Buena Vista County, IA
USGenWeb Project

M. T. Fletcher, who is one of the active and successful business men of Buena Vista county, being engaged in buying and shipping stock and also in the elevator and grain business was born in Wysox township, Carroll county, Illinois, April 28, 1862. His parents were Burton and Aurelia (Humphrey) Fletcher, natives of Pennsylvania and Connecticut, respectively. Both are now deceased. When a young man the father removed to Carroll county, Illinois, where for a time he engaged in teaching school during the winter and in farming during the summer months, but later devoted his entire time and attention to agricultural pursuits. For thirty-five years prior to his death he was totally blind.

M. T. Fletcher was reared on the home farm and was accorded good educational advantages. In early manhood he engaged in merchandising at Milledgeville and was thus successfully connected with the business interests of the town for thirteen years. In the fall of 1882, in Carroll county, Illinois, he wedded Miss Estella Ransom, who was also a native of Illinois and was a well educated young lady, having been a teacher prior to her marriage. Mr. Fleisher subsequently traded his store for a farm of two hundred acres in Washington township, Buena Vista county, Iowa, on which he located and resided for two years. He erected thereon a good dwelling, one of the best barns in the entire county and all necessary outbuildings for the shelter of grain and stock. In addition to the work of general farming he also bought and fed stock, meeting with gratifying and well merited success in both undertakings. At the and of two years, however, he returned to Illinois with his wife, who was an invalid and who was called to her final rest in Carroll county in March, 1899. Subsequently he returned to Buena Vista county, leased his farm and was employed by the Bradford Real Estate Company for two years. Later he returned to his farm and was married in Stores Lake, on the 14th of February, 1901, to Miss Eva Myer, a native of Macon county, Illinois. He afterward settled in Truesdale, where he has since resided and where he is engaged in the buying and shipping of stock on an extensive and profitable scale. He likewise sells more than one hundred cars of tile annually, and recently took charge of the elevator and grain business, so that his interests are of a varied and important character. His connection with any undertaking insures a prosperous outcome of the same, for it is in his nature to carry forward to successful completion whatever he is associated with. He has earned for himself an enviable reputation as a careful man of business, and in his dealings is known for his prompt and honorable methods, which have won him the deserved and unbounded confidence of his fellowmen. He still owns the farm in Washington township but has leased the same.

Unto Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher have been born three children: Burton F., Edna C. and Ruby Dorothea. In his political views Mr. Fletcher is a republican and while residing in Carroll county, Illinois, served as town clerk for a number of years and as tax collector for three years. While living in Milledgeville he also acted for some years as a member of the village board, ever discharging his official duties in prompt and capable manner. He is affiliated with the Knights of the Globe and the Fraternal Insurance Order, and his wife is a member of the Catholic church. They are well known and highly esteemed throughout the community as people of genuine personal worth and upright lives and the circle of their friends is almost coextensive with the circle of their acquaintances.