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From "Who Was Who," Thomas was educated in the public schools and commercial college. He studied law. He was clerk of the district and circuit courts of Iowa for 3 terms, mayor of Atlantic, Iowa for three terms; consul at Crefeld, Germany 1901-1907; at Jerusalem 1907-1910; at Martinique, W.I. 24 June 1910--?

Was a Mason (K.T.), Odd Fellow, Elk, Republican.

The following is a letter from Thomas Ross Wallace (1848-1929) to Mary Jane (Jennie) Wallace South (1871-1947). The letter was written from Mobile, Alabama sometime in the early 1900s. Thomas Ross Wallace was three times mayor of Atlantic, Iowa, three terms clerk of the District court, and consul to Germany, Jerusalem and Martinique, among other things, thus the reference in the letter to Martinique. I have inserted spelling corrections in brackets where the original interferes with the understanding of the letter; otherwise, the spelling mistakes you see are from the copy I have, and are presumably Thomas'. I have also capitalized the first words of sentences, where he often did not. ---Lee Anne Wallace Cross, desc. from Thomas' brother Henry Hamilton Wallace (1839-1911). 20 Jan 2001.

Dear Relatives:

I am writing this letter to Jen in answer to hers in which she requested me to give her some information relative to our family and ancestors. As it may be of interest to others I am writing it in duplicate so that those of the family who desire a copy may have it. Being the youngest of the family I did not have an opportunity to learn a great deal about them, as our folks had dropped all correspondence with relatives across the sea when I had grown up.

Your Grand Father was the only one of his family who came to the United States, from what I remember they were farmers all accept [except] your Grand-Father who had learned the trade of Block Printing. He stamped the design on calicoes, silks and other fabrics, that in the old days was printed thereon by hand. Then a machine was invented which done all such work, except the printing of silks, this afforded good wages for expert printeres [sic printers]. The family was in modest circumstances, owning a small farm in the County called "Down" near Belfast. This is the part of Ireland they have been having so much trouble over, as it is the Protestants strong hold, our ancesters [sic ancestors] came originally from Scotland, as did a large number of others who lived in the County Down and Ulster. They were always hated by the natives who no doubt looked upon them as intruders, they had taken the place and the property of the natives who had been transported, and really never acknowledged themseoves [sic themselves] as Irish. The family consisted of four sons and, all big strong and powerful men, and one daughter, Margaret. William the oldest was your Grand-Father, there has always been a William in the family, named after the old Scotish [sic Scottish] Chief. James was the strong man, said to be the most powerful man in the country. Thomas was the musical one, and the youngest, John was one of the strong ones. Margaret married a man by the name of Fulton. He was engaged in the manufacturing business in Belfast. Uncle Fulton is the only one of the family that I came in contact with in the way of a letter. During the war father received a letter from him in which the conditions in America were deplored. It seemed this old fellow believed that people over in America were killing each other by the Thousands and the war covered the whole land. He begged your Grand-Father to come home, and in case he did not have the money to pay for the passage of all of us, father was to let him know and he would send ample means to pay the way. So you see this uncle must have been in good circumstances. I answered the letter for father, and the Uncle was told that all of us was in the fight to win that all of his boys were in the army except the youngest and that father and I intended to go the following year in case the war was not finished by that time. It was something of a letter as I remember it. We never again heard from Uncle Fulton. I met one man whom I knew to be a relative. He was a Presbaterian [sic Presbyterian] minister, at one time he also was an American Consul at Jerusalem. He was a fine looking man but very bigoted, and did not get along very well as Consul. In addition he was much of an aristocrat, would not associate with common folks, and did not associate with the Arabs or moslems [sic Muslims] and very few of the jews [Jews], while he was Consul, the result was he did not get along very well, and did not make a success as a Consul. He was droped [sic dropped] at the end of the term. Another funny experience I had was in meeting a young fellow at the State Convention in Des Moines, it seemed that he saw the name of Wallace as a member of the Cass County delegation and introduced himself. He said that he had married a girl by the name of Wallace and thought she was just the finest and vest [best] woman in the world. To please her he had helped trace the pedigree of her family and wanted to see if I was one of the same stock, and I wrote down for him what I knew of my fathers family. I met him a few years after and asked him how they were getting along with the family origin. He said he found a lot of Wallaces who were important personages, found one who was a pirate. I told him I would bet he was a pretty good pirate, he said he was, that the people where he made his headquarters selected him as a ruler and protector. He kept the other pirates away as well as the land robbers. They named the principal city after him, as the people are Spanish it was called "Valice" that was the way they pronounced Wallace. I do not remember as that is the correct way to spell it but I do know that it is a historic fact that the city was named after a famous freebooter of the old days and that ____ there reverence him and still do his name honor. (The city is one of the principal ports of a Central American country on the Gulf.) This is all I remember of your Grand fathers family. Your father near relatives were named as follows: William after his father and grabd [sic grand] father, Alexander after mothers [mother's] brother, Henry after another brother of mothers [mother's]. I after a brother of fathers [father's], Margaret after fathers [father's] sister, the one who married Fulton. The name Hamilton, part of your father's name were near relatives of your Grand Mother and a very prominent family. Two brothers of your Grand-Mother came to America, the Rosses were just the opposite of the Wallaces, in almost every way, they were short heavy set people, very dignified and aristocratic. Uncle Henry [Ross] owned a farm about 16 miles from Philadelphia, and it was one of the greatest pleasures we boys had to visit Uncle Henry at the farm. His wife aunt Margaret was a Reed. She was very dignified and religious, and at the same time a mighty good business woman. She took care of the garden products, the fruit, dairy and poultry, althlough [sic although] she did not milk cows, the servants did that, but she marketed all of these products, had a horse and light wagon and would drive to Philadelphia three times a week to dispose of her products; between the two of them they accumulated a good sized fortune for those days, at the same time aunt would have the best of food and in abundance for her table. They had all kinds of fruit, berries and vegetables and of the best quality. Uncle Henry was a brainy man and a mighty good business man and farmer. They had but one child the daughter Margaret, she was given every advantage for an education and grew up a beautiful women and a well polished one, she married a Kitts and had three boys and two girls, the one living in California is named Alexander, his address is Los Gatos. Uncle Alexander [Ross] Married a New York Woman, a very fine looking lady, inclined to the gayities [sic gaieties] of life; he was an expert engraver and designer and made lots of money, but they did not take care of it. They had one child, it fell down stairs and was killed, he blamed her for the accident. This resulted in a quarrel and they parted. Uncle Alex came west and he and Bill finally went to Califirnia [sic California] as you all know. There was another sister in the Ross family, she married a McCarty, seafareing [sic seafaring] people, two of the sons visited us at Philadelphia, both of them Captains of vessels, and fine looking chaps they were, and we liked them very much.

