Kelsey, Oscar

KELSEY

Posted By: Joyce Hickman (email)
Date: 10/29/2008 at 14:07:52

Oscar Kelsey

(From the 1883 History of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, by J. H. Keatley, p.227, Rockford Twp.)
Oscar Kelsey, merchant and Postmaster, Loveland, came here and located permanently in the fall of 1875. He was born in Dearborn County, Ind., in 1847. He was raised on a farm and lived there until he came to Council Bluffs in 1871. He was educated in Moore's Hill College, Ind., which he left in his junior year on account of ill health, and came West and taught school till the spring of 1876, when he accepted a position as a bookkeeper in Copeland & Loveland's mill, in which capacity he was engaged up to 1880, when he and his brother bought their present store, where they carry a $1,600 stock of general merchandise, with annual sales of $5,000, which are steadily increasing. They purchased the store of J. A. Copeland, and have since continued in the business. They also run a farm. Our subject was married, December 25, 1875, to Miss T. E. Copeland, daughter of Thomas N. Copeland, whose biography appears elsewhere. They have three children - two sons and one daughter. In politics, our subject is a Republican, and has been such since John C. Fremont ran for President, for whom he and his brother were the only boys in the district school who would hurrah. our subject is the present Postmaster of Loveland, having been appointed in the summer of 1880. His father, L. H. Kelsey, and his (subject's) mother are still living in Indiana.