Find A Grave contributor Louis
Homer Potter Branch, familiarly known as "Uncle Ho" is the publisher of the Sumner Gazette and noted as a special feature writer and poet of exceptional ability. He is also a booster by nature, has dramatic talent of forceful quality, enjoys amateur theatricals and occasionally appears upon the lecture platform. Mr. Branch has been in the newspaper business since a boy in his teens, and at one time, when at Ruthven, was the youngest managing editor in the state. Out of a life full of incident and usefulness, we herein gather a few of the main points, quoting for the most part from Iowa newspapers
Homer P. Branch was born in Millville, Grant county, Wisconsin, January 11, 1865. His father was Lyman Thomas Branch, a medical student, who eventually became so prominent a physician that he was chosen as delegate from the North Wisconsin Eclectic Medical Association, from Jackson county, to the World's Medical Congress, World's Columbian exposition, Chicago. His mother was Agnes W. Walker, a talented young woman, the daughter of a prominent farmer and of colonial ancestry.
An estrangement between his parents resulted in their separation in 1870, when his mother and her oldest child, Allen, accompanied her parents and a large party of relatives to Kansas, where they took up homesteads in the Republican river valley. This party was conveyed westward in eighteen prairie schooners, making a cavalcade that was witnessed with much interest by people along the route.
Homer was received into the home of his grandmother, Mrs. Almeda Branch, who had long been a widow, her husband having perished on the western plains in 1849. This venerable lady was a woman of sterling character, of Puritan descent, whose father was a Green Mountain Boy in the American Revolution. It is remembered of her that while a pioneer of eastern Wisconsin, near the shores of Pewaukee lake, she once ousted a Winnebago Indian by main force from her cabin, after he had threatened to carry away her last piece of bacon, during the absence of her husband. This feat so pleased the chief of the Indian village near by, that he made her a visit, praised her as a "heap brave squaw" and assured her of his personal protection against any further trouble from any of his people.
At the time Homer went to live with her, his grandmother was a resident of Frankville, Winneshiek county, Iowa. He remained with her about three years and began his elementary schooling with the first term held in the famous stone schoolhouse in Frankville. His youngest brother, Charley, had been taken by an uncle, George M. Sharp, living next door, so the boys were playmates.
In 1875 Homer went to live with an uncle, Allen F. Sharp, a veteran trooper of the First Iowa Cavalry, who had located on a soldier's claim in Clay county. About two years after his nephew went to live with him, Mr. Sharp was forced by the adversities of "grasshopper times" to abandon his claim, and the boy returned to the eastern part of the state to live with his father, who had married again and had taken up the practice of medicine at Auburn, in Fayette county. However, owing to the inhospitality of his stepmother, Homer did not remain much at home but worked out most of the time in that vicinity for nearly two years, after which he went back to Clay county, where he found farm employment with friends of his uncle and had school opportunities in the winters. Early in life Mr. Branch sought the address of his mother, who had married again, and he cherishes as one of the good fortunes of his life the fact that in the course of time he was able to establish relations of the most cordial friendship with both parents and with his stepfather and stepmother.
Regarding his boyhood achievements in Clay county, we quote as follows from the Spencer Reporter, date of June 18, 1913, from an article introducing Mr. Branch's latest book, Stories in Rhyme by Uncle Ho, the Reporter saying in part as follows:
"It will be of interest to the old settlers of Clay county to know that Uncle Ho, for over a quarter of a century a prosperous publisher and one of Iowa's most beloved writers of rhymed stories and human interest newspaper features, began his newspaper and literary career as a correspondent of the Spencer Reporter.
"That was when Homer was just budding into his teens, and when Mr. McCarger was publisher, and later, when the Barnard boys were on deck. He contributed items from Summit township, and occasionally other items and articles and was a member of the household of George W. Clark, the postmaster at Cromwell Center; herded cattle for a while for Major Cheney and became an expert ox-driver while employed part of one summer by Gibson Bellis.
"Walter J. Clark, of Summit, was Homer's roommate, bedfellow, work fellow and playmate, most of the time for three years, and Uncle Ho claims that the two boys could pitch more hay and milk more cows in a given time than any two grown men in that section.
"Homer began learning the printer's trade in the office of the Clay County News in the spring of 1881, at the age of sixteen, when Chet Whitman was publisher. The following year he was associated editorially with Lon Hardin of the Rolfe Reporter for a few months, then assumed the management of the Ruthven Free Press just launched by Mr. Whitman.
"Mr. Branch's first contribution to the Spencer Reporter was made at the age of fourteen, when as a country schoolboy he wrote 'Summit Township News' for a school exhibition paper at a spelling school event at a school just across the line in Dickinson county, taught by Miss Emma Flatt. Homer's teacher, Miss Frances Maine, unknown to him, sent this letter to the editor of the Spencer Reporter, eliminating a few neighborhood jollies, and its publication in the Reporter led the young man into a field of usefulness where he has served with distinguished credit for over thirty years."
Regarding Mr. Branch's next newspaper venture, the Register and Leader of Des Moines, date of March 31, 1912, says:
"In the latter part of the winter of 1884-5 two young men from the western part of the state, both printers, were invited to Waucoma, in Fayette county to start a newspaper there, Frank Stillman having a short time before suspended the publication of his Waucoma Pioneer.
"The two young men were Homer P. Branch and J. Snare Detwiler, the first named having influential friends in the town. Mr. Detwiler launched the Vox Populi, employing his friend as manager, and remaining several months to see how things would go, after which he bought an interest in the Citizen at Charles City.
"Walt H. Butler, afterward democratic member of congress from the fourth district, was principal of the Waucoma public schools that winter, and the high school was held in the basement of the Congregational church, where every Friday night literary exercises were held.
"It became rumored that Det and Ho were a full team and a lead hoss at speakin' pieces, in fact were students of the National School of Oratory, and prepared to do some fastidious stunts. They were invited by Professor Butler to take part in the Friday night exercises, and their first performance was a glorious triumph. From that time on they held the center of the stage and were given no rest, but Mr. Branch has said many a time that the end of the school year came just in time to save his reputation, as upon the last meeting of the literary society his repertoire was reduced to 'You'd Scarce Expect One of My Age,' etc., but this appeared to be a great hit, and he was 'called back.' At his wits' end he stammered, 'That was the last piece I know!' A wag in the back part of the room yelled out, 'Sing something!' An inspiration as from the gods seized him, and in a rich, clear tenor, high falsetto, he sang 'Peekaboo' a la ballet dancer, even to the pirouetting in the chorus, and the audience was his."
Mr. Detwiler sold the Vox Populi in the fall of 1885, and Mr. Branch was called to the press room and composing room management of the Charles City Citizen, to which paper he also contributed as news and special feature writer. In a recent issue the Charles City Intelligencer says of him:
"Homer P. Branch, who back in the middle '80's was a prominent figure in Charles City doings, being then associated with Boulton & Detwiler in the publication of the Charles City Citizen is coming to the front in popularity as a man of letters.
