USA > Missouri > Jasper County > A history of Jasper County, Missouri, and its people, Vol. II > Part 64
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FRED W. KELSEY was born in Cass county, Missouri, June 25, 1874. His father came to Missouri in 1871 from Warren county, Illinois, locating in Cass county, where he purchased a farm. In 1902 he moved to the state of Washington, where he now resides. In this manner the subject of this sketch was separated from his immediate family. His mother, whose maiden name was Harriet Taylor Friend, is a native of the state of Illinois. Mr. Kelsey of this notice, was reared to maturity on the farm in Cass county and his early educa- tional discipline consisted of such advantages as were afforded in the district schools. Subsequently he attended the State Normal school at Warrensburg, Missouri, and he then went to the University of Mis- souri, in which he was graduated as a member of the class of 1904, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. In 1906 he was graduated in the law department, duly receiving his degree as Bachelor of Laws. He is strictly a self-made man, his education being the result of his own efforts. He worked on a farm until he had attained to the age of twenty-two years and thereafter he was engaged in teaching school for a period of four years, at the expiration of which he became a newspaper editor, publishing a paper at Kingsville, Missouri. He then obtained a position as night librarian at the University of Missouri, where he continued to work and study until his final graduation in the law course in 1906, receiving his degree cum laude and winning the Edward Thompson prize, valued at $300 with his essay on "Dis- turbing the Peace," which was subsequently published in the Central Law Journal. Among the articles since published by Mr. Kelsey are those entitled "Legal Liability of the Knocker," and "Powers of For- eign Corporations in Missouri." Among other things which he did in order to defray his educational expenses was to manage the Uni- versity boarding-house, having been elected to the position of manager thereof by popular vote. He was publisher of the "University of Missouri" from 1903 to 1906.
Immediately after receiving his law degree Mr. Kelsey came to Joplin, where he began the active practice of the profession. He is now general counsel for The Conqueror Trust Company and a num- ber of other important firms. On the 6th of April, 1909, he was elected to the office of police judge, in which capacity he served one term, de- clining to be a candidate for renomination. In his political affilia- tion he is a Republican. In fraternal circles Mr. Kelsey is a member of the Masonic order and he is also connected with the local lodges
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of the Benevolent & Protective Order of Elks, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and the Modern Woodmen of America.
On the 30th of November, 1909, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Kelsey to Miss Blanche Sergeant, who was born and reared in Joplin and who is a daughter of John B. Sergeant, whose name is in- timately associated with the early history of Jasper county.
ANDREW ETHELBURT COWAN .- Occupying a representative place among the prominent and leading citizens of Webb City, Missouri, is Andrew E. Cowan who, as a young man without financial backing, started in business here a few years ago as a real-estate broker and worked his way up, through his own efforts, to assured success.
While a native of Missouri, Mr. Cowan comes of English and French parentage. Andrew Jackson Cowan, his father, was born in the county of Durham, England, April 7, 1851, and about the year of 1867 came with his parents and other members of his family to America, and first stopped at Brooklyn, New York. Brooklyn was their home for a short time only, when Grandmother Cowan, with two of the sons, returned to England, where she died soon afterward, while Grand- father Cowan and the other two sons, one of whom was Andrew Jack- son, came west to St. Louis, Missouri, about the year 1871. A few years later Grandfather Cowan died in St. Louis. By occupation he was a shipbuilder. In the year of 1875, or thereabouts, Andrew Jaek- son Cowan took up his place of residence in the city of Joplin, and was one of the pioneers of the city and made that his home until about the year 1882. Then for four years he traveled in various parts of the near by states. Returning to Jasper county in the year 1886, in that year he settled in Webb City, where he spent the rest of his life until the time of his death, which was in the month of April, 1903. By trade he was a blacksmith and boilermaker, and his life was so ordered that he had the confidence of all who knew him. His wife, Casandra Jane Cowan, whose maiden name was Vaughn, was a native of Illinois and was of French descent. Of their two children, Andrew E. is the elder. The daughter, Tinzy Gertrude, was born in Joplin, January 1, 1882, and is now the wife of John R. Kuhn, D. D. S. Place of residence at this time is 408 N. Pennsylvania avenue, Webb City, Missouri.
