~Page 1126~

WILLIE BRACE

"This enterprising farmer and respected citizen is a native of Stephenson county, Illinois, where his birth occurred on the 13th day of August, 1868. His father was Levi Brace and his mother Diana Fairchild, both natives of New York, but married in Illinois, to which state they were taken when young. In 1881 Levi Brace moved his family to Fayette county, Iowa, and purchased a farm in Eden township, adjoining the one now owned by the subject, and on this he spent the remainder of his life, dying in 1897, at the ripe old age of eighty-one years. His widow, who survives him, is still in Eden township and has reached the age of eighty-one years, retaining to a marked degree the possession of her faculties, both physical and mental.

Levi and Diana Brace reared a family of nine children, all but one now living, their names being as follows: George M. F., Waucoma, Nettie, wife of Don Adams, of Armstrong, Iowa; Hattie, who married Mr. Christy, and lives in Seattle, Washington; David, of Portland, Oregon; Eva, now Mrs. Samuel Ferguson, of Nevada, Missouri; Luna, wife of Arthur Crowther, of Klondike, Oregon; Guy, a resident of Waterloo, this state, and Willie, whose name appears at the head of this article.

Willie Brace was a lad of thirteen when his parents came to Iowa and since that time his life has been very closely interwoven with material interests and general welfare of the township in which he now resides. He remained with his parents until twenty-six years old, when he, in partnership with his brother Guy, commenced clearing and developing land in Eden township, but after a short time he was obliged to return home to care for his father during the latter's old age and last illness. Sometime after his father's death he succeeded to eighty acres of the homestead and in 1895 took possession of the same, since which year he has erected substantial buildings, besides making a number of other improvements and now has a beautiful and valuable farm which in point of fertility and general productiveness is not excelled by any like area of land in the county.

Mr. Brace is enterprising in the full sense of the term and believes in the dignity of his vocation. As a farmer he is easily the peer of any man of his township similarly engaged."

~Transcribed for the Fayette Co IAGenWeb by Sharon Dorland