Stead, R. F. 1856 – 1933
STEAD, RUSSELL, ROLLINS, ODELL, GATES, WARD
Posted By: Joy Moore (email)
Date: 5/4/2015 at 12:15:45
R. F. STEAD.
R. F. Stead, the second oldest native son of Winneshiek county, is numbered today among the most extensive landowners and prosperous farmers of this locality, owning and operating besides the family homestead, upon which he was born, a half section of land adjoining. His entire life has been devoted to agricultural pursuits and he has won that success which is the natural result of practical methods and earnest and well directed labor. He was born on the property he now owns, August 17, 1856, and is a son of John and Mary (Russell) Stead, the former born near Montreal, Canada, and the latter in Ireland, March 16, 1823. Both have passed away, the father dying February 6, 1894, at the age of seventy, and the mother, July 10, 1910. The paternal grandfather, Francis Stead, was a native of England and went to Montreal, Canada, as a young man, marrying there and spending the remainder of his life engaged in farming and banking. His son, the father of the subject of this review, was one of a family of nine children. He left Canada in the fall of 1853 and came as a pioneer to Winneshiek county, taking up a government claim in Burr Oak township which has been in possession of members of his family since that time. His wife crossed the Atlantic with her parents when she was yet a child and with them settled in Canada, her marriage occurring in the Dominion, May I, 1850. Four years later she joined her husband, who had preceded her to Burr Oak township in order to make a home, and they continued to reside upon their farm in this locality until 1888, when the father retired from active life and moved into the village of Burr Oak. In their family were four children: Hannah, the widow of Clayton Rollins, of La Crosse, Wisconsin; R. F., of this review; Elizabeth, the wife of Alvin Rollins, of Burr Oak township; and Edwin G., a merchant of Canton, Minnesota.
R. F. Stead has resided upon the family homestead all his life and so far as can be ascertained is the second oldest native son of Winneshiek county. He has devoted his entire active life to agricultural pursuits and now in addition to the home farm owns and operates another half section of land adjoining it. All of this property he has accumulated through his own efforts, for he started with an eighty-acre tract encumbered with a debt and is today one of the extensive landowners in this section of the state. In addition to the above mentioned property he owns a half section in North Dakota. He is a stockholder in the Burr Oak Creamery and his business interests are all carefully managed and therefore profitable, his labors having brought him a gratifying degree of success, placing him in the front ranks of progressive and representative agriculturists.
In 1881 Mr. Stead was united in marriage to Miss Elizabeth Odell, who was born in Fillmore county. Minnesota, May 2, 1863, a daughter of Hiram and Eliza (Gates) Odell, the former a native of Quebec, Canada, and the latter of Albany, New York. In 1849 the father drove a herd of cattle from eastern Canada to California and spent two or three years in the gold fields of that state. Some time after his return he settled in Fillmore county, Minnesota, making his home near Spring Valley, a locality to which he went in pioneer times. Mr. and Mrs. Stead are the parents of a son, John Hiram, who is now aiding in the operation of the home farm. He married Miss Beulah Ward and they have a son, Robert Claude.
Mr. Stead is connected fraternally with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Rebekahs and the Modern Woodmen of America. Of late years he and his wife have traveled extensively in the United States and they have spent the last three winters in California. In Winneshiek county, where his entire life has been spent, Mr. Stead commands and holds the confidence and high regard of his neighbors and friends and is known as a business man of unquestioned integrity as well as a public-spirited, loyal and progressive citizen.
Source: History of Winneshiek County, Iowa Vol. II Chicago the S. J. Clark Publishing Company 1913
Burr Oak Cemetery gravestone
Winneshiek Biographies maintained by Bruce Kuennen.
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