Andrew E. Cowan was born in the city of Joplin, July 25, 1877, and was a small boy when he came to live at Webb City. Here he received a common and high school education, and on leaving school at the age of eighteen became an apprentice to the trades of black- smith and stationary engineer. For twelve years he worked at these trades as a journeyman.
Then, in February of the year 1907, he entered the real estate business, which he has successfully followed from that time until now, dealing in mining leases, city property and farm lands. This business he began in a small way, with small financial resources, but his clear foresight and his ability to make the right turn at the right time have brought him success. Until June the first, 1911, he had offiees in the Unity Building, Webb City, but is now located at 121 East Fourth street. Joplin. He now ranks with the prosperous business men of the county. There is no better known young man in Jasper county ; he counts his friends by the score in all parts of the county and ad- joining states. In his business the only references that he gives is the people whom he has dealt with. His place of residence is 716 W. Second street, Webb City, Missouri. Politically Mr. Cowan is a Re- publiean, and for several years has been an active party worker.
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On December 25, 1899, at Webb City, Missouri, Mr. Cowan was united in marriage to Miss Jessie May Moore, and to them have been born three children, Harold Jackson, Russel Allen and Andrew E. Jr.
Mrs. A. E. (Moore) Cowan, comes of one of the oldest and best known families in Illinois. Her father, Nathaniel Moore, was the owner of the largest flour mill in Illinois at the time of his death, which was due to a boiler explosion in his mill. When a small girl Mrs. Cowan came to Webb City, where she has made her home since. She was educated in both the common school and the high school. When a girl Mrs. Cowan was counted one of the beauties of the city.
R. C. BONHAM .- The history of a nation is nothing more than a history of the individuals comprising it, and as they are characterized by loftier or lower ideals, actuated by the spirit of ambition or in- difference, so it is with a state, county or a town. Success along any line of endeavor would never be properly appreciated if it came with a single effort and unaccompanied by some hardships, for it is the knocks and bruises in life that make success taste so sweet. The fail- ures accentuate the successes, thus making recollections of the former as dear as those of the latter for having been the stepping-stones to achievement. The career of R. C. Bonham but accentuates the fact that success is bound to come to those who join brains with ambition and are willing to work.
Mr. Bonham, of this review, who now maintains his home at Joplin, Missouri, where he conduets the R. C. Bonham Roofing Company, was born at Valparaiso, Indiana, the date of his birth being January 14, 1863. He is a son of Andrew J. and Elizabeth (Axe) Bonham, both of whom are deceased, the former having been summoned to the life eternal at Kansas City, in 1886, and the latter having passed away at .Joplin, in 1895, at an advanced age. The father was identified with the contracting and building business during the greater part of his active career and in connection with that line of enterprise he was well known in Kansas City, Missouri, and elsewhere. Andrew J. Bonham was born in Wayne county, Pennsylvania, a son of John Jacob Bon- ham, who was likewise born in the old Keystone state of the Union, and who married an Ohio girl.
To the public schools of Valparaiso, Indiana, R. C. Bonham is in- debted for his preliminary educational training, the same having been effectively supplemented by further study in the schools of Kansas City, Missouri, whither his parents removed. He early became asso- ciated with his father in the contraeting and building business, learn- ing the same in all its details. As he attained to years of maturity he began work in that field on his own responsibility, becoming widely renowned in some of the more important eities of the United States, including St. Louis and Kansas City, where he was instrumental in the construction of some of the largest and most important business blocks and public buildings. In the year 1889 he established his home at .Joplin, Missouri, and was here engaged in the contracting business for a number of years. In 1899 he started the R. C. Bonham Roofing Company, which he has managed and built up from a very small be- ginning to one of the largest concerns of its kind in the entire south. As a business man he possesses most extraordinary executive ability and all his dealings have been characterized by fair and honorable methods.
