Ernest M. Wilcox

ABBOTT, BARNETT, MACKERT, WALLING, WILCOX

Posted By: Judy Wight Branson (email)
Date: 8/8/2004 at 18:00:55

Ernest M. Thomas, an enterprising and prosperous agriculturist residing on section 4, Madison township, owns and operates a productive farm embracing three hundred and sixty acres. This has remained his home from his birth to the present time, his natal day being December 22, 1877. His parents were Mark and Almeda (Barnett) Thomas, natives of Indiana. In 1855 the mother came to Iowa with her parents, the family home being established in Madison township, this county. Mark Thomas came to this state in 1869 and for some years operated a farm in Guthrie county. In 1875 he came to Madison county, purchasing and improving a farm of three hundred and sixty acres on section 4 Madison township, where he carried on agricultural pursuits continuously and successfully during the remainder of his life. His demise occurred on the 18th of February, 1910, but his widow still survives and now makes her home with our subject, enjoying an extensive and favorable acquaintance throughout the community in which she has resided for six decades.

In the acquirement of an education Ernest M. Thomas attended the public schools of Earlham and Penn College of Oskaloosa, Iowa. Since putting aside his text-books he has devoted his attention to general agricultural pursuits, and the operation of the home farm has claimed his time and energies, the property comprising three hundred and sixty acres of valuable land on section 4, Madison township. In connection with the cultivation of the cereals best adapted to soil and climate he usually feeds one hundred head of cattle annually. He buys and sells stock continually and feeds eight hundred head of sheep and three hundred head of hogs. His undertakings as an agriculturist have been attended with a gratifying measure of success and he enjoys an enviable reputation as a representative and substantial citizen of his native county.

On the 3d of March, 1903, Mr. Thomas was united in marriage to Miss Myrtle Wilcox a daughter of Francis M. and Harriet (Abbott) Wilcox who were natives of North Carolina and Ohio respectively. The father removed to Kentucky as a boy and subsequently engaged in general merchandising at Grayson, that state. During the period of the Civil war he served for four years as a member of the Forty-second Kentucky Infantry. In 1887 he took up his abode m Oskaloosa, Iowa, and there spent the remainder of his life in honorable retirement, passing away on the 22d of February, 1902. His widow still survives and yet makes her home in Oskaloosa. In their family were six children three sons and three daughters, namely: Carrie, a resident of Oskaloosa; Myrtle the wife of our subject; E. B., a physician conducting a private hospital in Oskaloosa; C H., who is engaged in the furniture business at that place; Lida the wife of William Mackert of Oskaloosa; and Georgia, the wife of S. H Walling of Des Moines.

Mr. Thomas gives his political allegiance to the republican party and fraternally is identified with the Masons, while his religious faith is that of the Friends church. He is interested in the growth and welfare of the community where he has always resided and where he is held in high esteem as a progressive agriculturist and representative citizen.

Taken from the book, “The History of Madison County, Iowa, 1915”