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IOWA
ITS HISTORY AND TRADITION
VOLUME III
1804-1926
M. L. SEARS
Melvin Langworthy Sears, deceased, was long numbered among Sioux City's
foremost corporation attorneys. He was fifty-two years of age when he departed
this life on the 30th of October, 1918, his birth having occurred in September, 1866, in a pioneer log cabin near Onawa, Iowa. His parents were Stillman Foote and Margaret Augusta (Searle) Sears, natives of New York and Illinois,
respectively.
Stillman F. Sears was a descendant of Richard Sears, who emigrated from
England to the United States in 1632 and was the progenitor of the family on
American soil. He came overland to Iowa with his parents in a covered wagon, in
1854, when he was a lad of eleven or twelve years, while the lady who
afterward became his wife accompanied her parents to this state in 1856, the
journey being also made in a prairie schooner. The Sears family stopped for about two years in Council Bluffs, where the paternal grandfather of Melvin L. Sears, who was Richard Sears, conducted a hotel. At the end of that time,
however, they took up their abode on a farm within a mile and a half of Onawa, where Richard Sears devoted his attention to agricultural pursuits. The Searle family made their way direct to Onawa and likewise located on a farm in the vicinity of the town.
Stillman F. Sears and Margaret Augusta Searle were married in 1864, took up
a farm and erected thereon the log cabin in which their son Melvin was born.
When their children reached school age they moved into Onawa in order to
provide them with better educational facilities, and Stillman F. Sears there
embarked in merchandising. He was one of the first to outfit and to drive
through to the Black Hills at the time of the gold discovery there. Mr. Sears was
a typical pioneer and frontiersman. When Monona county had become a well
settled and populated community, he sold his lands there and migrated to western
Nebraska, buying a large ranch near Long Pine. After he had developed this
into a valuable cattle ranch he sold the property and took up his abode in
Long Pine, where his declining years were spent and where he died in November,
1921. He and his wife celebrated their golden wedding at Long Pine,
Nebraska, in October, 1914. His remains were brought back to Onawa, Iowa, for
interment in the family plot.
Melvin L. Sears attended the public schools of Onawa to the time of his
graduation from the high school there as a member of the class of 1887. His more advanced intellectual training was received in the State University of Iowa at Iowa City, from which he was graduated in 1891 with the degree Bachelor of
Philosophy. He next entered the law department of that institution, in which he studied for a year, but a lack of financial resources made it necessary that he go to work, and he removed to Omaha, where he was employed as clerk in
a law office at a salary of twenty-five dollars per month, out of which he paid for his board and clothes. He had sleeping quarters in the law office. His labors gave him practical experience and all of his leisure moments were
devoted to further law study, so that in 1892 he had become sufficiently well acquainted with the principles of jurisprudence to pass the required examination that secured him admission to the bar in Omaha. Shortly thereafter he
entered into partnership with Edson Rich, in whose office he had been employed. The firm became Rich & Sears, and this copartnership continued until 1898, when Mr. Rich was made general attorney for the Union Pacific Railway, while
Mr. Sears accepted the position of general counsel with the Cudahy Packing Company, with headquarters in Omaha. Through the succeeding four years he was the legal representative of that corporation and then, retiring, removed to Sioux City in 1902. In 1905 he formed a copartnership with Hon. J. S. Lawrence, under the firm style of Lawrence & Sears, which association was maintained until the death of senior member. Thereafter he took into partnership Harry F. Snyder, forming the firm of Sears & Snyder, and thus he practiced throughout the remainder of his life. While he was still an active factor in the world's work a contemporary biographer said of him: "An excellent presence, an earnest manner, marked strength of character, a thorough grasp of the law and the ability to accurately apply its principles make him an effective and successful advocate and a wise counselor."
In October, 1901, at Omaha, Nebraska, Mr. Sears was united in marriage to
Miss Frances Belle Tibbitts, her parents being John W. and Louise (Schillinger)
Tibbitts, the former a native of Louisville, Kentucky, while the latter was
born in Cincinnati, Ohio. John W. Tibbitts was an expert accountant. Mr.
and Mrs. Sears became the parents of a son and a daughter, namely: John
Stilman, who is a law student in the State University of Iowa; and Alice Louise, at
home.
In politics Mr. Sears was a republican. He manifested an active and helpful
interest in Sioux City's civic life and rendered effective service to the
cause of education as a member of the school board for a number of years. As a
member of the Commercial Club he cooperated in all the movements of the
organization having to do with the benefit and upbuilding of his city. A worthy
exemplar of the teachings and purposes of the Masonic fraternity, he held all
the high offices in the blue lodge and was a Knight Templar Mason who had also
attained the thirty-second degree of the Scottish Rite and had crossed the
sands of the desert with the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. He was likewise
affiliated with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, while his religious
faith was indicated by his membership in the Congregational church, to which
his widow also belongs. Mr. Sears belonged to the Sioux City Boat Club and
was one of the organizers and one of the first presidents of the Sioux City
Country Club. His life was an upright and honorable one in every relation and
he enjoyed high standing in professional, civic and social circles of his adopted city.
http://www.iagenweb.org/history/index
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