Representative Justin R. Doran View All Years

JUSTIN R. DORAN

MR. PRESIDENT: Your committee which was appointed to prepare resolutions commemorating the life, character, and services of the late Justin R. Doran of Boone county, Iowa, beg leave to submit the following:

Justin R. Doran was born in Reynold’s Basin, Niagara county, New York, August 8, 1850, and died at his home south of Beaver, Iowa, on October 13, 1924. He was the son of Patrick and Catherine Keeley Doran, both natives of Ireland and immigrating to the United States in 1849. He came to La Salle county, Illinois, with his parents in the early fifties. In the autumn of 1874 he came to Iowa and settled in Boone county. He obtained his education in the country schools of Illinois. At the age of fifteen years he was left an orphan and his boyhood days were spent in the hardest of manual labor. He was a self-made man, as he did not have the means for opportunity to acquire a college education. Yet by the best of reading he acquired a general education and was well informed on many subjects. By hard labor, judicious management, and up-to-date methods Mr. Doran obtained his prosperity. His thrift and business acumen resulted in the accumulation of extensive property holdings. In Boone county his farm land holdings consisted of about three thousand acres, making him the largest land-holder in the county and one of the wealthiest in the state.

In political affairs Mr. Doran was a faithful member of the republican party. He took great interest in the civic and political affairs of the state and county. He was elected justice of the peace, school director, school treasurer, and township trustee at different times. He was representative from Boone county in the Thirtieth, Thirty-first, Thirty-second and Thirty-second extra general assemblies, and senator from the Boone-Story district in the Thirty-fifth and Thirty-sixth general assemblies. His work in the state legislature was a consistent stand in favor of economy and common sense in the conduct of state government.

In 1877 Mr. Doran was married to Miss Olive F. Blanshaw of Grand Junction, Iowa, who survives him. To this union were born thirteen children, two of whom died in infancy.

Now, Therefore, Be It Resolved By the Senate of the Forty-first General Assembly of Iowa, that in the death of Justin R. Doran the state and the community where he lived have suffered the loss of an influential and honorable citizen; and

Be It Further Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be spread upon the Journal of the Senate and that the secretary be directed to send an engrossed copy thereof to the family of the deceased.

LARS J. SKROMME

I. N. SNOOK

C. B. KERN

Committee.