attempted to perform his duties as they arose according to the best of his ability. Mrs. Heath has been a valued assistant to her husband and is prominently identified with the social interests of the community, being also an active member of the United Brethren church. Mr. and Mrs. Heath have many friends in Story county who greatly esteem them for their genial qualities.
WILLARD MORRIS.
Willard Morris is a remarkably well preserved man of eighty-five years, still active both in mind and .body, giving his time and attention to the cultivation of a farm of fifty acres which is situated on section 27, Franklin township. He previously owned a much larger amount but has sold a portion of his land. He was born in Lebanon, Madison county, New York, June 21, 1825, his parents being William and Emma (Rice) Morris, who spent the greater part of their lives in the Empire state. They were probably natives of Massachusetts but both died in New York where the father had followed the shoemaker's trade for many years and also engaged to some extent in farming. Their children were William, Catharine, Mary Ann, John, Willard, Jonathan, Abigail, Cornelia and two who died in infancy.
Willard Morris is the only one of the family now living. His boyhood and youth were spent in the east and he resided in Madison county, New York, until 1854, when he sought the opportunities of the growing west, making his way to Chatham, Sangamon county, Illinois. In that locality he worked on a farm by the month. He had made the journey across the country with a horse team from New York to Illinois and although he had no capital at the time he hoped, by earnest labor and unfaltering diligence, to become the possessor of a comfortable competence. He continued to work at farm labor for three years in Sangamon county and in February, 1857, went to McLean county, Illinois, where he spent a year devoting his attention to agricultural pursuits, but the following year he became a resident of Whiteside county, Illinois, where he cultivated a rented farm. In 1875 he took up his abode in Story county, Iowa, where he has since resided, his time and energies being given to the cultivation and improvement of his present farm which now comprises fifty acres of rich and arable land. In former years he was much more extensively engaged in general agricultural pursuits but because of advanced age has sold one hundred and sixty acres of his property. His remarkable preservation of his powers, however, enables him to continue the work on the homestead although he is now eighty-five years of age.
In 1856 in Lebanon, New York, Mr. Morris was united in marriage to Miss Adaline Leonard, who was born April 13, 1831, in New York, and