EATON, Willard Lee 1848-1911
EATON
Posted By: County Coordinator
Date: 2/1/2011 at 19:03:16
ITEM #1:
W.L. EATON DIES
AT HOME IN OSAGEFormer State Railroad Commissioner
Passes Away After Long Illness.
Funeral on FridayOSAGE, IOWA - June 8, 1911 - Willard L. Eaton, former state railroad commissioner died at his home in this city yesterday.
He succumbed to heart disease, suffering from valvular trouble and an affection of the arteries.
Mr. Eaton is survived by his wife and one son, Allan, who are here.
The funeral will be held Friday afternoon at the Eaton home and will be in charge of the Grand Lodge of the Masons.
Mr. Eaton had long been prominent in legal, business and political affairs in Iowa. He was a native of the state, having been born in Delaware County, October 13, 1848. Since he was eight years of age he had resided in Osage, his parents moving her in 1856. He was educated in the public schools of Osage and Mitchell County and was a graduate of the State University at Iowa City.
He was called to many official places, the duties of which he discharged with satisfaction of his friends and honor to himself. He was mayor of Osage three times. He served as county attorney for Mitchell County. He served Mitchell County as its representative in the Iowa legislature during three general assemblies. He served one term as state railroad commissioner and was prominently mentioned as a congressional candidate, and had been urged by his friends to be candidate for attorney general.
He served as speaker of the house.
[Oelwein Register, Wednesday, June 14, 1911]
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#2: (Biographical sketch)
WILLARD L. EATON is a native of Iowa, having been born at Delhi in Delaware County, October 13, 1848. He is a graduate of the Law Department of the State University, and began the practice of law at Osage in Mitchell County, in 1874. Mr. Eaton is the son of Hon. A. K. Eaton who was one of the prominent pioneer lawmakers of Iowa, and long a leader in the Democratic party. W. L. Eaton has been three terms mayor of Osage, and county attorney.
In politics he is a Republican and in 1897 was elected to represent his county in the House of the Twenty-seventh General Assembly. He was reelected to the Twenty-eighth General Assembly and became a prominent candidate for Speaker, but not being chosen was made chairman of the committee of ways and means. He was again elected, serving in the Twenty-ninth General Assembly as Speaker of the House.
"History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century" on www.Wikisource.org
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#3:
Osage Cemetery listing on IaGenWeb:
EATON, WILLARD LEE (bur. loc.) 0422-7 (death/burial date) 07 JUN 1911
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#4: (Biographical)
Willard Lee Eaton, twenty-eighth speaker of the House of Representatives, died at his home at Osage, June 7, 1911.
He was born in Delhi, Delaware County, Iowa, October 12, 1848, and was hence in the sixty third year of a useful life when death claimed him. His father, General Ariel K. Eaton, was a leading man in early Iowa, and was a member of this house in the Third and Fourth General Assemblies and thus took part in framing the Iowa Code of 1851.
Young Eaton was educated in the common schools and Cedar Valley Seminary. In 1872 he was made LL.B. in the law department of the State University. He practiced his profession at Osage and served as county attorney of Mitchell County one term. He was mayor of Osage three terms.
In 1897 he was elected to represent the county of Mitchell in the house, and was twice re-elected.
In 1902 he was chosen speaker, the second native of Iowa to attain to that position. He gave eminent satisfaction as a presiding officer, as he had been useful as a member.
In 1906 he was elected a member of the board of railroad commissioners, worthily performing the mixed administrative and judicial duties thereof. His labors there wore upon his health, and he willingly retired at the end of one term, soon thereafter to pass from earth.
One, himself a member of the legal profession for three score years, said of him during his lifetime: "Mr. Eaton is a man of very decided superior abilities and with a liberal literary education and a thorough legal course, it is not strange that with his industry and excellent character he should have attained, as he has, a high position at the bar. No man in his district stands higher in these respects than does Mr. Eaton. By heredity he came legitimately to these excellences."
From:
Pioneer Lawmakers' Association of Iowa
Reunion of 1913
Held at Des Moines, March 19 and 20, 1913(Research Credit: S. Bell)
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#5:Photo of Mr. Eaton, from www.wikisource.org .
Large Photo
Mitchell Obituaries maintained by Sharyl Ferrall.
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