Lisby, Freeman

LISBY

Posted By: Karon Velau (email)
Date: 6/29/2021 at 13:22:17

History of Warren County, Iowa from Its Earliest Settlement to 1908, by Rev. W. C. Martin, Clarke Publishing Co., Chicago, Illinois, 1908, p.681

FREEMAN LISBY
Freeman Lisby, residing on sections 20 and 29, Union Township, where he owns and operates one hundred and thirty acres of Warren County's choicest land, is a native of Logan County, Ohio, where he was born January 16, 1859, the son of Jacob and Margaret (Mandt) Lisby. His father is a native of Delaware and at an early age was taken by his parents to Logan County, Ohio, where he was reared to man's estate. During the dark days of the Civil War he gave his services in defense of the Union, enlisting in the One Hundred and Twenty-eighth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, where he served three and one-half years, or until the close of the war. He married Margaret Mandt, a native of Norway, and three children were born to their union, one son and two daughters, namely: Freeman, of this review; Ellen, who married James Hoblet, now a farmer of Dakota, and died in 1891, leav­ing two children, and Amanda, the wife of Isaac Keeser, who is engaged in the hotel and livery business in Sandyville. In 1867 the father removed with his family to Warren County and bought the place where our subject now resides, he having bought his father's interest in it some years since, besides eighty acres of land adjoining. Since 1888 the father has made his residence in Sandyville.
Freeman Lisby received his early education in the country schools, sup­plementing it with a course in the Ackworth Academy. He engaged in teaching for ten years, or up to the time of his marriage, at which time he bought the home place and began farming operations. He continued this work successfully for three years, leaving it to engage in the grocery busi­ness. He mastered the details and principles of this business thoroughly and, ever ambitious to progress onward and upward, after about three years of experience in this work he disposed of his business and went to Des Moines, where he again engaged in business, remaining there for about three and one-half years. His experience in mercantile work, however, but served to convince him that no vocation in life is so certain in its results, nor war­rants such freedom and independence of action as does farm life, and after disposing of his business in Des Moines he returned to his farm in Warren County with a greater feeling of satisfaction than he had ever known in the work hitherto. He has learned through actual experience that scientific farming and stock-raising is worthy of a man's best intellectual efforts, in recognition of which fact the United States government is today establishing experiment stations in every state of the Union, while the universities have added to their curriculum a special course of study along this line.
In 1888 Mr. Lisby was united in marriage to Miss Alice Gose, a sister of S. A. Gose, a sketch of whose life appears elsewhere in this issue. Mrs. Lisby was reared in Marion County and after finishing the course of instruction in Ackworth Academy engaged in teaching, an occupation which she followed for about ten years prior to her marriage. They have become the parents of two children, of whom Jennie, the first-born, died at the age of nine months; Clara attends school at Sandyville.
Politically, Mr. Lisby is identified with the Republican Party and has been honored with various township offices of trust and responsibility, the duties of which he has most capably discharged. He served two terms as township assessor, and for four years was township clerk. He has also served as delegate to the county conventions of his party and at different times to the state conventions. He has ever taken an active interest in educational matters and for a number of years has been secretary of the school board. Fraternally he is a Master Mason, belonging to the Sandyville lodge, of which he is at present the worthy master. He is also a member of the Yeomen, a fraternal insurance organization. His estimable wife is a faithful and consistent mem­ber of the United Brethren Church of Des Moines.