Shelby  County,  Indiana

David  E.  Dake

          The above named gentleman is a member of the younger generation of farmers who are operating on the first entered or acquired by the pioneers.  It has been their duty to take up the burden where the elder generation left off, and by applying modern, scientific processed, make farming what it ought to be.  Mr. Dake is a son of the late  Benjamin Dake, by his second marriage with  Margaret Simpson.  The two sets of children made a very numerous family, but as their father had accumulated about two thousand acres of land he was able to provide for all of them generously and start them off in life well equipped for its battles.  David E. Dake  was born in Moral township, Shelby county, Indiana, July 14, 1858, or just thirty years after his father's arrival in Shelby county, where he came when seven years of age with his parents, from their old home in Shenandoah Valley Virginia.  As he grew up on the farm, he attended the district schools during the winters, but, of course, made a hand in the field during the busy seasons of summer.  Life went on in this way until he had completed the twenty-third year of his age, when he began to think of looking out for himself.  Marriage with most young men is the first step toward a business career, and Mr. Dake was no exception to the common rule.  Finding a lady to his liking in  Eleanor Fields, daughter of  C. Fields, the ceremony resulted in a happy and productive union.  They became the parents of nine children.  Albert, the oldest, married a  Miss Pollard, resides in Marion County and has one child, Forest;  Eva died in early youth;  Essie, wife of  William Morgan, resides in Moral Township and has two children, Cecil  and  Mary.  The other children, all of whom remain at home, are:  Dessie,  Harrison,  Theodosia,  Rosa,  Rossie  and  Nora.  The mother of this family died November 28, 1905, and was laid to rest in the Dake family cemetery.  She was a member of the Baptist church, and is spoken of by all who knew her as an excellent woman.  Mr. Dake owns two hundred and twenty-three acres of fine farming land, which he devotes to general agriculture and stock raising.  He is regarded as progressive and up-to-date, and one of the best of the county's younger farmers.  Aside from his skill as a tiller of the soil Mr. Dake has given indications of possessing remarkable ability in a mechanical line, and is a firm advocate of the possibilities of cement.  Recently he built a beautiful home of this material and is the proud possessor of the only house of the kind in the township.  He made the cement blocks from which the house is constructed himself, being a manufacturer of this fine building material, which is growing more and more popular every day.  All the blocks used in his own beautiful house were made on the place at his own manufactory, and this example is calculated to encourage this industry by causing many to see the advantages of cement over brick, wood or stone.
History of Shelby County, Indiana,  by Edward H. Chadwick, B.A., assisted by well known local talent, 1909, pages 910-911.
Contributed by Gloria Collins Jackson

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