CHAPTER XXIX.
SOME FORMER RESIDENTS OF SHELBY COUNTY AND THEIR ACHIEVEMENTS. (CONT'D)
J. P. GARMONG.
J. P. Garmong, singer, traveler and lecturer, was born near Port Royal, Virginia, July 27, 1875, the son of Mr. and Mrs. C. W. Garmong, of Moines, Iowa. He was educated in the Harlan schools, graduating from the Harlan high school June 2, 1893. The family moved to Des Moines the same year. There young Garmong ran a candy shop, was clerk in a grocery, also in a hardware store. He then worked at the carpenter trade with his father, who was a contractor and builder. In 1894-5 he taught school in Dallas and Madison counties. He entered Drake University in 1898 and was graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy in June, 1902. In the fall of 1902 he entered, as a sophomore, the Denison and Gross Medical College. He was converted while yet a boy and united with the First Baptist church of Harlan, later identifying himself with the Des Moines churches. In music he was a pupil of Dean Howard, of Drake University, and of noted teachers in Chicago. Being a natural singer and reader, he was in great demand not only during his college days but afterwards as an evangelistic singer. As an organizer and inspirational leader of song he has few superiors and for more than twelve years he has labored as a singing evangelist from coast to coast and from the lakes to the gulf. With a noted evangelist he made, in 1906-1908, a tour around the world. One of his experiences was the great San Francisco earthquake. He went by way of Hawaii, the Philippines, and the Fiji islands. Of this time he spent one year in New Zealand; six months in Australia, and two months in India, visiting, enroute, Java, Singapore and Burmah, touring Egypt, Palestine. Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, France and the British Isles. He had thrilling experiences in New Zealand, Australia and Java. He was robbed at Jerusalem. He swam in the Dead Sea, in the sea of Galilee and in the Jordan. In Constantinople he was taken for a spy and arrested. Recently he has taken a course in the Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, and since September 1, 1914, has labored with his brother-in-law, Evangelist P. C. Nelson, a Cuppy's Grove boy. as director of music in evangelistic campaigns.
Transcribed by Cheryl Siebrass, October, 2023 from the Past and Present of Shelby County, Iowa, by Edward S. White, P.A., LL. B.,Volume 1, Indianapolis: B. F. Bowen & Co., 1915, pg. 550-551.
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