The History of the Yakima Valley, Washington, Comprising Yakima, Kittitas and
Benton Counties, The S.J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1919, Volume II, page 208

FRED PARKER.

Fred Parker is an attorney-at-law devoting the major part of his attention to
his profusion, and yet there have been few important business projects of the
Yakima valley with which he has not been more or less closely associated and his
efforts and activities have therefore contributed in substantial measure to the
growth and upbuilding of the district. He has played so important a part in the
history of this section of the state that his life record can not fail to prove
of interest to many of the readers of this volume.

Mr. Parker is a native of Kentucky, his birth having occurred in London, that
state, on the 8th of December, 1861, his parents being Felix and Eliza (Lincks)
Parker. The father was a farmer by occupation and spent his entire life in
Kentucky, which was also the native state of the mother. His ancestry was
traced back to the old Parker family that was founded in America by one of the
passengers on the Mayflower.

Fred Parker, whose name introduces this review, acquired a public school
education in Kentucky, where he spent the period of his minority, and in 1883,
when about twenty-two years of age, he sought the opportunities of the
northwest, making Yakima his destination. In fact he aided in laying out the
town and from that time to the present has been closely associated with its
growth and improvement. In 1885 he began reading law with Judge Edward Whitson,
now deceased, and after thorough preliminary training was admitted to the bar in
1888. That he had proven his worth during his student days is indicated by the
fact that Judge Whitson then admitted him to partnership and the association was
maintained for a quarter of a century or until the Judge was elevated to the
federal bench, and the closest friendship was theirs until Judge Whitson was
called from this life on the 15th of October, 1915. The zeal with which Mr.
Parker has devoted his energies to the profession, the careful regard evinced
for the interests of his clients and an assiduous and unrelaxing attention to
all the details of his cases, have brought him a large business and made him
very successful in its conduct. His arguments have elicited warm commendation
not only from his associates at the bar but also from the bench. He is a very
able writer; his briefs always show wide research, careful thought and the best
and strongest reasons which can he urged for his contention, presented in cogent
and logical form and illustrated by a style unusually lucid and clear. His
clientage has long been a very extensive one and his devotion thereto has become
proverbial. Moreover, Mr. Parker is a farsighted, sagacious and enterprising
business man who has been identified with most of the important projects of the
valley.

On the 10th of March, 1891, Mr. Parker was married to Miss Louise Irene Leaming,
of Kansas, who came to Washington in her girlhood days with her father, Edmond
R. Leaming, a pioneer settler of Yakima, who established the first nursery in
the Yakima valley. Mr. and Mrs. Parker have become the parents of two sons and a
daughter: William Edward, who was graduated from the Washington State
University and entered upon the practice of law in connection with his father,
but is now a member of the United States army; and Clarence L. and Harriett P.,
both at home.

Mr. Parker is an exemplary representative of the Masonic fraternity, having
taken the degrees of lodge and chapter, and is a life member of the Benevolent
Protective Order of Elks. He gives his political allegiance to the republican
party but has never become an active party worker, preferring to concentrate his
undivided attention upon his profession and his business interests, and today he
is a director in several corporations, ranking him with the most valued citizens
of this section of the state.

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Submitted to the Washington Bios Project in December 2007 by Jeffrey L. Elmer.
Submitter has no additional information about the subject of this article.