Lyman Lee Bybee

BYBEE, BELLAMY, MILLS, BURDETTE, WHITLACH, CLARKE, FREEMAN

Posted By: Debbie Clough Gerischer (email)
Date: 7/13/2005 at 09:24:30

LYMAN LEE BYBEE, of Knoxville, is a citizen of Marion County who has accumulated some of those distinctions that mean most in community esteem. He has lived in the locality of Knoxville for over half a century, has prospered as a farmer and stock raiser, has performed the duties of citizenship, including a term as sheriff of the county and member of the Iowa House of Representatives, and last but not least he and his good wife, who recently celebrated their golden wedding anniversary, have reared a splendid family of children, and they have around them a large group of grandchildren.

Mr. Bybee was born in Kosciusko County, Indiana, April 3, 1856, son of Jacob and Anna (Mayer) Bybee, his father of English and his mother of German ancestry. Mr. Bybee attended school in Indiana, and was twenty years of age when he came out to Iowa and settled at Knoxville in 1876. As a young man he combined both farming and carpentry, and in the spring of 1880 he bought what has ever since been known as the Bybee Home Farm, 345 acres. Its improvements and its system of cultivation reflect his long study and experience as a practical farmer and stock man. He now owns altogether 665 acres. For years the Bybee Farm has been known for its pure bred Shorthorn cattle.

Mr. Bybee while living in the country served on the school board and in township offices. He was elected sheriff of Marion County in the fall of 1901 and for five years gave a vigorous and efficient administration to that important office. He also served as member of the city council for ten years and in 1911 was elected a representative of the Thirty-fourth General Assembly of Iowa. He was also for some years chairman of the Republican central committee. Mr. Bybee and his son Allen P. in 1906 formed a partnership to engage in the furniture and undertaking business. He continued active as a member of the firm until the spring of 1913, when he turned over the interests to his son. At that time he built a large garage for sales and service and had a part in the business until 1917.

Mr. Bybee married, December 11, 1878, in Marion County, Miss Elizabeth E. Bellamy, member of an old and prominent family of Marion County, where she was born, a daughter of Wiley and Sarah Eliza (Snider) Bellamy. Mr. and Mrs. Bybee when they celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary on December 11, 1928, were the central figures in a great family gathering made up of thirty-four children, grandchildren and wives and husbands of their children, and another member who attended the party was Mrs. C. F. Mills, an aunt of Mrs. Bybee. Mr. and Mrs. Bybee had a family of seven children. Gertrude, the oldest, is the wife of O. R. Burdette, living in Montana, and their five children are Austin, Leland, Wilberta and Catherine, twins, and Chester. Lloyd L. Bybee, a resident of Tulsa, Oklahoma, has three children, Carroll, Rollis and Mildred. Annie E. is the wife of W. J. Whitlach and has five children, Emaline, Lyman, Norman, June and Jewell. Allen Bybee, of Knoxville, is married and has three children, named Lyman C., Ethel and Margery. Erwa A. Bybee, who occupies the old home farm, has two children, Katherine and Linol. Stella is the wife of J.J. Clarke, of Knoxville, and their three children are Margaret, Dorris and John Lyman. Othello B. Bybee, the youngest of the family, married Russell Freeman and lives in Marion County.

--from A Narrative History of the People of Iowa by Edgar Rubey Harlan, Vol. IV, 1931.