Taylor County IA Archives Biographies.....Besco, J. Fred 1870 - 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Debbie Clough Gerischer Bare67deb@aol.com July 4, 2005, 3:38 am

Author: A Narrative History of The People of Iowa

A Narrative History
of
The People of Iowa

J. FRED BESCO, the popular and efficient county treasurer of Taylor County,  
has proved his versatility and resourcefulness in various other lines of  
endeavor as well, and has so ordered his course as to retain at all times the  
confidence and good will of his fellow men.  He has been long active and  
influential in connection with political affairs in Taylor County, and is known
 and valued as a loyal and public-spirited citizen.

Mr. Besco was born in Wapello County, Iowa, August 28, 1870, and is a  son of 
Joseph E. and Isabelle (Steele) Besco, the former of whom was born near  
Portsmouth, Ohio, and the latter at Bridgeport, Iowa, where her parents were  
early settlers.

Joseph E. Besco came to Taylor County, Iowa, from Wapello County, in  the 
spring of 1871.  He ranked among the substantial citizens and farmers  of the 
county many years, and here he and his wife remained until their death.  He was
a youth at the time of accompanying his parents to Iowa, in the  late '50s, and 
both he and his father represented this state as gallant soldiers  of the 
Union in the Civil war, he having served during virtually the entire  period of 
conflict and after being captured by the enemy passed ninety days in a  
Confederate prison at Milen, Georgia.  He was a stalwart in the ranks of  the 
Republican party and was an active member of the Grand Army of the Republic. 
His father, Henry Besco, who had been in the foundry business at  Portsmouth,
Ohio, came with his family to Iowa in the later '50s and here passed  the
remainder of his life, his Civil war service having been with the  Seventeenth
Iowa Volunteer Infantry, the old flag of which is now displayed in  the rotunda
of the state capitol.  Scott Steele, maternal grand-father of  the subject of
this review, was a native of Scotland and became a pioneer farmer  in Iowa,
where he and his wife passed the remainder of their lives.

J. Fred Besco was an infant at the time of the family removal to Taylor  
County, where he was reared on the home farm and received the advantages of the  
public schools of the period.  He here continued his active association  with 
farm industry until he was about twenty-five years of age, and he  supplemented 
his education by eighteen months of study in a normal school in Des  Moines.  
He made a record of five years of successful service as a teacher  in the 
public schools, and in the period of the Spanish-American war he held the  
position of deputy treasurer of Taylor County during an interval of fourteen  
months.  By successive elections he held the office of county auditor from  1903 
until 1905, and he was engaged in the dry-goods business at Bedford about  four 
years.  He thereafter was employed thirteen years in the Citizens  State Bank 
of this city,  in which he won advancement to the position of  assistant 
cashier.  In 1926 he was elected county treasurer, and the  popular estimate
placed upon his administration was significantly shown when he  was reelected,
with no opposing candidate, in November, 1928.  Mr. Besco  has long been
influential in the Taylor County councils of the Republican party,  he is
affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and he and his wife  hold
membership in the Christian Church in their home city.   Mrs. Besco,  whose
maiden name was Lillie Cooper, was born in Texas and reared in West  Virginia,
and their marriage was solemnized in 1927.



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