USA > Missouri > Jasper County > A history of Jasper County, Missouri, and its people, Vol. II > Part 40
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Z. T. Slaughter for twenty-five years was prominently engaged in the cattle business in Jasper county, Iowa, and he afterward lived there re- tired until his death, February 4, 1904, in Colfax, his native town. He married Margaret L. Wagner, who was born in Pennsylvania, and as a child came West with her parents, to Iowa, where she met Mr. Slaughter, to whom she was united in marriage in August, 1861. She is now living in Los Angeles, California. Her father, the late John Wagner, was born in Pennsylvania in 1821, and died in Jasper county, Iowa, in 1901, at the venerable age of four score years. His wife, Sarah Wagner, was born in 1823, and died in 1901.
Brought up in Colfax, Iowa, Melville S. Slaughter obtained the rudi- ments of his education in the common and high schools of that city, and subsequently completed the preparatory course in the Iowa State Col- lege, at Grinnell. In the meantime having become interested in the sci- ence of osteopathy, Mr. Slaughter then went to Kirksville, Missouri, and entered the School of Osteopathy, from which he was graduated in June, 1907. On July 19, 1907, he opened an office in the MeCorkle Building in Webb City, and has since been actively and snecessfully engaged in the practice of his profession in this place, being one of the foremost osteopaths of Jasper county. On the completion of the Wagner Build- ing, Dr. Slaughter secured one of its finest suites of rooms, and has here maintained his offices ever since, his large and constantly increasing pat- ronage requiring commodious quarters for carrying on his work.
Dr. Slaughter married, September 17, 1907, in Trenton, Missouri, Myrtle V. Shreve, a daughter of David G. Shreve, a prominent railroad contractor of Trenton, and they have one child, Melville Scott Slaughter, who was born January 2, 1910. The Doctor is a member and the presi- dent of the Southwestern Missouri and Southeastern Kansas Osteopathic Association, and has done much towards advancing the interests of the organization. He is also a member of the Webb City Commercial Club, and is a member of two fraternal organizations, the Benevolent and Pro- tective Order of Elks and the Yeomen of America. He is a stanch sup- porter of the principles of the Democratic party, but is not especially active in the political arena, although he is now councilman from the sixth ward.
GEORGE W. GEIGER .- "Some men are born to greatness, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them." Mr. Geiger be- longs to the second class; he is an energetic, wide-awake business man of Webb City, conscientious to a fault in all of his dealings and he has accumulated some valuable property, entirely through his own efforts. He was born at Pottstown, Pennsylvania, January 10, 1864.
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His father was John Geiger, a well-known and prominent farmer, born in Pennsylvania in September, 1814, and died in 1892. John Geiger's wife was Rachel Yergey, a daughter of a farmer in the Pennsylvania Dutch Colony. She died in 1877, when her son George was only thir- teen years of age. At the time when George W. Geiger was a small child his parents had very little money ; he was sent to the nearest coun- try school, but he did not take to books and partly on that account and partly because his parents needed his help, he left school at a very early age and went to work on a farm. His father was a farmer and his mother had belonged to a farmer's family, so it was natural that he should at first regard farming as a matter of course, but when he was sixteen he had had enough of the farm life and he decided to learn a trade. He was apprenticed to C. O. Swinhart, a tinner of Pottstown and proved an apt pupil. He finished up his apprenticeship at Ma- honoy City, Pennsylvania, after which he returned to Pottstown, his native town. IIe worked there for one year, after which he began to travel from one place to another, staying sometimes only a very short time in one place, depending on whether he was able to get work to do and also whether he liked the place. For sixteen years he roamed around, journeying from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from Canada to Mexico,-practically over the whole of the United States, but he felt the need of an abiding place and of a wife, so he finally reached Webb City, Missouri, in August, 1897, and the next year married Miss Julia McCool at Webb City. Miss MeCool was the daughter of John and Mary McCool, farmers residing near Springfield, Missouri. Mr.
