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Alexander Ribby Alexander Ribby- Among the prosperous and successful agriculturists of Otter Creek ownship is numbered Alexander Ribby, better known, perhaps, to the residents of this community as Sandy Ribby. he was born in Peoria, Illinois, January 21, 1856. Thomas Ribby, his father, was born in Ireland in 1823, but, coming to the United States in 1848, he worked his way westward as a railroad employee in different construction companies, and in January, 1861, arrived in Tama county, Iowa. He preceded the railroad here and located in Tama when that city contained but a few shacks. In section 15, Otter Creek township, he purchased one hundred and twenty acres of land covered with brush and timber, but he cleared his land and made his home thereon until his death in may of 1866. He married at Bloomington, Illinois, Catherine McCarthy, who was also from his native Ireland, born in 1829, and she died on the 10th of April, 1904. Of their eight children, four are now living, namely: Alexander; Margaret, the wife of Daniel Mulligan, of Otter Creek township; Catherine, wife of King Ullum, of South Dakota; and Mary, the wife of Michael O'Connell and a resident of Richland township. Alexander Ribby spent fourteen years of his early life in the city of Tama, attending in the meantime its public schools and the Western college, at Toledo, for two terms. At the age of twenty-two years he left home and followed railroad work for five years; was then for eight years a farmer on rented land in Pocahontas county, this state, and then returning to Tama county, he purchased his present homestead of one hundred and twenty acres in 1898. All of the many and valuable improvements on this farm have been placed there by him, and he is numbered among the community's most progressive agriculturists. During the past eight years he has served his township as its clerk, and during two years he was also a trustee. his politics are Democratic. Mr. Ribby married on October 1, 1882, Emma Dulybon, born at Mt. Carroll, Illinois, April 15, 1866, a daughter of Mathew and Anna (Berkholder) Dulybon. She is one of their six children, and the four now living are: Alice, the wife of a Mr. Dennis, of Nebraska; Mrs. Ribby; Mrs. Frank Laws, of Tama; and Frank, of the same city. Mathew Dulybon enlisted in 1861 with an Ohio regiment and served in the Civil war until its close. He then located at Mt. Carroll, in Illinois, and from there in 1870 came to the city of Tama, Iowa, where he lived until his death. Eleven children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Ribby, namely: Sadie, the wife of Michael Foley, of Clutier, Iowa; and Nellie, Margaret, Emma (a teacher in the public schools), Thomas, Alexander, Leo, Mary, Ralph and Carl. The family are members of the Catholic church. Submitted by Cathy Joynt Labath |