Joseph C. Trawver

DAVIS, SHEETS, TRAWVER

Posted By: Judy Wight Branson (email)
Date: 8/27/2004 at 15:45:58

J. C. Trawver is owner of a valuable tract of land, to which he has given the name of Lake Park Farm, the place comprising seventy-eight acres, and its value may be attributed not only to the splendid improvements which are here found but also to its close proximity to the city, being located one mile west of Winterset. For the past five years, however, Mr. Trawver has given his attention to construction work on the county roads. He was bom in Edgar county, Illinois, on the 1st of June, 1850, a son of David and Elizabeth (Sheets) Trawver, the former a native of Virginia, while the latter was born in the state of Ohio. The father followed carpentry during his active business career, and both he and his wife passed away in Edgar county.

J. C. Trawver spent the period of his boyhood and youth in the county of his nativity and was there educated in the common schools. After reaching years of maturity he took up farming and eventually became the owner of one hundred and twenty acres in Edgar county, Illinois. In 1901 he came to Iowa, spending the succeeding two years on a farm which he rented near Clarinda, Page county. He then came to Madison county and spent one year on a farm in Union township, after which he spent two years in farming in Douglas township, this county. On the expiration of that period he purchased land in Lincoln township, where he farmed for four years, when he traded that place for his present property of seventy-eight acres in the same township, known as Lake Park Farm. Here he occupies a modern and substantial country home, surrounded by. good outbuildings, and the general appearance of his place is indicative of the enterprise and thrift of its owner. He is now renting his land and is acting as foreman of construction work on county roads, in which connection he is not only adding to his financial income but is doing a work which is vastly beneficial to the community at large.

Mr. Trawver was married to Miss Sophia Davis, who was born in Virginia, and this-union has been blessed with four children: Claude, who is in the automobile business in Des Moines; Harry, who is a veterinary surgeon in Clarinda, Iowa; Willard, who is now studying veterinary surgery in a Kansas City college and Roy, who met death by drowning at Clarinda when fourteen years of age.

Mr. Trawver gives his political support to the men and measures of the republican party, while his fraternal relations connect him with the Knights of Pythias lodge in Winterset. Although his residence in Madison county is of comparatively brief duration, he has made many friends here, owing to his genial, courteous manner and his honorable methods in all his business dealings.

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