MELVIN I. MASTERSON.
This sketch concerns a man who, though not seeking for, nor aspiring to, worldly honors, has lived among his family and neighbors as a quiet, honorable, Godfearing man, doing his work conscientiously, and achieving such success in business enterprises as any man might envy. It may be that for some of the hardihood of his nature he is indebted to his father, who possessed the stalwart qualities found in pioneers; but assuming this to be true, there still remain many admirable characteristics which could have been developed, it is believed, only through overcoming obstacles, and keeping ever in mind the goal to be reached.
Melvin I. Masterson is a well-known farmer of Leroy township, this county, who was born on February 24, 1872, at Oil City, Pennsylvania, son of William and Mary A. (Carter) Masterson, both natives of Venango county, Pennsylvania, where they grew up and married. William was permitted to acquire only a limited education, and was but a young man when he became a driller in the oil fields of his native state. Like so many other young men of his time, however, the West and its promise of opportunity attracted him with irresistible force, and in 1879 he came to Iowa and located in Greeley township, this county. He bought an eighty-acre tract from the railroad company and went to work to build a home. He gradually added to this land, as he prospered, until he had, in all, three hundred and twenty acres of as good land as there is in the county. Besides his agricultural activities, William Masterson raised many cattle and hogs. As a Republican, he held several township offices, and was a Mason, belonging to the lodge at Exira. Well known and respected, he died on November 18, 1911, at the age of sixty-eight. His wife died on July 13, 1901, aged fifty-three. One of the enterprises with which William Masterson's name is still connected is the Audubon County Telephone Company, which he helped to organize. The four children born to William and Mary A. (Carter) Masterson were Melvin I., the subject of this sketch; Stella L., born on October 26, 1881, now Mrs. B. S. Huston, of Guthrie county, Iowa, and the mother of three children, Helen, Hubert and Lucile; Earl, April 18, 1884, died on October 17, 1900; Vida, April 25, 1889, married C. J. McCall, of Coon Rapids, Iowa.
Melvin I. Masterson attended the schools of Audubon county, and then for one year attended the Iowa Commercial College at Highland Park. On January 13, 1897, he was united in marriage to Flora A. Shoesmith, of North Branch, Iowa, daughter of James and Sarah J. (Lawhorn) Shoesmith, the former a native of London, England, and the latter of Kentucky. James Shoesmith came to America with his parents when only five years of age, and was reared in Illinois. Later he went to Guthrie county, Iowa, being one of the pioneers of the section in which he located, and is still living at the age of seventy-six years. His wife passed away in 1895. They were the parents of six children, namely: William, a farmer at Hartman, Colorado; Reuben, a farmer at North Branch, Iowa; Fred, a ranchman at Nampha, Idaho; Flora A., the wife of Melvin I. Masterson; Arthur, a farmer at North Branch, Iowa, and Olive E., wife of Ernest Hawley, who died in 1903. To Melvin I. and Flora A. (Shoesmith) Masterson two children have been born, Harold O., born on November 1, 1897, and Wynona M., May 7, 1905.
After his marriage, Melvin I. Masterson bought eighty acres of partially-improved land in Greeley township, this county, lived there for five years, and then sold it and removed to Guthrie county, where he bought three hundred and sixty acres and remained for eight years. Selling this property, he then bought two hundred and forty acres in section 35, Leroy township, this county, three miles south of Audubon, on which he now lives. He also owns two hundred and forty acres near Redfield, Spink county, South Dakota.
Mr. and Mrs. Masterson now live in a splendid modern house, erected in 1911. All of its eleven rooms are lighted with electricity, and have furnace heat. The farm has had over nine thousand dollars' worth of improvements placed upon it. The barn, built in 1909, is fifty-six by sixty feet in dimensions. The hog-house, which is twenty by forty-eight feet, is equipped with a cement floor and running water. A modern ice-house is one of the latest additions to this attractive farm. Among the possessions of which Mr. Masterson is very proud are twenty-five head of registered Hereford cattle, as well as graded stock, and Poland-China hogs. He ships three car loads of live stock annually and has made a specialty of raising Belgian horses, the average number kept on the farm being twenty head. The splendid condition in which this expert in agriculture has kept his farm, as well as his progressive policy of administration, are evidence of the fact that the owner lives a very busy life.
Mr. Masterson is a Republican and he and his wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal church of Audubon. Socially they are very well known and highlv esteemed, and their home is one of the most hospitable in the neighborhood.
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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. 430-432.
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