Frank H. Molumby

Frank H. Molumby, who for the past eighteen years has been identified with business interests of Waukon as a furniture dealer and undertaker, has today one of the largest and best equipped stores in the city and controls an important business. He was born in Clayton county, May 22, 1866, and was reared upon a farm in that section, spending his childhood and early youth aiding in the operation of the homestead.

After acquiring a public-school education Mr. Molumby left the farm and began his independent career, obtaining a position as clerk in a business house in Elkader, where he remained for six years, coming to Waukon in 1895. In this city he purchased an interest in a furniture and undertaking business and, commencing with a small stock, he gradually built up the business until it was a large and profitable enterprise. In order to fit himself more thoroughly for his work Mr. Molumby took a course in embalming and , in 1907, passed his examination before the state board, receiving his license in the same years. In 1909 he moved to his present location, where he occupies a double business house, with two large rooms filled with a complete and well selected stock of furniture and undertaking goods. He has his own hearse and carries a full line of caskets, and both branches of his business are very profitable, for he has been accorded a liberal patronage in recognition of his reasonable prices and his upright and honorable commercial methods.

Mr. Molumby married, in Waukon, in November, 1896, Miss Nellie Fitzgerald, who was born and reared in this county, a daughter of Maurice Fitzgerald, a well known farmer of Allamakee county. Mr. And Mrs. Molumby became the parents of six children: Mary, Pearl, Dolores, Frances and Helen; and Gerald, who died in 1900, at the age of eleven months. The family home is located in one of the finest residence districts of the city and is an attractive and comfortable dwelling, which Mr. and Mrs. Molumby have made the center of hospitality for their many friends. They are members of the Waukon Catholic church and Mr. Molumby belongs to the Catholic Order of Foresters. His life has ever been upright and honorable and he has at all times endeavored to deal justly by his fellowmen and to shape his conduct in accordance with the principles of good citizenship.

-source: Past & Present of Allamakee County; by Ellery M. Hancock; S. J. Clarke Pub. Co.; 1913
-transcribed by Diana Diedrich

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