LOCKWOOD, Edmond Alfred "Ed"

LOCKWOOD, BIBEY, TOWNSEND, LANDIS, PICKARD, JACKMAN, WARREN, PRICE, KIREULFF, MEACHAM, REYNOLDSON, REITZELL, RICE, KING

Posted By: Sharon R Becker (email)
Date: 7/13/2015 at 19:58:46

The Osceola Democrat
Osceola, Clarke County, Iowa
December 05, 1907

LESLIE NEWS.

Ed LOCKWOOD has sold all his Leslie property. Mr. TOWNSEND got the dwelling house & barn, Mr. BIBEY go the store building and will keep the post office in it, also a meat market and restaurant. Leslie will have but one store after January 10.

Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, July of 2015

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Des Moines Tribune
Des Moines, Polk County, Iowa, 1955

BUYS GENERAL STORE

End Retirement at 84

WELDON, IA. - Eighty-four-year-old Ed A. Lockwood is back in business on Main street here - after a 10-year retirement.

Lockwood, who opened his first general store here 58 years ago, has purchased the little hardware store of Art Landis and, over the protests of wife and daughters, is "open for business"

Lockwood's purchase was "a quickie." The amiable old gentleman walked downtown for his mail. Landis approached him about the sale of a 3-ton safe. (Purchase and resale of old safes has been a Lockwood sideline for years.)

The two discussed the sale deal - and when Lockwood walked out of the store, he owned it.

"You should have heard the protest when I walked in the house and announced, "Well, I'm in business again," Lockwood said with a chuckle.

Actually, buying and selling stores is old stuff to him. The present business is the fifty-fourth he has owned. Most of them, however, he bought for the stock alone.

Born in Nebraska
Born Oct. 13, 1871, on the Nebraska frontier [Alexandria, Nebraska] where his father [Samuel, mother Jane (Pickard) Lockwood] was a blacksmith and a preacher. Lockwood came to Iowa in 1885 when his father bought a combination hardware and grocery store and funeral parlor at Hopewell (sic, should be Hopeville), southwest of Osceola. Ed got his first business experience as an after-school worker in his dad's store.

At 21, Lockwood went to work, at $18 a month - "and board yourself" - for Blair Reitzell, pioneer Osceola [Iowa] general storekeeper. After a year, Lockwood worked for Burns and Fowler, Osceola grocers, then for other stores there.

In 1896, Lockwood was married to Dora Jackman, while he was working for Hall and Rice general store in Osceola, and a year later opened his own "little shack" - a general store here. After a year, fire destroyed his store and after paying debts, the insurance left him $700.

Big Business
A new store developed into big business. Besides hardware, the business included sale of coal, operation of a grain elevator, a stock of farm implements, a harness shop - and a slogan: "Anything from a darning needle to a threshing machine."

He employed 10 clerks.

In partnership with William Warren, a banker, Lockwood built a new brick store building - now the Weldon post office - in 1910. Meanwhile, he operated a real estate business - houses, farms and stores - and operated his used safe business.

For years, Lockwood used his Weldon store as an outlet for the merchandise of other stores, all over the state, that he bought or traded for. He would sell all possible stock at the local tore, then ship the surplus to Weldon. Five stores were the most he owned at one time.

In 1945, Lockwood sold out and retired. He was ill - "bad heart." He and Mrs. Lockwood went to California - where two of his three daughters live, for a year.

He was not satisfied, doing nothing. And when he got ideas of new businesses, his family protests. he always "kept an office" just in case.

Even tody, Lockwood owns five houses, two business buildings and a productive farm. he made a hobby of buying old houses, fixing them up and reselling them.

Because Mrs. Lockwood was unhappy with the big two-story house on Main street, he sold it and bought a beautiful cottage - beautiful, that is, after he put about $3,000 worth of improvements in it. Mrs. Lockwood is happy about that - and, of course, this makes Ed happy.

The Lockwood daughters are Mrs. Don Price [Helene Marguerite, b. 29 Aug 1900, Weldon IA; d. 25 Mar 1987, Grass Valley CA; interred Van Wert Cemetery] and Mrs. Herbert Kireulff [Irene Eloise, b. 10 Nov 1905, Weldon IA; d. 08 Oct 1966, San Diego CA], both of San Diego, Cal., and Mrs. Lawarence Meacham [Edna Eldora, b. 29 Nov 1903, Weldon IA; d. 20 Aug 1985, Creston IA] on a farm near Weldon. There are five grandchildren [Edmond Ira Price; Harriett Marie Patrica Ann and Helen Irene Meacham; Herbert Eugene Kierfulff] and] and 10 great-grandchildren. Dr. Herbert Kireulff, Lockwood's son-in-law, formerly was an Osceola dentist.

