Summer Meeting. 107 



He was the only child of Mr. and Mrs. J. B. Speakman. Born at Mon- 

 mouth, 111., November 13, 1867. His age was 37 years, 4 months, 11 days 

 at his death. His childhood was spent on the farm where he was born. 

 He was educated at Monmouth College and at the Burlington Business 

 College, Iowa. 



In the spring of 1889 they all went to Neosho, where they bought 

 a farm west of town, and have ever since been improving it as a fruit 

 farm until it has become noted over the State as one of the most profit- 

 able fruit plantations in Missouri. 



It was due to Howard Speakman's untiring energy and enthusiasm 

 that he not only had one of the largest and most successful strawberry 

 plantations in Missouri, but that, because of his work, hundreds of others 

 were following in his footsteps until Neosho became one of the largest 

 and most important strawberry shipping centers in the Ozarks. 



His ambition seemed to be to make all of the berry growers success- 

 ful, and to this end he gave of his time and means without pay or re- 

 ward. The Neosho Association, by his management, became one of the 

 most reliable in the land, and because of their careful picking, packing, 

 handling and grading, their berries brought more than the top prices in 

 all the markets wherever they were known. 



He was always doing acts of charity, but he always said that the 

 best charity a man could do was to help others to help themselves by 

 giving them something to do. 



No man could be mourned more by any people than he is by the fruit 

 growers about Neosho and by the business men in general. No one man 

 in that locality could be spared with so much loss to all. The local 

 association has lost their guiding spirit and life. The business men a 

 faithful helper. The city an earnest advocate. The county one of its best 

 and noblest men. 



The State Society has and will feel its loss as, perhaps, no other loss 

 has been felt in all our history for the last twenty-five years. A man in 

 the prime of his usefulness ; one whom we but knew to love and admire 

 and appreciate; an enthusiastic, earnest, faithful friend and worker; all 

 who knew him could but honor him. 



The sympathy of the thousands of fruit growers all over our State 

 is united with ours in our offerings of sympathy and comfort to his 

 parents in this time of sorrow, in that what we feel, they much more feel, 

 and what we lose, they much more lose, and our hearts go out to them 

 in this day of trial. 



In this sad bereavement we are made more fully conscious of the 

 love and goodness of God in which He has made it possible, through the 

 atonement, to live again, though we fall subject to the law of death. 



