Representative Gilbert Lafayette Van Eaton View All Years

Gilbert Lafayette Van Eaton

Lyon County

Mr. Van Eaton was born October 14, 1843, a Hoosier, and the eighth of nine children born to James and Gulie (Brown) Van Eaton, a good old Holland name. The family settled in Winnebago County, Wisconsin, where he was reared to farm life, and becoming a farm hand when only fourteen years old, and from that time on he made his own living. At the second call for troops in 1861 the young man hastened to don the Union blue, and became a member of Company A. Sixteenth Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry. After the war Mr. Van Eaton was again engaged in farming in Wisconsin, spent some two years in Minnesota, went back to Wisconsin, and in the spring of 1872 voyaged by "prairie schooner" to Osceola County, Iowa, where he homesteaded a quarter section of land, his resources at that time being three horses, a wagon and $45 in money, but he was young and full of energy. His wife joined him in the summer, and life was begun on the prairies. Until 1883 Mr. Van Eaton conducted his farming with much profit, but for the sake of schooling for the children he rented his farm that year and removed to Sibley, where for two years he sold farm implements. Two years later he came to Little Rock, and became the junior member of the firm of Shell & Van Eaton, dealers in grain lumber and coal. Active in public affairs he is now serving his third term as mayor. In political matters he is a Republican, and claims that "he votes as straight as he shot." He is chairman of the township Republican committee, a position he has filled for many years. He represented Lyon County in the Thirty-first Iowa General Assembly, 1906. In 1865 Mr. Van Eaton and Miss Elizabeth Fridd, a native of Wisconsin, were married. It is the ambition of Mr. Van Eaton to spend the rest of his active life on the farm, and it is his intention to very soon make the change.

House District 81