"After leaving Charles City in the spring of 1887, Mr. Branch, in partnership with E.B. Perry, launched the North Iowa Democrat at Mitchell. In the fall of that year he bought out Mr. Perry and continued the publication of the Democrat for several years, but eventually changed the name of the paper to The Temperance Power. He suspended publication of The Power in the spring of 1896 and was again associated with Mr. Detwiler, this time in the Osage Sun.
"Homer was known to his Charles City friends, even as far back as 1885, as a young man of literary promise and strong poetical leanings. While temporarily on the staff of the National Advocate, Calamity Weller's paper at Independence, in the summer of 1886, he published a leaflet of verses for distribution among his friends, and had at that time contributed a little to the Arkansas Traveler and the Inter Ocean, as well as to Iowa papers on which he had a cloth-bound book in 1895. In the last appeared five Indian legends of Iowa, the first attempt of any writer to put into verse any of the traditional history of the Indians of the middle west.
"The verses thus published by Mr. Branch won him some distinction at the time, but Iowa was not yet ready to accept a young country printer as one of her gifted sons. However, not looking for fame, only just getting it out of his system, as the saying goes, Mr. Branch brought forth a new poem occasionally, publishing it, as soon as written, in his own paper, and following the style of human interest and common, everyday sentiment, rather than attempting anything of the classic order, having found, like Robert Burns and Whitcomb Riley, that the poet's best field is the heart and home of his neighbor.
"At Sumner he started a cheerful philosophy department in the Gazette, under the title of 'Reflections by Uncle Ho'. Through this department he got a stronger hold than ever on the heartstrings of the public, which was made stronger still by his booster jingles, as they are called. About every week he has a booster jingle at the head of the local page. These jingles have praised Sumner and Iowa in a unique way, and Uncle Ho throws them together with a breezy ease that is charming. Here is one of his latest:
"'Would you like to gaze on Paradise?
Then look around! Just use your eyes,
In Iowa;
Our fields abound with stacks of gold,
Our hillsides gleam with wealth untold,
Gardens of Eden here unfold,
In Iowa'"
The most noted of the serial newspaper features conducted by Mr. Branch, earlier than the introduction of Reflections by Uncle Ho, were Tales of the Scorpion, an around-town series of terse write-ups in the North Iowa Democrat; Out of Town Rambles, in the other noted works are mostly poetical, except a few short stories, and Afoot Among our Country Friends, in the Westgate Herald. His Temperance Power; Plowboys and Village Belles, and Awheel and a novelette, Zeyna el Zegalol, the Phantom Lady of the Villa Montini. This novelette ran as a serial story in the syndicate service of the Chicago Newspaper Union, and associated concerns, in 1894-95, and appeared as a feature of country newspapers in every section of the United States.
In addition to his newspaper and literary work, Mr. Branch is a master printer, combining the knowledge and skill of the "old time" and the "new school" printers, and has plied his trade with indefatigable industry. Once asked by a prominent labor union if he worked eight hours a day, he answered, "Yes, and multiplied by two". He also has taken more than ordinary interest in public affairs and has served in all the municipal and school district offices, though not by any means an office seeker. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church and has been prominent in Sunday school and Epworth League work.
Mr. Branch was united in marriage on April 21, 1887, in Charles City, to Miss Annis Sophia Miller, of West Liberty, noted for her beauty, and prominent in temperance, church and benevolent movements. it is remembered by their friends that during their first summer in Mitchell this couple spent their Sunday afternoons strolling through the beautiful woods along the banks of the Red Cedar river, a region that Mr. Branch so appreciated that its beauties meet with frequent praise in his poetical works. Their only child, Julian Prime Branch, was born in Mitchell, November 18, 1888. He grew up in the printing business and is now foreman of the Sumner Gazette.
Mr. Branch comes of a notable English family, tracing its continual prominence as far back as the Norman conquest, to a fabulously valiant knight in William's army. This knight was supposed to be a Saxon noble, for some unknown cause disinherited from his estates and banished from his native land, who entered the service of the Conqueror for the English campaign. This knight, mounted on a great white Norman horse, so the tradition goes, was always sent by his general to cheer and rally detachments of the forces that were meeting with reverses. Upon his shield appeared the picture of an oaken branch, torn from the parent tree, supposed to be indicative of his disinheritance. From this figure on his shield he was popularly known as "The Branch". Wherever he appeared upon the field of battle, his mighty frame clad in coat of mail, mounted on his great white charger, and his double white plume waving conspicuously from his helmet, the soldiers, filled with new courage, and with shouts of "The Branch and victory!" would rally around him and fight with desperate valor and execution till the enemy was repulsed. The hero of a hundred such encounters, it is maintained that "The Branch" bore a charmed life and was never wounded in battle. At the close of the campaign, he remained as a permanent citizen of England, having profited by the fortunes of war and having the prudence to husband his possessions. It is supposed that Sir Walter Scott took his idea of the "Disinherited Knight" in his great novel, Ivanhoe, partly from this tradition.
The American branch of the Branch family have given great men to the country of their adoption, and the first comers were especially active as hardy and resourceful pioneers. Branch county, Michigan, was named for Uncle Ho's granduncle Thomas, a sturdy pioneer of that state.
Uncle Ho received his elementary education in the public schools of Winneshiek, Fayette and Clay counties, and his higher education by means of home study, research and investigation, in addition to the natural increment of knowledge acquired in the work of newspaper making. Speaking of this feature of his life, the Hawkeye Beacon recently said: 'Without the help of a college, Brother Branch mastered a college education the while he was foreman printer. A voracious reader, with a memory that held like a vise, he stored his brain cells with a cargo of knowledge." Of his poetical work, the Register and Leader has said: "Uncle Ho has written more nice things about Iowa than has any other poet about any other locality." Critics have pronounced Prairie Flower of the Poncas, a legend of the Little Sioux river, as the most beautiful of his Indian legends. The Hawkeye Beacon calls A Vision of the Bye and Bye the "elder brother of all his lyrical verse, full of pretty sentiment, beautiful imagery and heart-yearning ideals." Of Bill's School-Ma'am, the Charles City Intelligencer speaks as "a good story, containing a picturesque combination of beautiful description in homely phraseology. This poem alone would establish Mr. Branch as a word artist of fine gifts and as a poet who can lift the veil that covers homely lives and show the hidden treasures and glorious visions there stored away." Mrs. Branch esteems Choir of the Daybreak as her husband's best poem, while his mother's favorite is A Picture from Memory. Bremer county people naturally prefer those splendid poems of local color, By Little Wapsie's Stream, and Josh and the County Fair.
