Schooler, William B. (1859-1936)

SCHOOLER

Posted By: Karon Velau (email)
Date: 12/5/2016 at 11:34:59

The Advocate-Tribune Newspaper, Indianola, Iowa, Thursday, Feb. 1, 1906, front page
History of Warren County, by Geo. A. Epps

WILLIAM BENJAMIN SCHOOLER
William B. Schooler was born in the city of Des Moines on the ninth day of October 1859. When William was one year old his father, Peter Schooler, moved from Des Moines to Allen Township, Warren County, where he has lived in section twenty, north of Summerset, for the last forty five years. Here the subject of our sketch spent his boyhood working on the farm and attending the district school. In 1893 Mr. Schooler went to South Dakota where he became a homesteader; in 1885 he was married to Miss Anna Smith; to them were born three sons – Guy, Earl, and Leonard. Mr. Schooler remained in Dakota for ten years, enduring blizzards and grasshoppers and all the hardships which befell the early settlers in the northwest. On the twenty seventh day of October, 1893, he landed with his family again in old Warren; he settled north of Indianola in Lincoln township, where he lived ; engaged in farming for four years; on the seventh day of February 1898, he moved his family to Palmyra and became a dealer in general merchandise, farm implements, buggies and wagons. In this new undertaking Mr. Schooler had many difficulties to meet and overcome before establishing his business on a firm basis. He must know how and what to buy; how to sell so as to meet his bills; and it takes time for the new beginner to acquire this knowledge, but Mr. Schooler was temperate, industrious, economical, hopeful, and his efforts have been crowned with success. The sales amounted to $7,000; his trade has gradually increased year by year until his sales in the year 1905 amounted to $14,000. Eight years of straightforward, upright business has enabled him to gain the confidence of the people. He is ably assisted by this eldest son, Guy, who entered the store eight years ago in short pants, but now he wears longer pants than his father; he has developed into a first class business boy or man. Mr. Schooler is a member of Palmyra lodge I. O. O. F., and a member of the Presbyterian church, and worships with the church at Hartford. Mr. Schooler affiliated with the Peoples’ party until 1896, when he supported Bryan and his political views are still in harmony with the Bryan wing of the democratic party; he was elected and served six years as justice of the peace, since he came to Palmyra township. In November 1905 the angel of death entered the home of Mr. Schooler and she who for twenty years had been his wife, his helpmeet, who had shared his hardships and toils, the mother of his boys, passed on to that state to which all human life is tending. But the three boys she has left, if they but continue to walk in that path in which she had guided them will become characters worthy of a mother’s devotion and care.