Edward J. Tucker, a longtime resident and businessman of Howe, Nemaha County, Nebraska, was born on January 10, 1859, in Cerro Gordo County, Iowa. His family settled in Nemaha County in 1860, where Tucker was raised on a farm. After attending district schools and the State Normal School, he began his business career. He co-founded a general goods store and managed the Howe Lumber Company for over two decades, while also running a successful grain-shipping and farm implement business. In 1885, he married Kate Scott, and they had one son, Clarence. Tucker remained active in his community and civic life.
Edward J. Tucker, the prominent businessman of Howe, Nemaha County, Nebraska, has lived in southeastern Nebraska for over forty years, practically all his life. As an inhabitant of the state for the greater part of its sovereign existence as well, he has performed a creditable part in its business life and prosperity. He began life with only good schooling advantages as capital, but has made such excellent use of his opportunities that he has found no reason to chide fate or cast any imputations upon fickle fortune for his position in the world. He is a shrewd, practical businessman, devoted to home and family and the things of the higher life, interested in the civic and material progress of his county and town, and while working for his individual welfare, at the same time not infringing on the rights of others and willing to put his hand to any public-spirited enterprise.
Mr. Tucker’s grandfather, James H. Tucker, was born in Kentucky in 1812 and died in 1863, while his wife survived until 1883, and they reared all their four sons and three daughters. Christopher Tucker, the father of Edward J. Tucker, was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on February 9, 1835, was taken to southern Illinois about 1845, thence to northern Iowa in 1849, and from there came to Nemaha County, Nebraska, in 1860. He was married in Mason City, Iowa, in 1856, to Miss Martha Parker, who was born in Virginia on November 27, 1836, a daughter of Ellis Parker, who was a farmer and involved in public life in Hardin County, Iowa, for about forty years, being county judge for a number of years. His two sons and two daughters were: Frank Parker, a farmer in the state of Washington; Martha, wife of Christopher Tucker; Hiram Parker, a mason of Boonesboro, Iowa; and Mary, wife of Benjamin Robb, of Eldora, Iowa. Christopher and Martha Tucker were farmers in Cerro Gordo County, Iowa, for a few years, and then drove to Nebraska, crossing the Missouri on a flatboat, and began their career on a wild prairie farm on a treeless stretch, which no effort of the imagination could picture as otherwise than gloomy. They prospered in the state, however, and were highly esteemed citizens of their community. He died in Page County, Iowa, in 1901, but his widow is still living. They had four children: Lucretia, the wife of W. E. Irwin, died on November 4, 1902, in Shenandoah, Iowa, leaving her husband and one son; Edward J. Tucker; Ellis Tucker is cashier of the Bank of Shenandoah and is a widower with no children; May is the wife of H. I. Foskett, a banker of Shenandoah, and has three children.
Edward J. Tucker was born in Cerro Gordo County, Iowa, on January 10, 1859, and arrived in Nemaha County on November 1, 1860, with his parents. He was reared to farm life and remained at home until he was twenty-two, attending the district schools and the State Normal for two years. He then, as a member of the firm of Chatfield and Tucker, engaged in merchandising general goods in Howe for eighteen months, and since then, for twenty years, has been manager of the Howe Lumber Company, whose members are himself and H. R. Howe. For the same period, he has been engaged in grain-buying, shipping from three hundred to six hundred cars each year from Howe, which has made this the banner grain-shipping station on the Missouri Pacific Railroad. In 1883 Mr. Tucker also began conducting the farm implement business of Robert Teare, but since the first year has carried it on for himself, and now has the largest stock of such goods in the county. He has been successful in all these enterprises, and his extensive connections place him in the front rank of the businessmen of the county. He owns one-half of a brick business block and also his own cozy home in the village.
On December 29, 1885, Mr. Tucker was married to Miss Kate Scott, who was born in Indiana, a daughter of Tom and Mary (Hughes) Scott. Tom Scott was a native of Kentucky and was a printer by trade, for the last twenty years of his life being engaged in the government printing office at Washington. He died in the prime of his life in 1875 in Indiana, and his wife, who was a native of Indiana, died in the following year. They lost two sons in childhood, and their daughter Anna died in young womanhood. Mrs. Tucker was educated in science and music in Crawfordsville, Indiana. Mr. and Mrs. Tucker’s only child, Clarence Christopher, was born on May 7, 1892, and is an apt student, learning to spell and read by spelling out the names of the five daily and weekly papers which his father takes. Mr. Tucker takes much pleasure in his well-selected library, which comprises the best works in history, biography, and poetry.
Mr. Tucker is a Republican in politics, but has no time to devote to party affairs other than keeping well informed on the issues of national and local importance. He affiliates with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, in which he has passed all the chairs, and with the Knights of Pythias. His father, who served for eighteen months in the Civil War, where he contracted the chronic disease which ended in his death, was a Republican in politics and a prominent member of the Grand Army of the Republic, and also a Master Mason.
Source: Lewis Publishing Company, A Biographical and Genealogical History of Southeastern Nebraska, 2 volumes, Lewis Publishing Company, 1904.