Hiram Humphrey 1836-1903

HUMPHREY, HAINES, HART

Posted By: SGF (email)
Date: 8/7/2002 at 03:08:19

Died, at his home in this city, at 5 o'clock Saturday morning, Jan. 24, 1903, in his sixty-seventh year, Hiram S. Humphrey. Hiram S. Humphrey was born in Ohio, March 5, 1836. With his parents he moved to Indiana in the year 1852, and in 1859 he came to Iowa, settling on a farm in Grand Meadow township, Clayton county, in 1860, he was married to Phila Haines. To this union nine children were born, six of whom, Alfred E., Ida M. (now Mrs. J.B. Hart), Levi H., Jessie, Hiram and Earl, with the wife, survive him; the other three having died in infancy. In 1875 Mr. Humphrey sold his farm in Grand Meadow, came to Postville and built the Commercial House, which he ran one year, then sold out and farmed three years; then repurchased the hotel property, which he run one and a half years and again sold out. After that he was engaged in various pursuits for a number of years, until 17 years ago when he remodeled the store building he purchased near the Milwaukee depot, and converted it into a hotel, which he has run continuously since under the name of the Postville House, and has enjoyed a liberal patronage from the traveling public. The immediate cause of Mr. Humphrey's death was neuralgia of the stomach, from which he has been a great sufferer during the past eight or ten weeks. All that medical skill or care could do to stay the ravages of the disease were without avail, and on Saturday morning last at about the hour of five o'clock, surrounded by his loving wife and children, the wearied spirit took its flight. For more than thirty years the life of Hiram Humphrey has been as an open book to the people of Postville and vicinity and during all those years we have yet to hear of his being otherwise than generous and kind, honest in all his dealings. His purse strings were always loose when asked to contribute to the relief of some one on whom fortune has not smiled, and no tramp, no matter how untoward his appearance, ever appealed to him in vain for a meal. In his home he was always kind and affectionate and spared not of his sometimes meager board to make happier those who composed the family circle. And whatever may have been his faults (few there are without them) his good

[remainder cut off my copy]
- source: Postvile review 1/30/1903