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WALTER E. CUMMINGS, lives on his well improved farm of one hundred and sixty acres, in section 20, Eden township. He came to Benton county in 1884, with his mother and the rest of the family, including a brother and sister. He was born in Ogle county, Illinois, March 31, 1863, and is a son of Benjamin F. and Elizabeth (Yates) Cummings.
Benjamin F. Cummings was born in Vergennes, Vermont, September 17, 1816, and came to Ogle county, Illinois, when a boy; his father died in Vermont, and he was accompanied by his mother and sister. He secured a farm in Ogle county, where he remained until the early sixties; then he removed to Coffey county, Kansas, and about a year later moved to Johnson county, Missouri, near Holden, where he secured a farm. He went to Kansas City for an operation to remove a limb, which caused his death there, May 6, 1873. He was a Republican, a member of the Christian church, and worked at his trade of carpenter as well as carrying on a farm. B. F. Cummings married, September 17, 1846, at Dixon, Illinois, Elizabeth Yates, who was born September 22, 1824, in Frederick county, Maryland, daughter of Charles and Catherine (Minnick) Yates. Charles Yates, a mason by trade, died in Maryland, and in the early thirties his widow, with six children, removed to Illinois. They made their permanent home in Illinois, where the mother died in her eighty-third year. B. F. Cummings and his wife lived in Ogle county, Illinois, on a farm, until their removal to Kansas. Of their ten children, all born in Illinois, seven survive. Josephine, born in 1847, is a widow and makes her home with her brother, Walter E.; Alice, born March 11, 1849, died in her youth, in Kansas; Manzella, born December 8, 1850, is a widow and resides in the west; Aquilla F., born August 11, 1853, is married and lives in Ogle county, Illinois; Edwin S., born April 7, 1855, was for twenty-five years a resident of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and still lives in the west; James B., born June 24, 1857, died in Illinois when a young man; Charles L., born February 13, 1859, has been a resident of the west since boyhood; George W., born January 23, 1861, lives in Idaho; Walter B., is the ninth in order of birth; and Katie E., born May 16, 1866, is a widow and lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
Mr. Cumming's mother who was eighty-six years old in September, 1910, is a remarkably well preserved old lady. While she is unable to walk, she possesses all of her mental faculties. She has thirteen grandchildren and seventeen great-grandchildren. She is a member of the Christian church.
After the death of B. F. Cummings the family returned from Missouri to Ogle county, Illinois, and lived there until the mother, with her two sons and one daughter, came to Benton county and located in Eden township. Walter E. Cummings has expended a great deal of time and energy getting the farm into its present condition, and has been enterprising and successful. His mother and sister reside with him. He is one of the most progressive farmers of the county, and his standing in the community is one of respect and esteem. He is unmarried, and politically is a Republican.
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