On the 3d of February, 1886, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Bonham to Miss Leone B. Hostetter, who was born and reared at Car- rolton, Missouri, and who is a daughter of Enis Hostetter. To Mr. and Vol. II-28
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Mrs. Bonham have been born three children, concerning whom the following brief data are here incorporated: Elizabeth R. was born at Kansas City, Missouri, in the year 1887, and is now Mrs. J. F. Dexter, of Webb City, Missouri: Rosco A. was born in 1891 and is now em- ployed at Joplin; and Griffith K., born in 1896, is a student in the Central High School at Joplin.
In his political convictions Mr. Bonham endorses the cause of the Republican party, and while he has never had time nor ambition for the responsibilities of public office he nevertheless is loyal and publie- spirited in his support of all measures and enterprises projected for the good of the general welfare. Socially he and his wife are promi- nent and popular factors in the best activities in the city and their attractive home is a center of refinement and generous hospitality. In their religious faith they are devout members of the Christian church, to whose good works they contribute liberally of their time and means. Mr. Bonham is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias and with lodge No. 335, Free and Accepted Masons, besides which he and his wife are valued and appreciative members of the adjunet Masonie organi- zation, the Order of the Eastern Star. He is very fond of out-door sports, hunting and fishing being his special recreation during the game season. His genial and humorous disposition makes him very popular among his large circle of friends at Joplin, where he is held in high esteem by all with whom he has come in contact.
EDWARD J. BURCH, M. D .- Prominent among the members of that profession in which advancement cannot arise through influence, but where success can be only the result of individual merit is Dr. Edward J. Burch. Held in confidence and esteem by the people, he ranks high not only among the medical fraternity of Carthage, but throughout the state. It is safe to say that no surgeon of his years in the state has a more remunerative and larger practice. He is a constant student of his profession, and has had a varied and valuable training.
Dr. Burch was born in Kentucky, March 21, 1866, the son of Joshua and Katherine (Wilcoxen) Burch. In 1877, with his parents, he removed from his native state to Fredonia, Kansas, where he grew to manhood. He received his preliminary education in the publie schools and graduated from their higher department, and completed his literary studies under the supervision of a private tutor, M. O. Kellar. When he decided upon his life work he began his preparation by reading medicine for two years in the office of Dr. A. N. Perkins of Fredonia, and under the enlightened direction of that gentleman laid a sound foundation for future usefulness. Later he matriculated in the Missouri Medical College in the city of St. Louis and was grad- uated from that institution, with the class of 1887. When he came to look about him for a location his choice fell to Fredonia and there he met with the best of fortunes. Shortly after taking up his resi- dence there he was appointed county physician for Wilson county, which position he relinquished upon his removal to Carthage in the year 1891. In the twenty years which has elapsed since that time he has re- sided here continuously, with the exception of that period when he studied in the European capitals and came into touch with the greatest minds of the age and during his two years post-graduate work in Chi- ago, when he was connected with the Hahnemann Medical College, one of the oldest and most famous institutions of its kind in America, when he served as lecturer on Materia Medica. He was also surgeon to St. Mary's Home for Children in Chicago during that period.
Desiring to fit himself for special operative work in surgery, Dr
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Burch devoted three years to post-graduate study in that line in the best equipped hospitals in this country and Europe, giving particular atten- tion to abdominal surgery and the diseases of women and children. He now specializes in these lines and has been remarkably successful in this field, his repute bringing him patients from a very great distance.
In 1889, Dr. Burch laid the foundations of a happy home by his mar- riage with Miss Louisa W. Howe, daughter of Dr. A. W. and Ella (Leonard) Howe, the former a native of the Empire state and well known in the profession. Dr. and Mrs. Burch share their home with two children, whose names are Allen Banks and Edna Louise.