[History of Bremer County, Iowa Vol. II 1914]
-------------------------
Homer Potter Branch, familiarly known as "Uncle Ho" is the publisher of the Sumner Gazette and noted as a special feature writer and poet of exceptional ability. He is also a booster by nature, has dramatic talent of forceful quality, enjoys amateur theatricals and occasionally appears upon the lecture platform. Mr. Branch has been in the newspaper business since a boy in his teens, and at one time, when at Ruthven, was the youngest managing editor in the state. Out of a life full of incident and usefulness, we herein gather a few of the main points, quoting for the most part from Iowa newspapers
Homer P. Branch was born in Millville, Grant county, Wisconsin, January 11, 1865. His father was Lyman Thomas Branch, a medical student, who eventually became so prominent a physician that he was chosen as delegate from the North Wisconsin Eclectic Medical Association, from Jackson county, to the World's Medical Congress, World's Columbian exposition, Chicago. His mother was Agnes W. Walker, a talented young woman, the daughter of a prominent farmer and of colonial ancestry.
An estrangement between his parents resulted in their separation in 1870, when his mother and her oldest child, Allen, accompanied her parents and a large party of relatives to Kansas, where they took up homesteads in the Republican river valley. This party was conveyed westward in eighteen prairie schooners, making a cavalcade that was witnessed with much interest by people along the route.
Homer was received into the home of his grandmother, Mrs. Almeda Branch, who had long been a widow, her husband having perished on the western plains in 1849. This venerable lady was a woman of sterling character, of Puritan descent, whose father was a Green Mountain Boy in the American Revolution. It is remembered of her that while a pioneer of eastern Wisconsin, near the shores of Pewaukee lake, she once ousted a Winnebago Indian by main force from her cabin, after he had threatened to carry away her last piece of bacon, during the absence of her husband. This feat so pleased the chief of the Indian village near by, that he made her a visit, praised her as a "heap brave squaw" and assured her of his personal protection against any further trouble from any of his people.
At the time Homer went to live with her, his grandmother was a resident of Frankville, Winneshiek county, Iowa. He remained with her about three years and began his elementary schooling with the first term held in the famous stone schoolhouse in Frankville. His youngest brother, Charley, had been taken by an uncle, George M. Sharp, living next door, so the boys were playmates.
In 1875 Homer went to live with an uncle, Allen F. Sharp, a veteran trooper of the First Iowa Cavalry, who had located on a soldier's claim in Clay county. About two years after his nephew went to live with him, Mr. Sharp was forced by the adversities of "grasshopper times" to abandon his claim, and the boy returned to the eastern part of the state to live with his father, who had married again and had taken up the practice of medicine at Auburn, in Fayette county. However, owing to the inhospitality of his stepmother, Homer did not remain much at home but worked out most of the time in that vicinity for nearly two years, after which he went back to Clay county, where he found farm employment with friends of his uncle and had school opportunities in the winters. Early in life Mr. Branch sought the address of his mother, who had married again, and he cherishes as one of the good fortunes of his life the fact that in the course of time he was able to establish relations of the most cordial friendship with both parents and with his stepfather and stepmother.
Regarding his boyhood achievements in Clay county, we quote as follows from the Spencer Reporter, date of June 18, 1913, from an article introducing Mr. Branch's latest book, Stories in Rhyme by Uncle Ho, the Reporter saying in part as follows:
"It will be of interest to the old settlers of Clay county to know that Uncle Ho, for over a quarter of a century a prosperous publisher and one of Iowa's most beloved writers of rhymed stories and human interest newspaper features, began his newspaper and literary career as a correspondent of the Spencer Reporter.
"That was when Homer was just budding into his teens, and when Mr. McCarger was publisher, and later, when the Barnard boys were on deck. He contributed items from Summit township, and occasionally other items and articles and was a member of the household of George W. Clark, the postmaster at Cromwell Center; herded cattle for a while for Major Cheney and became an expert ox-driver while employed part of one summer by Gibson Bellis.
"Walter J. Clark, of Summit, was Homer's roommate, bedfellow, work fellow and playmate, most of the time for three years, and Uncle Ho claims that the two boys could pitch more hay and milk more cows in a given time than any two grown men in that section.
"Homer began learning the printer's trade in the office of the Clay County News in the spring of 1881, at the age of sixteen, when Chet Whitman was publisher. The following year he was associated editorially with Lon Hardin of the Rolfe Reporter for a few months, then assumed the management of the Ruthven Free Press just launched by Mr. Whitman.
"Mr. Branch's first contribution to the Spencer Reporter was made at the age of fourteen, when as a country schoolboy he wrote 'Summit Township News' for a school exhibition paper at a spelling school event at a school just across the line in Dickinson county, taught by Miss Emma Flatt. Homer's teacher, Miss Frances Maine, unknown to him, sent this letter to the editor of the Spencer Reporter, eliminating a few neighborhood jollies, and its publication in the Reporter led the young man into a field of usefulness where he has served with distinguished credit for over thirty years."
Regarding Mr. Branch's next newspaper venture, the Register and Leader of Des Moines, date of March 31, 1912, says:
"In the latter part of the winter of 1884-5 two young men from the western part of the state, both printers, were invited to Waucoma, in Fayette county to start a newspaper there, Frank Stillman having a short time before suspended the publication of his Waucoma Pioneer.
"The two young men were Homer P. Branch and J. Snare Detwiler, the first named having influential friends in the town. Mr. Detwiler launched the Vox Populi, employing his friend as manager, and remaining several months to see how things would go, after which he bought an interest in the Citizen at Charles City.
"Walt H. Butler, afterward democratic member of congress from the fourth district, was principal of the Waucoma public schools that winter, and the high school was held in the basement of the Congregational church, where every Friday night literary exercises were held.
"It became rumored that Det and Ho were a full team and a lead hoss at speakin' pieces, in fact were students of the National School of Oratory, and prepared to do some fastidious stunts. They were invited by Professor Butler to take part in the Friday night exercises, and their first performance was a glorious triumph. From that time on they held the center of the stage and were given no rest, but Mr. Branch has said many a time that the end of the school year came just in time to save his reputation, as upon the last meeting of the literary society his repertoire was reduced to 'You'd Scarce Expect One of My Age,' etc., but this appeared to be a great hit, and he was 'called back.' At his wits' end he stammered, 'That was the last piece I know!' A wag in the back part of the room yelled out, 'Sing something!' An inspiration as from the gods seized him, and in a rich, clear tenor, high falsetto, he sang 'Peekaboo' a la ballet dancer, even to the pirouetting in the chorus, and the audience was his."
Mr. Detwiler sold the Vox Populi in the fall of 1885, and Mr. Branch was called to the press room and composing room management of the Charles City Citizen, to which paper he also contributed as news and special feature writer. In a recent issue the Charles City Intelligencer says of him:
"Homer P. Branch, who back in the middle '80's was a prominent figure in Charles City doings, being then associated with Boulton & Detwiler in the publication of the Charles City Citizen is coming to the front in popularity as a man of letters.
