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1907 Past and Present Biographies

Willis B. White

Willis B. White, a retired agriculturist of Jefferson, was born in Benton county, Iowa, December 31, 1854. His father, William J. White, was a native of Carroll county, Ohio, where he was born April 20, 1824, and he died on his home farm near Shellsburg, Benton county, Iowa, April 5, 1906. His marriage to Elizabeth McDole took place in 1847. She passed away in camp at Keokuk, Iowa, while the family were on the way to their new home in 1849. Their union was blessed with one son, Abraham, who is now living in Jefferson. William J. White settled in Van Buren county, where he lived for one year, removing later to Benton county, where be located with a land warrant on the farm where he spent the remainder of his life. On February 9, 1854, he married Sarah A. Parker and to their union were born three children: Willis B., Marcus A., and Mrs. Lucy A. Stookey. Mr. White was one of the early pioneers of this county and for many years had an acquaintance with almost the entire population of the county. He was an upright, conscientious man and so successful an agriculturist that he left a large estate to his heirs. He was a loyal member of the Baptist church and in his political afliliations was known as a republican, having held many minor township offices.

Willis B. White acquired his education in the common schools of Benton county and during the period of his boyhood and youth worked in the fields upon his father’s farm. So valuable were his services that his father could illy spare him and he remained at home until he had attained his twenty-second year. At that age he felt it was time for him to strike out for himself and his father, anxious to encourage his independent ambition, presented him eighty acres of land in Greene county. This was unimproved, but Mr. White has taken great interest in bringing it up to its present condition, where it yields him abundant crops. He has not been contented to farm alone upon the land which was a present to him, but has been able by his success in his chosen line to add eighty acres to his original farm and erected thereon a good residence. He resided there until 1893, when he removed to Jefferson, where he bought ten acres of land and built a comfortable home in the southwestern part of the town. He now owns one hundred and sixty acres of well improved land and his prosperity is due entirely to his own labors.

In 1876 Mr. White was married to Maggie Wilcox, a native of Benton county, where she was born July 20, 1857. She was a daughter of W. J . Wilcox, who was born in Maine, but removed to Indiana when a child. He was married in the latter state and came to Iowa in the early days, where he settled on a farm in Benton county, the place on which he lived up to the time of his death in 1886. His wife was Saphrona (Lambert) Wilcox, who died when Mrs. White was but three years of age. Mr. Wilcox was married, a second time, to Mrs. Stackhouse, now deceased. One child was born to Mr. and Mrs. Willis White, Anna, who died in 1896 when she was nineteen years of age. So lonely did this leave their home that they took Mr. White’s brother’s son, Paul, to live with them. Though he has never been legally adopted, he is being reared by these good people to be their heir.

Mr. and Mrs. White are members of the Methodist Episcopal church. In politics Mr. White has always given his support to the men and measures of the republican party, but has never sought either its honors or its offices. He is a member of the Odd Fellows lodge. Thirty one years have passed since he came to this county, which was then a wild district, its land unclaimed and its resources undeveloped. A few frontiersmen had dared to locate within its borders, but the work of progress and improvement remained to the future. There were only three houses between Mr. White and Jefferson when be located on his farm, so that he is well acquainted with all the pioneer’s hardships and he relates in a most interesting manner many experiences of his early days in this county.

Transcribed from "Past and Present of Greene County, Iowa Together With Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Prominent and Leading Citizens and Illustrious Dead,"
by E. B. Stillman assisted by an Advisory Board consisting of Paul E. Stillman, Gillum S. Toliver,
Benjamin F. Osborn, Mahlon Head, P. A. Smith and Lee B. Kinsey, Chicago: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1907.

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