History of Clarinda, (Page County) Iowa United States of America

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Lester Warren Lewis, of Clarinda, has served in both branches of the general assembly. In both the house and the senate he was chosen to the responsible position of chairman of the committee on appropriations, and it is a matter of history that no state warrants were stamped ?unpaid for want of funds? during the following biennial periods. He was identified with all measures for the more economical administration of county and state government, and was particularly active and influential in the passage of the bill for a more strict accounting and examination of banks under state control. He distinguished himself while a member of the house by his determined efforts to secure legislation favorable to the miners and laboring men of the state.

He was born at Maple Park, Ill., August 8, 1860. His father, Seth Lewis, was a lumberman and banker, a successful man who was the soul of honor in all business affairs. His mother, Celina Woodworth Lewis, was educated at the Warrenville academy, a suburban school in Chicago, in the early history of that city. Two brothers, John and James Lewis, came from England during the first settlement of New England, and located at Barnstable, Mass. James Lewis was the great-great-great-grandfather of the senator, whose young son, Lester, belongs to the ninth generation of Lewises in America. The paternal ancestors for almost two centuries back have been farmers, and one or another has occupied the old homestead at Suffield, Conn., where the father of Hon. L. W. Lewis was born. Mr. Lewis' father was one of the pioneer settlers of Illinois, having located at Aurora when that country was very new. The mother was a native of New York. She had three brothers in the union army, one of whom, John M. Woodsworth, was a surgeon on the staff of Gen. John A. Logan, and afterwards became the first supervising surgeon-general of the marine hospitals of the United States.

Young Lewis was educated in the common schools of Marengo, Ill., the Chicago high schools and the Wheaton college, graduating from the latter in 1882. The college was a non-sectarian but Christian institution, strict in discipline, and few sports were indulged in, hard, conscientious study being required of all students. Mathematics and language were the specialties offered by the college, and in these, as well as the other studies in the curriculum, Mr. Lewis excelled throughout the course. He came to Iowa, July 4, 1882, without a dollar, and went to work in his father's lumber yard in Seymour, Wayne county. In 1883 and 1884 he was teacher of the grammar room of the Seymour schools and at the same time kept the books for his father. The wages thus earned were carefully saved, and in May, 1884, he purchased a second-hand outfit and launched the Seymour Press, which he published until January, 1895, none of the time, however, making it his principal occupation. Later he became assistant cashier of the Farmers and Drovers bank, at Seymour and on January 1, 1886, secured an interest in the bank and was elected its cashier. This position he filled until 1895, when he severed his connection with the bank to become vice-president of the Page County bank, of Clarinda, Iowa, of which Hon. Charles Linderman is president and J. N. Miller, cashier.

In 1887 he was elected to the house of the Twenty-second General Assembly, from Wayne county, and in 1889 was re-elected by a well-pleased constituency; in 1891 the same county, with Lucas county, elected him a member of the senate, and at each election he received an increased majority. He is a member of no society or club, but has been an active worker of the Presbyterian church since his college days. He was married to Miss Nellie E. Hills, September 13, 1882. She graduated from the same college and in the same class with him. They have five children?Eva, Olive, Florence, Lester and Marion Lewis.

SOURCE: Biographies and Portraits of the Progressive Men of Iowa published by Conway and Shaw, Des Moines: 1899.

History of Clarinda, (Page County) Iowa

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