EDWARD M. MCCALL

MCCALL, BOYNTON, CRONENWETT, FITCHPATRICK

Posted By: Iowa History Project
Date: 8/13/2007 at 12:31:56

A Narrative History
of
The People of Iowa
with
SPECIAL TREATMENT OF THEIR CHIEF ENTERPRISES IN
EDUCATION, RELIGION, VALOR, INDUSTRY,
BUSINESS, ETC.
by
EDGAR RUBEY HARLAN, LL. B., A. M.
Curator of the
Historical, Memorial and Art Department of Iowa
Volume IV
THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY, Inc.
Chicago and New York
1931

HON. EDWARD M. MCCALL. An able member of the bar at Fort Dodge, Iowa, is Hon. Edward M. McCall, member of the prominent law firm of Helsell, McCall & Dolliver, and formerly, for ten years, judge of the Eleventh Judicial District Court. Judge McCall is a native of Iowa, in which state the family name for many years has been conspicuous both in the law and in public life.

Judge McCall was born at Nevada, Iowa, August 30, 1873, a son of Thomas Clifton and Mary Abigall (Boynton) McCall, he a native of Ross and she of Knox, County, Ohio. They were married in Iowa, to which state he came in 1853 and she in 1858, and both died here, the mother of Judge McCall in 1875 and the father in 1892. The youngest of his parents' four children, Judge McCall had two brothers and one sister: John A., who died at Des Moines, Iowa, in 1913, was prominent in the law there for many years; Minnie, who is the wife of A. E. Cronenwett, of California; and Fred C., who died in 1922, was president of the First National Bank at Nevada, Iowa.

The late Senator Thomas C. McCall, father of Judge McCall, was a very successful lawyer, and soon after settling in Polk County, Iowa, became interested in politics, and was the candidate of the Whig party for the office of sheriff. Although he was defeated for that office he was subsequently elected to the Iowa State Legislature from Story County, and while serving, in 1862, demonstrated the genuineness of the Union sentiment prevailing in his speeches in the House by resigning his seat and enlisting in the Thirty-second Iowa Volunteers, in which he served bravely on many a battlefield before the war between the states was ended. After the war he resumed his law practice, but later was again called into public life and at the time of his death was a member of the Upper House of the State Legislature, representing the senatorial district that included Story and Boone counties.

Edward M. McCall attended Ames College three years, and in 1896 completed his course in law at the University of Iowa. For an extended interval he engaged in the practice of law at Nevada, and about 1915 was called to the bench of the Eleventh Judicial District, where for ten years he continued, retiring in 1925, with an honorable record for efficiency and administrative justice. Judge McCall came then to Fort Dodge, where he is well known personally and is highly considered professionally.

Judge McCall married, March 1, 1896, at Nevada, Iowa, Miss Genevieve Fitchpatrick, daughter of Senator J. A.. Fitchpatrick, who served three years in an Iowa regiment in the war between the states and for nine months was confined in Andersonville Prison. Judge and Mrs. McCall have two daughters: Mary, who is the wife of Philip Allen, a farmer near Nevada; and Harriet, who is the wife of Allen Sowers, also a farmer near Nevada.

In politics Judge McCall is a Republican, and while residing in Story County, served four years as county attorney. He is a member of the Webster County Bar Association, the Iowa State Bar Association and the American Bar Association, the Masonic fraternity and the Sons of the American Revolution. With his family he belongs to the Presbyterian Church.