John Marean SLOSSON, Jr.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Census: 1880, living with parents in Kensett Twp., Worth Co., Iowa
• Census: 1900, Living in Kensett, Worth County, Iowa
• Occupation: 1900; Farmer
• Census: 1910, Living in Northwood, Worth Co., Iowa
• Occupation: 12 Sep 1918; Self employed
• Census: 1920, Living in Northwood, Worth Co., Iowa
• Occupation: 1920; Agent - Real Estate
• Census: 1930, Living in Northwood, Worth Co., Iowa
• Death: Feb 1963

Notes:

J.M. Slosson

SLOSSON, SAVRE

Posted By: Sharyl Ferrall
Date: 4/13/2005 at 05:48:15

J.M. Slosson
Senator from the Forty-first district, composed of the counties of Mitchell, Winnebago and Worth, was born in Kensett township, Worth county, Iowa, October 27, 1876. His parents were pioneer settlers of Worth county. He attended the rural schools, Northwood High school and Nora Springs Seminary. Was married June 1, 1899, to Sophie Savre. Served six years as county recorder of Worth county. He is engaged in farming and the buying and selling of farm lands. Represented Worth county in the thirty-seventh and Thirty-eighth General Assemblies. Elected senator in 1920. A republican in politics.

-source: Official Register, State of Iowa 1921-1922, Twenty-Ninth Number, Biographies of State Senators, pg. 330

-transcribed by Sharyl Ferrall (not related to subject)

"George Slawson: An American Pioneer" by Harold D. Slosson - John, Jr., the optimist, was a successful realtor - a "land merchant", his advertisements read Aided by his wife, Sophie, he ehlped his hometown, Northwood, Iowa, conquering troubles during the Great Depressin. In public service he had been mayor, state assemblyman, and state senator.....
John was a cheerful person, seemingly the most lighthearted of the family. He was even something of a humorit, a number of his pleasantries being remembered to this day...
John was a popular young man in the town of Northwood. Thus, in the course of time he found favor with an attractive town girl, Sophie Savre, oldest daughter of Ed Savre, sherriff of the county....
John had a serious as well as a fun-loving side. On his father's passing he took over the farm management, doing most of the physical labor himself...working early and late, plowing, feeding stock, repairing buildings or doing whatever was required to keep things going.
The hard work showed on his person, making him a slender, muscular man at that thime, possibly a little above average in height...in later years John became rather heavy, a rounded endomorph in appearance....
"In the summer of 1904, John had concluded to make a canvass for the Republican nomination to the office of County Recorder. Though there was a large field of contestants, he was chosen by a safe margin, and duly elected. In 1906 he was re-elected without opposition having proven himself a capable and obliging official."....
He remained in this public office until 1911. During that time he had enlarged his acquaintance with people in the area.....He became a partner with a realtor by the name of Emory who had an office on Northwood's main street.
Emory and Slosson, "Earth Merchangs," became an active realty sales firm. Wirtten on their letterhead was "Our Motto is a Square Deal to both Buyer and Seller."...
Although Mr. Emory passed on after a time, John continued this interest in real estate through the rest of his life. At times, he took time off for public duties. In 1916 he was elecgted representative from that district to the Thirty-seventh General Assembly of the Iowa State Legislature. This was the same public service as given by his father some thirty years before. Furthermore, it resembled the public contribution made by the first family member, George Slawson, who for six years, starting in 1657, was the Stamford deputy to the General Court in New Haven, Connecticut....
While John disclaimed being a politician, he seemed to have been an effective one in that area. With a friendly nature, local business experience, farmer and townsmen alike. Thus, it is not surprising that John served two terms (1917-1921) as an assemblyman. Therefore, he served as a state senator (1921-1925). These legislatie sessions were held in the state capital, Des Moines, where for the interim he lived with his wife, Sophie....After the 1925 session, John never ran for state office again, taking on only local duties...
John's realty business, to which he returned after having been a state senator, was described in a Northwood "Anchor" news release for August 16, 1951 - "John Slosson, President of the Farmers' Loan and Investment Company, is the pioneer real estate and loan man in this section of the state." Further, that in the thirty-eight years of his business he had sold thousands of acres of farmlands in northern Iowa and southern Minnesota....While Farmers' Loan and Investment Company was the firm name then used, for a longer period it was called the J.M. Slosson Investment Company...
John served as president, 1939-1946 to the Worth county Co-op Oil Company....Was also president of the Worth county Agricultural Society..He also served as Mayor..
Sophie Slosson had been a good helpmate to John. She kept their home attractive, a comfortable place for John's return after his business and public affairs. Meanwhile, she helped her church and the good causes in the town. Gifted with artistic talent , she painted in oils, producing creditable landscapes, rural scenes about the town...She also was a good raconteur....
Sophie belonged to a large family of brothers and sisters, most of whom soon moved to larger cities elsewhere. but two sisters, Rose Hanson and Ella Johnson, remained in Northwood, being attentive to the Slossons in their senior years...
Unfortunately, Sophie and John were not blessed with children. But they did adopt a young girl, Norma, who brought great joy to thier life. With a pleasant disposition, she became a schoolteach, helping young children get started in life. But Norma was not strong passing away in her early thirties despite the best medical care obtainable at that time.
At the time of their sixtieth anniversary, John was nearly eighty-three years old, but fairly active. Finally, on March 9, 1963, at the age of eighty-six, he left his beloved wife, Sophie, his Northwood friends, and the Shell Rock River, passing on to the great beyond.
Sophie remained in their Northwood home until, with increasing infirmity, she moved to a nearby convalescent home. There she lived until april 21, 1969, when she passed away at the age of ninety-two. John, Sophie, and Norma, remaining with their hometown to the end, are buried in Sunset View Cemetery, Northwood, Iowa.

