My Genealogy Hound

Edwin C. Keith is now proprietor of the largest exclusive shoe house in Creston. Honored and respected by all, there is no man who occupies a more enviable position in trade circles not alone by reason of the success he has achieved but also owing to the straightforward business methods he has ever followed. It is true that he entered upon a business already established but in enlarging and developing this many a man of less resolute spirit would have failed, and he has displayed in his active life the fact that success is not a matter of genius, as held by some, but is rather the outcome of clear judgment, experience and indomitable energy.

Mr. Keith was born in Muscatine, Iowa, April 9, 1868, his parents being A. E. and Margaret Keith. His father, Abraham Keith, was born in Columbiana county, Ohio, in 1832, and died in 1899, when about sixty-seven years of age. The blood of Scotch ancestry flowed in his veins. Much of his life was given to merchandising. He removed from Ohio to Iowa in the early ‘50s and settled in Muscatine county, where he carried on mercantile pursuits. In 1876 he arrived in Union county and engaged in the shoe business in Creston, carrying on work along that line until 1896, when he retired on a competency. He was a progressive and enterprising man and one of the best known citizens of Union county. He always stood for improvement and progress in the community and for the betterment of its institutions and he occupied a prominent position in public regard because of his well spent life, his high and honorable principles and his manly conduct. He attained advanced rank in Masonry and was a life-long and ardent republican. At different times he served as a member of the city council, as alderman, also as mayor, and president of the school board, acting in the last named capacity for many years. He was also sheriff of Muscatine county for three terms. Aside from his other interests he was a stockholder and director of the First National Bank of Creston. His business career was interrupted by his active service in defense of the Union at the time of the Civil war. In the spring of 1861 he offered his services to the government, joining the army at West Liberty. He served until the close of hostilities and attained the rank of first lieutenant in the Eleventh Iowa Volunteer Infantry as a member of Company H. He belonged to the Grand Army of the Republic and thus maintained pleasant relations with his old army comrades in rehearsing the scenes and incidents enacted on the battlefields of the south.

His wife, who bore the maiden name of Margaret Miller, was reared in West Virginia, and both Mr. and Mrs. Keith lost their lives on a Mississippi steamboat, which took fire at wharf at Memphis, Tennessee, in 1889. Mrs. Keith was fifty-nine years of age at the time of her demise. They had five children: Harry, deceased; Edwin C.; Wilfred K.; George M., a merchant at Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Louise, the wife of Will Irwin, who is with the Rock Island Railroad Company, with headquarters in Chicago.

Of this family Wilfred K. attended the schools of Creston and was graduated from the high school in the class of 1888. He afterward spent two years in Knox college, at Galesburg, Illinois, and subsequently pursued a three years’ course in the State University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor. Later he was graduated from the Rush Medical College of Chicago in 1894, and has since pursued post-graduate work in Chicago and New York. He began practice at Fontanelle, Iowa, in 1894, and there remained until 1906, when in the spring of that year he removed to Creston, where he has since successfully engaged in practice. He was married in 1900 to Miss Miriam Muir Darley, who was born in Colorado, their marriage being celebrated in Pueblo. Her father is a minister of the Presbyterian church and is now located at Manila, in the Philippines. Mrs. Wilfred Keith is a member of the Congregational church and by her marriage she has become the mother of two children, Wilfred and Edwin. Dr. Keith is identified with the Masons and with the Elks, and his political allegiance is given to the republican party. He belongs to the Union County, the State and American Medical Associations and is much interested in everything that pertains to the advancement of the profession, or that tends to bring to man a more thorough understanding of the physical nature and its susceptibility to remedial agencies.

Edwin C. Keith, who is his father’s successor in business, pursued his education in the public schools of Creston and after putting aside his text books entered his father’s store in the capacity of clerk. Here he has remained continuously since, succeeding to the business after his father’s death and now controlling the largest exclusive shoe house in Creston, having a patronage which is constantly increasing.

In 1895 Mr. Keith was married to Miss Laura B. Smith, who was born in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, and is a daughter of Jesse and Jane Smith. Her father was a farmer and stockman, carrying on business along those lines until his death, after which his family removed to Creston. Mr. and Mrs. Keith now have one child, Grace Louise.

Mr. Keith belongs to the Masonic fraternity and is also identified with the Elks and the Woodmen of the World. In politics he is a republican and is interested in all that pertains to local progress as well as national advancement. He therefore gives active cooperation to many movements for the general good, and in Creston is regarded as an enterprising, public-spirited and valued citizen.