nity. He was initiated into the order in Illinois and is now secretary of Ames Lodge. His many sterling traits of character have gained him warm regard. His periods of residence in different parts of the country have given him intimate knowledge of America and her opportunities and conditions and he is thoroughly content to make his home in Iowa, for he believes that no state has been more richly endowed by nature.
JOHN B. Angelo.
John B. Angelo, one of the well known retired farmers of Story county, who is now serving as mayor in the town of Maxwell, was born in Morgan county, Illinois, on the 26th of June, 1846, a son of Samuel W. and Rhoda (Burwell) Angelo. His parents were both natives of Pennsylvania, his father removing to Illinois when a child with his parents, but the mother remained in the Keystone state until she had reached womanhood when she, too, came west and settled in Illinois. Some years after their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Angelo decided to remove to Iowa and in 1853 they located in Polk county near Rising Sun, where, two years later the father died. In 1857 Mrs. Angelo with her family of six children went to Jasper county to reside upon a farm which the father had entered prior to his death and there she continued to live up to the time of her death in 1894.
The childhood and youth 0f Mr. Angelo was somewhat harder than that of many boys. Being the son 0f a widow and one of the older children in the family he was required to perform a large portion of the work about the farm. His education was acquired in the district schools, the sessions of which were brief and the standard of scholarship at that period not of the best. When yet not much more than a lad his oldest brother left home and located in Nebraska and the next older entered the army, going to the front for the Union as a volunteer during that momentous period in the early '60s, thus leaving our subject the entire responsibility and care of the home farm. He managed the old homestead first for his mother and later as a renter until 1902, when he retired from active work and removed to Maxwell, where he has since continued to reside.
Ever since attaining the age which conferred upon him the full rights of citizenship Mr. Angelo has been a strong partisan of republicanism, feeling that party's policy of the centralization of power and protection best subserved the interests of the majority. He has always taken a more or less active interest in politics, having served for several years as township trustee when a resident of Jasper county, and twice being the choice of his fellow citizens for the office of justice of the peace, and in both capacities he proved himself well worthy of their confidence. His excellent guardianship of the public interests and his strong advocacy of every movement which promised the betterment of conditions essential to the