Will County IL Archives Biographies.....Howe, John Bell 
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Author: Past and Present of Will County, IL; 1907

Dr. John Bell Howe, successfully engaged in the practice of medicine and 
surgery in Peotone, was born in Winnebago, Minnesota, in 1875, his parents 
being George Hutchins and Harriet Newel (Foote) Howe. The father was born in 
the state of New York and was a practical machinist and inventor of 
considerable note. He invented a straw binder and single apron for the Walter 
A. Wood Mowing & Reaping Machine Company. This machine won first prize at the 
agricultural exhibit at the Paris Exposition. He made much money, but was 
never economical, and while he did not amass great wealth he was yet worth 
forty thousand dollars at the time of his death, while from his inventions his 
family received a royalty of ten thousand dollars per year for ten years. He 
held membership in the Presbyterian church and took a most active and helpful 
interest in its work. He was broad-minded and very charitable and gave freely 
of his means to the poor and distressed. He was interested in fraternal 
organizations and was an ardent and stalwart republican. His death occurred in 
1889, when he was forty-three years of age. Mrs. Howe, who bore the maiden 
name of Harriet Newel Foote, was born in northern New York and, like her 
husband, came of English ancestry. She was first married to a Mr. Whitney, by 
whom she had one daughter, Lillie, now the wife of Andrew McLean, a machinist 
of Hoosick Falls, New York. She afterward married George Hutchins Howe and 
still survives him, making her home in Chicago, at the age of sixty years. 
She, too, is a devoted member of the Presbyterian church. By her second 
marriage she had three children: Kittie, the wife of Dr. Benjamin McBurney, a 
physician and surgeon of Austin, Illinois; John, of this review; and Smiley, 
who is engaged in the practice of dentistry in Chicago. John Bell Howe 
completed his literary education in the high school of Hoosick Falls, New 
York, and after two years' study under private instruction he passed the 
examination before the New York state medical regents in 1891. He afterward 
entered the Chicago Homeopathic Medical College in 1892, and was graduated 
therefrom in 1895. Dr. Howe located for practice in Vinton, Iowa, where he 
remained nine months, and in April 1896, he came to Peotone, where he has 
since remained, his success here passing beyond his utmost anticipations. He 
has been accorded a most liberal patronage and his success in the medical 
profession only comes to him in recognition of ability and skill and is an 
indication of his high standing. On the 22d of July, 1897, Dr. Howe was united 
in marriage to Miss Ida A. Schroeder, who was born in Peotone in 1873, and is 
a daughter of Frederick and Elizabeth (Conrad) Schroeder. They have two 
children, Marjorie and Eleanor, aged, respectively, eight and three years. 
Mrs. Howe belongs to the German Evangelical church. The doctor holds 
membership with the Masonic, Odd Fellows and Knights of Pythias fraternities, 
and likewise has membership relations with the Modern Woodmen of America, the 
Knights of the Globe and the Yoemen of America, being state examiner for the 
last named. He is a socialist with broad humanitarian principles and in the 
line of his profession he is connected with the Will County and Illinois State 
Medical Societies and the American Medical Association. Actuated by laudable 
ambition in all of his professional career Dr. Howe has made a most creditable 
record and has won more than local prominence, while his success has been most 
gratifying. 

Additional Comments:
PAST AND PRESENT OF WILL COUNTY, ILLINOIS By W. W. Stevens President of the 
Will County Pioneers Association; Chicago: The S. J. Clarke Publishing 
Company, 1907

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