"After leaving Charles City in the spring of 1887, Mr. Branch, in partnership with E.B. Perry, launched the North Iowa Democrat at Mitchell. In the fall of that year he bought out Mr. Perry and continued the publication of the Democrat for several years, but eventually changed the name of the paper to The Temperance Power. He suspended publication of The Power in the spring of 1896 and was again associated with Mr. Detwiler, this time in the Osage Sun.
"Homer was known to his Charles City friends, even as far back as 1885, as a young man of literary promise and strong poetical leanings. While temporarily on the staff of the National Advocate, Calamity Weller's paper at Independence, in the summer of 1886, he published a leaflet of verses for distribution among his friends, and had at that time contributed a little to the Arkansas Traveler and the Inter Ocean, as well as to Iowa papers on which he had a cloth-bound book in 1895. In the last appeared five Indian legends of Iowa, the first attempt of any writer to put into verse any of the traditional history of the Indians of the middle west.
"The verses thus published by Mr. Branch won him some distinction at the time, but Iowa was not yet ready to accept a young country printer as one of her gifted sons. However, not looking for fame, only just getting it out of his system, as the saying goes, Mr. Branch brought forth a new poem occasionally, publishing it, as soon as written, in his own paper, and following the style of human interest and common, everyday sentiment, rather than attempting anything of the classic order, having found, like Robert Burns and Whitcomb Riley, that the poet's best field is the heart and home of his neighbor.
"At Sumner he started a cheerful philosophy department in the Gazette, under the title of 'Reflections by Uncle Ho'. Through this department he got a stronger hold than ever on the heartstrings of the public, which was made stronger still by his booster jingles, as they are called. About every week he has a booster jingle at the head of the local page. These jingles have praised Sumner and Iowa in a unique way, and Uncle Ho throws them together with a breezy ease that is charming. Here is one of his latest:
"'Would you like to gaze on Paradise?
Then look around! Just use your eyes,
In Iowa;
Our fields abound with stacks of gold,
Our hillsides gleam with wealth untold,
Gardens of Eden here unfold,
In Iowa'"
The most noted of the serial newspaper features conducted by Mr. Branch, earlier than the introduction of Reflections by Uncle Ho, were Tales of the Scorpion, an around-town series of terse write-ups in the North Iowa Democrat; Out of Town Rambles, in the other noted works are mostly poetical, except a few short stories, and Afoot Among our Country Friends, in the Westgate Herald. His Temperance Power; Plowboys and Village Belles, and Awheel and a novelette, Zeyna el Zegalol, the Phantom Lady of the Villa Montini. This novelette ran as a serial story in the syndicate service of the Chicago Newspaper Union, and associated concerns, in 1894-95, and appeared as a feature of country newspapers in every section of the United States.
In addition to his newspaper and literary work, Mr. Branch is a master printer, combining the knowledge and skill of the "old time" and the "new school" printers, and has plied his trade with indefatigable industry. Once asked by a prominent labor union if he worked eight hours a day, he answered, "Yes, and multiplied by two". He also has taken more than ordinary interest in public affairs and has served in all the municipal and school district offices, though not by any means an office seeker. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church and has been prominent in Sunday school and Epworth League work.
Mr. Branch was united in marriage on April 21, 1887, in Charles City, to Miss Annis Sophia Miller, of West Liberty, noted for her beauty, and prominent in temperance, church and benevolent movements. it is remembered by their friends that during their first summer in Mitchell this couple spent their Sunday afternoons strolling through the beautiful woods along the banks of the Red Cedar river, a region that Mr. Branch so appreciated that its beauties meet with frequent praise in his poetical works. Their only child, Julian Prime Branch, was born in Mitchell, November 18, 1888. He grew up in the printing business and is now foreman of the Sumner Gazette.
Mr. Branch comes of a notable English family, tracing its continual prominence as far back as the Norman conquest, to a fabulously valiant knight in William's army. This knight was supposed to be a Saxon noble, for some unknown cause disinherited from his estates and banished from his native land, who entered the service of the Conqueror for the English campaign. This knight, mounted on a great white Norman horse, so the tradition goes, was always sent by his general to cheer and rally detachments of the forces that were meeting with reverses. Upon his shield appeared the picture of an oaken branch, torn from the parent tree, supposed to be indicative of his disinheritance. From this figure on his shield he was popularly known as "The Branch". Wherever he appeared upon the field of battle, his mighty frame clad in coat of mail, mounted on his great white charger, and his double white plume waving conspicuously from his helmet, the soldiers, filled with new courage, and with shouts of "The Branch and victory!" would rally around him and fight with desperate valor and execution till the enemy was repulsed. The hero of a hundred such encounters, it is maintained that "The Branch" bore a charmed life and was never wounded in battle. At the close of the campaign, he remained as a permanent citizen of England, having profited by the fortunes of war and having the prudence to husband his possessions. It is supposed that Sir Walter Scott took his idea of the "Disinherited Knight" in his great novel, Ivanhoe, partly from this tradition.
The American branch of the Branch family have given great men to the country of their adoption, and the first comers were especially active as hardy and resourceful pioneers. Branch county, Michigan, was named for Uncle Ho's granduncle Thomas, a sturdy pioneer of that state.
Uncle Ho received his elementary education in the public schools of Winneshiek, Fayette and Clay counties, and his higher education by means of home study, research and investigation, in addition to the natural increment of knowledge acquired in the work of newspaper making. Speaking of this feature of his life, the Hawkeye Beacon recently said: 'Without the help of a college, Brother Branch mastered a college education the while he was foreman printer. A voracious reader, with a memory that held like a vise, he stored his brain cells with a cargo of knowledge." Of his poetical work, the Register and Leader has said: "Uncle Ho has written more nice things about Iowa than has any other poet about any other locality." Critics have pronounced Prairie Flower of the Poncas, a legend of the Little Sioux river, as the most beautiful of his Indian legends. The Hawkeye Beacon calls A Vision of the Bye and Bye the "elder brother of all his lyrical verse, full of pretty sentiment, beautiful imagery and heart-yearning ideals." Of Bill's School-Ma'am, the Charles City Intelligencer speaks as "a good story, containing a picturesque combination of beautiful description in homely phraseology. This poem alone would establish Mr. Branch as a word artist of fine gifts and as a poet who can lift the veil that covers homely lives and show the hidden treasures and glorious visions there stored away." Mrs. Branch esteems Choir of the Daybreak as her husband's best poem, while his mother's favorite is A Picture from Memory. Bremer county people naturally prefer those splendid poems of local color, By Little Wapsie's Stream, and Josh and the County Fair.
