A Railroad Man Turned Farmer

Thomas McKee was born in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, on 14 March 1852. At the age of eighteen, in 1870, he made his way westward to the Middle West, settling first in Brookfield, Missouri. There he entered railroad service on the line of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, beginning as a fireman on an engine running from Brookfield to Kansas City.

He remained in railroad work for many years. Seven years were spent in this first phase of his career, and in 1877 he removed to St. Joseph, Missouri, where he became an engineer. Later he held runs from Atchison to Hopkins, and afterward between Atchison and Creston, as well as between Kansas City and Creston. In all, he served the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company for eighteen years, fourteen of them as an engineer.

His record was that of a careful and trusted railway employee, known for doing everything possible to avoid accident or delay. His faithful service won him the full confidence of the corporation he served. After leaving that employment, he moved to Springfield, Missouri, where he entered the service of the Frisco Railway Company as an engineer on the run between Springfield and Thayer, remaining there for six years.

He later lived in St. Louis, Missouri, where he served for some years with the city fire department. Across all his railroad experience, he had only one serious wreck, and that occurred on the Frisco line. For part of this time he was engineer on a passenger train between Atchison and Hopkins, and later between Kansas City and Hopkins, becoming well known along the road. In 1896 he settled permanently in Union County, Iowa.

Marriage into the Van Landschoot Family

On 12 June 1884, in Creston, Thomas McKee married Miss Sylvia Van Landschoot. Sylvia had come to Iowa in her girlhood with her parents, William Van Landschoot and Sophie Buse. Through this marriage Thomas became connected to one of the Belgian immigrant families of Union County.

In 1896 Mr. and Mrs. McKee settled on the farm that Sylvia had inherited from her parents’ estate, located in section 16 of Douglas Township. From that moment onward, Thomas McKee greatly improved the property. He built a good house and outbuildings, fenced the farm well, and brought the fields under a high state of cultivation.

Everything about the place reflected his careful supervision and progressive effort. The farm yielded good annual crops, and he also profited from stock-raising, feeding and fattening animals for the market. In addition to this Iowa property, he owned a well-improved farm of one hundred and sixty acres in Lawrence County, Missouri, from which he derived a good rental income.

The record presents Thomas McKee as a man of determination, energy, and enterprise: first in railroad work, later in farming, and always as one who steadily built his life through work and discipline. In the story of Sylvia Van Landschoot, this marriage also marks the continuation of the Van Landschoot family into the agricultural communities of Iowa.