Chester Clinton Housh

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Genealogy of Chester Clinton Housh

This genealogical account was constructed from the family information contained in the biography below. No relationships or life facts have been added from outside sources.

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Chester Clinton Housh was born August 17, 1886, in Knox County, Illinois, a son of Edgar Lafayette Housh and Leona Belle Liebolt.

On May 31, 1918, in St. Paul, Minnesota, he married Dorothy Catherine Hansen, a daughter of Charles Howard Hansen and Meta Christine Hansen. Their children were Chester Clinton Housh, Jr., born March 22, 1919, in Duluth, Minnesota, and Theo Carter Housh, born June 22, 1925, on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

Family outline

Chester Clinton Housh

• Father: Edgar Lafayette Housh
• Mother: Leona Belle (Liebolt) Housh
• Wife: Dorothy Catherine Hansen
• Son: Chester Clinton Housh, Jr.
• Son: Theo Carter Housh

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Source

This biography appeared in History of the Shenandoah Valley: Family and Personal Records, Volume III (Lewis Historical Publishing Company, Inc., 1952), page 52.

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Verbatim biography

The following is a faithful transcription of the original biography. OCR errors have been corrected against the printed page images, but the original wording, spelling, grammar, punctuation, and factual claims have not been rewritten.

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CHESTER CLINTON HOUSH—Centering his activities in Elkton, Chester Clinton Housh is engaged in turkey raising on a large scale. In 1948, as leading producer of white turkeys, he presented a beautiful turkey from “East Point Farm” to President Harry S. Truman. He has raised 200,000 “apartment-size” turkeys in a single season.

Mr. Housh was born August 17, 1886, in Knox County, Illinois, son of Edgar Lafayette and Leona Belle (Liebolt) Housh. His father, a bank cashier and civic leader in Maquon, Illinois, was for many years a prominent breeder of trotting horses and pacers. The mother was head of the Pythian Sisters of Illinois for five years.

Public schools of Knox County, Illinois, provided Chester Clinton Housh’s early education, and in 1908 he was graduated from Knox College with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. After leaving school he took up writing on a free-lance basis, preparing articles which appeared in such publications as “American Magazine”, “Country Life”, and numerous farm magazines. For five years he served as agricultural superintendent of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad and the Duluth and Iron Range Railroad, so continuing until 1918. From 1919 to 1924 he was engaged in agricultural extension work in West Virginia, and taught at the Potomac State Junior College, in Keyser, West Virginia, combining teaching with the agricultural extension work. His first active poultry farming venture took place on Maryland’s Eastern Shore where he raised broilers and turkeys. From 1932 to 1944 he was with the Farm Security Administration and the Resettlement Administration, becoming extensively engaged in moving farmers from the Shenandoah Park area and re-establishing them on farms elsewhere in the Valley.

In 1942 he began raising white turkeys at his own farm in Elkton. Starting with 500 turkeys, he has become the largest producer of “Beltsville Whites” in the world. Two hundred thousand “Beltsville Whites” were grown in 1950. Associated with Mr. Housh are his son, Chester C. Housh, Jr., and R. Baker Jones. Mr. Jones formerly was a coordinator for the National Poultry Improvement Plan and is well-known throughout the United States. Poults and eggs have been shipped to almost every state in the Union, to France, South America and other foreign countries. “Broad Breasted Bronze” are also grown and in one shipment 12,000 “Bronze” eggs were exported to Russia. One million and a half of turkey hatching eggs were handled in 1949.

“Beltsville Whites” weigh from nine to fourteen pounds and are small enough for the average family oven. Because of its size and extraordinary tenderness, it has met a market demand for a small family turkey. Turkey poults and eggs are produced from November to August 1st. The tremendous demand for turkey fryers, light roasters and family size turkeys has caused the lengthening of the laying season which may in a few years be a year round production. The “Beltsville Whites,” at the age of twelve to fifteen weeks, with weights ranging from four and one-half to six pounds, are fried like chickens. Light roasters are fattened ahead of time and marketed when their weights reach six or seven pounds per hen or ten pounds per tom. More than 45,000 light roaster hens and toms were sold in 1948 by the Rockingham Poultry Market Co-operative, at Timberville, to a New York specialty company for canning purposes. This figure, too, has been stepped-up notably since that time. Many of the birds have been canned for CARE shipments overseas. Mr. Housh himself is particularly partial to the fried turkey, which he feels meets a demand for something a little bit different from the fried chicken.

The fine bird which he presented to President Truman in 1948 was extensively written up in “Time” and nationally known newspapers and magazines, and the cover of the November, 1949, issue of “Town and Country” was a picture taken of Housh farm turkeys. In the November issue of “Country Gentleman” was a feature article depicting the turkey raising operations. Mr. Housh is president of the Virginia Turkey Growers Association, a director of the National Turkey Federation and a director of the Virginia Poultry Association. He belongs to the Lions’ Club and the Methodist Church of Elkton.

Chester Clinton Housh married, May 31, 1918, in St. Paul, Minnesota, Dorothy Catherine Hansen, daughter of Charles Howard and Meta Christine (Hansen) Hansen. They became the parents of two children: 1. Chester Clinton, Jr., born in Duluth, Minnesota, March 22, 1919. 2. Theo Carter, born on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, June 22, 1925.

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