So, Ed Lockwood is in business again. He doesn't have a large store; the stock would probably total $2,000. But he has nails, kitchen utensils, screen, stove and pipes. And if someone were to make an offer tomorrow - well, with Lockwood, you never know.

Article courtesy of Decatur County Historical Museum, Leon IA
Transcription and notes by Sharon R. Becker, July of 2015

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Osceola Sentinel-Tribune
Osceola, Clarke County, Iowa
Thursday, July 23, 2009

'Tales from the Aisles'
By Mickey Thomas

Patricia Reynoldson, wife of retired Iowa Chief Supreme Court Justice Ward Reynoldson, sent me an interesting article about her Grandfather, ED LOCKWOOD, a former Weldon merchant. The article was written in 1955 by Herb Owens, a feature writer for the Des Moines Register (sic, should be Tribune). I have rewritten information of interest from the article.

ED LOCKWOOD was one of Weldon's most successful merchants. LOCKWOOD bought and sold 53 businesses. He would buy inventories of stores going out of business, liquidate as much of the inventory as possible, close the store, and ship the remaining goods to his Weldon store. The most stores he owned at one time were five. In 1945, feeling ill of "bad heart," LOCKWOOD sold out his Weldon businesses, and he and his wife, DORA LOCKWOOD, went to California to live near two of his daughters. Not satisfied with doing nothing, then ED LOCKWOOD and his wife DORA LOCKWOOD, moved back to Weldon. One morning he walked down to the Post Office and a Mr. Landis asked ED about the value of a 3 ton safe. Buying and selling used safes was sideline for LOCKWOOD. When ED walked out of the Landis Hardware store he had not only bought the safe, but he owned the whole store. LOCKWOOD was quoted as saying, "You should have heard the protest when I walked into my home and announced, "Well, I'm back in business again." He had ended his retirement with the purchase of his 54th store at age 84.

ED LOCKWOOD was born on the Nebraska frontier in 1871 where his father was a blacksmith and a preacher. He came to Hopeville, Iowa in 1885 where his father bought a combination hardware store, grocery, and funeral parlor in the thriving town located in the southwest corner of Clarke County. As a lad, ED worked after school and weekends at his father's store. At age 21, he went to work in Osceola at the Blair Reitzell general store for $18 a month. He would go on to work for several other Osceola stores, the last store was Hall Rice, which once owned the south half of the present Robinson store building.

In 1897, ED LOCKWOOD opened a general store in Weldon. A year later his store was destroyed by fire. After paying his debts, he had $700 left from his insurance settlement. His next store venture in Weldon would grow to be a big business. Besides hardware, he had a stock of farm implements, sold coal, and operated a grain elevator. His business slogan was, "Anything from a darning needle to a threshing machine." Ten clerks were employed at LOCKWOOD's store. He also operated a real estate business, bought and restored old houses and operated a productive farm.

Pat Reynoldson remembers riding her pony to school at Weldon and then staying overnight with her grandparents, ED and DORA LOCKWOOD. Pat's parents were LAWRENCE and EDNA MEACHAM. EDNA was a daughter of ED and DORA LOCKWOOD. The MEACHAM'S farmed 2 1/2 miles east of Weldon. The LOCKWOOD's had two other daughters, Mrs. DON PRICE and Mrs. HERBERT KIREUIF who lived in San Diego, Cal.

[Edmond Alfred] ED LOCKWOOD died [June 11] in 1957 at age 86 [at weldon, Iowa]. DORA LOCKWOOD died [July 18] 1963 [Osceola, Iowa] at age 87. [Ed and Dora were interred at Maple Hill Cemetery, Osceola, Iowa. Agatha Eldora "Dora" was born in Catlin, Indiana, on October 6, 1876. She was taken into the home of Perry King where she was raised to adulthood after the death of her mother.]

Copied by Nancee(McMurtrey)Seifert
Thursday, July 23, 2009

Edmond Alfred "Ed" Lockwood articles
 

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