Geiger worked for Harrison & Lloyd on his arrival in Webb City and then he was employed by A. V. Allen, of Joplin, Missouri, for a short time. When work in the tin line was slack he secured employ- ment in the mines, for a short time carning a dollar and a quarter a day. He made all the money he could and saved up enough to buy a tin shop; he soon found there was not enough business in tinware alone to do more than barely gain a living, so he added furniture and hardware to his stock and now has one of the best paying shops of the kind in Webb City.
In politics Mr. Geiger is an independent voter, not caring to identify himself with any party. In spite of the fact that he was moving almost continuously for sixteen years, he still likes to travel and if he were so inclined might bore his friends by constantly talking about himself and his journeyings, but he agrees with the old wheelwright who was wont to say "the longer the spoke the bigger the tire" and retails his experiences to his intimate friends in infrequent homeopathic doses. He loves a simple, outdoor life.
LESLIE E. BATES .- Looking ont upon the world from the elevation given him by a complete course of common and high school instruction, and feeling keenly the need of more extensive and advanced mental training, Leslie E. Bates, now one of the most promising young lawyers of Webb City in this county, determined to secure it. He realized, how- ever, that his parents had a large family of children to provide for and felt that it would be unjust for him to accept from them the sacrifice necessary to give him the higher education he desired; and so, with characteristic enterprise and self-reliance, he made up his mind to get it by his own efforts. The spirit he manifested in this matter has governed him through all his subsequent career, and has won for him all the success in life he has so far achieved.
Mr. Bates is wholly a product of Missouri, and a fair representative of the present generation of its people. He was born, reared, educated
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and married in this state, and here he has employed his energies and made his reputation. His life began in Clay county on June 30, 1875, where his father, Charles Fleming Bates, was born on October 3, 1845. His mother, whose maiden name was Elizabeth Miller, is a native of Ray county, Missouri, and was born on March 23, 1847. They became the parents of ten children, Leslie being the sixth in the order of birth.
He attended a country school in his native county contiguous to his father's farm, in the labors of which he assisted, and went from that humble temple of learning to the high school at Excelsior Springs in the same county, from which he was graduated in the class of 1895, being the valedictorian of his class. Then, for the purpose of earning money to pursue his studies in higher institutions, he taught school two years at Excelsior Springs, the school he taught being a publie one conducted by the county. He saw his way open by this time for a course of training in the State Normal School at Warrensberg and in the fall of 1897 entered that excellent institution. He was graduated from it in 1899 as the honor man of his class, but his funds were well nigh exhausted, yet his ambition for learning had not been satisfied.
Teaching offered the readiest and most immediate way of replenish- ing his purse for another dip in the boundless sea of knowledge, and he accepted the principalship of the high school at Excelsior Springs, from which he had been graduated only three years before. The next year he served as eity superintendent of schools in Excelsior Springs, and in the fall of 1901 matriculated at the State University at Columbia, Mis- souri. The second degree conferred upon him at the Warrensburg Normal School which he received in 1904, was that of Bachelor of Pedagogies. In the same year, after a full three years' course, he re- ceived that of Bachelor of Arts from the State University, and in 1907 that of Bachelor of Laws from the law department of the same in- stitution.
After leaving the law department of the university in May, 1907, he located at once in Webb City and formed a law partnership with S. W. Bates, the firm name being Bates & Bates. The partnership was dis- solved in 1908, and since then Mr. Batos has practiced alone. He has a large general business and is one of the most successful and popular young lawyers in Jasper county, showing attainments of a high order, industry in his profession that promises expanding business and as- eending rank; tactical skill in the trial of eases that comes from great ingenuity and resourcefulness; and strict integrity and regard for the ethics of the profession that command universal respect and confidence.
It is not to be inferred that Mr. Bates' experience at the university was wholly a bed of roses. On the contrary, he was obliged to work his way through the courses, and labored hard to make his progress cer- tain. He served as secretary to the president and also as alumni see- retary. In addition he was president of the League of Missouri Muni- cipalities in 1907, 1908 and 1909, and in 1910 and 1911 chairman of the legislative committee of Missouri Municipalities. He took an earnest interest in his work and his studies, however, and won all the honors attainable by him in the university and his engagements outside. He was a member of the Q. E. B. H., to which ten seniors of the university are elected each year : a member of the Phi Beta Kappa, honorary fratern- ity, and Phi Delta Phi, legal fraternity, and belonged to the Delta Ro Scholarship of the law school and Athenian Literary Society. He was also prominent in the Debating League which in 1902 won the debate between the Universities of Missouri and Kansas, a memorable event and attended with great interest and excitement at the time through- out college cireles in both states.
