Amanuensis Monday: The Biography of Frank E. Needham (1866-1932)

(Amanuensis: A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another.  "Amanuensis Monday" is a blogging theme hosted by John Newmark at the Transylvanian Dutch Genealogy Blog.)

 The following is a biography of my great-uncle taken from HISTORY OF CUSTER COUNTY, NEBRASKA: A NARRATIVE OF THE PAST, WITH SPECIAL EMPHASIS UPON THE PIONEER PERIOD OF THE COUNTY'S HISTORY, ITS SOCIAL, COMMERCIAL. EDUCATIONAL, RELIGIOUS, AND CIVIC DEVELOPMENT FROM THE EARLY DAYS TO THE PRESENT TIME by W. L. GASTON AND A. R. HUMPHREY (Western Publishing and Engraving Company, Lincoln, NE, 1919). --

FRANK E. NEEDHAM is a substantial
citizen of Custer county, where he owns valuable
farm lands and also a business building
and a cream station in the town of Arnold.
He has spent almost his entire life thus far
in Nebraska and hence considers himself almost
in the light of a native son. He was
born at Princeton, Iowa, August 3. 1866, one
of the four children of Arthur H. and Camelia
(Porter) Needham, the others being: Leroy,
who married Grace Chappie : Bertha, who is
the wife of Grant Mills : and Mattie M., who
is the wife of Keith Walker. The mother of
Mr. Needham died February 20, 1900, but his
father survives and makes his home with his
daughter Bertha (Mrs. Mills), at Forest
Grove, Oregon.

Frank E. Needham was two years old when
his parents brought him to Nebraska and settled
twelve miles east of Lincoln. In 1882 removal
was made to Custer county and a preemption
claim was secured, situated five miles
south of Arnold. There Frank E. Needham
grew up, having as many advantages as the
ordinary farmer boy at that time, as to schooling
and recreation. He remembers that the
Fourth of July was about the greatest day in
the year's calendar, and to celebrate it seemed
almost a patriotic duty. He found, one year,
that he would have to earn the money in order
to enjoy celebrating, and therefore he engaged
to plow a neighbor's corn field. He was only
ten years old at the time, the task was pretty
heavy, and along toward noon he mentioned
to his employer that he thought it was a very
long forenoon. All the satisfaction he received
was a benevolent look from the old farmer
and the consoling remark: "Son, don't you
know while man makes the forenoon, God
makes the afternoon?"

Mr. Needham was united in marriage August
7, 1893, at Broken Bow, to Miss Hattie
Burk, a daughter of James and Martha
(Crabb) Burk. He and Mrs. Needham have
one daughter, Ruth, who has prepared herself
to be a teacher and was graduated in 1918
from the Nebraska Wesleyan University, at
University Place, near Lincoln. Mrs. Needham
has three brothers and two sisters, namely:
John, William, Albert, Mrs. Laura
Rodgers, and Mrs. Emma Beltz. Mr. Needham
owns several properties that he has under
rental, and he is also the owner of twenty-two
acres of land and a substantial business
building in the town of Arnold, where also,
as mentioned above, he conducts a cream station,
in which town he is an influential citizen
in many ways.

Copyright © 2010 by Kevin W. Walker