Ernest B. Stillman

STILLMAN, PHIPPS, SCHRODER, ELLISON, MORTLING, HEATH, RICH

Posted By: Cathy Joynt Labath (email)
Date: 10/16/2004 at 17:04:38

ERNEST BRUCE STILLMAN is a native of Northern Iowa, and since 1913 has been
a member of the bar at Clear Lake. He is a scholarly lawyer, enjoys a large
practice, and has worked individually and with many organizations in the
promotion of matters for the general welfare.

Mr. Stillman was born on a farm north of Emmetsburg, Iowa, June 15, 1887,
son of Linus P. and Mary G. (Phipps) Stillman. The Stillmans as a family came
from England to America in Colonial times, and several representatives of the
name were soldiers in the Revolution. Mr. Stillman's two sisters are members of
the Daughters of the American Revolution. Linus P. Stillman, his father, was
born in 1845, and came out to Iowa when a young man, settling near Waukon in
Allamakee County. He was a school teacher and later a farmer, and at all times
was actuated by high and patriotic ideals. In October, 1862, he enlisted in the
First Iowa Cavalry, for service in the Union army, but most of his time was
taken up with duties on the frontier, watching the Indians in the Black hills
district of Dakota under General Polk. His brother John was the first Iowa man
to enlist for service in the Civil War, and was killed in action, and his body
was the first to be brought home and buried in Iowa soil. Linus P. Stillman was
a member of the Grand Army of the Republic. He died April 6, 1887, about two
months before the birth of his son Ernest B. The widowed mother is still living
at Emmetsburg. The older children were: Linus P.; Laura G.; the wife of W.R.
Schroder; Roxy F.; wife of Charles E. Ellison; Mae T., the wife of W.H.
Mortling; and Charles J.

Ernest Bruce Stillman grew up on a farm and attended country schools. He was
graduated from the Emmetsburg High School in 1906, and from 1907 to 1911 pursued
the liberal arts course work in the law department, form which he graduated LL.
B. in 1913, and in the fall of the same year he located at Clear Lake. During
his fifteen years at Clear Lake he has carried on a general practice, handling
corporation, real estate and other matters but has avoided all criminal cases.

Mr. Stillman has allied himself with many organizations that present the
better community ideals. He is a past secretary and a past president of the
Rotary Club, is a Royal Arch Mason and a past patron and member of the Eastern
Star, a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias,
Modern Woodmen of America, the Mason City Country Club and Clear Lake Country
Club. He is a past president of the Cerro Gordo County Bar Association and a
member of the County, Iowa State and American Bar Associations, also a member of
the Acacia fraternity of his alma mater. He is on the board of the Methodist
Episcopal Church and is a former superintendent of the Sunday School. He has
been secretary of the Republican state central committee, is a former city
attorney and city clerk, and during the World war was chairman of the Liberty
Loan drives, chairman of the four minute speakers, and a member of the War
Council. He is a past president of the Clear Lake Commercial Club.

Mr. Stillman married April 15, 1915, Miss Tressa E. Heath, of Clear Lake,
daughter of Mr. and Mrs. James B. Heath. Her father, who was a farmer and early
settler in Cerro Gordo County, died in 1921, and her mother in 1911. Mrs.
Stillman has a brother, Harry C. Heath, and a sister, Maude, wife of E.H. Rich.

transcribed by Cathy Joynt Labath

source: Harlan, Edgar Rubey. A Narrative History of the People of Iowa. Vol IV. Chicago:
American Historical Society, 1931; p. 114