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Mr. Bates is now a member of the Jasper County Bar Association. On June 1, 1908, he was united in marriage with Miss Bessie Cauthorn, a native of Boone county, Missouri, and a daughter of Professor W. M. Cauthorn, for eighteen years occupant of the chair of mathematics in the State University at Columbia, and well known in Academic halls all over the country. Two children have been born of the union, both natives of Webb City: Leslie E., Jr., whose life began on October 11, 1909, and Emily Cauthorn, who came into being on October 31, 1910. The paternal ancestors of Mr. Bates in this country came from Eng- land and located first in New York and afterward in North Carolina, where his mother's ancestors also settled after a short residence in Penn- sylvania on their arrival from Germany.
WILLIAM GEORGE WARING is one of the most thorough chemists in the profession. Possessed of intelligence of a very high order, his varied experiences have kept him from becoming narrow, as is so often the case with men of brains. His acquaintance is extensive through the United States and Mexico, and he is especially popular with the large mining operators in this section. The name of Waring signed to an assay certificate is a guaranty of accurate analytical work.
Mr. Waring's father was born October 30, 1816, at Hereford, Eng- land. With a seriousness of purpose unusual in a boy William Griffith Waring used to devote all the spare time he had to botanical studies, his love for anything which grew amounting almost to a passion. He was also interested in the methods of farming then in vogue and ever on the lookout for improved ways. He had every opportunity to in- dulge his tastes, as Herefordshire is an agricultural county. When he was seventeen years old he came to America and settled in Pennsylvania, where he took up horticulture as a means of livelihood. At the same time he compared the farming of the Pennsylvania Dutch with that he had studied in England and studied how to improve the present methods. He read and experimented upon everything pertaining to agriculture that he could get hold of, in the meantime he taught school to the early settlers in his vicinity, at the same time carrying on his nurseries. His natural aptitude was so great and his thirst for knowledge so intense that he soon became known as an authority on all agricultural and horticultural subjects. In 1857, just after the passing of the Morton Act by Congress, he became professor of agriculture in the College of Pennsylvania and was first principal of agriculture in the state from 1857 to 1863. He then handed in his resignation and for several years he traveled through Europe as special agricultural correspondent for the newspapers of this country. Soon after he had come to Pennsyl- vania from England he met Malinda Coble and became deeply enamoured of her. The father of this young woman was a German who had come to this country at an early age and settled in Berks county. the German colony of Pennsylvania. In his serious, but ardent way, William Grif- fith Waring wooed and won Miss Coble and they were married in Center county, Pennsylvania. Her first son was William George. She had an overwhelming pride in the knowledge and achievements of her husband up to the time of her death. After Mr. Waring's years of travel he returned to his adopted Fatherland and settled down to a retired life at Tyrone, Pennsylvania, where he died.
William George Waring received his early education in the public schools near Boalsburg, Pennsylvania, and later attended the State College, where his father was teaching. After being graduated from the college he was made an instructor of chemistry and mathematics in his alma mater, and continued until the partial suspension of col-
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lege work due to the Civil war. He then went to New York city to learn glass blowing. He worked as a glass blower for three years, part of the time serving as foreman of the plant in which he was em- ployed. However, he did not feel that he had yet found his vocation, so he gave up his position and returned to Tyrone, where he became a court stenographer, at the same time finding leisure to study mining engineering. In 1886 he went to Old Mexico and engaged with a large mining concern there as mining engineer and consulting chemist, re- moving to Silver City, New Mexico, as a place of residence. For ten years he remained in that business, when he came to Joplin, Missouri, where he opened a chemical laboratory and assay office. His unpre- cedented success is a natural outeome of his wonderfully versatile yet thorough training. His work as an analyist and mineralogist and his wide practical experience in nearly every mining district of America ensure the most absolute accuracy of analysis. Mr. Waring has erected a fine building in Webb City, the Waring Laboratories, situated at 126 N. Webb street. This very fine modern structure was designed and built especially for chemical research and general assaying. It is here that Mr. Waring's laboratory and office is located.
