Price, Realto Exzeque 1840 - 1935

PRICE, STEWART

Posted By: Reid R. Johnson (email)
Date: 10/9/2017 at 19:44:22

Realto E. Price, oldest member of the Clayton county bar, died at his home here Sunday evening at 11:30 following an illness of about two weeks at the advanced age of 94 years, six months and ten days.

Mr. Price, who had been actively associated with the growth not only of Elkader but also Clayton county, had retired from active life about fifteen years ago when he stepped from the law business which he had conducted in partnership with his son, the late Valmah T. Price, and the remaining years of his life were spent in the quiet and seclusion of his home.

Realto Exzeque Price was born in a log cabin on the "Black Spring" farm in section 11 of Jefferson township, this county, on August 1, 1840.

He passed his early life in the common school and at Upper Iowa university at Fayette during the college year of 1857 and 1858, and on the farm.

In May, 1860, he entered the law office of Murdock & Hunt, here in Elkader, where he remained for two years. The next nine months he worked in the law office of Odell & Updegraf, at McGregor, on a salary of $8.00 a month and board. In January, 1863, he was admitted to the bar, and at the same time entered into partnership with B. F. Hunt in the practice of law at Elkader, which partnership continued six years until Mr. Hunt was elected Circuit Court Judge and retired from the firm. Marvin Cook, who had practiced law for about one year in Elkader, then became a partner under the firm name of Price & Cook, which continued from November 1, 1869, to January 1, 187_ (1873 or 1878), when Mr. Cook was elected county clerk.

For a time then, Mr. Price practiced law alone until his son, Valmah T., entered the practice in 1891 under the firm name of R. E. & V. T. Price and this firm continued the practice of law until about fifteen years ago.

In politics Mr. Price was a republican. He had no personal desire for office but preferred to follow his vocation and help other deserving candidates to office. However, at the time of incorporating the town of Elkader, he did accept the office of councilman in which capacity he served for twenty-two years and three months, faithfully working with other councilmen in getting the town incorporated, and devoted much time personally in overseeing the work of putting in the construction of the waterworks system of this community.

Largely through his efforts the C.M. & St.P. railroad company was compelled to extend their railroad four and one-half miles from Stulta in Pony Hollow to Elkader by legal proceedings before the railroad commission of Iowa. He rendered many other valuable services to the town and county during the years he was active.

He was associated, in an active way, with the growth and the development of the First National Bank. For 37 years he was a director of that institution; eighteen years he served as vice-president and seventeen years as its president.

October 16, 1866, here in Elkader, Realto E. Price was united in marriage with Miss Sarah Filetta Stewart. To them were born three sons, Valmah Tupelo Price, in Elkader, October 11, 1867; James R. Price, born in Elkader, February 17, 1872; and Stewart R. Price, also in Elkader, October 22, 1879.

All three sons preceded the father in death in the following order: James on May 22, 1877; Valmah T., on October 26, 1931; and Stewart, on December 24, 1932. His wife died here on October 4, 1925.

Mr. Price's family was a family of pioneers. Nearly 300 hundred years ago in 1639, Benjamin Price, then a youth scarcely out of his 'teens, had made the perilous voyage from his Welch home to found a family in America. An abiding interest in civic affairs seems to have marked the family from the first, for Benjamin became a member of the House of Burgesses in New Jersey, a member of the Governor's council, a judge of small causes at Elizabethtown.

In the fifth generation appeared Eliphalet Price, Sr., born in 1786 in that Elizabeth which Benjamin had helped to found. Eliphalet, Sr., became a Presbyterian minister in 1809. After 19 months service in Jersey City, he accepted a call to Wapplingers Creek, N.Y., where he remained until his death in 1850. Family pictures show him as a man of splendid figure with a strikingly intelligent face.

To him was born a son, Eliphalet, in 1811, who was to play a large part in the history of northeastern Iowa. He came to Iowa in 1833, and in 1835 permanently settled in Clayton county. As farmer, lawyer, author and judge, he lived in the county for nearly forty years and during much of that time, with his fellow-judges, Murdock, Noble, and Williams, he dominated the life, intellectual and political, not only of the county, but of the state. At the time of his death in 1880, his friend, judge Murdock, wrote in the old Clayton County Journal:

"The history of Iowa, and the development of civilization in this great valley, can never be correctly written without his name being in the front rank of those who contributed the service of a long life to the establishment of everything that has proved beneficial to existing races and their prosperity."

The story of Judge Price and his activities in the county is the story of the county itself, and is too long to be told here But the same qualities, which were developed in the previous generations of the Price family, were continued under the subject of this sketch, Realto E. Price. Tradition says he was the second white child born in this county.

To have lived 94 years in the same county and to have seen the development of that county is, in itself, an enviable record but to have contributed, in a large measure, to the growth and development of that county during all those years is a record which can be enjoyed by only a few.

Naturally, with advancing years Mr. Price and his activities dropped into the background, but the results of his labors in Elkader and Clayton county will continue through years without number. Clayton county and Elkader were fortunate in having, as residents, members of the Price family. Clayton county and Elkader have ample reason to long remember the Prices, individually and collectively.

Funeral services will be held this afternoon at 1:30 at the home and at 2:00 in the Congregational church with burial in the East Side cemetery, the Rev. C. T. Brewster preaching the sermon. Burial services will be conducted by Elkader Lodge No. 72, A.F. & A.M., of which the deceased was the oldest member.

November 25th, 1934, Mr. Price became a fifty-year Mason and a certificate of life membership, without dues, was issued at that date. He entered the local lodge as an Entered Apprentice on Dec. 18, 1874; passed to the degree of a Fellowcraft on Feb. 23, 1883, and was raised to the degree of a Master Mason on November 23, 1884.

source: Clayton County Register, Thur., 14 Feb. 1935.