Cool, Frank Curtis

COOL, ROBBINS, THOMPSON, DEE, DAVIS, GRAYBEL

Posted By: Volunteer Transcriber
Date: 8/28/2009 at 09:22:17

Cool, Frank Curtis

One of the substantial native sons of Jasper County who has been content to spend his life in his native community is Frank Curtis Cool, a worthy representative of one of our best pioneer families. By close application he established those habits of industry when a boy which insured his success in later years, being able to extend, from time to time, the area of cultivable land and in due time has found his feet firmly planted upon the highway of a fair measure of material success, with a good farm in his possession and many of the comforts and conveniences of life surrounding him. He has always, like his worthy father before him, been deeply interested in whatever tends to promote the prosperity of his Township and County and to him as much as any of the men in his community are we indebted for the excellent improvements for which this section has long been noted. He has also, like his progenitors, used his influence in behalf of all moral and benevolent enterprises, being a friend and liberal patron of the Church, believing, as do most fair-minded men, that it is the most potential factor for substantial good the world has ever known or ever will know.

Mr. Cool was born in Adamson's Grove, Jasper County, Iowa, on May 16, 1862, and here he grew to manhood, worked on the home farm during his boyhood and received a meager education in the common schools. He is the son of Abraham and Sarah (Robbins) Cool, one of the earliest families of this County, having settled here in 1855. They were both born in Pennsylvania, in which state they grew to maturity and were married, immigrating to this section of Iowa in the early days, here enduring the privations and hardships incident to life in a wild, undeveloped country. But they were people of sterling mettle and in due course of time they had established a good home and had an excellent farm under cultivation and here they reared their children and spent the balance of their lives, the father dying on January 9, 1860, and here the mother passed away on July 16, 1883.

Eight children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Abraham Cool, named as follows: Mrs. Hulda Thompson, living in Hebron, Nebraska; Mrs. Almeda Dee died in 1906; William, born in 1851, lives in Reno, Nevada; Melville J., who was born in Beaver Meadows, Pennsylvania, August 2, 1854, is living in Baxter, Iowa, and runs a hotel; Frank Curtis, of this sketch; Josephus and Josephine, twin sisters, died when six months old; Charles Woodward is living in Melbourne, Iowa. The four younger children were born in Clear Creek Township.

Frank C. Cool, of this sketch, was married on September 21, 1884, to Dora Davis, who was born in Polk County, Iowa, on February 13, 1866, and there she grew to womanhood and received her education. Her parents, Oliver Perry Davis and Sarah (Graybel) Davis, were early settlers of Polk County, this state, and there they became well known. The father was born in North Carolina, but immigrated to Iowa in early youth, and he enlisted for service in the Civil War from this County, at Des Moines. He was mustered in at Council Bluffs, as a member of the Second Iowa Battery, and after faithful service and undergoing the usual hardships of a soldier he received an honorable discharge and returned to his home in Iowa in August 1864. He spent the latter years of his life in Jasper County and died here. His wife, who was a native of Indiana, is living at Toledo, Iowa.

There were three children in the Davis family, two of whom are living, Dora, wife of Mr. Cool, of this sketch, being the eldest; a son died in infancy; the youngest child, John Logan Davis, born on October 22, 1870, lives in Des Moines. This family was reared in Jasper County.

To Mr. and Mrs. Cool have been born three children, named as follows: Oliver Guy, born in Story County, Iowa, July 7, 1887, was graduated from the Baxter high school on May 24, 1907, and he has been successfully engaged in school teaching for the past few years; Perry J., born April 21, 1895, is a junior in the Baxter high school at this writing; Sarah, born November 13, 1906. Although Mr. Cool was denied extensive advantages of education, he is giving his children every chance in this direction.

Mr. Cool has been engaged in agricultural pursuits since early boyhood and has met with singular success, unaided as he has been, being now the owner of a well improved, productive and desirable farm of one hundred and forty acres in Independence Township, Jasper County. In connection with general farming he raises considerable livestock, keeping a number of registered shorthorn cattle, of such superior quality that they are admired by all who see them, and his livestock always finds a very ready market. He has a substantial home and good outbuildings.

Politically, Mr. Cool is a Democrat and, as intimated in an earlier paragraph, he supports every worthy proposition. Mrs. Cool is a member of the Congregational Church at Baxter. Fraternally, he belongs to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and Baxter Camp of the Modern Woodmen of America, both at Baxter. Past and Present of Jasper County Iowa B. F. Bowden & Company, Indianapolis, IN, 1912 Page 1102