[History of Bremer County, Iowa Vol. II 1914]
-------------------------
Find A Grave contributor Louis
Homer Potter Branch, familiarly known as "Uncle Ho" is the publisher of the Sumner Gazette and noted as a special feature writer and poet of exceptional ability. He is also a booster by nature, has dramatic talent of forceful quality, enjoys amateur theatricals and occasionally appears upon the lecture platform. Mr. Branch has been in the newspaper business since a boy in his teens, and at one time, when at Ruthven, was the youngest managing editor in the state. Out of a life full of incident and usefulness, we herein gather a few of the main points, quoting for the most part from Iowa newspapers
Homer P. Branch was born in Millville, Grant county, Wisconsin, January 11, 1865. His father was Lyman Thomas Branch, a medical student, who eventually became so prominent a physician that he was chosen as delegate from the North Wisconsin Eclectic Medical Association, from Jackson county, to the World's Medical Congress, World's Columbian exposition, Chicago. His mother was Agnes W. Walker, a talented young woman, the daughter of a prominent farmer and of colonial ancestry.
An estrangement between his parents resulted in their separation in 1870, when his mother and her oldest child, Allen, accompanied her parents and a large party of relatives to Kansas, where they took up homesteads in the Republican river valley. This party was conveyed westward in eighteen prairie schooners, making a cavalcade that was witnessed with much interest by people along the route.
Homer was received into the home of his grandmother, Mrs. Almeda Branch, who had long been a widow, her husband having perished on the western plains in 1849. This venerable lady was a woman of sterling character, of Puritan descent, whose father was a Green Mountain Boy in the American Revolution. It is remembered of her that while a pioneer of eastern Wisconsin, near the shores of Pewaukee lake, she once ousted a Winnebago Indian by main force from her cabin, after he had threatened to carry away her last piece of bacon, during the absence of her husband. This feat so pleased the chief of the Indian village near by, that he made her a visit, praised her as a "heap brave squaw" and assured her of his personal protection against any further trouble from any of his people.
At the time Homer went to live with her, his grandmother was a resident of Frankville, Winneshiek county, Iowa. He remained with her about three years and began his elementary schooling with the first term held in the famous stone schoolhouse in Frankville. His youngest brother, Charley, had been taken by an uncle, George M. Sharp, living next door, so the boys were playmates.
In 1875 Homer went to live with an uncle, Allen F. Sharp, a veteran trooper of the First Iowa Cavalry, who had located on a soldier's claim in Clay county. About two years after his nephew went to live with him, Mr. Sharp was forced by the adversities of "grasshopper times" to abandon his claim, and the boy returned to the eastern part of the state to live with his father, who had married again and had taken up the practice of medicine at Auburn, in Fayette county. However, owing to the inhospitality of his stepmother, Homer did not remain much at home but worked out most of the time in that vicinity for nearly two years, after which he went back to Clay county, where he found farm employment with friends of his uncle and had school opportunities in the winters. Early in life Mr. Branch sought the address of his mother, who had married again, and he cherishes as one of the good fortunes of his life the fact that in the course of time he was able to establish relations of the most cordial friendship with both parents and with his stepfather and stepmother.
Regarding his boyhood achievements in Clay county, we quote as follows from the Spencer Reporter, date of June 18, 1913, from an article introducing Mr. Branch's latest book, Stories in Rhyme by Uncle Ho, the Reporter saying in part as follows:
"It will be of interest to the old settlers of Clay county to know that Uncle Ho, for over a quarter of a century a prosperous publisher and one of Iowa's most beloved writers of rhymed stories and human interest newspaper features, began his newspaper and literary career as a correspondent of the Spencer Reporter.
"That was when Homer was just budding into his teens, and when Mr. McCarger was publisher, and later, when the Barnard boys were on deck. He contributed items from Summit township, and occasionally other items and articles and was a member of the household of George W. Clark, the postmaster at Cromwell Center; herded cattle for a while for Major Cheney and became an expert ox-driver while employed part of one summer by Gibson Bellis.
"Walter J. Clark, of Summit, was Homer's roommate, bedfellow, work fellow and playmate, most of the time for three years, and Uncle Ho claims that the two boys could pitch more hay and milk more cows in a given time than any two grown men in that section.
"Homer began learning the printer's trade in the office of the Clay County News in the spring of 1881, at the age of sixteen, when Chet Whitman was publisher. The following year he was associated editorially with Lon Hardin of the Rolfe Reporter for a few months, then assumed the management of the Ruthven Free Press just launched by Mr. Whitman.
"Mr. Branch's first contribution to the Spencer Reporter was made at the age of fourteen, when as a country schoolboy he wrote 'Summit Township News' for a school exhibition paper at a spelling school event at a school just across the line in Dickinson county, taught by Miss Emma Flatt. Homer's teacher, Miss Frances Maine, unknown to him, sent this letter to the editor of the Spencer Reporter, eliminating a few neighborhood jollies, and its publication in the Reporter led the young man into a field of usefulness where he has served with distinguished credit for over thirty years."
Regarding Mr. Branch's next newspaper venture, the Register and Leader of Des Moines, date of March 31, 1912, says:
"In the latter part of the winter of 1884-5 two young men from the western part of the state, both printers, were invited to Waucoma, in Fayette county to start a newspaper there, Frank Stillman having a short time before suspended the publication of his Waucoma Pioneer.
"The two young men were Homer P. Branch and J. Snare Detwiler, the first named having influential friends in the town. Mr. Detwiler launched the Vox Populi, employing his friend as manager, and remaining several months to see how things would go, after which he bought an interest in the Citizen at Charles City.
"Walt H. Butler, afterward democratic member of congress from the fourth district, was principal of the Waucoma public schools that winter, and the high school was held in the basement of the Congregational church, where every Friday night literary exercises were held.
"It became rumored that Det and Ho were a full team and a lead hoss at speakin' pieces, in fact were students of the National School of Oratory, and prepared to do some fastidious stunts. They were invited by Professor Butler to take part in the Friday night exercises, and their first performance was a glorious triumph. From that time on they held the center of the stage and were given no rest, but Mr. Branch has said many a time that the end of the school year came just in time to save his reputation, as upon the last meeting of the literary society his repertoire was reduced to 'You'd Scarce Expect One of My Age,' etc., but this appeared to be a great hit, and he was 'called back.' At his wits' end he stammered, 'That was the last piece I know!' A wag in the back part of the room yelled out, 'Sing something!' An inspiration as from the gods seized him, and in a rich, clear tenor, high falsetto, he sang 'Peekaboo' a la ballet dancer, even to the pirouetting in the chorus, and the audience was his."
Mr. Detwiler sold the Vox Populi in the fall of 1885, and Mr. Branch was called to the press room and composing room management of the Charles City Citizen, to which paper he also contributed as news and special feature writer. In a recent issue the Charles City Intelligencer says of him:
"Homer P. Branch, who back in the middle '80's was a prominent figure in Charles City doings, being then associated with Boulton & Detwiler in the publication of the Charles City Citizen is coming to the front in popularity as a man of letters.