In 1867, at Tyrone, Pennsylvania, Mr. Waring was married to Miss Mary Hull, daughter of George and Mary Hull, prominent and successful farmers of Tyrone, Pennsylvania. Mrs. Waring's ancestors were of old English stock, having come from the old Dorsetshire family of Hulls, than which there is no prouder, more aristocratic family in England. Mr. and Mrs. Waring have had two children, William, who was born October 4, 1869, at Tyrone, Pennsylvania, died at Silver City, New Mexico, in 1888. Their other son, Guy II. Waring, was born at Tyrone, Pennsylvania, in 1876, and is now (1911) manager and part owner of the New Year Tailing Mill at Oronogo, Missouri.
Mr. Waring is a member of the American Association for the Ad- vancement of Science; of the American Chemical Society; of the In- ternational Society of Chemical Industry and other scientific associa- tions. He has never identified himself with any political party, but is an independent voter, choosing his man for each office with the careful thought and analysis of character and abilities that he gives to the analysis of the materials submitted to him for assaying. Ile is a de- vout member of the Episcopal church : his religious beliefs are very simple and deep-rooted. Possessed of the scholastic abilities of his father, together with the thrift and common sense of his German mother, it is no wonder that Mr. Waring has achieved so much. His record is almost phenomenal, having been a teacher of mathematics and chemistry, a court stenographer (which would involve a knowledge of law), an expert glass blower, an analytical chemist and mining engineer and, finally, an assayer. He is indeed a citizen of whom Webb City may justly be proud.
C. J. RYus .- One cannot think of C. J. Ryus, of Webb City, without being impressed with his cleanness. That is not due to the fact that he is engaged in the laundry business, but because his methods of doing business and his own character are so absolutely without reproach. Webb City has many business men of fine calibre, and Mr. Ryus stands very high in their esteem. He is possessed of business ability to a marked degree. He has been connected with various lines of work and has gained valuable experience in his different enterprises. He is a man who is bound to succeed in whatever he undertakes.
William H. Ryus, father of C. J. was born in Orange county, New York. When he was a young man he came west to Kansas City and
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engaged in the hotel business there. He also operated a planing mill in the city. Later he came to Webb City in Jasper county, his present home, and engaged in mining. His wife was Sarah J. Soward, a native of Indiana.
C. J. Ryus was born in Kansas City, Kansas, February 8, 1871. He was educated in the public schools of Kansas City and then went to Palmer's Academy and Spaulding's Commercial College at Kansas City, Missouri. After he had finished his business course, he was a clerk in his father's hotel at Kansas City, Kansas, and later kept his father's books in his planing mill. Then he went to Bartlesville, Oklahoma, and worked for four years in the general store of J. H. Bartles, the man for whom the town was named. He next entered the employ of the Armour Packing Company and worked for them in Kansas City for one year. In 1897 he came to Webb City, where he remained six months and then he went to Joplin. His father had come to Jasper county to install mining pumps and a year later C. J. Ryus came here to look after his father's interests in Webb City and Joplin. In 1900 he became con- nected with the Keystone Laundry Company and remained with them for two and a half years. Then he was employed as clerk in the Key- stone Hotel until March, 1906, when he formed connections with the Jennings Laundry Company. This company had been organized by his brother-in-law, E. B. Jennings. In September, 1909, the company was incorporated with J. B. Hatcher as president, E. G. Martin, vice pres- ident, C. J. Ryus, treasurer. He now (1911) fills the office of secretary and treasurer.
January 3, 1907, soon after he came to Webb City and engaged in the laundry business, he was married to Miss Josephine Coley, a native of Indiana.
Mr. Ryus is a member of the Woodmen of the World and stands high in the opinions of his brotherhood. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, North, and a very active man in church work. He is no politician and does not ascribe to the platform of any party. He votes for the best man, no matter to what party he belongs. Mr. Ryus is greatly respected in Webb City in the business, social and religious world.
