JAMES F. HARVEY
James F. Harvey, a well known
attorney and vice president of the Farmers & Traders Bank of Leon, is a
native son of that city, born on the 1st of June, 1877, of the
marriage of the late John W. and Emma E. (Eaton) Harvey. A sketch of the father, who was a prominent
attorney, judge and banker of Decatur county, occurs elsewhere in this work.
John F. Harvey was educated
in the public schools and high schools of Leon, the Northwestern Military
Academy and the State University of Iowa, graduating from the law department of
the last named institution with the class of 1901. In that year he was admitted to the bar and
formed a partnership with his father in the practice of law under the name of
John W. Harvey & Son. Since his
father’s demise he has been alone in practice.
He is also connected with financial interests, as he is vice president
of the Farmers & Traders Bank and takes an active part in the management of
the institution. His interests also
connect him with other enterprises in the county and he is a stockholder in the
Decatur County Journal. In 1910 he was
elected mayor of Leon and for two years served in that office, doing much in
that time for the improvement of the streets and sewers of his city.
In 1908 Mr. Harvey married
Miss Josephine Slattery, a daughter of Mrs. Margaret Slattery, of Chicago, and
to this union have been born three children, Florence, Helen and John W.
Mr. Harvey gives his political adherence to the republican party, in the soundness of whose principles he believes. A prominent member of the Masonic order, he has been mater of his lodge and he is also a Knight Templar Mason and a Noble of the Mystic Shrine. The Leon Commercial Club counts him among its enthusiastic members, he being president of that organization at the present time, and he is in hearty sympathy with its aims and purpose, believing that the commercial and business expansion of Leon should be promoted in every way possible. Mr. Harvey is also a member of the Beta Theta Pi, a well known college fraternity. Like his father before him, he is a conspicuous figure in the life of his city and is carrying on the family tradition of public-spirited devotion to the general good and of efficient and conscientious performance of duty.