Page 50 - Armstrong Bloodline - ebook_Neat

known wherever corn is successfully produced. In 1898 he received a gold medal, the only one awarded to a
grower of corn in Iowa, and a silver medal and all the other honors awarded at the Omaha Exposition for the
best exhibit of corn. In 1905, when the National Breeders Association was formed, Secretary of Agriculture
Wilson, who was then and is still president of the association, in his appointment of three official members from
Iowa named C. F. Curtis, president of Ames College, as the first, and Mr. Armstrong as the second. In 1908 Mr.
Armstrong made a further experiment. He had planted one hundred and sixty acres of corn which was drowned
out and on the 10th of July, simply as an experiment, he planted his second crop of corn, which developed and
matured perfectly. There is no one more competent to speak in authority on the production of this great
American cereal than is he. The value and worth of his work are inestimable for the production of corn is one of
the greatest sources of the country's wealth and from America its use has been introduced into other lands,
where it is becoming more and more popular.

Mr. Armstrong was married in Peoria, Illinois, on the 25th of July 1860, to Miss Louise Hoag, the daughter of
James and Levissa Hoag, of Galesburg, Illinois, who was a graduate of Knox College of that city in 1858. Unto
Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong have been born two sons and five daughters: Sarah (Carrie), the wife of Richard De
Rouse, of Shenandoah; Grace, the deceased wife of William H. West; Orah, who resides at home; Mary,
deceased; Jerome B., Jr., a member of the firm of J. B. Armstrong & Son; Carl, of Cheyenne, Wyoming; and
Louise, the wife of Calvin Sturtzbach, of Tampa, Florida. Grace was a graduate of Western Normal College, and
was a teacher at Emerson, Iowa; Orah also graduated from Western Normal, and, after demonstrating an
unusual talent, she subsequently studied music at the Conservatory in Chicago. She later taught at San Saba
College, Texas, where she won an enviable reputation as a teacher.

In early life Mr. Armstrong gave his political allegiance to the Whig party and was one of the organizers of the
Republican party, with which he has since been identified. He has never sought, however, the reward of office for
party fealty. He is a member of the Shenandoah Lodge, I. O. O. F. (Independent Order of Odd Fellows), and has
assisted in instituting numerous lodges, being much interested in the work of the Order. He has now passed the
seventy-eighth milestone on life's journey but seems a man of much younger years, being keenly interested in
matters relative to the world's progress and especially in what is being done in agricultural lines. His own
contribution to the world's advancement has been a notable and commendable one and will make his name
honored for years to come.

Jerome Bonaparte Armstrong died several years later on July 17, 1921, at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Ann Arbor,
Washtenaw County, Michigan at the age of 89. For several years it had been his practice to spend time during
the summer with his younger brother Rolla, and it was here that he took ill and died shortly after his arrival. He
was returned to his home of Shenandoah, Iowa for burial.

It is interesting that in Jerome's biography of 1909, I located the very first reference in writing that I ever found
to my great- grandfather (outside government records):

Jerome B. Armstrong had one brother, A. D. Armstrong, who served through the Civil War in the Fifteenth and
the Thirteenth Michigan Regiments. He was shot through the body at Pittsburg Landing but recovered and
reenlisted in the Thirteenth in time for the battle of Corinth. Later he was with Sherman on the march to the sea
and was captured and confined in Libby prison from the time of Johnston's capture until the close of the war. He
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died in Shenandoah, Iowa, when but forty-five years of age (actually, he died shortly before his 42 birthday).
The above is worded in such a way as to make it appear that he had only one brother; as we know, he actually
had another brother named Rolla (see below).

References of interest for Jerome:

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