SIMEON C. CURTIS.
It is a well-known fact that public opinion expressed through the medium of the all-powerful press, rules this country. It was the insistent cry of the public that forced through the last two amendments to the Constitution of the United States. Public opinion, however, would be useless unless it had the opportunity to find expression, and there is no way in which public opinion can expend its full power and wield its tremendous influence except through the newspapers. For this reason it is not too much to say that the newspapers of the country are the real rulers; that they have more power in shaping the destinies of the nation than Congress itself. It was a very wise provision which was inserted in the Constitution by the fathers of this great republic that freedom of the press should be assured for all time to come. There are few towns in Iowa today that do not have a publication of some kind, and the newspaper directory gives several hundred publications of one kind or another in the state. Among the influential Democratic newspapers of the western part of the state is the Audubon Advocate, which stands as an excellent and influential medium for the expression of the voice of the people of this county.
Simeon C. Curtis, manager of the Audubon Advocate, was born in Galesburg, Illinois, on June 30, 1869, the son of S. R. and Bersheba (Heflin) Curtis, natives of Illinois, who removed from Illinois to Iowa in 1871 and located in the town of Avoca, Pottawattamie county. They purchased a farm near Avoca and resided thereon until 1899, in which year the family took up its residence in Audubon, S. R. Curtis having lost an arm through an accident, it being necessary for him to retire from active labor. S. R. Curtis died in Audubon in 1909. He was the father of nine children, four of whom are still living, Ned, of Audubon, Robert, Grace and Simeon C. The mother of these children lives in Audubon.
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Simeon C. Curtis attended the district school and the Avoca high school. For some time after the ending of his school days he traveled in the West, and on his return home engaged in the printing business with A. P. Cramer, of Avoca, in the office of the Avoca Herald. He worked in that office for three years, and in 1888 came to this county, locating at Audubon, where he entered the employ of Frank D. Allen, publisher of the Advocate. In the fall of 1900, R. C. Spencer and Mr. Curtis purchased the Advocate and became the sole owners, with Mr. Spencer holding a two-thirds interest in the business.
On November 27, 1895, Simeon C. Curtis was married to Ada May Dennis, a daughter of Charles A. Dennis, to which union three children have been born: Mildred, deceased; Garland H., aged fourteen years, and Thelma, who is twelve years of age.
S. C. Curtis is politically allied with the Democratic party. He is a member of the Ancient Order of United Workmen and of the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, being a member of the Audubon blue lodge and the chapter of the latter order. He is painstaking and thorough in all he undertakes and is generally found in the forefront of all matters which are intended to advance the best interests of his home community.
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Transcribed from History of Audubon County, Iowa Its People, Industries and Institutions With Biographical Sketches of Representative Citizens and Genealogical Records of Many of the Old Families, by H. F. Andrews, editor, Indianapolis: B. F. Bowen & Company, 1915, pp. 360-361.
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