FRANK E. SHELDON has become one of the influential figures in financial affairs in his native county, where he organized the Mount Ayr State Bank, of which he has been the president from the time of its incorporation, his conservative yet progressive policies in the directing of its affairs having made it one of the staunch and important banking institutions of Ringgold County as well as a distinct communal asset is Mount Ayr, the county seat. A representative of one of the honored pioneer families of Ringgold County, Mr. Sheldon was here born on the parental home farm and the date of his nativity was October 3, 1866. he is a son of the late Edgar and Matilda (Baker) Sheldon, the former of whom was born near Mantua, Ohio, and the latter of whom was born in Pennsylvania, of sterling Holland Dutch ancestry.

EDGAR SHELDON was born December 5, 1832, and was reared and educated in his native state, where his advantages included those of Hiram College, a fine old Ohio institution in which he was a classmate of Gen. James A. Garfield, who later served as president of that college and who finally became President of the United States. Mr. Sheldon was for a number of years a teacher in the schools of the State of Tennessee and he was about twenty years of age when, in 1853, he came to Iowa and became a pioneer settler in Ringgold County. Here he purchased land and developed a fine farm estate, here he long had secure standing as an honored and influential citizen and here he was prominent in communal and general public affairs. he was a stalwart advocate of the principles of the Republican party, and he was called upon to serve in various local offices of public trust and responsibility, he having been county editor two terms, having served also as county superintendent of schools and having been county surveyor for a long term of years. He was one of the patriarchal pioneer citizens of Ringgold County at the time of his death, in 1925, he having attained to the age of ninety-two years and his wife having preceded him to the life eternal. The Sheldon family, of English origin, was founded in America in the Colonial period of our national history.

[Edgar served during the Civil War with Company C, 3rd Battalion of the Southern Iowa Border Brigade.]

Frank E. Sheldon early gained fellowship with the varied activities of the home farm, and he still retains valuable farm interests in his native county. Here he received the advantages of the public schools of the middle pioneer period and here he continued his active alliance with farm industry until 1890, since which year he has been consecutively identified with banking enterprise at Mount Ayr, where for twenty-five years he was connected with the Allen Brothers Bank, in which he became an executive officer, in charge of the farm and loan department. In 1915 he organized the Mount Ayr State Bank, of which he has since continued the president, besides which he organized and is president of the Kellerton State Bank, in the Village of Kellerton, Ringgold County, and the Citizens Savings Bank of Benton, this county. He is executive head also of the Mount Ayr Real Estate & Loan Company, and he is one of the representative and highly esteemed citizens and bankers of Southern Iowa, with inviolable place in popular confidence. He has given over twenty years of constructive service as a member of the board of directors of the Iowa State Fair, and during the final ten years was treasurer of the State Fair and Exposition. He has broad and accurate knowledge of industrial and civic conditions and influences in Iowa and has been specially alert in fostering and advancing farm industry, the basic medium of prosperity in this favored commonwealth.

Mr. Sheldon gives unqualified allegiance to the Republican party, and he represented Ringgold County in the thirty-second regular and extra sessions of the State Legislature, as did he also in the succeeding, or Thirty-third General Assembly. In this service he gave further evidence of his unbounded civic loyalty and his intense desire to promote the best interests of his native state.

In 1895 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Sheldon to Miss Minnie Horn, who likewise was born in Ringgold County and who is of Scotch ancestry in both paternal and maternal lines, she being a daughter of Dr. William and Mace (Law) Horn. Doctor Horn was born in Indiana and prior to coming to Iowa had been a resident of Illinois. He became one of the pioneer physicians and surgeons in Southern Iowa, and here continued in the active practice of his profession many years, both he and his wife having passed the closing years of their lives in Ringgold County. Mr. and Mrs. Sheldon have no children, but into their home they took four children, whom they reared and educated with true parental solicitude: Edna and Harry Laird, brother and sister, the latter being now deceased, and the two other children are Emaline Johnston Sheldon and Blanche Johnston Sheldon. Harry Laird received the advantages of Iowa State College, at Ames, and he was in service in departmental work during the entire period of the nation's participation in the World war, he having thereafter served as secretary of the War Finance Corporation of Iowa and being now a national bank examiner for Iowa, with headquarters in Des Moines. Emaline Johnston Sheldon is (1930) a student in Iowa State College, and her sister, Blanche, is a student in the University of Nebraska, in the capital city of Lincoln.

SOURCE: HARLAN, Edgar Rubey, LL. B., A.M., Curator of the Historical, Memorial and Art Department of Iowa A Narrative History of The People of Iowa with SPECIAL TREATMENT OF THEIR CHIEF ENTERPRISES IN EDUCATION, RELIGION, VALOR, INDUSTRY, BUSINESS, ETC. Vol. IV. The American Historical Society, Inc. Chicago and New York. 1931.

Transcription by Debbie Clough Gerischer, Iowa History Project, October of 2009

Edgar SHELDON settled in Tingley township, Section 2, in the spring of 1855. He was a native of Ohio and his wife a native of Pennsylvania. He followed school teaching through the southern states a number of years before coming west. He was county superintendent of schools in Ringgold county in 1862 and 1863 and county auditor from 1890 to 1895. He established the first cheese factory in southwestern Iowa in 1858 and ran it for several years after. He lived in Mount Ayr with his son, F. E. SHELDON for several years before he died. Before his death, he lost his eyesight. He lived a little past 91 years of age and died in January, 1925, a model man.

SOURCE: LESAN, Mrs. B. M. Early History of Ringgold County: 1844 - 1937 p. 20. Blair Pub. House. Lamoni IA. 1937.

Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, May of 2010

Frank SHELDON of Mount Ayr was a Representative from Ringgold County was born in Ringgold County, Iowa, on October 3, 1866. His parents settled in Ringgold County in 1855. Frank grew up on the family farm and received his education from the district schools. In 1895, Frank married. Frank was in the real estate, loan and brokerage business since June of 1890. A Republican, Frank was elected as a representative in 1906, and re-elected in 1908. In 1924 Frank was the Iowa alternative delegate to the Republican National Convention.

SOURCE: beta.legis.state.ia.us/Legislators/legislator.aspx?GA=33&PID=3387
politicalgraveyard.com/bio/sheldon.html

Ringgold Record
Mount Ayr, Ringgold County, Iowa
1915

Frand E. SHELDON was born in Ringgold county, on a farm, forty-nine years ago, his father locating there in 1857. After spending his youth on the farm as a cattle herder and farm hand, he went into the Allan bank in Mount Ayr as an abstract clerk and his rise has been a steady and persistent one from that day. He is now engaged in the land, loan and abstract business in his own fine office building and probably no loan or land man in Iowa does a more extensive business. He lives in a beautiful home in Mount Ayr. Frank SHELDON is a lovable character whose friendship is prized by everyone who knows him.

Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, June of 2009; updated September of 2010