Shelby  County  Indiana
Biographies

George  W. Clarke

George W. Clarke was born in Shelby county, Indiana, October 24, 1852.  His father, John Clarke, was born in Warren county, Ohio, and his mother, Eliza J. Akers, was born in Floyd county, Indiana.  They removed from Shelby county, Indiana, to Davis county, Iowa, in 1856, and settled on a farm near Drakeville, where they still live.  Here also lived with them and worked on the farm their son until he was twenty-two years of age.  In the winter he had taught school in the country and in Drakeville and later he taught in Bloomfield.  He acquired his education at Oskaloosa College, Oskaloosa, Iowa, from which institution he was graduated in 1877.  Immediately after, he entered the law office of Lafferty & Johnson, at Oskaloosa.  After studying there for a time he entered the law department of the State University of Iowa and was graduated in 1878.  In the same year he came to Adel, in Dallas county, Iowa, was married to  Miss Arletta Greene  and opened an office for the practice of law.  A few years after he formed a partnership with  J. B. White, under the firm name of  White & Clarke.  The firm is still in existence and is yet engaged in the practice of the law, as it always has been, at Adel.           During his first four years at Adel Mr. Clarke held the office of justice of the peace.  He held no other office until he was elected to represent Dallas county in the legislature in the twenty-eighth general assembly, meeting in January, 1900.  He was re-elected to the twenty-ninth, thirtieth and thirty-first general assemblies and in the last two was chosen speaker of the house, both times without opposition, republicans and democrats alike voting for him.

          Mr. and Mrs. Clarke have four children.  The oldest is married and is practicing law at Perry, Iowa.  The others are still at home.
Past and Present of Dallas County, Iowa, Chicago: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1907.
Contributed by Phyllis Miller Fleming



          George Washington Clarke (October 24, 1852, Shelby County, Indiana – November 28, 1936, Adel, Iowa) served two terms as the 21st Governor of Iowa from 1913-17.  In 1856 the Clarke family moved to Davis County, Iowa, settling one mile east of Drakesville.  He taught school in Bloomfield before attending Oskaloosa College, from which he graduated in 1877.  Clarke earned a law degree from the University of Iowa in 1878 and then moved to Adel, Iowa.  He married  Arletta Greene  on June 27, 1878.  He served four years as Justice of the Peace and in 1882 formed a partnership with  John B. White           He is the grandfather of University of Iowa's Heisman Trophy winner Nile Kinnick.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Clarke

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