Price, Valmah T. 1867 - 1931

PRICE, PEERY, STEWART, LARSON

Posted By: S. Ferrall - IAGenWeb volunteer
Date: 1/8/2023 at 16:48:28

In less than five months Elkader, the Clayton county bar and in fact the entire county has lost two valued citizens the second one to be taken by death being Valmah T. Price, who had been in ill health for more than a year. D.D. Murphy is the other man referred to in this statement.

While all knew that Mr. Price was suffering from an ailment which held no hope for his recovery, news of the end has proved to be a shock none were at first ready to believe. V.T. Price passed into death quietly at his home here Monday afternoon at about 1:30, with his widow, their oldest son and their faithful housekeeper, Bertha Larson, at his bedside.

Mr. Price will be keenly missed in nearly all of the public activities of the community and county in which he has for many years taken a keen interest. While his chosen profession was in the practice of law, his interests were numerous.

"He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again," - Hamlet.

On October 11, 1867, when Iowa was about to celebrate its 21st birthday as one of the United States, Valmah T. Price was born in Elkader Iowa. The house in which he was born still stands, across the street from the court hose in the building of which his father [remainder of sentence is illegible]

His was a family of pioneers. Over two hundred years before, in1839, 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[town] 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 a 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 posterity."

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 We must turn our attention to his son, Realto E. Price, born in Clayton county Aug. 1, 1840. Tradition says he was the second white child born in the county where he still lives.

Admitted to the bar of Iowa in 1863, his activity in civic affairs continued over a period of many active years. The fruits of that activity which brought to Elkader the county seat, and compelled the completion of the railroad to Elkader, are still enjoyed by the community.

Realto Price was married on October 16 1866 to Sarah Filetta Stewart, the daughter of another early Clayton county settler of the 50's. To them was born, in 1867 the subject of this sketch.

Valmah T. Price received his early education in the public schools of Elkader, graduating in 1885.. He completed his preliminary education at the Iowa City Academy simultaneously with his first year's work at the State University of Iowa. At the university he was a member of Delta Tau Delta fraternity and for a time of the Zetagathian Literary Society. He shortly resigned from the latter society, however, and accepted election to Irving Institute..

In 1889 he received from the State University his degree as Bachelor of Science and in 1891 as Bachelor of Laws.

As a student in the University, he met a fellow-student, Miss Nelly Peery, to whom he was married on May 31, 1894.

Brought up, as we have seen in a legal tradition which is still carried on by his elder son, he was then practicing law in partnership with his father at Elkader. That practice he carried on to the time of his death. His keenness of mind, his quickness of perception, his acuteness in analysis, made hi highly respected by the Bar of Iowa. His opinion was often solicited by his brother lawyers, and was always listened to with respect. The younger members of the bar found in him a ready counselor and a warm friend. He was always ready to lend them not only assistance but that practical experience which tells what cannot be found in books.

He was an omniverous reader, with an inquisitive and highly acquisitive mind. A wealth of information was ever at his fingertips. His love of literature was communicated to many a younger man who has been extremely thankful to his instructor.

He had boundless confidence in the younger generations. For him the years seemed to stand still. The respect and admiration in which they held him were guided not by veneration but by friendship of the truest kind. At sixty he had the enthusiasm, the aims, and the ideals of forty; and those enthusiasms, aims and ideals combined to give him the appearance of that age. He lived not only for, but with, those who were entering into the responsibilities of life.

Three children came to gladden his life. Filetta Winnifred, born June 11, 1895, whose untimely death on March 21, 1900, was a great grief to the young couple; Peery, born July 17, 1901, now practicing law in Los Angeles, California; and Valmah T., Jr. born July 2, 1910, now a student in Los Angeles, California. His great belief in the youth of the land, and his wonderfully kind and understanding nature, combined to make him a father who was also one's closest friend.

Although always active politically and high in the counsels of his party, he never held political office. The interest in civic affairs which has marked his ancestry displayed itself in him throughout his life. His membership in the Elkader Commercial Club only partially reflected that interest.

He has been for some years president of the First National Bank of Elkader, a position which was long held by his father. He has also actively participated as a director in the affairs of the Littleport Savings Bank and the Garnavillo Savings Bank.

He took an early and an active interest in the Masonic Fraternity. On June 22, 1893, he was raised to the degree of Master Mason in Elkader Lodge NO. 72, where his father and grandfather had been raised before him, and where he and his father were to assist in 1922, in raising his son Peery to the same degree.

He was a member of De Molay Consistory and a Noble of the Mystic Shrine. At the time of his death he was Associate Patron of charity Chapter 152, O.E.S.

In August of 1930 his health began to fail at the zenith of his powers. His illness was continuous from then until his death. During all that time, with Death closing in with slow but relentless pace, he displayed such patience, such kindness, such consideration for all who would assist him, as may point a moral to all who will to learn.

On October 26 1931, mentally keen and alert to the end, attended by his wife, his elder son, and Bertha Larson, death won its empty victory over his body. His mind did not yield so long as its physical shelter remained, and his loving, kindly, understanding, and patient spirit will not die so long as any who knew him may survive.

In addition to his wife and two sons, he leaves his aged father, R.E. Price, and a brother, Stewart R. Price. Besides the immediate members of his family his loss is felt with peculiar acuteness by his cousin, Paul Wing, and his housekeeper, Bertha Larson, who had faithfully served the family for over 30 years.

"There was - there is - no gentler, kindlier, manlier man.."

Funeral services will be held this afternoon at 2:30 at the late home and at 3:00 o'clock in the Congregational church, with interment in the East Side cemetery, the Rev. C.T. Brewster officiating.

~Clayton County Register, Thursday morning, October 29, 1931; pgs 1 & 5 (included the photo)

Clayton Obituaries maintained by Sharyl Ferrall.
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