John married Sophie SAVRE on 01 Jun 1899 in Worth County, Iowa. Sophie was born in Mar 1878 in Iowa; died on 21 Apr 1969 in Northwood, Worth County, Iowa. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Norma SLOSSON was born about 1903 in Northwood, Worth County, Iowa; died in 1935 in Northwood, Worth County, Iowa.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Census: 1850, Living with parents in Maine, Broome Co., New York
• Census: 1880, living in Kensett Twp., Worth Co., Iowa
• Occupation: 1880; Farmer

Notes:

"George Slawson: An American Pioneer", by Harold D Slosson: John was the New York school teacher who in 1859 took his bride Roxy Jane, across the country - partway in a covered wagon - to Northwood, Iowa. There, while raising their family, the Slossons struggled to subdue a large farm on the prairie....
At this particular time, 1856, there was offered by the United States government to its citizens an opportunity to preempt land in southeas Minnesota. Preemption was a federal enactment (1841) to encourage development, whereby after a time settlers onpublic lands might purchase that porperty at a reasonable price.
It was just the opportunity that John, now age twenty-one and a citizen, had been waiting for. "He got the western fever,: explained one of his sons many years later. So, after making arrangements with the school and getting things in order, he started out on his great adventure - a trip to the west.
A prerequisite for traveling at that time was a stout purse well-filled with cash. Travel cards, credit cards, and branch banks were unheard of; nor could the traveler telegraph home for more funds. At each transfer point, John would have to put cash on the counter to get his ticket for the next leg of the journey.
Additionaly, John had to have physical strength to hold his own against bandits and gunmen in the frontier towns. Strength of character was likewise needed to avoid losing money to a trickster, bunko artist, or even some woman at that time preying on green lads from the country.
Also, when John reached his destination, he would need money to live on and to develop the new land for which, finally, he had to pay the government. Emergency funds were advisable, too. All of which made a western migration a major project for a young man like John, who had just reached his majority.
Once at Spring Valley, Minnesota, John worked on his new land. Details of his efforts have been los, but it is recorded that after completing his preemption requirements, John sold out to someone else - not an unusual circumstance at that time.
Meanwhile, John had heard of rich farmland to be had at a nominal price pleasantly located in north-central Iowa. It was in Worth County, where susequently the small town of Northwood was started. This was an opportunity that appealed to John, who had money in his pocket from the sale of the Spring Valley land.....
John Slosson arrived in Northwood in 1857, the year the town was plotted. Recognized as one of the first permanent settlers in Worth County, he purchased his farmland in section twenty-nine, now inside the present town of Northwood....
Meanwhile, John was carrying on with his farming. He was handicapped at times for supplies, since in all Worth county there was only one store. Started late in 1857, this store was operated by B.H. Beckett in a small fame building - the first business structure in that section. Supplies had to be hauled in by ox teams some 130 miles from McGregor on the Mississippi River....By the same token, farm products had to be shipped out by this same route at an understandably high charge, thus reducing the farmer's net income. Nevertheless, John seemed to have managed well, and to have a promising future. In 1859, therefore, when he was twenty-four years old, he made another important decision. it was to return to his home state of New York and there in De Ruyter to marry his sweetheart of schoolteaching days, Roxy Jane Finch....
When John reached De ruyter, he was greeted by the Finches, who were a large and important family in that new York area. So we can be certain that John and Roxy jane said their vows in a pleasant, old-fashioned church wedding...
...John Slosson had first lived on a small farm in section twenty-nine - John's early purchase - in what is now a part of the town of Northwood. This farm was subscquently sold, and in the spring of 1869 John acquired another farm three and a half miles southward from Northwood. It is in section sixteen, Kensett Township; but Northwood, which is in Worth County, still remained the center of the family's interests.