JOHN H. ETTER .- One of the leading business men and citizens of mark in Webb City, John H. Etter has not risen to his high rank in the es- timation of the people either by accident or through the favors of For- tune. He has won his way from obsecurity to prominence and from very moderate circumstances to a comfortable competence in a worldly way by his own assiduous industry, prudent frugality and fine business ca- pacity. He has relied on his own faculties, and they have fully sus- tained him. He has deserved success and he has won it.
Mr. Etter is a native of Nemaha county, Kansas, where he was born on September 27, 1869, and a son of John and Mrs. Katie (Louk) Etter, natives of Harrisburg. Pennsylvania, where they were reared and edu- cated, and where they became acquainted and were married. The father was born in 1828 and the mother in 1832. She belonged to a well known family of flour millers in eastern Pennsylvania, and is still living, having her home in San Francisco, California. In his early life the father fol- lowed railroading. He came west and located in Kansas in 1867, when the region in which he took up his abode was still in its wild condition and but sparsely settled. Its progress had been retarded, too, by the troublous times incident to our great Civil war, and the scars of that momentous conflict remained on it for many years after the "battle flags were furled."
Vol. II-18
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Mr. Etter, the elder, took up a homestead and resided on it even in its wild and unbroken state. He redeemed it from the waste, improved it and brought it under good cultivation. He then sold it and removed to Nebraska, where he became well known as an extensive stock breeder. While making a visit to one of his children he became suddenly ill and died. He and his wife were the parents of seven children, four of whom are living : John H., the interesting subject of this brief review ; Stephen, a prosperous baker at Baxter Springs, this state; Mrs. Mary Beridge, of Atchison, Kansas; and Mrs. Maggie Hubbard, of Neosho, Missouri.
John H. Etter obtained a limited education in a country school near his father's farm, but his opportunities in this respect were meager. The undeveloped state of the country in which the family was located ren- dered school facilities difficult of attainment, and there was so much to do on all the homesteads that the boys and girls of the region would not have been able to attend regularly or long at a time if the number and ca- pacity of the schools had been greater. At an early age Mr. Etter began to learn the baker's trade, and after completing his apprenticeship worked at that craft at different places all the way from northern Minne- sota to southern Missouri. He preferred his occupation to any other and stuck to it in spite of many inducements to do something else.
After reaching Webb City he worked at his trade for a Mr. Warner seven months, then went to Neosho, Missouri, and there passed the next five years in the same line of industry. Returning to Webb City, he started in business for himself in a small retail bakery on South Allen street, in which he employed only two men. Some time after- ward he removed his enterprise to West Daugherty street and changed his operations from a retail to a wholesale standard. Ilis business at the new stand increased rapidly and he kept pace with it in every way. He now employs ten men and has several delivery wagons in the city, besides doing extensive shipping to outside places, in which he covers a wide range of territory. Every detail of his operations has his close and constant personal attention, and it is to this, coupled with his excellent judgment in selecting materials and advanced knowl- edge in making them up, that his success in his undertaking must be attributed.
On November 27. 1898, at Neosho in this state, he was married to Miss Fannie Phelps, a daughter of John and Mary Phelps, residents of Neosho. Three children have been born in the household and sanc- tified the domestie shrine of the Etters: Marie, whose life began on April 14, 1900; Phelps, who came into being on June 19, 1903; and Maxine, who was born on December 22, 1906. All are natives of Webb City, and the first two are attending school there, their parents having determined to give all the advantages of the best edneational facilities attainable.
In fraternal life Mr. Etter is a member of the Order of Odd Fel- lows and the Modern Woodmen of America. In politics he is a firm and faithful working Democrat, and now represents the Fifth ward in the city council. He is always deeply and practically interested in public improvements and ready to bear his share of the labor and cost of making them. He is energetie in the service of his party, but does not allow partisan considerations to control his actions with reference to municipal affairs. The people regard him as a model councilman, and he deserves their good opinion. He and his wife are members of the Baptist church. They are popular in social circles and have hosts of friends wherever they are known.
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