Administrative/Biographical History
Henry Hall Parke was born in DeKalb County in 1876, the son of Almon Ford and Ruth (Hall) Parke. H.H. Parke was educated in local schools before attending the University of Michigan where he received both a B.L. and M.S. in Marine Biology. After teaching for two years at the University of West Virginia, Parke returned to the Genoa-Sycamore area where he operated the 400 acre family farm.
Active in the farming community, Parke was instrumental in organizing the DeKalb Farm Bureau in 1912 and is today known as the Father of that organization. He was active in other cooperative ventures including many years of service as Vice President of the National Live Stock Producers Association and service as President and Treasurer of the Chicago Live Stock Producers Association. Additional affiliations included the National Council of Farmer’s Cooperatives and a brief stint as Assistant Secretary of Agriculture (Illinois) in 1917.
Parke was a member of the Masons, the Elks and the Rotary Clubs; he attended the Federated Protestant Church in Sycamore. In 1907 Parke married Anna Laura Wellings of New York. They had three children, Almon Bird, Dorothy Mae and Henry Wellings, who donated this collection to the Center. Henry H. Parke died in 1957 at the age of 81.