"After leaving Charles City in the spring of 1887, Mr. Branch, in partnership with E.B. Perry, launched the North Iowa Democrat at Mitchell. In the fall of that year he bought out Mr. Perry and continued the publication of the Democrat for several years, but eventually changed the name of the paper to The Temperance Power. He suspended publication of The Power in the spring of 1896 and was again associated with Mr. Detwiler, this time in the Osage Sun.
"Homer was known to his Charles City friends, even as far back as 1885, as a young man of literary promise and strong poetical leanings. While temporarily on the staff of the National Advocate, Calamity Weller's paper at Independence, in the summer of 1886, he published a leaflet of verses for distribution among his friends, and had at that time contributed a little to the Arkansas Traveler and the Inter Ocean, as well as to Iowa papers on which he had a cloth-bound book in 1895. In the last appeared five Indian legends of Iowa, the first attempt of any writer to put into verse any of the traditional history of the Indians of the middle west.
"The verses thus published by Mr. Branch won him some distinction at the time, but Iowa was not yet ready to accept a young country printer as one of her gifted sons. However, not looking for fame, only just getting it out of his system, as the saying goes, Mr. Branch brought forth a new poem occasionally, publishing it, as soon as written, in his own paper, and following the style of human interest and common, everyday sentiment, rather than attempting anything of the classic order, having found, like Robert Burns and Whitcomb Riley, that the poet's best field is the heart and home of his neighbor.
"At Sumner he started a cheerful philosophy department in the Gazette, under the title of 'Reflections by Uncle Ho'. Through this department he got a stronger hold than ever on the heartstrings of the public, which was made stronger still by his booster jingles, as they are called. About every week he has a booster jingle at the head of the local page. These jingles have praised Sumner and Iowa in a unique way, and Uncle Ho throws them together with a breezy ease that is charming. Here is one of his latest:
"'Would you like to gaze on Paradise?
Then look around! Just use your eyes,
In Iowa;
Our fields abound with stacks of gold,
Our hillsides gleam with wealth untold,
Gardens of Eden here unfold,
In Iowa'"
The most noted of the serial newspaper features conducted by Mr. Branch, earlier than the introduction of Reflections by Uncle Ho, were Tales of the Scorpion, an around-town series of terse write-ups in the North Iowa Democrat; Out of Town Rambles, in the other noted works are mostly poetical, except a few short stories, and Afoot Among our Country Friends, in the Westgate Herald. His Temperance Power; Plowboys and Village Belles, and Awheel and a novelette, Zeyna el Zegalol, the Phantom Lady of the Villa Montini. This novelette ran as a serial story in the syndicate service of the Chicago Newspaper Union, and associated concerns, in 1894-95, and appeared as a feature of country newspapers in every section of the United States.
In addition to his newspaper and literary work, Mr. Branch is a master printer, combining the knowledge and skill of the "old time" and the "new school" printers, and has plied his trade with indefatigable industry. Once asked by a prominent labor union if he worked eight hours a day, he answered, "Yes, and multiplied by two". He also has taken more than ordinary interest in public affairs and has served in all the municipal and school district offices, though not by any means an office seeker. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church and has been prominent in Sunday school and Epworth League work.
Mr. Branch was united in marriage on April 21, 1887, in Charles City, to Miss Annis Sophia Miller, of West Liberty, noted for her beauty, and prominent in temperance, church and benevolent movements. it is remembered by their friends that during their first summer in Mitchell this couple spent their Sunday afternoons strolling through the beautiful woods along the banks of the Red Cedar river, a region that Mr. Branch so appreciated that its beauties meet with frequent praise in his poetical works. Their only child, Julian Prime Branch, was born in Mitchell, November 18, 1888. He grew up in the printing business and is now foreman of the Sumner Gazette.
Mr. Branch comes of a notable English family, tracing its continual prominence as far back as the Norman conquest, to a fabulously valiant knight in William's army. This knight was supposed to be a Saxon noble, for some unknown cause disinherited from his estates and banished from his native land, who entered the service of the Conqueror for the English campaign. This knight, mounted on a great white Norman horse, so the tradition goes, was always sent by his general to cheer and rally detachments of the forces that were meeting with reverses. Upon his shield appeared the picture of an oaken branch, torn from the parent tree, supposed to be indicative of his disinheritance. From this figure on his shield he was popularly known as "The Branch". Wherever he appeared upon the field of battle, his mighty frame clad in coat of mail, mounted on his great white charger, and his double white plume waving conspicuously from his helmet, the soldiers, filled with new courage, and with shouts of "The Branch and victory!" would rally around him and fight with desperate valor and execution till the enemy was repulsed. The hero of a hundred such encounters, it is maintained that "The Branch" bore a charmed life and was never wounded in battle. At the close of the campaign, he remained as a permanent citizen of England, having profited by the fortunes of war and having the prudence to husband his possessions. It is supposed that Sir Walter Scott took his idea of the "Disinherited Knight" in his great novel, Ivanhoe, partly from this tradition.
The American branch of the Branch family have given great men to the country of their adoption, and the first comers were especially active as hardy and resourceful pioneers. Branch county, Michigan, was named for Uncle Ho's granduncle Thomas, a sturdy pioneer of that state.
Uncle Ho received his elementary education in the public schools of Winneshiek, Fayette and Clay counties, and his higher education by means of home study, research and investigation, in addition to the natural increment of knowledge acquired in the work of newspaper making. Speaking of this feature of his life, the Hawkeye Beacon recently said: 'Without the help of a college, Brother Branch mastered a college education the while he was foreman printer. A voracious reader, with a memory that held like a vise, he stored his brain cells with a cargo of knowledge." Of his poetical work, the Register and Leader has said: "Uncle Ho has written more nice things about Iowa than has any other poet about any other locality." Critics have pronounced Prairie Flower of the Poncas, a legend of the Little Sioux river, as the most beautiful of his Indian legends. The Hawkeye Beacon calls A Vision of the Bye and Bye the "elder brother of all his lyrical verse, full of pretty sentiment, beautiful imagery and heart-yearning ideals." Of Bill's School-Ma'am, the Charles City Intelligencer speaks as "a good story, containing a picturesque combination of beautiful description in homely phraseology. This poem alone would establish Mr. Branch as a word artist of fine gifts and as a poet who can lift the veil that covers homely lives and show the hidden treasures and glorious visions there stored away." Mrs. Branch esteems Choir of the Daybreak as her husband's best poem, while his mother's favorite is A Picture from Memory. Bremer county people naturally prefer those splendid poems of local color, By Little Wapsie's Stream, and Josh and the County Fair.
