New York.

Mr. Kendall retired from active participation in politics at the completion of his second term as Governor. He died at his home in Des Moines November 4, 1936.

Nate Kendall was one of the most brillant orators in the history of the state. He had a remarkable command of English. His addresses were rich in historic references, his voice especially pleasing, and his presence as a speaker magnetic. His ability to respond brilliantly to an unexpected demand for an address has been a matter of frequent comment.

Nate Kendall’s career was the fruit of a keen mind, a gift for oratory, ceaseless reading and study of history, and worthy ambition. Up from the soil to be twice elected Governor of his native state was no freak of political manipulation in his case, but the natural result of his fine equipment and seizure of the opportunity that in one form or another has marked the lives of distinguished American leaders. His life is a challenge to the young manhood of the state—an illustration of the preeminence that is possible to youth in America who have the brains, the ambition, the character, the ability to work, out of which success in a democracy is born.

Be It Resolved by the House of Representatives of the Forty-Seventh General Assembly of the State of Iowa, That in the passing of Honorable Nathan E. Kendall the state has lost an outstanding citizen, a brilliant orator, and one who served the state with fidelity and marked distinction; that we would here express our great grief and sense of loss at his passing, and extend to the members of his family our profound sympathy.

W. G. WOOD,

LEO A. HOEGH,

C. M. MCFATRIDGE,

Committee.

Unanimously adopted, April 19, 1937.