This new farm was nearly a section of land, or one square mile in size. More precisely, it was a little less than 600 acres. Flowing through th property, adding to its scenic attractiveness, was the Shell Rock River, which passes along the south side of the town of Northwood. The family home - anangular, Eastern-type, two-story frame building - was located on a knoll on the river bank, just out of reach of the seasonal floods...
John Slosson, Senior, was thirty-four years old when the family moved to the large farm. He is understood to have been reasonably tall and rather spare....He took an active interest in commnitym county, and state affairs. A summary of the father's life as written by his son, Frank.
Mr. Slosson (John arean, Sr.) helped to organize Kensett township and was chairman of the first board of trustees. He took an active interest in the organization of the same county. He, together with his eldest son, Charles E., established the first creamery in Worth County, it being one of the first in the state. In 1887 he was elected by a large majority to represent Worth County in the State Legislature, but owing to failing health he was not a candidate for reelection.
He was a successful farmer, taking a special interest in stock raising and horticultural matters. His death occured on March 29, 1900, one day previous to his 65th birthday.
The foregoing account is in accord with an obituary writted in the local newspaper at that time. Under the heading of "Hon. J.M. Slosson Dead," there is mentioned the community's high esteem "...for one of Worth County's earliest citizens as well as one of its best." It further states that "....with all of his old ambitions and his honors, he was a modet unobtrusive man...of spotless integrity, one who dealt justly with every one and wisted all men well." Continuing on, "he was a public spirited citizen who won the full confidence and liking of all who really knew him."
....It was provided in his will that his widow, Roxy Jane, should have a life lease on the property. But subject to this lease, about half of the land - some 300 acres, which included the farmhouse and barns - was willed to his then youngest son, John, Jr., who was at that time helping his father on the farm. Thus he might be expected to remain there. The other half of the property was willed in euql shares to the remaining children - Charles, Mary, and Frank.
Relieved of the farm's management, as would have been her task had the farm come to her outright shortly after the turn of the century, John's widow, Roxy Jane, moved to Monrovia, California. This was with her daughter Mary, and granddaughter, Jean. John did keep his half of the farm throughout his life. The land portions willed to Charles, Mary, and Frank were sold for their respective accounts.
Roxy Jane Slosson was living in retirement in Monrovia, California. there she had a small home - a California bungalow, which was occupied jointly with her daughter, Mary, and granddaughter, Jean. Roxy Jane kept busy with fruit trees around the place, as well as being active in local church work.
Grandmother Roxy Jane (Finch) Slosson in her youth was undoubtedly a good-looking woman of the fair type. Even in later years, her eyes were bright her features regular, and her skin perfectly clear and white. This smooth, clear skin seemed to be a Fionch family characteristic, evidenced in her sisters Hattie and Julia.
She was an early-day conservationist. Each sack or piece of paper that came into the house was saved on the shelf for future use. Pieces of string, no matter how small, were tied to the end of the string ball, which ever increased in size. Furthermore, grass clippings were placed under the home fruit trees where chickens grazed and lived on table scraps. Thus, the soil was enriched so that more fruit was produced, with the excess being canned in Mason jars to be used as the wintertime dessert.....
Of rather slight build, Roxy Jane Slosson nevertheless kept alert and active until her passing at the age of seventy-nine. Her buial place is in the Live Oak Cemetery at Monrovia. She can be remembered as a devout, faithful, hard-working pioneer woman, who raised her family under the rugged conditions existent on the early American plains.....

John married Jennie Roxy FINCH. Jennie was born on 19 May 1840 in Broome Co., New York; died in 1919 in Monrovia, Los Angeles County, California; was buried in Live Oak Cemetery, Monrovia, Los Angeles Co., California. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Name: Roxy Jane Finch
• Census: 1880, living with husband in Kensett Twp., Worth Co., Iowa
• Census: 1900, Living with son John H. in Kensett, Worth Co., Iowa
• Census: 1910, Living in Monrovia, Los Angeles Co., California