Seward Arnold, born in 1881 the youngest child of Amos S. Arnold and Lora Ann Johnson Arnold began farming at a very early age when his father was called away to care for his brother, Silas, after his accident. At sixteen, Seward started farming his Aunt Hattie McNeil's farm on his own. He married Cora Yackee and lived on the original Arnold farm north of Roberts. One of the first to practice scientific farming, he obtained and studied data from the University of Illinois about lime, potash, and clover, promoted the use of soybeans and very successfully learned to graft peaches and apples.
An avid baseball player, he pitched for Roberts for many years at a time when most towns had a team and were very competitive, even hiring major league players when they could. He sold war bonds during World War I, worked on the OPA Board (price control) through World War II, and was township road commissioner. After moving to Roberts, he traveled throughout the United States and Canada collecting Indian artifacts, rocks, and other natural phenomena. Some of his collections are in the courthouse at Paxton. At 103 he resides in the Gibson City Hospital Annex and wins regularly at Bingo.
Seward and Cora had one child, Louise, who rode horseback to the same one-room school her dad attended. Her high school was Roberts, then on to the Northwestern University School of Music in Evanston. She received a Bachelor of Music and a Master of Music. After teaching in the school and privately in Chicago Heights, she retired and is living in Roberts.
--History of Ford County Illinois. 1984.
