Howard County IN Archives Biographies.....Tarkington, William E. 1867 - 
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com April 16, 2006, 2:54 am

Author: Jackson Morrow

WILLIAM E. TARKINGTON.

   In examining the life records of self-made men, it will invariably be found
that indefatigable industry has constituted the basis of their success. True
there are other elements which enter in and conserve the advancement of personal
interests,—perseverance, discrimination and mastering of expedients,—but the
foundation of all achievement is earnest, persistent labor. At the outset of his
career Mr. Tarkington recognized this fact, and he did not seek any royal road
to the goal of prosperity and independence, but began to work earnestly and
diligently in order to advance himself, and the result is that he is now
numbered among the progressive, successful and influential farmers of Ervin
township, Howard county, where he has a well improved landed estate.

   William E. Tarkington was born on his father's farm in Clay township,
December 7, 1867, the son of John E. Tarkington, who has long been a man of
influence in his community. Our subject remained on his father's farm, assisting
with the work about the place and attending school in the neighborhood, where he
gained a fairly good practical education, and he always followed farming and
stock raising, believing that in this field better opportunities were to be
found than any other, largely because of his early training by his worthy
father, who had made a success of the same line before him. He remained under
the parental roof-tree until he was twenty-five years old, when he married and
settled on the farm where he now lives in Ervin township. His marriage day was
February 1, 1893, and he selected as a life companion, Ora Miller, a native of
Clay township, where the ceremony was performed, and she proved to be a most
worthy helpmate. She was the daughter of Henry Clay Miller, and she passed to
her rest in Ervin township March 12, 1900. One child was born to this union,
Roscoe Ray, who is a bright lad and gives promise of a brilliant future.

   The subject was again married in Ervin township, December 26, 1901, to Lillie
Merrill, a native of Ervin township and a daughter of Benjamin and Harriet
Merrill, well known people in the respective community. This union has proven to
be a most harmonious one and Mr. and Mrs. Tarkington have a nice and cozy home.

   The subject has been a member of the advisory board, where his sound business
principles were applied with the same tangible results as have been obtained in
his own industrial life. The subject and wife are earnest members of the Shiloh
Methodist Episcopal church of Clay township.

   Mr. Tarkington's farm shows at a glance that a man of thrift and industry
manages it. He has erected substantial and commodious buildings on the place,
his residence being a most convenient one, and all of his out buildings are of
modern type. His fences are kept in good repair and his fields are well tilled
and carefully looked after as to washes and other damaging agencies and all his
improvements are well up to those on the best farms of the county, in fact, this
farm of one hundred and twenty acres, is equal in every respect to any in the
community where the subject lives and where he has gained the undivided respect
and admiration of all who know him, owing to his life of industry and uprightness.


Additional Comments:
From:

HISTORY OF HOWARD COUNTY INDIANA
BY
JACKSON MORROW, B. A.
ILLUSTRATED
VOL. II
B. F. BOWEN & COMPANY
INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA

(circa 1909)

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