CLARENCE T. CRAIG .- Jasper county has a legal fraternity of which she has every reason to be proud, and one of the most brilliant and prom- ising of its representatives, as well as one of the youngest, is Clarence T. Craig, whose manifestly fine principles, contagious enthusiasms and na- tive ability have already won for him much admiration. Mr. Craig is a native son of the state, his birth having occurred at Rich Hill, Bates county, Missouri, October 15, 1887. His father, Lewis E. Craig, was born at Tipton, Cooper county, this state, in 1861, and followed the voca- tion of agriculture for several years previous to his removal to Joplin in 1898, where he has since that date been engaged in the insurance busi- ness. The elder gentleman has been very successful and is widely known and esteemed in this section of the state. The maiden name of the mother was Blanch Tedford. She is useful and active in the best affairs of the community in which her interests have for so long a time been centered, and she is highly respected as an example of noble womanhood.
It would seem in glancing over the lives of our most successful Amer- icans that the first requisite to success was to have been born upon the farm, or at least reared upon it, and Mr. Craig possesses the first essen- tial towards renown. His early childhood was passed amid the rural surroundings of his father's homestead farm and he was a lad of about eleven years when the family removed to town. In the common and high school of Joplin he secured his preliminary education, being graduated from the latter in 1905. Shortly after this a long gathering ambition to become a lawyer reached the crystallization point and to prepare for his chosen work he entered the law department of the Kansas University, receiving his degree in 1908. He was admitted to the Missouri bar in January of that year and came to Joplin to hang out his shingle. He opened an office and began practice for himself and. wonderful to relate, succeeded from the first. He associated himself with another young at- torney, Mr. Lee Shepard, and this legal combination has proved a most excellent and satisfactory one. Craig & Shepard have handled a number of difficult cases successfully and are steadily building up a substantial and loyal clientage.
Mr. Craig is one of the stanch young Republicans of Jasper county, ever ready to do anything to promote party interests. His nomination by the party as city attorney was in evidence of the confidence he enjoys in the community. His fraternal affiliations extend to the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and the two Greek letter fraternities, Sigma Nu and Theta Nu Epsilon. He is Presbyterian in religious con- viction. He is fond of all out-of-door sports and amusements and was a well known athlete during his college days, it having ever been his pol- icy to attack everything with the same enthusiasm with which he at- tacked his Blackstone. He has already been recognized as the pos- sessor of a most excellent legal mind and is bound to make his mark in his chosen profession.
On January 5, 1911, Mr. Craig laid the foundation of a household
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of his own, the young lady to become his wife being Miss Myrtle H. Irwin, of Carthage, Missouri, where their union was celebrated. She is the daughter of Thomas K. Irwin, a retired capitalist and mine oper- ator, prominent in the affairs of Carthage.
J. V. WYATT .- It is rather unusual nowadays to find a man who has followed up the line of business that he decided on when a boy. As a rule a boy changes his mind many times in the process of his develop- ment, or if he does not change then as soon as he launches on this career he finds it not suited to his tastes or capabilities. This has not been the experience of J. V. Wyatt. He is a horse buyer, the business he intended to engage in from the time he was a child. He is also known in Webb City as a livery man, which business was an outcome of his horse dealing. One cannot fool him about a horse. He under- stands them thoroughly, their dispositions as well as their bodies. He is a man who knows his own business and attends to it.
.J. V. Wyatt was born in the state of Illinois, December 4, 1862. His father, James Wyatt, was also born in Illinois, in Greene county. He was a farmer and in 1870 he decided to go to Kansas, having heard a great deal about the agricultural possibilities of that state. He remained there only six years, at the end of which time he came to Joplin and became interested in mining. He died in Oswego, Kansas, in January, 1905. While he was living in Illinois he married Martha Dunham, a native of Illinois, a daughter of Willis Dunham, a native of Kentucky. She died in Webb City in March, 1899.
J. V. Wyatt had just begun to go to school in Illinois when his father moved to Kansas. He attended the country schools in Kansas and was fourteen years of age when his father came to Joplin. He did not go to school any more, but started to work as soon as they removed to Joplin. From a very small boy he had been very fond of horses and had been a most fearless rider. He had had plenty of opportun- ity to be with horses on his father's farms and he seemed to have more success in managing them than any one on the farm. When he started out in business, therefore, he chose that of buying and selling horses and mules. He has followed this business with great success for twenty-one years. In 1888 he came to Webb City and has since made that his home. Twenty years ago he started a livery stable in Webb City, in addition to his business of buying and selling. His livery trade was so successful that in 1908 he erected a fine up-to-date build- ing. It is a two-story cement building and is a credit to Mr. Wyatt and to Webb City.
