Creon L. Nims was born on January 26, 1844, near Maquoketa, Iowa, to Amasa and Adeline Nims. His father was a farmer who owned $200 of real estate by 1850. He grew up and attended school in Maquoketa. According to a local writer, he was “more interested in river life than in farming, [and] he gave the earlier years of his life to following a river man’s occupation.” He operated a small steamship and transported grain from Maquoketa to the Mississippi River. In the 1870s, however, he reportedly “gave up river life” and became a farmer.
He married Harriet Collipriest on December 10, 1879, and they had at least seven children: Clyde, born around 1880; Alva, born around 1881; Gilbert, born around 1884; Jessie, born around 1885; Howard, born around 1887; Marion, born around 1893; Alice, born around 1899. He lived in Maquoketa, and by 1910, he was living in his daughter Alva’s household there. His wife died on January 10, 1918, and he passed away of “gastric carcinoma” in Maquoketa on March 31, 1935.
Image: Creon L. Nims (The Gazette, 1 April 1935)