[History of Bremer County, Iowa Vol. II 1914]
-------------------------
Homer Potter Branch, familiarly known as "Uncle Ho" is the publisher of the Sumner Gazette and noted as a special feature writer and poet of exceptional ability. He is also a booster by nature, has dramatic talent of forceful quality, enjoys amateur theatricals and occasionally appears upon the lecture platform. Mr. Branch has been in the newspaper business since a boy in his teens, and at one time, when at Ruthven, was the youngest managing editor in the state. Out of a life full of incident and usefulness, we herein gather a few of the main points, quoting for the most part from Iowa newspapers
Homer P. Branch was born in Millville, Grant county, Wisconsin, January 11, 1865. His father was Lyman Thomas Branch, a medical student, who eventually became so prominent a physician that he was chosen as delegate from the North Wisconsin Eclectic Medical Association, from Jackson county, to the World's Medical Congress, World's Columbian exposition, Chicago. His mother was Agnes W. Walker, a talented young woman, the daughter of a prominent farmer and of colonial ancestry.
An estrangement between his parents resulted in their separation in 1870, when his mother and her oldest child, Allen, accompanied her parents and a large party of relatives to Kansas, where they took up homesteads in the Republican river valley. This party was conveyed westward in eighteen prairie schooners, making a cavalcade that was witnessed with much interest by people along the route.
Homer was received into the home of his grandmother, Mrs. Almeda Branch, who had long been a widow, her husband having perished on the western plains in 1849. This venerable lady was a woman of sterling character, of Puritan descent, whose father was a Green Mountain Boy in the American Revolution. It is remembered of her that while a pioneer of eastern Wisconsin, near the shores of Pewaukee lake, she once ousted a Winnebago Indian by main force from her cabin, after he had threatened to carry away her last piece of bacon, during the absence of her husband. This feat so pleased the chief of the Indian village near by, that he made her a visit, praised her as a "heap brave squaw" and assured her of his personal protection against any further trouble from any of his people.
At the time Homer went to live with her, his grandmother was a resident of Frankville, Winneshiek county, Iowa. He remained with her about three years and began his elementary schooling with the first term held in the famous stone schoolhouse in Frankville. His youngest brother, Charley, had been taken by an uncle, George M. Sharp, living next door, so the boys were playmates.
In 1875 Homer went to live with an uncle, Allen F. Sharp, a veteran trooper of the First Iowa Cavalry, who had located on a soldier's claim in Clay county. About two years after his nephew went to live with him, Mr. Sharp was forced by the adversities of "grasshopper times" to abandon his claim, and the boy returned to the eastern part of the state to live with his father, who had married again and had taken up the practice of medicine at Auburn, in Fayette county. However, owing to the inhospitality of his stepmother, Homer did not remain much at home but worked out most of the time in that vicinity for nearly two years, after which he went back to Clay county, where he found farm employment with friends of his uncle and had school opportunities in the winters. Early in life Mr. Branch sought the address of his mother, who had married again, and he cherishes as one of the good fortunes of his life the fact that in the course of time he was able to establish relations of the most cordial friendship with both parents and with his stepfather and stepmother.
Regarding his boyhood achievements in Clay county, we quote as follows from the Spencer Reporter, date of June 18, 1913, from an article introducing Mr. Branch's latest book, Stories in Rhyme by Uncle Ho, the Reporter saying in part as follows:
"It will be of interest to the old settlers of Clay county to know that Uncle Ho, for over a quarter of a century a prosperous publisher and one of Iowa's most beloved writers of rhymed stories and human interest newspaper features, began his newspaper and literary career as a correspondent of the Spencer Reporter.
"That was when Homer was just budding into his teens, and when Mr. McCarger was publisher, and later, when the Barnard boys were on deck. He contributed items from Summit township, and occasionally other items and articles and was a member of the household of George W. Clark, the postmaster at Cromwell Center; herded cattle for a while for Major Cheney and became an expert ox-driver while employed part of one summer by Gibson Bellis.
"Walter J. Clark, of Summit, was Homer's roommate, bedfellow, work fellow and playmate, most of the time for three years, and Uncle Ho claims that the two boys could pitch more hay and milk more cows in a given time than any two grown men in that section.
"Homer began learning the printer's trade in the office of the Clay County News in the spring of 1881, at the age of sixteen, when Chet Whitman was publisher. The following year he was associated editorially with Lon Hardin of the Rolfe Reporter for a few months, then assumed the management of the Ruthven Free Press just launched by Mr. Whitman.
"Mr. Branch's first contribution to the Spencer Reporter was made at the age of fourteen, when as a country schoolboy he wrote 'Summit Township News' for a school exhibition paper at a spelling school event at a school just across the line in Dickinson county, taught by Miss Emma Flatt. Homer's teacher, Miss Frances Maine, unknown to him, sent this letter to the editor of the Spencer Reporter, eliminating a few neighborhood jollies, and its publication in the Reporter led the young man into a field of usefulness where he has served with distinguished credit for over thirty years."
Regarding Mr. Branch's next newspaper venture, the Register and Leader of Des Moines, date of March 31, 1912, says:
"In the latter part of the winter of 1884-5 two young men from the western part of the state, both printers, were invited to Waucoma, in Fayette county to start a newspaper there, Frank Stillman having a short time before suspended the publication of his Waucoma Pioneer.
"The two young men were Homer P. Branch and J. Snare Detwiler, the first named having influential friends in the town. Mr. Detwiler launched the Vox Populi, employing his friend as manager, and remaining several months to see how things would go, after which he bought an interest in the Citizen at Charles City.
"Walt H. Butler, afterward democratic member of congress from the fourth district, was principal of the Waucoma public schools that winter, and the high school was held in the basement of the Congregational church, where every Friday night literary exercises were held.
"It became rumored that Det and Ho were a full team and a lead hoss at speakin' pieces, in fact were students of the National School of Oratory, and prepared to do some fastidious stunts. They were invited by Professor Butler to take part in the Friday night exercises, and their first performance was a glorious triumph. From that time on they held the center of the stage and were given no rest, but Mr. Branch has said many a time that the end of the school year came just in time to save his reputation, as upon the last meeting of the literary society his repertoire was reduced to 'You'd Scarce Expect One of My Age,' etc., but this appeared to be a great hit, and he was 'called back.' At his wits' end he stammered, 'That was the last piece I know!' A wag in the back part of the room yelled out, 'Sing something!' An inspiration as from the gods seized him, and in a rich, clear tenor, high falsetto, he sang 'Peekaboo' a la ballet dancer, even to the pirouetting in the chorus, and the audience was his."
Mr. Detwiler sold the Vox Populi in the fall of 1885, and Mr. Branch was called to the press room and composing room management of the Charles City Citizen, to which paper he also contributed as news and special feature writer. In a recent issue the Charles City Intelligencer says of him:
"Homer P. Branch, who back in the middle '80's was a prominent figure in Charles City doings, being then associated with Boulton & Detwiler in the publication of the Charles City Citizen is coming to the front in popularity as a man of letters.
