W. E. (Billy) Watson (-1935)

WATSON

Posted By: Mark Christian
Date: 11/2/2008 at 10:48:03

Ames Daily Tribune and Times, Ames, Story County, Iowa, Wednesday, December 11, 1935.

Billy Watson, State Center, Dies Monday

STATE CENTER—W. E. (Billy) Watson, a unique figure in the history of State Center, died here Monday, four days after his eighty-second birthday. The end, which came peacefully at his residence here, brot to a close a successful business career that had its beginnings in the real pioneer days and continued for more than half a century.

Mr. Watson has been in impaired health the past 12 months, but his condition became serious only a short time ago and he was bedfast barely a week before his passing. Death was caused by stomach trouble.

Funeral services will be held Wednesday afternoon from the home here. He is survived by his wife and five sons, F. W. of Oakland, Cal., Warren E. of Mandan, N. D., Robert of Maywood, Ill., and Ralph and William of State Center.

Coming to State Center when 16 years old, Mr. Watson saw the vast virgin prairie here develop into a rich agricultural community and watched the growth of State Center from a frontier village to a substantial, outstanding, modern central Iowa town. When he embarked in the grocery business in State Center in the early eighties, it was the custom for crackers to be shipped in barrels, dried apples were sold on strings and mother bot green coffee beans to take home to roast in the oven of the kitchen stove and then grind in the primitive mill which was fastened to the old-fashioned cupboard or, more often, was held between mother's knees.

Altho Mr. Watson was a member of the town council for one term and helped to organize the volunteer fire department, besides being an officer in the local company of the national guard, he did not aspire to the glamour of public life; nevertheless he always was foremost supporter of every project advanced for the community welfare.

In his later years, he became an ardent baseball fan, the recurring world series being the focal point in his year. Attendance at the series was denied only by distance or ill health.