| William Henry Bailey (Mar
7 1882 - May 8 1940) William Henry (Billy) Bailey was twelve when Rufus and Elizabeth
Bailey moved their family to Oklahoma Territory. He received his education in the public
schools of Hoyt, Kansas and Oklahoma Territory. He became a mechanical engineer. He was
twenty-four when he joined a Mr. Narbor in shipping a threshing machine to Iowa, where
they threshed grain for the farmers there. When the season was finished they went on to
North Dakota and Minnesota.
In 1908, he was employed by the J. I. Case Company of Racine, Wisconsin and sailed
October 8th from New York to represent the company in South America. He spent thirty-two
years demonstrating, selling, and adapting their machinery in the agricultural areas of
Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, and Peru. In 1909, he spent one year in Russia teaching the use
of farm machinery.
Billy, had many inventions to his credit. He planned to retire and return home in 1940
and was acquainting associates with a new vineyard plow he had invented for use in Peru,
when he was stricken with a fatal illness.
Billy's years of travel, work, and reading became his education. He spoke many foreign
languages. On his trips home, he and his brother Jim would alternate between Spanish and
English in the same conversation. Billy was kind, gentle, thoughtful of everyone,
especially his mother. He had a treat sense of humor and was always playing jokes on the
younger members of the family.
Billy never married. He said he thought the primitive countries of South America were
not suited to an American wife.
OBITUARY: 04/28/1940
WILLIAM H. BAILEY
Memorial services for William H. Bailey, 58-year-old employee of the J. I. Case Co., who
died May 8 at Buenos Aires, will be at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday in the First Methodist church,
Britton.
Bailey's body was cremated and his ashes will be buried in the family cemetery northwest
of Britton. He was the son of Mrs. I. M. Bailey, Britton. The family has requested no
flowers be sent. |
