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Benton County, Iowa ~ Biography and Family Information

WILLIAM B. REAM

Source:  History of Reno County, Kansas, Vol. II
  By Sheridan Ploughe.
B. F. Bowen & Company, Inc. Indianapolis, IN. 1917.
Pages 413-415.
William B. Ream, a prominent real-estate dealer at Turon, this county, who for eighteen years was engaged in the newspaper business in that thriving town and who is one of the best-known men in Reno county, is a native of Iowa, having been born on a farm in Benton county, that state, June 7, 1874, son of George W. and Sarah A. (Brubaker) Ream, both of whom were born in Summit county, Ohio, the former on March 18, 1839, and the latter, October 20, 1843.

George W. Ream was reared on a farm near Greensburg, Ohio, and in 1864, not long after his marriage, moved to Iowa, settling in Benton county, where he bought a quarter of a section of land and there made his home until in November, 1886, at which time he and his family came to Kansas. Mr. Ream homesteaded a quarter of a section in Scott county and entered a timber claim to a quarter of a section in Gove county and became a well-to-do farmer and stockman. In 1894 he retired from the farm and moved to Garden City, this state, but after living there about a year bought a quarter of a section of land near Arnold, in Ness county, and moved onto the same, spending the rest of his life there, his death occurring on April 15, 1915. His widow is now living at Arnold. She is the mother of seven children and has twenty-four grandchildren and eight great- grandchildren. The seven children born to George W. Ream and wife, besides the immediate subject of this biographical sketch, are as follow: Alice, who married Cyrus Sherwood, a farmer, living near Arnold, this state; Flora, who married J. E. Stout, station agent and telegraph operator for the railroad company, at Reno, Nevada; Norman S., of Berkeley, California, superintendent of the Shell Oil Company of Rodeo; Lydia, who married C. J. VanAntwerp, assistant cashier of the First National Bank of Scott City, this state; Mary, who married Henry Yasmer, a farmer of Ness county, this state, and Lottie, who married John C. Mitchell, a real-estate dealer at Scott City.

William B. Ream was reared on the home farm in Benton county, Iowa, where his boyhood was spent, receiving his elementary education in the district school in the neighborhood of his home there. He was twelve or thirteen years of age when his parents came to Kansas and he learned the printer's trade at Scott City, becoming a very proficient printer and acquiring a thorough acquaintance with the newspaper business. In March, 1895, Mr. Ream came to Reno county and was engaged as manager of the Weekly Press at Turon, this county, for three or four years, at the end of which time he bought the paper and continued as editor and publisher of the same until in October, 1913, at which time he sold the paper and has since then been engaged in the insurance and farm loans business, manager of the real-estate and insurance department of the Farmers' State Bank of Turon, with offices in the bank building, and has built up a fine business in that line. From the very beginning of his residence in Turon Mr. Ream has taken an active and a prominent part in the civic affairs of that thriving town. Before the town was incorporated he held the office of township clerk and then he was elected justice of the peace, an office which he held for two terms. He was the first police judge of Turon and then held office as city clerk for one term. He was a member of the city council for two terms, among the second term of such service serving also as acting mayor, and was then elected mayor, serving as chief executive officer of the city when the electric-light and water plants were installed. Mr. Ream is a substantial citizen of Turon, the owner of real estate there besides his pleasant home on East Chicago street, and takes an active interest in all movements designed to advance the general welfare thereabout. He is a Republican and long has been regarded as one of the leaders of the party in that part of the county.

On September 29, 1898, at Pratt, this state, William B. Ream was united in marriage to Jennie McNickle, who was born at Mt. Pleasant, West Virginia, in April, 1873, daughter of William and Elizabeth (Wolfe) McNickle, the former of whom was born in Pennsylvania and the latter in Meigs county, Ohio, who came to Kansas in 1885, locating in Stafford county, where Mr. McNickle later bought three hundred and twenty acres of land, where he still lives and where his wife died in August, 1912. To William B. and Jennie (McNickle) Ream three children have been born, Etna, born on May 19, 1900; Lloyd, October 20, 1901, and Arnold, December 29, 1902. Mr. and Mrs. Ream take their proper part in the social and cultural life of the community in which they live and are held in high esteem by all thereabout. Mr. Ream is a past grand master of the Odd Fellows lodge and is a member of the Modern Woodmen of America, in the affairs of both of which organizations he takes a warm interest.


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