Ouderkirk, Philester

OUDERKIRK

Posted By: Karon Velau (email)
Date: 6/29/2021 at 23:17:21

History of Warren County, Iowa from Its Earliest Settlement to 1908, by Rev. W. C. Martin, Clarke Publishing Co., Chicago, Illinois, 1908, p.760

PHILESTER OUDERKIRK
Philester Ouderkirk, who owns and operates a well improved and valuable farm of one hundred and fifty acres on section 16, Union Township, has been a resident of this county since the 26th of October, 1869, and has borne an active part in its development and prosperity. His early home was in New York, his birth occurring in Onondaga County, that state, on the 13th of November, 1834, a son of Richard B. and Amanda (Perkins) Ouderkirk, who were born in New York and married at Hannibal, Oswego County, New York. Leaving his native state, the father took his family to Michigan in 1835 and settled in Lenawee County, where he made his home until 1847, and then removed to Knox County, Illinois, locating on a farm near Maquon, where he spent some years. There his first wife died and was buried in 1851. Three years later he married again in Washington County, Iowa. In the fall of 1869 he went to Appanoose County, Iowa, and the following year took up his residence in Ringgold County, this state, where he spent the remainder of his life, dying there in 1874. His second wife survived him until 1904.
Philester Ouderkirk grew to manhood in Knox County, Illinois, and his school privileges being very limited he is almost wholly a self-educated as well as a self-made man. He was married in that county in April 1860, to Miss Sarah Stockdale, who was born in Ohio and reared in Knox County, Illinois. After a happy married life of over forty-one years, she passed away on the 3d of July, 1901. There were two daughters by that union: Elma Arnetta is now the wife of Charles Stacy, now operating the Ouderkirk farm, and they have two children, Sarah Adeline and John Earl. Rosavena is the wife of J. H. Hill, a farmer of Union Township, and they have three sons, Charles P., Harold 0. and Gerald E.
After farming in Knox County, Illinois, for several years, Mr. Ouderkirk came to Iowa in 1869 and took up his residence in Union Township, Warren county, where he bought land, but later sold that farm and purchased another in Belmont Township, where he resided for eleven years. In 1884 he disposed of that place and bought the farm in Union Township where he now lives. He has improved it by the erection of good and substantial buildings and in connection with general farming he raises a high grade of stock.
Politically Mr. Ouderkirk has been a lifelong Republican, having voted that ticket since casting his first presidential ballot for John C. Fremont in 1856 with one exception. He has been a delegate to numerous conventions of his party and served on the school board for a number of years and as secretary of the same. During the Civil War he manifested his loyalty to his country by his enlistment on the 11th of August, 1862, in Company G, Eighty-third Illinois Volunteer Infantry, which was assigned to the Army of the Tennessee, but he was discharged in 1863 for disability. He is one of the honored citizens of his community, whose worth well merits the high regard which is uniformly given him.