Proudfoot, Thomas J.

PROUDFOOT

Posted By: Karon Velau (email)
Date: 6/29/2021 at 23:49:01

History of Warren County, Iowa from Its Earliest Settlement to 1908, by Rev. W. C. Martin, Clarke Publishing Co., Chicago, Illinois, 1908, p.627

THOMAS JAMES PROUDFOOT
Thomas James Proudfoot is senior member of the firm of Proudfoot, Dyke & Smith, furniture dealers and undertakers of Indianola, and an investi­gation into his career shows that the methods he has followed in the business world have at all times been honorable and reliable, so that he is well entitled to the liberal patronage that is now accorded him. He claims West Virginia as the state of his nativity, his birth having occurred in Barbour County on the 18th of March 1855.
His father, James Proudfoot, was born in that county and learned the car­penter's trade. In 1855 he removed westward to Iowa, settling in Warren County, His religious faith was that of the Methodist Episcopal Church and his political belief that of the democracy. He was not long permitted to enjoy his now home, however, for in 1857 he passed away at the comparatively early age of thirty years. His wife, who bore the maiden name of Mary C. Barnett, was born in the Shenandoah Calley of Virginia and died in December, 1903, at the age of seventy-seven years. After losing her first husband she became the wife of P. P. Henderson, by whom she had one daughter, Susie, now the wife of C. M. Beck, a real-estate dealer at Gibbon, Nebraska. She was a de­voted member of the Methodist Episcopal Church and a lady of many excellent traits of character.
Thomas J. Proudfoot was twelve years of age at the time of his mother's second marriage. He was the younger of two children born of her first union and in the public schools of Indianola he pursued his education, while later he spent two years as a student in Simpson College. He afterward took up the trade of carpentering, which he followed for a time and later he engaged in farming for four years upon a tract of land that he had purchased near the fair grounds. For eighteen years, however, he has devoted his time and energies to merchandising. In 1892 he formed a partnership with J. H. Derrough under the firm style of Derrough & Proudfoot, dealers in furniture and undertaking goods. This partnership continued for six years, when Mr. Derrough retired and was succeeded by J. H. Dyke and G. A. Smith. The business was then increased and the firm name of Proudfoot. Dyke & Smith was assumed. This company is now doing a good business, having many patrons, while its annual sales have reached a large figure.
On the 8th of September, 1880, Mr. Proudfoot was married to Miss Hannie L. F. Chapman, who was born in New York, her parents being natives of that state. Mr. and Mrs. Proudfoot have one child, a daughter, Ada A. They are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church and Mr. Proudfoot affiliates with the blue lodge and chapter of Masons and is financier in the local lodge of the Ancient Order of United Workmen. His political allegiance is given to the Republican Party. In his business career he has always held to high ideals and has been a man of action rather than theory. He justly values his own self-respect and esteem of his fellowmen as infinitely more preferable than wealth, fame or position and in his laudable efforts to attain prosperity he has never sacrificed those principles which he believes to be right as factors in man's relations with his fellowmen.