Timothy A. Kelly (1849-1938)

KELLY

Posted By: Karon Velau (email)
Date: 4/6/2022 at 15:03:13

Timothy Augustus Kelly
(March 1, 1849 – January 9, 1938)

With the farming interests of Jackson Township T. A. Kelly has been actively identified since the spring of 1884, and today owns and operates a fine farm on sections 25 and 36, consisting of two hundred and forty acres of valuable bottom land on the south bank of Coon river. He is a progressive agriculturist and has met with marked success in his chosen vocation. Mr. Kelly is a native of the Empire state, having been born in Westchester County, New York, March 1, 1849. His parents, William C. and Hannah J. (Parker) Kelly, were also natives of New York and the father was a contractor in Westchester County at the time of his death, which occurred in 1851. Eight years later the mother married a Mr. Elliott and removed to DeKalb County, Illinois, where our subject grew to manhood upon his stepfather's farm, his education being acquired in the common schools of the neighborhood. After reaching man's estate he bought a farm of eighty acres, which he greatly improved and subsequently sold. His next farm also consisted of eighty acres in DeKalb County, Illinois, and upon that place he made his home for twelve years. Selling his property he came to Iowa in 1884 and purchased his present farm in Calhoun County, which at that time was partially improved. The following spring be took up his residence thereon, and to its further improvement and cultivation he has since devoted his energies. He has put up over four miles of fence and has a good well and erected a windmill, which not only pumps the water but is used in operating a feed-grinder. The place is now supplied with most of the conveniences and accessories found upon a model farm of the present century.
In June, 1874, Mr. Kelly was married in DeKalb County, Illinois, to Miss Emma Wilson, a daughter of Leonard Wilson. She was also born in Westchester County, New York, and was reared there and in New York city. Mr. and Mrs. Kelly have three children, namely: Hattie J., who attended first the common schools and later the Lake City high school and one term at Cornell University at Mount Vernon, Iowa, and has since successfully engaged in teaching school in this county for ten terms; Edward, who assists his father in operating the home farm; and Allie, who is now a student in the Lake City schools. Mr. Kelly has been a life-long Republican, having supported every presidential candidate of that party since casting his first vote for General U. S. Grant in 1872. Fraternally he is a member of the Odd Fellows Lodge, of Lake City, and his wife and daughters are members of the Methodist Episcopal church of that place. Their family is one of prominence in the community where they reside and their circle of friends and acquaintances is extensive. [Source – Biographical Record of Calhoun County, Iowa, by S. J. Clarke, 1902, p.311]