Samuel S. Statler (1830-1916)

STATLER, FERNER, STEPHENS, FLACH

Posted By: Dorian Myhre (email)
Date: 3/12/2022 at 12:32:43

From Nevada Representative February 25, 1916 (page 1)

OBITUARY

SAMUEL S. STATLER

Samuel S. Statler of Nevada, Iowa, was born at Stoystown, Pennsylvania, December 2, 1830, and died at Nevada, Iowa February 21, 1916 aged 85 years, 2 months and 10 days. His death followed upon some indispcsitions but was essentially the sudden and peaceful result of the infirmities of age.

Mr. Statler was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan Statler and he was reared at the place of his birth in Somerset county, Pennsylvania. In 1855 the family got the notion of emigrating to the west, and during that season his father and himself made a prospecting tour through the new country. They looked over Illinois; but though there were no railroads then in Iowa, the main trail westward then as now passed through Nevada, and they got as far west as this place which to them seemed good. So the next year the family made the move of their lives, and in 1856 the father, son and others of the family came directly to Nevada, accompanied by James D. Ferner, who soon afterwards married, as his first wife, the daughter of the family. They located in Nevada, which was then in its third year as a village, and her the family has continued to live or die, until now the last of the original stock has passed away after a residence here of very nearly sixty years.

The younger Statler, when he arrived here was already a wide awake and quite competent young man. He could keep books, and he was for a long time one of the very few mane here who really knew how to keep books and keep them straight. So he very speedily and very readily found a place in the court house, where his Democratic regime which, strange as it may seem, did once upon a time prevail in this county The offices of county treasurer and county recorder, as the same are now known, were then combined, and Wm. Lockridge was county treasurer in charge of the one office. Evidently he was glad to find so capable a young man to help him out, and so Mr. Statler began his career here as a public official So well did he fill the position that it came naturally about that he should in 1859 receive the Democratic nomination as Mr. Lockridge's successor; but the new immigration was beginning to swing the politics of the community, and the county went Republican for the first time and by a very meager majority. But though T. J. Ross was elected treasurer, there was plenty of occupation hereabout for an active and reliable young man, and Mr. S. never was known to be out of something satisfactory to do, until in the course of time his years and infirmities suggested a cessation from his activities. In 1873 in a time of local political upheaval he was elected county treasurer, and he served very acceptably for two years, the Republican forces then solidifying, once more and putting J. A. King in the office by a margin of six votes. Again in 1877 he was once more a candidate for county office, being the nominee for county auditor, and again he came very near to point of success, making in fact the last serious and promising effort that had been made by any Democrat to be elected to county office upon a direct party issue in this county.

This story of his political candidacies--or some of them==may seem a first glance a little like a slightly ungracious catalogue of defeats; but it is nothing of the sort. In the years of his political activity he was elected once in this count when probably no other Democrat could have been elected, and he came several times nearer to success than any other Democrat in this county could have gotten. He commanded the solid support of his own side, and he drew heavily from the opposing and majority side, and what he demonstrated every time was a remarkable ability to buck effectively against a practically impregnable situation. And some of the reason therefor was that he was habitually into various matters where his good spirit and general effectiveness had more or less scope and commanded appreciation. In the beginnings he joined the Masons and soon became secretary of the Nevada lodge, which position he continued to hold for fifty years; and then he was a charter member of the local Odd Fellows' lodge being at the end the last survivor of the charter members of that lodge. Than a bunch of public spirited citizens with himself as a promotor went into a little land speculation, buying a fractional eighty just west of the village and selling it off in pieces until they had their money back and an odd tract left, and this tract they dedicated to the public use as the original Nevada cemetery. When the publishers of this paper were becoming first familiar with Nevada he was in the grocery business and a member of the school board, his service on that body being a very material factor in the organization of the Nevada schools in the time when the now old school house was building and newly occupied. When the heavens opened and the rains descended upon the whole county here assembled for the Centennial Fourth, he was one of the store-keepers to open up and keep the store open all nigh so that the folks could have some place to stay. The fact was that Sam Statler was a might good man to have around, and the whole community knew him as such. In the years of his diminishing activity he was the local agent of the American Express company, holding the position for years and years, looking after his farm north of town, generally taking life comfortably, and enjoying the general esteem and respect that he had so well earned.

Mr. Statler was married March 22, 1860, to Miss Margaret J. Stephens of this city. Just where they lived in the first years of their married life we do not know; but for something like forty years they lived in the white house which then fronted on Linn street at the north end of block north of Lincoln avenue, and which has now been moved around so as to front northward across the rear end of the same lots on which it has always stood. It was there that Mrs. Statler died December 23, 1908, and in time, reorganizing that business was encroaching upon the neighborhood, he sold the place for the business uses to which it is being converted, closed so far as he was concerned the house which his daughter Margaret had kept for him since Mrs. Statler's death, and went to make his home on the east side of town with his son Edgar. Mr. and Mrs. Statler had eight children, of whom four grew up and still survive, to wit:--Edgar Statler of Nevada, Mrs. Carrie S. Flach of Amboy, Illinois, Miss Margaret Statler, now of Colfax and Ferdinand Statler, of Oakland, California. There are also in his family fourteen grandchildren and two greatgrandchildren.

The funeral was conducted from the Statler residence Wednesday afternoon by Rev. John G. Leitch, pastor of the Presbyterian church, and the burial was in the Nevada cemetery with Masonic ceremonies. In the community tributes were universal to a long and well-spent life, and with the mourning for his death was gratitude that the end had long been so long deferred and at the last had come to quietly.