Standard History of Adams & Wells Counties, Indiana – 1918
Tyndall & Lesh, Pages 532, 533 & 534

OREN D. GARRETT

Who he is, what he does and some measure of his influence hardly requires a statement in Wells County when the name of O. D. Garrett is mentioned. However, for the benefit of the few who are not personally acquainted with his achievements it may be said that he is a farm and stock buyer owning one of the best country homes near Liberty Center.

It was in April, 1862, when O. D. Garrett was six months old and a little too young to be conscious of his environment, that the Garrett family journeyed out of Ashland County, Ohio, into Wells County, Indiana, and made settlement in Liberty Township. Orin D. Garrett was born in the Ohio county named on October 22, 1861, being the youngest child of Joseph and Elizabeth (Ciphers) Garrett, the former a native of Maryland and the latter of Pennsylvania. Joseph Garrett was born in 1814 and died in 1887, and his wife was born in 824 and died in 1896. Both were of German ancestry. They married in Ohio and when they removed to Wells County their oldest child, Frank W., now Dr. Frank W. of Liberty Center, was six years old, and the second in the family was Amanda, three years old. She is now the wife of Dr. Isaac A. Smith of Huntington County, Indiana.

Joseph Garrett and wife located on a farm a mile south of Liberty Center known as the Garrett Homestead. Both parents were devoted members of the Baptist Church. In this part of the country O. D. Garrett received his education and grew to manhood assisting his father on the farm until he was twenty-one. His early education was acquired in the Liberty Center public schools. About the time he reached his majority his parents removed to Liberty Center, and the complete responsibility for the management of the farm devolved upon him. That was no small responsibility for a man of his years, and while sacrificing his long cherished plans to secure an advanced education, his faithfulness to duty kept him constant, and there was no question in his own mind or of members of the family that he would ever fail. His progressive ideas, fidelity, coupled with a cheerful disposition and kind consideration for “the other fellows” were rapidly bringing him the practical knowledge that is always a credit to the self-made business man.

In February, 1883, Mr. Garrett married Miss Hattie Noe, daughter of David and Harriet Noe of Chester Township, Wells County. Before her marriage she was one of the county’s successful school teachers. In 1904 the home of the husband and two daughters was broken by the mother’s death resulting from creeping paralysis.

While Mr. Garrett has always placed farming first and owns 345 acres in Wells and Huntington counties, yet for thirty years he has been an active live stock shipper and is still engaged in the business with the firm of Garrett & Gordon of Liberty Center. Among other business interests he has been a road contractor, building extensively in Wells and Huntington counties. He is one of the directors of the Studabaker Grain & Seed Company of Bluffton, is president of the Garrett-Turpin Lumber Company of Mississippi, a company that manufactures lumber from its own tract of eighteen hundred acres of timber in the Yazoo Valley.

The capable handling of public affairs and offices also comes natural to Mr. Garrett. From 1886 to 1891 he was township assessor and in 1910 served as county chairman for the republican party. In 1906 he was elected county auditor, and thus far in the political history of Wells County has the unique distinction of being the only republican elected to this office.

On January 1, 1908, he took his office and the following June he married Miss Marguerite Arthelda Bixler, daughter of Rev. and Mrs. William Bixler of Akron, Ohio. Mrs. Garrett, with her two sisters, Eva, wife of Warren Jenks of North Manchester, Indiana, and Betty, wife of O. G. Schrop of Akron, Ohio, received her public school and early musical education in Stark County, Ohio, where all the daughters were born. Gifted in music, Mrs. Garrett was accorded special training in voice building from such teachers as the Italian master Ridge, and concert coaching from Hill. During their school days the sisters appeared in nearly 300 musical programs. After high school Marguerite entered Mount Morris College in Illinois, taking a course in elocution and physical culture, also graduating from the Art and Bible Department. At this institution she was a member of the college faculty for three years, and later for two years at North Manchester college in Wabash County, Indiana. These positions were both resigned for that of evangelistic song and musical institute work among the churches. In the interest of this department of Christian activity, sixteen states were visited and nearly a thousand special programs of sacred song and story given. Mrs. Garrett also went abroad as song evangelist for the School of Travel and Research, touring Europe, Asia and Africa. Some of her best known gospel songs were written while visiting the Holy Land. “Galilee” was composed while sailing across the Sea of Galilee, and “Dreams” shortly after a visit to Mount Tabor, overlooking the Plain of Esdraelon, “the great battlefield of nations.” Since residing in Wells County Mrs. Garrett has continued her interest and devoted much of her time of Christian and musical activities.

At the expiration of the auditor’s official term of four years, Mr. And Mrs. Garrett moved from Bluffton to their country home one mile north of Liberty Center, situated on the banks of Lake Garrett, one of the largest artificial lakes in Indiana, and it is known as one of the most complete, artistic, picturesque and thoroughly adequate and self-sufficing country homes in the Hoosier State. For both Mr. And Mrs. Garrett no vacation or relaxation from home and business care is quite correct that does not include a big game hunt. Trophies from various hunting fields are found in their private collection,
“For, they listen to the pleading,
And they answer to the call
Of the whisper from the woodland
When the leaves of Autumn fall.”