respectively. They were married in the latter state and their last days were spent in Whiteside county, Illinois, where the father died March 28, 1860, at the age of sixty-four years, while the mother's death occurred October 31, 1876, when she had reached the age of seventy years and five months. James A. Bunce was a blacksmith and followed that trade until sixty years of age but owned a farm at the time of his death. The family numbered thirteen children, eight sons and five daughters, of whom eleven reached years of maturity, while two died in infancy. Only four of the number, however, are now living. One son, L. D. Bunce, served in the Mexican war, while C. D., D. W. and D. K. Bunce were soldiers of the Civil war. Another brother, Dr. D. J. Bunce, was a practitioner of veterinary surgery and a holiness preacher. The eldest brother, Deloss Bunce, was a practicing physician; and a second brother, Delaney Bunce, devoted his life to merchandising and died in Minnesota. C. D. Bunce was a blacksmith by trade and died at Ottumwa, Iowa. While in the Civil war he was captured at Crab Orchard, Tennessee, and taken to Andersonville, where he remained for fourteen months. D. W. Bunce is now a resident of St. Anthony, Idaho.
When a young lad, David K. Bunce accompanied his parents on their removal from Carroll county to Whiteside county, Illinois, and was there living when, at the age of seventeen years, he enlisted on the 18th of September, 1862, as a member of Company H, Seventy-fifth Illinois Volunteer Infantry. He served until wounded on the 8th of October of that year at the battle of Perryville, Kentucky, a bullet piercing his left forearm. He was then discharged and sent home on the 19th of January, 1863. After remaining at home for fourteen months he reenlisted for one hundred days' service with the One Hundred and Fortieth Illinois Infantry, remaining with that command until the close of the war. During his second term of enlistment he participated in the engagement with various troops at Memphis, Tennessee. He sustained his wound only eight days after the regiment had been given its arms. When the war was over he returned home and engaged in farming in Illinois until his removal to Boone county, Iowa, on the 17th of November, 1867. He remained a resident of that county for five years and has since lived in Story county, where he continuously followed farming until 1902, when he retired from business life and took up his abode in Gilbert. He sold his property in this county but is still interested in South Dakota lands, on which he has put his four sons, each having charge of a quarter section.
It was on the 15th of November, 1867, in Morrison, Illinois, that Mr. Bunce was married to Miss Elizabeth Linerode, who was born in Stark county, Ohio, in 1848, and with her parents, I. D. and N. J. Linerode, went to Illinois in her girlhood days. The children of this marriage are as follows: W. A., who married Hattie Seaner and is living in South Dakota ; Effie, the wife of Peter Marsden, of Boone county; Frank H., who wedded Lydia Jones, of Boone county and resides in South Dakota; Bertha I., the