Loper, Osborn

LOPER

Posted By: Karon Velau (email)
Date: 6/29/2021 at 13:27:07

History of Warren County, Iowa from Its Earliest Settlement to 1908, by Rev. W. C. Martin, Clarke Publishing Co., Chicago, Illinois, 1908, p.870

OSBORN LOPER
Osborn Loper, a successful and enterprising agriculturist residing on section 28, Squaw Township, Warren County, was born in Jones County, Iowa, March 4, 1853. His father, Daniel Loper, was born in Pennsylvania, Sep­tember 29, 1825, and at the age of fifteen left home to come to the west. He intended to buy land in Chicago, which was then only a small village, but did not like the location and subsequently stopped at Burlington, Iowa, from which point he enlisted for service in the Mexican war. In 1847 or 1848 he took up his abode in Jones County, Iowa, purchased government land and there resided until eighteen years ago, when he removed to southwestern Kansas, where he still lives. His wife, who bore the maiden name of Mary Jane Burnett, was born in Ohio on the 6th of August, 1831, and also still survives, living with her husband in Kansas.
Osborn Loper, who was one of a family of thirteen children, acquired his education in the district school and remained under the parental roof until he had attained the age of twenty-three years. For the next four years he was engaged in farming rented land, and in 1881 came to Warren County, pur­chasing his present farm of two hundred acres, which was then a wild and unimproved tract. Subsequently he bought forty acres more of the wild, unbroken prairie but has brought all of his land under a high state of cultiva­tion and has placed many improvements thereon, including a modern residence, barns and other buildings. Through his well directed energy and capable business management he has become prosperous but in former years met with misfortune by going security for others, whose bills were left for him to pay. Possessing a broad humanitarian spirit, he paid them without ill feeling and resolutely set to work to retrieve his lost possessions. Success to him does not mean the accumulation of worldly goods alone but the build­ing up of a character which will withstand the temptations of life and which will remain as a blessed benediction after he has passed to his reward.
On the 21st of January, 1876, Mr. Loper was united in marriage to Miss Mary Porter, who was born in Poweshiek County, Iowa, August 5, 1856, a daughter of Ross and Sarah Jane Porter, who were natives of Ohio but now are deceased. The wedding took place in Jones County, Iowa, and this union was blessed with four children, three of whom are living: Myrtle E.., wife of W. S. Anderson, of Ontario, California; and Ora and Howard, at home, who are attending Simpson College at Indianola.
For many years Mr. Loper has voted the prohibition ticket, believing that the temperance question is a paramount issue before the country today and that the final eradication of the liquor traffic is the wisest course to pursue. He has served as township assessor for three years and for a similar period has been township trustee, discharging his duties in prompt and capable man­ner. Both he and his wife are faithful and devoted members of the Metho­dist Episcopal Church at Medora, Iowa, being converted, he at eighteen and she at fifteen. He is now serving as class leader in the church and is an ex­emplary Christian, doing unto others as he would that they should do unto him. He is public spirited, giving his cooperation to every movement which tends to promote the moral, intellectual and material welfare of the community.