FRANK FOWLIE

America, declared the philosopher Emerson, is another name for opportunity. Given time and opportunity what results may be achieved by ambition and industry the lives of our eminent and successfully men illustrate. In distant lands they severed home ties to seek in the United States the opportunity for advancement and progress denied them abroad. Such is the history of Frank Fowlie, now one of the well known farmers of Cedar county, who owns a well improved tract of land of one hundred and sixty acres in Dayton township. Forty years have passed since he came to this county, arriving here when a young man of nineteen years. He was born in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, January 5, 1851, a son of John and Jane (Still) Fowlie, who were also natives of that country, where they spent their entire lives and reared their family.

Frank Fowlie spent his youth to the age of seventeen years in the land of hills and heather and was provided with good educational privileges but from his youth had to depend upon his own resources for a living. Feeling that broader opportunities could be secured in the United States, he sailed for the new world in 1868. Landing at Castle Garden, he made his way direct to La Salle county, Illinois, where he joined his uncles, who had previously come to this country. He worked there for eighteen months at farm labor and in 1870 came to Cedar county, Iowa, where he also joined an uncle. For a few years thereafter he was employed as a farm hand but throughout the period was actuated by a laudable ambition to engage in business on his own account. At the time of his marriage he rented land which he cultivated for several years. During that period he carefully saved his earnings until his economy and judicious expenditure had brought him capital sufficient to enable him in 1895 to purchase an improved farm of one hundred and sixty acres. He at once began its further development and enhanced its productiveness by tiling the fields. He also fenced the land and devoted his energies to raising both grain and stock. In 1909 he purchased a residence in Clarence, which he has occupied since March, 1910. He has now rented his farm but still gives it his personal supervision and watches that the work of improvement is there carried on along progressive lines.

Mr. Fowlie was married in Clarence, September 9, 1874, to Miss Hattie Otis, a native of Boone county, Illinois, and a daughter of Sumner Otis, who was born in Massachusetts and was married near Hinsdale, that state. He afterward came west to Illinois and settled near Belvidere in Boone county, where he followed farming and reared his family. Mrs. Fowlie remained a resident of Boone county until eleven years of age and was then brought to Cedar county, becoming a resident of Massillon township. Unto Mr. and Mrs. Fowlie have been born four sons and one daughter: Frank E. is married and resides at Albert Lea, Minnesota, where he is employed as a mail clerk. He is a well educated young man, is a graduate of Cedar Falls College, and for a number of years engaged in teaching. Fannie J. became the wife of Jerome Luethold, a farmer of Cedar county, and died in Dakota, leaving two children, Harriet Frances and Charles Casper. James Wilbur, a farmer of Dayton township, is married and has one son, Gerald Graydon. Ralph A. is married and is conducting a meat market at Loveland, Colorado. Arthur L. is single and operates the home farm.

Politically Mr. Fowlie is a republican with firm faith in the principles of the party, yet voting independently at local elections. He has served as township trustee and as a member of the school board. Both he and his wife are members of the Presbyterian church at Clarence and have a very wide acquaintance in the county where they have long resided. In 1908 they went abroad and while traveling through Europe visited Scotland and the scenes and friends of Mr. Fowlie’s youth. They also spent some time in a number of the important cities of the old world, viewing points of historic as well as of modern interest. Mr. Fowlie has always been recognized as a careful, conservative business man of tried integrity and worth, possessed of many sterling traits of character. By reason of his diligence and perseverance he has accumulated a handsome competence that now enables him to live retired, while his upright life has made his an honored name in the land of his adoption.