Wilson, Thomas 1855-1931

WILSON, OLTMANN, MCCULLOUGH

Posted By: Viv Reeves (email)
Date: 3/27/2008 at 10:32:36

From the LeMars Sentinel, LeMars, (Plymouth), Iowa, Friday, December 4, 1931, Page 1, Column 1:

DEATH TAKE THOS. WILSON

Was Well Known and Substantial Farmer in Lincoln Township

RAISED BLOODED STOCK

Home Noted Through Countryside For Its Hospitality

Thomas Wilson, an early settler in Lincoln township, died at his home Sunday night after an illness of three months. The immediate cause of death was attributed by attending physicians as pneumonia.

Mr. Wilson was a well known and substantial farmer in Lincoln township where the family bought several hundred acres in the early eighties and has since that time built up one of the best equipped stock farms in the county. The residence on the farm is in keeping with all the manifold improvements made through the years on the place. The farm was christened Idylwild in the early days and the name was synonymous for hospitality. The Wilson family for years in the pioneer days were famed as hosts and the house built by them contained spacious ballroom, billiard room and drawing rooms, unequalled in taste and elegance outside large cities.
Was Native Iowan

Tom Wilson was born in Jones county, Iowa, and was a youth of eighteen when his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Wilson, came to LeMars in the early eighties. Robert Wilson was a woolen manufacturer in Philadelphia. He acquired a fortune there and came to Iowa first settling Jones county and then coming to LeMars and buying a tract of 2,000 acres of land in Lincoln township, Plymouth county and across the line in Woodbury county.

The senior Wilson died shortly after settling here and his widow and children carried on the work of the farm. Mrs. Wilson died in 1891 (error--1890).

Tom Wilson assisted by his brothers made a specialty of breeding fine horses and stock.

Nine children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Robert Wilson, four of whom survive.

Thomas Wilson is survived by a brother, Frank Wilson, of Detroit, and three sisters, Mrs. D. A. Oltman(n), Mrs. G. McCullough and Miss C. Wilson.

The funeral was held yesterday afternoon at the home and interment made in the city cemetery in LeMars.