Willson Price moved to Henry County, Illinois in 1851. There, as a carpenter and builder, he helped erect many of the oldest buildings in Galva. On September 3, 1857, Willson wed Caroline Sipes, a young school teacher in the Methodist Episcopal Church. She was born March 8, 1933, near Licking Creek, Fulton County, Pennsylvania, the daughter of General John and Mary Barton Sipes.
After living in Galva for 9 years, Willson and Caroline moved to Rock Island County, Illinois where they assisted in transforming the wilderness into a state of cultivation and developed one of the largest wool farms in the state. After losing twins at birth, they had 5 children: William, Margaret, John, Arthur and Obed. Willson died of Bright's Disease July 21, 1901 at his home in Ferdinand. Caroline passed away from apoplexy on December 28, 1902, at the Brawley, California home of her daughter, Margaret Price Axemaker.
Obed K. Price was born on a farm in Rock Island County, Illinois and received his early education in public and private schools of Illinois and Iowa. Coming to Pittsburgh from Davenport, Iowa, in 1901, as a reporter for R. G. Dunn & Company, he gave up that employment and entered the law department of the Western University of Pennsylvania (now the University of Pittsburgh), and graduated therefrom in 1908 with the last class graduated from that institution under its old name.
One year of his professional study prior to graduation was spent in the University of Southern California at Los Angeles. Mr. Price was admitted to the Allegheny County bar in December, 1908, and since April, 1910, has been connected with the legal work of the Pittsburgh Coal Company, which is the largest coal mining company in existence.
Mr. Price was a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and of the Masonic fraternities, and politically supports the Republican party.
On September 25, 1918, he married Mazie Winnett Price, daughter of John Merriman Price and Helen (Dunbar) Price. Her father was distantly related to the New Jersey family from which Obed. Price sprang, and was a great-grandson of Captain Peter Perchmont, a soldier of the Revolution, captain in the Pennsylvania militia, and an Indian fighter of note, who was one of the early settlers of the Pittsburgh district.
Obed K. Price and Mazie Winnet Price Price had two daughters, Ann Marshall and Helen Price. Ann Marshall Price married Daniel Willard Cannon.
A biographical sketch of Obed Price during his working years noted: "In modem times a corporation lawyer does not figure much in the limelight, not, perhaps, so much from deliberate choice as the fact that he is part of a corporate organization whose management retains him for the purpose of avoiding episodes of a dramatic character, rather than to play a part in such episodes. Any professional prominence thus obtained does not become a public matter. // Among this class of lawyers in Pittsburgh, the career of Obed K. Price is perhaps typical. Practically his entire professional career has been spent as a member of the legal staff of the Pittsburgh Coal Company and its subsidiary interests."
Obed Price had no middle name and adopted the letter K so his signature would be O.K. Price.
He died of bladder cancer in 1959, five decades after nearly dying of malaria while encamped in Jacksonville, Florida en route to joining Theodore Roosevelt in Tampa where the "Cuba Libre" drink was invented as troops prepared to invade Cuba during the Spanish American War. He remained in the U.S. and was nursed back to health by his Aunt Ann Marshall of Pittsburgh's Marshall Elevator family. He named his daughter Ann Marshall Price.