In 1888, the year that he came to Webh City, Mr. Wyatt married Miss Blanche Whitten in Warsaw, Missouri. Miss Whitten was born in Missouri. Mr. and Mrs. Wyatt have had three children, Vina, Voor- hus and Francis.
Mr. Wyatt is a member of the Woodmen of the World fraternal order. He is an enterprising business man and during the twenty odd years that he has been in business in Webb City he has become a very well known figure. He is universally respected.
M. LUTHIER SPRIGGS, M. D .- The word instinctively pays deference to the man whose suecess has been worthily achieved and whose promi- nence is not the less the result of an irreproachable life than of natural talents and acquired ability in the field of his chosen labor. Dr. M. Luther Spriggs occupies a position of distinction as a representative of the medical profession at Joplin, Missouri, and the best evidence of his capability in the line of his chosen vocation is the large patron-
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age which is accorded him. It is a well known fact that a great per- centage of those who enter business life meet with failure or only a limited measure of success. This is usually due to one or more of sev- eral causes-superficial preparation, lack of close application or an un- wise choice in selecting a vocation for which one is not fitted. The reverse of all this has entered into the success and prominence which Dr. Spriggs has gained. His equipment for the profession was un- usually good and he has continually extended the scope of his labors through the added efficiency that comes from keeping in touch with the marked advancement that has been made by members of the medi- cal fraternity in the last decade.
A native of the state of Illinois, Dr. Spriggs was born in Wayne county, that state, on the 13th of January, 1873, and he is the son of Dr. A. R. Spriggs and Sarah M. (Dennison) Spriggs, both of whom were born and reared in Ohio. As a young man the father removed from the old Buckeye state to Illinois, where he was engaged in the active practice of his profession until 1906, in which year he retired from active practice of his profession until 1906, in which year he re- tired from active life and removed to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, where he is residing at the present time. His wife, whose maiden name was Sarah M. Dennison, was summoned to the life eternal in 1907. They were the parents of two children, of whom the subject of this review was the second in order of birth.
After completing the curriculum of the public schools in his native county in Illinois Dr. M. Luther Spriggs was matriculated in the Col- lege of Physicians and Surgeons at St. Louis, Missouri, and subse- quently he attended the Louisville Medical College, in which excellent institution he was graduated as a member of the class of 1894, duly receiving his degree of Doctor of Medicine. He has taken a number of post-graduate courses in connection with the work of his profession. In 1895 he attended the Chicago Polyclinic and later was a student in the New York Post-Graduate Institute; in 1897 he attended the New York Polyclinic and thereafter he spent considerable time abroad, studying at Berlin, Edinburgh and London. At Berlin he made a specialty of the study of gynecological surgery, under the able pre- ceptorship of the widely renowned Dr. Landau. Immediately after his graduation in the Louisville College of Medicine, Dr. Spriggs lo- cated at New Orleans, where he practiced for a period of one year, at the expiration of which, in 1895, he went to Illinois, where he built up a large and representative patronage which he controlled until 1901, in which year he came to Joplin, where he has maintained his resi- dence and business headquarters during the intervening years to the present time. He is fully appreciative of the value of specialization and limits his practice almost entirely to gynecological surgery, in con- nection with which he has been exceedingly successful.
In the year 1897 was celebrated the marriage of Dr. Spriggs to Miss Bird Windom Spriggs, whose birth occurred in Ohio and who is a daughter of J. P. Spriggs, who was a representative attorney and influential business man at Woodsfield, Ohio.
In his political convictions Dr. Spriggs endorses the cause of the Republican party and while he has never participated in local poli- ties his contribution to progress and development has always been of the most insistent order. In connection with his life work he is affili- ated with the Jasper County Medical Society, the Missouri State Medi- cal Society and the American Medical Association. Fraternally he is a valued and appreciative member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. In their religious faith Dr. and Mrs. Spriggs are at-
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