Father had some cousins who lived near us and one of them, William John made his home with us for a number of years. Their name was Boyd, the men were strong and vigorous, one of the girls often visited with us and was a big handsom [sic handsome] woman. All of these people were Presbiterians [sic Presbyterians] and very much opposed to the Catholics. I have often listened to tales they would tell of the big fights they would have with catholics, but the Rosses never engaged in these conflicts. William John was blavksmity [sic blacksmith] and very attentive to his work most of the time, but her would have a spree about every three months, get drunk and while in this condition he would always go down to the catholiv [sic Catholic] quarters and shout "To hell with the Pope" and this would invariable start a rucksion [??], and very often William John would return home very much the worse for the conflict, but it took three or four to finish him. I have heard my brother Bill say that William John was the strongest man for his size that he ever knew, he was a great wrestler and could play a champion game of hand ball. The Boyds moved to Canada and we lost track of them. There was a family of McGowans related to the Wallaces, they looked more like the Rosses than the Wallaces. I suppose the Rosses originally came from Germany, as I noticed several business firms of that name [I think he is saying this took place while he was a consul to Germany] and making some inquery [sic inquiry] relative to them my clerk asked me if I knew what the name Ross meant in Germany, he said the meaning of the word was "A War Horse."

I have come to believe that your Grand father was one of the best men of his times, he was the kindest, most humain [sic humane] and charitable in his general character. We usually had people staying at our house making it a home with out the payment of one cent. Jim Vincent made it his home for four or five years, never paid a cent, and would not so much as carry a pail of water for the women. Every where we lived it was just the same. I remember one winter we butchered 13 hogs to keep the family in meat (Four beg [sic big] men extra in the family). Then too if any of the neighbors neede [sic need] help or assistance the Wallaces were usually called to supply the want for a number of years we would help Altig do his butchering, and got nothing for it except dinner and possible supper for our trouble. Every year we would have a settlement with him and one year in particular he charged us against an account that we supposed gratititous [sic gratuitous], so I determined that the next year I would not let him beat us and at the settlement after our account had been ballanced [sic balanced] he said, "O, I forgot the use of the cain [sic cane] mill you had last fall. Now we had hired the mill agreeing to pay him three dollars a day for it. He said we will just call it three days and let it go at that and I said all right. This would have left us in debt to him for nine dollars. Then I said that I forgotten to charge him with our work helping to butcher his hogs and also helping to cut up the hogs. I figured the work at Eight dollars then I charged him a dollar for a peck of early rose potatoes he got from father for seed that brought us out even and I said we would let it go at that.

The facts are that we never used the Mill, a heavy frost came and destroyed the cain [sic cane], and he knew the Mill had not been used. We brought down to our place and then took it home, but had no use of it what ever. Father never knew of the charge for the potatoes, although the charge I made was what we could have got for them, but he would not have made charged a neighbor any thing for them not withstanding the fact that the neighbor had charged us for a machine we had never used. Alex also was angry at the settlement, but I felt proud of it, and know that it was the Ross in me that induced the action. In fact this was the first settlement we ever made with Altig in which we came out even.

