Seymour Dotson

DOTSON

Posted By: JCGS Volunteer
Date: 10/9/2016 at 17:34:00

Lost Son Found
Letter to His Home Folks Brings News of Seymour Dotson After Seven Years Absence
Colfax is a great place for stories about lost sons and relatives of different sorts. The clipper tells the last one as follows:
Mr. E. E. Dotson was made glad last Thursday by the receipt of a letter from his son Seymour, who has been absent from home for seven years past, and had dropped as completely out of sight of his relatives as if he was dead and buried. The letter was dated at Manilla, Iowa, where the young man is employed on a farm, and the letter was prompted by his meeting the other day Mr. Elwood Hibbs who was on his way to Dakota.
The story which Seymour tells his father is that when he left his brother, Eli, that November day after casting his first vote for McKinley, he proceeded to Des Moines and invested in a suit of clothes and then started out in search of adventure, like the average American boy. He drifted west and from the pacific coast went on a tramp sailing vessel on a four years’ voyage which carried him to the Sandwich Islands, thence to Australia and on around to the Philippines as a sailor, working his way and earning his living always as he went. He enjoyed seeing the world and practically lost all interest in his father, brothers and sister until he met Hibbs, the other day, when a flood of recollections of his boyhood home and the loved ones here came over him so strong that it made him homesick, then it was that he addressed to his father, his best earthly friend, the letter which has brought joy to the hearts of many relatives. He is busy, contented and happy at work on the farm near Manilla. During his absence Mr. Dotson has made many attempts to locate him or secure some news regarding his fate, but always without finding any trace of him after he was seen that last day in Des Moines. Seymour was always an industrious and dutiful son, his only fault being restlessness under restraint and stubbornness inherited from his sturdy ancestors. His father has written him, and his relatives and old friends here are hoping that it will not be another seven years before he shall conclude to revisit the scenes of his boyhood where a hearty welcome awaits him.
Source: Newton Daily News; April 6, 1907, page 1