West Liberty History 1838-1938

Source: One Hundred Years of History
* Commemorating a Century of Progress in the West Liberty Community * WEST LIBERTY, IOWA
PICKERING FAMILY

It is rare indeed in the history of famous homes to have one home occupied by one family continuously from the time of its erection in 1660 to the present day. But such is true of the Pickering home, which is still standing at Salem, Mass., the ancestral home of John C. Pickering, who came to Iowa from Barnesville, Belmont County, Ohio, in the year of 1864, purchasing 160 acres one mile south of Centerdale and five miles north of West Liberty, on what is now known as the Harry Hartley farm.

The following year John C. returned to Ohio for his family, which consisted of his wife Lucie Baker Pickering, and their seven children. The return trip was made down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to Davenport, where neighbors met them and drove the family to their new prairie home. All the lumber used for the buildings on the farm was hauled from Muscatine, Iowa.

John and Lucie Pickering were very devout Hicksite Friends and held birthright memberships in this society, which they always valued and retained.

In 1876 John C. Pickering sold his farm to Joseph Hartley and moved to West Liberty the following spring, locating in a little home where the Strand theatre now stands and later purchasing a home on the corner of 6th and Spencer streets, now owned by A. V. Aker.

John C. Pickering died June 26th, 1885. Lucie, his wife, died April 24th, 1888, in Omaha on her way to visit a son at Lincoln.

Four of their sons Levi B., James C., Charles E., and Oliver W. were in business during their residence in West Liberty.

Levi and James were partners in the implement business for a number of years, selling out to McCurdy in February, 1884. Levi then purchased the Cedar Valley Creamery which he conducted for 18 years, until the creamery burned down in 1902. Charles E. was in the drug business for a number of years, moving to Des Moines in 1908, having sold his store in West Liberty to W. L. Watters in February of that year. In November 1888, Oliver W. purchased the bowling alley, which was located in the basement of his brothers' implement store, now the Ruthenberg clothing store. George W. was in the elevator business at Lincoln, Nebraska. There were two girls in the family, Susan, who married George W. Griffith, and Clara B. who married Edwin W. Brooker.

Four generations of the family have lived in West Liberty.

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