Thomas Bedford

BEDFORD, WILLEY, BARCLAY, CUTHBERTSON

Posted By: Andrea Plumley (email)
Date: 8/5/2003 at 14:19:50

Times Herald, Carroll, Ia., Thursday, February 26, 1981-Page 2
Thomas Bedford succumbs at age 101

Thomas Melvin Bedford, whose memories of Carroll County spanned an era of rolling prairies crossed by wild animals, Indians and migrating Mormons, died Tuesday, Feb. 24, at age 101.

One of the oldest residents of the county, Bedford was born Sept. 13, 1879, in Pleasant Valley Township. He was the son of Alfred and Charlotte Willey Bedford. His father was a Baptist preacher and homesteader who also worked for the railroad.

Services will be conducted at 1;30 p.m. Friday, feb 27, at the Dahn & Woodhouse Funeral Home in Glidden, with the Rev. Scott Burkley, pastor of the United Presbyterian Church, officiating.

Pallbearers will be Bill Gregory, Jack Neubauer, John Zimmerman Jr., Bob Gregory, Art Miller and George Hobbs Jr. Mrs. Don Hansen will play the organ. Burial will be in Westlawn Cemetery at Glidden.

Friends may call at the funeral home in Glidden after 7 tonight.

Survivors include a son, Lloyd Bedford of Ralston, and a daughter, Mrs. Edwin (Ruth) Barclay of Stuart, Fla. He was preceded in death by his wife and three brothers. He was a member fo the United Presbyterian Church.

During his lifetime, Bedford witnessed more than a century of Carroll County history. He recalled his boyhood on a farm located three miles south of the present municipal airport in a Times Herald interview conducted on his 100th birthday last year.

He said nearly all the land in this area was rolling prairie filled with snakes and wild animals when he was a boy, and he also told of Indians living in buffalo-hide wigwams.

“You had to corral all the farm animals every night to protect them from the wolves and coyotes,” he said.

Bedford said he once saw a group of Mormons traveling across the county on their way to new homesteading territories in the West.

He said the secret of his longevity was to “live a clean life and tend to your own business.” Religion played an important role in his life, and he said his most prized possession was his father’s bible.

Bedford married Pearl Cuthbertson on Feb. 28, 1906, in Carroll, and the couple farmed at three different locations. Their last farm was located 2 ½ miles south of Ralston. He retired from farming in 1943 and he and his wife lived a time in Council Bluffs, returning to Carroll in 1955. He said his longest trip away from Carroll was to Omaha.

Bedford died at the Carroll Health Center nursing home where he had been a resident since 1971.