During a period of forty-seven years, Joseph M. Studebaker has been carrying on extensive agricultural operations on his present farm in Elizabeth township, a tract of 195 acres of some of the most productive and fertile soil to be found in Miami County. This old and honored citizen of the Troy community was born on a farm in Bethel Township, Miami County, June 28, 1849, a son of Jacob and Mary (Miller) Studebaker, and is the only survivor of three children born to his parents. Jacob and Mary Studebaker were early settlers of Miami County, where they worked their way to the ownership of a good farm in Bethel Township, starting in humble circumstances and obscurity and using their opportunities and industry to carry them to material independence and the esteem and respect of their fellow-citizens. Joseph M. Studebaker had only those advantages in his youth which came from attendance at the public school and good home rearing. He was taught to be self-reliant, industrious and honest, and these qualities have done much to assist him during his upward climb. His own beginnings, like those of his parents, were small, but he was ambitious and determined and found a way to surmount each obstacle that appeared in his path. As a result, he finds himself today the possessor of a fine farm of 195 acres, on a part of which he settled in 1873. His career here has been one of constant and steady progress and he has so conducted his transactions as to win and hold the confidence of those with whom he has been associated. At various time he has found the opportunity to serve his community in offices of public trust and responsibility to which he has been elected by his fellow-citizens, and his public record is an excellent one. For two terms, he was a member of the Board of Trustees of Elizabeth Township, and for thirteen years did much for the cause of education in this locality as a member of the Elizabeth Township Board of School Directors. At this time, he is Supervisor of roads of his district. Mr. Studebaker was united in marriage with Mary n., daughter of Isaac Kline, a well-known agriculturist of Elizabeth Township, and to this union there were born two children: Alva C., a prosperous farmer of Lost Creek Township, Miami County, who married Minnie Bright and they have these children, (a) Gladis, married Lee Zirkel, and mother of one child, Lewis E.; Joseph Foster, (c) Marvin; and Elizabeth Viola, who married Bert Esty, also a farmer of Lost Creek Township and has (a) Olivine, (b) Jay, (c) Alva, (d) Eunice, (e) Edna, (f) Louise. During the World War period, Mr. Studebaker was a generous contributor to all movements. His pleasant home, situated on Troy R.F.D., No. 6, is kept hospitably open to his many friends. Mr. Studebaker is now deceased.