SHERMAN COOLEY, farmer, Sec. 30; P. O. Platteville; was born in Connecticut March 14, 18?6; emigrated to Trumbull Co., Ohio, in 1832; to Belmont, La Fayette Co., Wis., in 1857; then to Grant County, August, 1870; bought 55 acres, now owns 100 acres of land with fine improvements; house 18x24, wing, 16x24, two stories; barn 34x40, 16-foot posts, basement stable. His wife, Diana Day, a native of Vermont, born Aug. 9, 1811. Married at Granby, Conn., Oct. 4, 1830; they have had eight children - Mary J., now Mrs. Everett, resides in Trumbull Co., Ohio; Franklin B. left home 1861 for Colorado, remaining in Nevada about ten years, since which time they have not heard from him; Rhoda L., now Mrs. G. S. Whitcher; Roswell D., carrying on the farm; was born Feb. 21, 1838; his wife, Mary J. Kile, born in Canada, Feb. 15, 1843; married April 15, 1874 in Nebraska; they have two children - Carrie and Edward L. Richard S. residing in Waverly, Neb.; Alfred S., residing in Lincoln, Neb.; Timothy M., residing in Lincoln, Neb., engaged with an engineering party; Lewis E., general merchant, Cobb, Iowa Co., Wis. In politics, Democrat; in religion, Free-Thinker; has held the office of Justice of Peace in Ohio and La Fayette Co., Wis.; has held the school offices in this district. Oct. 4, 1880, there were seventeen grandchildren, five great-grandchildren. The Grant County Witness says of their golden wedding:
     "On Monday, the 4th inst., one of those anniversaries occurred, which but few ever see, the celebration of the fiftieth year of their married life. Yet this event was duly celebrated in Lima, Monday. At 1 o'clock P. M., the hour fixed, there assembled the following persons of the family and invited guests: Uncle Morgan Cooley, of Granby, Conn., a brother some eight years younger than Sherman and the jolliest old Yankee that ever hailed from the ancient lands of the Pequods and Mohegans. He knows all the genealogy of the Cooley and Holcomb family back, away back in the history of Connecticut, well not exactly to Adam, but to the Big Injun, who was scalped in the Fairfield Swamp, in 1764; and if they had any humorous or amusing characteristics, or if any event occurred in their career on which to found a good story, 'Uncle Morgan' remembers it; G. S. Whitcher and family, whose wife was the eldest of their children present; R. D. Cooley, wife and two children, of Waverly, Neb.; Alfred S. Cooley, wife and three children, of Eagle, Neb.; L. E. Cooley, wife and child, of Cross Plains, Wis.; Mr. William Beebe and wife; Mr. Lane and wife; J. H. Holcomb and wife, the last three named are cousins to the Cooleys, their mother having been a Holcomb; Mr. E. P. Dickinson, wife and Miss Ina Dickinson; Mr. John Burney and wife, Miss Lima Burney; Miss Ella Dougherty.
     "The best of feeling prevailed. Pap Cooley's face was all over smiles, and Mother Cooley seemed equally happy, while Uncle Morgan, humorous and joyous, told some of his queerest stories. 'I tell you I was there,' said he, 'and, Diana, I thought you was the purtiest gal that ever went into the Granby Meetin' House. I was at the wedding, I know how they were dressed. Sherman wore a swallow tailed coat, a bell crowned plug hat, and I suppose the accompanying costume of that ancient time. Mrs. Lane says 'the bride wore a drab colored silk dress, a white belt around the waist, a sash attached, a deep ruffle around the neck and a white silk head-dress.'
     "The belt referred to she wore as ornaments on the present occasion, it having turned a golden color by the fifty years intervened.
     "It was a joyous occasion, and why should it not be? There is a proverb that 'It is our privilege to enjoy ourselves in this world, and that if we do not it is our own fault.' No use of putting on a long face, and always be in the straight jacket of restraint considering this life a probationary state, making a hell of earth, as Byron says, to merit heaven; living with elongated faces as though the grave was photographed before us, with hell in the background, but let us rather make the best of that which we are sure of, and enjoy ourselves in this world; why, a person can experience plenty of enjoyment after they are fifty years old. I have a strong belief and an abiding faith that there is lots of fun in this vale of tears yet, and expect to see plenty of it or, to say the least, my hopes are very buoyant on that point.
     "The cat that sits in the corner and washes its face with its paw and purrs is a better type of happiness than the old cat under the stove, that lays and burns its back, and yeaws and spits at every one that passes. Let us, then, be contented and happy, enjoying ourselves, and those around us will be more likely to, as our course of action on this point is reciprocal and mutual. Fifty years of married life, a half a century, of mutual cares and joys, reciprocal in its experiences for better or worse, happy in the love and society and friendship of their family, and more happy if that life has been agreeable in the society of each other. And as time moves us along as it surely will to last scenes, as life's milestones fly past more rapidly, as the loom of land on the other shore rises to view, our affections, our friendships will be nearer, purer and truer. No jealousies which the aggressiveness of earlier life begets and fosters, when our old heads whiten, our thoughts rise to a higher and more dignified sphere, and we realize the fact that we are friends - we are brethren. How much more firm and enduring than the friendship, the attachment between husband and wife, considering the relation, its fruits, its consequences. If they have endeavored to make each other happy, to please each other, then will they be pleased in each other's society. For the philosophy is based on reciprocal mutuality. And they can look back on the past, so well expressed by Burns.
     "There were four of their children present with their families. The eldest daughter, Mrs. Mary Everett, of Cortland, Trumbull Co., Ohio; Richard and Timothy Cooley, of Nebraska, were absent."

This biography generously submitted by Roxanne Munns.