Tracy, Edward

TRACY, SKELLY

Posted By: Roseanna Zehner
Date: 7/25/2006 at 19:39:01

TRACY, EDWARD

Edward Tracy, an industrious, honorable and upright farmer and citizen of Lyon County, Iowa, is a native of Canada, where he was born August 8, 1847, a son of James Tracy, who came of an Irish lineage. He came to Canada at an early day, and was long engaged in agricultural pursuits in that country.

Edward Tracy was taken into Wisconsin when he was only six years old, where he found a new home in Rock County. There he attended the public school, and reached his manhood with a very fair preparation for the practical side of life, attained not only by the instruction of the schools, but the thoroughly common-sense training at the hands of his father and mother, who wished not only to know the theory of life, but to be also well up on its business side.

In 1871 Edward Tracy began farming for himself in Wisconsin, and in 1886 bought a farm for himself in Lyon County. Here he has worked hard and has prospered greatly, his present circumstances fully justifying his removal to this region at so early a day.

In the month of February 1870 Mr. Tracy and Miss Catherine Skelly were married. She was a native of Wisconsin, and by her marriage to Mr. Tracy has become the mother of eleven children, of whom Frank, Elizabeth, Edward and Agnes were born in Wisconsin, and William, Henry, Sylvestia, John, Edith, Cecelia, and Vivian are natives of Lyon County.

Mr. Tracy has long taken an independent position in politics, and considers that a citizen's first duty is to consider the interest of his country rather than to serve the behest of party managers, who are very largely in politics for the graft there is in it. He has served on the school board and has also been a member of the town board. By hard work and careful management Mr. Tracy has made a success of life, and well deserves the honorable position he holds in the community. At the present time he owns an estate of four hundred and eighty acres, which is well improved and in a high state of cultivation. His farm buildings are strictly modern and up-to-date in every respect, and the entire establishment attests the management of an enterprising and successful farmer, such as Mr. Tracy long since proved himself to be.

Source: Compendium of History Reminiscence and Biography of Lyon County, Iowa. Published under the Auspices of the Pioneer Association of Lyon County. Geo. Monlun, Pres.; Hon. E. C. Roach Sec’y; and Col. F. M. Thompson, Historian. Geo. A. Ogle & CO., Published, Engravers and Book Manufacturers. Chicago, 1904-1905

Transcribed by Roseanna Zehner, Darlene Jacoby and Diane Johnson