Mr. Dee is the only clothing merchant who deals exclusively in everything that pertains to men’s and boys’ wearing apparel in the city of Caldwell. He was born in Holton, Jackson County, Kansas, November 26, 1862, and is a son of Chester Dee, of Burlington, Vermont whose ancestors settled in Virginia in 1620. He is a direct descendant of the first colonial governor of Vermont, and members of the family were prominent in the early history of the colonies and in the Revolutionary war. His grandfather, when a boy, saw the battle at Ticonderoga. Mr. Dee married Miss Elizabeth Blake, a native of Indiana, and of this union two children were born, a son and a daughter, the latter of whom is now Mrs. Charles West, whose husband is a drygoods merchant. Mr. Dee was with General Fremont during the ascent of the latter to Pike’s Peak, and he was a member of the Fifteenth Kansas Volunteer Infantry at the time of the civil war, at the conclusion of which he settled on a farm in Iowa, where he now resides, with his wife, at the age of sixty-five years.
Sumner W. Dee received his education in the public schools of Brooklyn, Iowa, and at the Northern Indiana Normal School, at Valparaiso, after which he learned the trade of miller, taught school two years in Iowa and one in Nebraska, and for several years clerked in stores until he obtained a general knowledge of the mercantile business, having been for eight years a clerk in the large wholesale and retail establishment of T. C. Egleston & Company, at Caldwell, before opening his own store. He now has a large, complete stock of men’s and boys’ clothing and furnishings and is well known throughout the county as an honest, capable and reliable businessman.
In 1893 Mr. Dee was united in marriage to Miss Isabella W. Bishop, of Chicago, and they have two children, Nina Wilma and Dorothy Elizabeth. Mrs. Dee is a valued worker in and member of the Presbyterian Church. Our subject is a Republican and an active member of the I. O. O. F. and the Knights of Pythias.