For
Muscatine County Iowa
1911
| Biographies For Muscatine County Iowa 1911 | |
Source: History of Muscatine County Iowa, Volume II, Biographical, 1911, page 430
J. N. REEVES....Virginia, " the state of the presidents," has contributed generously of her sons and daughters in the upbuilding of the west and especially of the state of Iowa, to which many of the most promising young men and women have been attracted. Here they have established for themselves a permanent home and the " Virginia colony " and descendents, if gathered together, would make an assemblage remarkable not only on account of its numbers but on account of the upright character and acknowledged high standing of its members.J. N. Reeves of this review, now living at West Liberty, is a native of Virginia, born May 8, 1851, and a son of Nathan and Elizabeth ( Rogers ) Reeves, both of whom passed their entire lives in that state. There were ten children in the family, seven of whom are now living.
J. N. Reeves remained under the parental roof until he arrived at maturity and as he grew up acquired a good education in the public schools. He began his business career as a teacher in Virginia and later went west to Missouri, where he continued teaching and also became a student of the Mound City Commercial College, St. Louis, from which he was graduated. Returning to his native state, he engaged in farming for ten years, but not finding conditions as favorable in the east as he had observed in the Mississippi valley, he once more turned his face westward and in 1884 came to Johnson county, Iowa, where he purchased a farm, which he cultivated for eight years. In 1892 he sold his place and bought land in Muscatine county, which he disposed of in 1898, when he moved to West Liberty and embarked in the wire and implement business, in which he has since continued. Being a man of friendly address and good business capacity, he has attracted a goodly patronage from a wide region about West Liberty and is at the head of one of the flourishing concerns of the city. He is the owner of a handsome residence in which he lives and has many friends not only in the immediate community but throughout the county.
In 1873 Mr. Reeves was united in marriage, in Virginia, to Miss Rebecca Berry, and five children have blessed their union : Olla R., the wife of Ora Andrew, of Kansas ; Otho R., a farmer on Johnson county ; Mary J., now Mrs. Henry Heiman, of Trenton, Missouri ; Emma F., the wife of Ira S. Lambing, of Filer, Idaho ; and Nina, a graduate of the West Liberty high school and now engaged in teaching school.
Mr. and Mrs. Reeves are members of the Presbyterian church and are well known in West Liberty on account of their genial manner. Mr. Reeves has seen not a little of the ups and downs of life and in the course of thirty or forty years in active business by his example he has been instrumental in encouraging many to look upon thr bright side and take new hope. Politically he gives his support to the democratic party and, being an honest friend of education, has served most acceptably for ten years as member of the school board. He has never sought public office, believing that the honors gained by making a home for himself and family are greater than any that could be attained in the turmoil of political strife.
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