I have related to you all I know concerning the family and will close this by describing some of the incident that have occurred in our Auto rides around Mobile. Don [his son I think] takes us on long jouneys [sic journeys] when the weather is fit on Sundays; on one of these rides he took us to see a building called the "Shell House" or shell castel [sic castle], it is located in an out of the way place close to the banks of the bay, and has good roads a short distance from the house, no neighbors within miles, originally the owner was poor, but the place was an ideal one for the distilling of moonshine whiskey, and he engaged in that business and made a success of it. He accumulated a firtune [sic fortune] and put a large sum of it in the building. After he got rich he became Haughty and quarrelled with the bootlegers [sic bootleggers] who helped sell the stuff, and he was killed, so he lived but a short time to enjoy his fantastic home. It is saed [sic said] that the reason he covered it with shells was because he had been a seaman in his early days, and this was a tribute to his former labors. The building looks like a Swiss chateau, plenty of verandas and porches, and the colums [sic columns] supporting it are all covered with the shells, also the entire house. The place is worth seeing and one feels sorry for the old chap although he was engaged in an unlawful business. Another sunday [Sunday] we visited a little city called Pascagola, situated on the bay at the mouth of a river by the same name; the curious thing about the place is the fact that from the river at different points there is heard a quere [sic queer] musical sound that the natives say is made by "Singing Fish". Now scientific gentlemen say there is no such in exixtince, [sic existence] and describe conditions that would cause the sounds, but upon rxamination [sic examination] no such condition is found and the natives continue to say that the noise is produced by a kind of fish. No explanation has ever been given for these musical sounds heard along the mouth of the river. Last sunday [Sunday] we took a long ride, and along the road at an isolated place, no houses within miles, was a sign post and on it was written one word "McIntoch". Don said it was the spot where Aaron Burr the famous et-law was captured.

My intention in writing this paper was to prepare a copy for each of the members of Henries family, I have found it quite difficult because of the bad light, nearly every day it is cloudy and my sight is getting quite dim, the result is that plenty mistakes will appear, but trust you will appreciate the effort. I relaize [sic realize] that we do not know enough about our forefathers and their families. The Kitts first suggested the idea, they wrote to me and reuested [sic requested] that I give them the information I had relative to the family as well as our ancesters [sic ancestors]. They of course were interested in the Rosses and fathers [father's] family.

We are all well here except my self and I continue in poor condition although much better that when I came to Mobile. I much prefere [sic prefer] the winters in Martinique, we have to keep going three fires in open fire places, and this costs a lot to keep it up. It is getting warmer and I can get out more which is a good thing for me. For weeks it was cold rainy weather, very chilly and it kept me indoors most of the time. Now for a few days past it has been delightful weather, the air quite braceing, [sic bracing] just right to take long walks, and I am improving the opportunity, walked two miles yesterday and the same distance the day before, but the doctor has warned me that I must not take such long walks. We intend to move to New Orleans in a short time, will like that as it is an interesting old city. The carnival season has passed, the city was gayly [sic gaily] decorated for the occasion, the festivities continued for a week, and were very interesting and attractive. We were invited to the Fancy Dressed Ball, but did not go as it cost too much to purchase dresses for the occasion.

Trusting that this finds all of you in good health, and that success attends your efforts. I beg to assure you that I shall be pleased to receive a letter from each of you, and remember always that,

I am. Yours affectionate uncle Tom.

Our New Orleans address will be, "D. G. Wallace, 2413, Banks street New orleans." [New Orleans]

From Atlantic (Iowa) News-Telegraph Wed., Dec 11, 1929:

The body of T.R. Wallace--pioneer of Cass county, former mayor of Atlantic, one time county officer and for twenty-one years in the United States consular service abroad--arrived in the city at 11 o'clock this morning from New Orleans, where Mr. Wallace died Sunday morning. The body was accompanied here by Mr. and Mrs. Don G. Wallace, son and daughter-in-law of deceased, and his sister-in-law, Mrs. Ella Tharp, of Oak Park, Ill.

Funeral services for Mr. Wallace will be held at 2:30 tomorrow (Thursday) afternoon at the home of his son, Ross Wallace, Tenth and Locust streets, where the remains ... (can't read a few words.) The Rev. Ralph B. Noyce of the Congregational church will conduct the service and burial will be in the Atlantic cemetery.

Mrs. F. K. Johnson and Mrs. J. A. Hancox, with Miss Clara Jones at the piano, will furnish the funeral music and the pallbearers will be D. O. Herbert, Sam Childs, J. A. Hancox, C. E. Cole, F. R. Hunt and Dr. L. C. Allender. Mr. Wallace will be laid away beside his wife, who died four years ago, and their children who have gone before.

The picture of the deceased herewith, a splendid likeness, was taken while he was United States consul at Jerusalem.

Census notes made by Arlene Hatfield Duboc:

1880, Cass County, Atlantic Twp., 7 July 1880--page 62, family 600, T.R. age 33, county clerk, b. PA, pts. born Ireland; Maggie, age 24, b. Iowa, pts. born KY mother, Indiana father; Thomas R., age 4, son, b. Iowa.

1900, 2 June, Atlantic Twp., page 55, family 112, Thomas R., age 52, md. 25 yrs., Justice of the Peace; Margarethe, age 45; T. Ross, age 24, occupation insurance; William B., age 17; George D., age 6.