Harrison County Iowa Genealogy

HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY, IOWA, 1915
BIOGRAPHIES
Page 905
AMSEY BEEDLE

The great Civil War, which this country experienced, was one of the worst calamities that could befall any nation, and all honor is due to those brave men who fought that the Union might be saved. There is something fine and noble about the thought of thousands of youths going forth from home and family to face unknown dangers, and, if necessary, to give their lives for that which they thought was right, and those men who went through the war and lived to tell of its horrors, are worthy of all honor and consideration. A veteran who has served his country, both as soldier and as civic officer, is Amsey BEEDLE.

Amsey BEEDLE, the son of a father of whom he has no remembrance, and who died when he was an infant, and Amanda (MCCOY) BEEDLE, was born in Warren county, Ohio, February 11, 1841. His mother was a native of Ohio, and came to Council Bluffs, Iowa, with her second husband about 1852. She was the mother of five children, two of whom are living. She died in 1914, at Harlan, Iowa.

The opportunities for a good education, in Mr. BEEDLE's boyhood, were rare, and his educational training consisted of that secured in the common schools, near his home in Ohio. He came to Iowa with his mother and step-father. After arriving in Iowa, he resumed his schooling in Council Bluffs and later in the district of Jefferson township, Harrison county, Iowa. At the age of seventeen, he started to work by the month, on the farms of the neighbors, and continued in this work until the outbreak of the Civil War, when he enlisted at Magnolia, Iowa, in 1862, in Company C, of the Twenty-ninth Regiment, Iowa Volunteer Infantry. He served bravely throughout the war, saw a great deal of active service in the south, and was finally discharged at New Orleans, in 1865, being mustered out at Davenport, Iowa.

After the close of the war, Mr. BEEDLE went to Woodbine, Iowa, where he worked in a woolen mill and learned the trade of a loom weaver. Having accumulated some capital, five years later he began farming in Jefferson township, in this county, by buying untilled land and breaking it up, erecting a few buildings and making other improvements. Mr. BEEDLE has always been a hard worker, and, as a result of his labors, has met with a fair share of success. At one time he owned three hundred and sixty acres of land in Cass and Jefferson townships, while he is now the owner of two hundred acres in Jefferson and Cass townships.

Mr. BEEDLE retired from active farm life in 1911, but still lives on his farm, where he has built a comfortable home that stands among a magnificent grove of trees, as an emblem of hard years of toil.

Amsey BEEDLE was married to Elizabeth KEAIRNES in 1868, and to this union eight children have been born, Mrs. Carrie Waters, who lives on a farm near Woodbine; Mrs. Laura Armstrong, who resides in Omaha, Nebraska; George, deceased; Mrs. Bessie Daugherty, of Woodbine; Verne, who lives in Cass township, Harrison county; Jessie, also a resident of Cass township; Maud, who is still at home with her parents, and Mrs. Irene Hainer, of Magnolia township.

Mrs. BEEDLE was born on January 1, 1848, in Atchison county, Missouri, and is a daughter of Wilson and Sarah E. (PARKS) Keairnes. Wilson Keairnes, who is a native of Ohio, is still living at the advanced age of ninety years. He makes his home in Dunlap, Iowa. His wife was born in Coles county, Illinois, her death occurring in 1907, at the age of eighty-four.

Mr. BEEDLE holds to the tenets of the Republican party, on which ticket he was elected constable of Jefferson township. He is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and also belongs to the Post of the Grand Army of the Republic at Woodbine. The spirit which prompted Mr. BEEDLE to go to the defense of his country, when it was threatened with dissolution, is the same spirit which has caused him to fight for good government, and his true patriotism, expressed in high ideals, has won for him the confidence and sincere respect of his friends and neighbors.

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