"After leaving Charles City in the spring of 1887, Mr. Branch, in partnership with E.B. Perry, launched the North Iowa Democrat at Mitchell. In the fall of that year he bought out Mr. Perry and continued the publication of the Democrat for several years, but eventually changed the name of the paper to The Temperance Power. He suspended publication of The Power in the spring of 1896 and was again associated with Mr. Detwiler, this time in the Osage Sun.
"Homer was known to his Charles City friends, even as far back as 1885, as a young man of literary promise and strong poetical leanings. While temporarily on the staff of the National Advocate, Calamity Weller's paper at Independence, in the summer of 1886, he published a leaflet of verses for distribution among his friends, and had at that time contributed a little to the Arkansas Traveler and the Inter Ocean, as well as to Iowa papers on which he had a cloth-bound book in 1895. In the last appeared five Indian legends of Iowa, the first attempt of any writer to put into verse any of the traditional history of the Indians of the middle west.
"The verses thus published by Mr. Branch won him some distinction at the time, but Iowa was not yet ready to accept a young country printer as one of her gifted sons. However, not looking for fame, only just getting it out of his system, as the saying goes, Mr. Branch brought forth a new poem occasionally, publishing it, as soon as written, in his own paper, and following the style of human interest and common, everyday sentiment, rather than attempting anything of the classic order, having found, like Robert Burns and Whitcomb Riley, that the poet's best field is the heart and home of his neighbor.
"At Sumner he started a cheerful philosophy department in the Gazette, under the title of 'Reflections by Uncle Ho'. Through this department he got a stronger hold than ever on the heartstrings of the public, which was made stronger still by his booster jingles, as they are called. About every week he has a booster jingle at the head of the local page. These jingles have praised Sumner and Iowa in a unique way, and Uncle Ho throws them together with a breezy ease that is charming. Here is one of his latest:
"'Would you like to gaze on Paradise?
Then look around! Just use your eyes,
In Iowa;
Our fields abound with stacks of gold,
Our hillsides gleam with wealth untold,
Gardens of Eden here unfold,
In Iowa'"
The most noted of the serial newspaper features conducted by Mr. Branch, earlier than the introduction of Reflections by Uncle Ho, were Tales of the Scorpion, an around-town series of terse write-ups in the North Iowa Democrat; Out of Town Rambles, in the other noted works are mostly poetical, except a few short stories, and Afoot Among our Country Friends, in the Westgate Herald. His Temperance Power; Plowboys and Village Belles, and Awheel and a novelette, Zeyna el Zegalol, the Phantom Lady of the Villa Montini. This novelette ran as a serial story in the syndicate service of the Chicago Newspaper Union, and associated concerns, in 1894-95, and appeared as a feature of country newspapers in every section of the United States.
In addition to his newspaper and literary work, Mr. Branch is a master printer, combining the knowledge and skill of the "old time" and the "new school" printers, and has plied his trade with indefatigable industry. Once asked by a prominent labor union if he worked eight hours a day, he answered, "Yes, and multiplied by two". He also has taken more than ordinary interest in public affairs and has served in all the municipal and school district offices, though not by any means an office seeker. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church and has been prominent in Sunday school and Epworth League work.
Mr. Branch was united in marriage on April 21, 1887, in Charles City, to Miss Annis Sophia Miller, of West Liberty, noted for her beauty, and prominent in temperance, church and benevolent movements. it is remembered by their friends that during their first summer in Mitchell this couple spent their Sunday afternoons strolling through the beautiful woods along the banks of the Red Cedar river, a region that Mr. Branch so appreciated that its beauties meet with frequent praise in his poetical works. Their only child, Julian Prime Branch, was born in Mitchell, November 18, 1888. He grew up in the printing business and is now foreman of the Sumner Gazette.
Mr. Branch comes of a notable English family, tracing its continual prominence as far back as the Norman conquest, to a fabulously valiant knight in William's army. This knight was supposed to be a Saxon noble, for some unknown cause disinherited from his estates and banished from his native land, who entered the service of the Conqueror for the English campaign. This knight, mounted on a great white Norman horse, so the tradition goes, was always sent by his general to cheer and rally detachments of the forces that were meeting with reverses. Upon his shield appeared the picture of an oaken branch, torn from the parent tree, supposed to be indicative of his disinheritance. From this figure on his shield he was popularly known as "The Branch". Wherever he appeared upon the field of battle, his mighty frame clad in coat of mail, mounted on his great white charger, and his double white plume waving conspicuously from his helmet, the soldiers, filled with new courage, and with shouts of "The Branch and victory!" would rally around him and fight with desperate valor and execution till the enemy was repulsed. The hero of a hundred such encounters, it is maintained that "The Branch" bore a charmed life and was never wounded in battle. At the close of the campaign, he remained as a permanent citizen of England, having profited by the fortunes of war and having the prudence to husband his possessions. It is supposed that Sir Walter Scott took his idea of the "Disinherited Knight" in his great novel, Ivanhoe, partly from this tradition.
The American branch of the Branch family have given great men to the country of their adoption, and the first comers were especially active as hardy and resourceful pioneers. Branch county, Michigan, was named for Uncle Ho's granduncle Thomas, a sturdy pioneer of that state.
Uncle Ho received his elementary education in the public schools of Winneshiek, Fayette and Clay counties, and his higher education by means of home study, research and investigation, in addition to the natural increment of knowledge acquired in the work of newspaper making. Speaking of this feature of his life, the Hawkeye Beacon recently said: 'Without the help of a college, Brother Branch mastered a college education the while he was foreman printer. A voracious reader, with a memory that held like a vise, he stored his brain cells with a cargo of knowledge." Of his poetical work, the Register and Leader has said: "Uncle Ho has written more nice things about Iowa than has any other poet about any other locality." Critics have pronounced Prairie Flower of the Poncas, a legend of the Little Sioux river, as the most beautiful of his Indian legends. The Hawkeye Beacon calls A Vision of the Bye and Bye the "elder brother of all his lyrical verse, full of pretty sentiment, beautiful imagery and heart-yearning ideals." Of Bill's School-Ma'am, the Charles City Intelligencer speaks as "a good story, containing a picturesque combination of beautiful description in homely phraseology. This poem alone would establish Mr. Branch as a word artist of fine gifts and as a poet who can lift the veil that covers homely lives and show the hidden treasures and glorious visions there stored away." Mrs. Branch esteems Choir of the Daybreak as her husband's best poem, while his mother's favorite is A Picture from Memory. Bremer county people naturally prefer those splendid poems of local color, By Little Wapsie's Stream, and Josh and the County Fair.
[History of Bremer County, Iowa Vol. II 1914]
-------------------------
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