USA > Missouri > History of southeast Missouri : a narrative account of its historical progress, its people and its principal interests, Volume II > Part 106
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On December 6, 1899, Mr. Gary married Miss Nona Vincent. They have two children, both born in the month of November, Ray- mond, in 1906, and Joseph L., born three years later.
A no less prominent member of the Gary family is Otis M., who was born in western Missouri, Barry county, in 1878. He was but one year old when his parents came to this county. Until sixteen years of age he attended the district schools of this vicinity, and then began working for the Wright Hardware Company, at a salary of $7.50 a month. He remained with this firm for five years, con- stantly increasing his business knowledge and efficiency, and becoming a valuable employe of the house.
When he was twenty-one years of age Mr. Gary took a course of instruction at the Gem City Business College at Quincy, Illinois. His record here was one of singular excellence. One of his examination papers was sent to the Omaha exposition as one of the five best papers in the school. After completing his course at Quincy, Mr. Gary went into the Eaton Lumber Company as a bookkeeper, re- maining in the employ of that firm until 1901. He then closed out the business for Mr. Eaton and took a pleasure trip in a launch, the
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journey being one of several hundred miles down Current river to Black river and thence up White river to Buffalo, Marion county, Arkansas.
The Roller Mill secured Mr. Gary's services as bookkeeper next, but his work with them was terminated at the end of three months, when he was attacked with typhoid fever. His illness lasted three months and when he recovered he entered the drug business, re- maining until 1905. In that year he was appointed postmaster of Doniphan. The sal- ary then was $1,200, but it was raised to $1,300 the same year in which he began his service, and is now $1,700. The sales were $2.000 the first year, but are now two and a half times that amount. Mr. Gary has made arrangements which make it possible to handle the mail faster, and expects to secure new fixtures as well as a new location by October 1, 1911.
In 1905 Mr. Gary was united in marriage with Miss Pearl McLeod, of Grenada, Missis- sippi.
In the Masonie order Mr. Gary has been master of Composite Lodge, No. 369, and has also served as secretary. He has held offices in the Order of Odd Fellows and is a member of the Modern Woodmen. He finds time in his active life to devote. to the work of the church of his fathers, of which he has been a member since his boyhood, and is actively interested in the Sunday-school, of which he was secretary for several years. The finance committee of the church has in him one of its most efficient workers. In politics he holds to the policies of the party to which his father has ever given unswerving allegiance and was its nominee for the office of county collector. In all his relations with his fellow townsmen Mr. Gary is accounted a worthy representative of an admirable family, to whose stainless history his is a desirable chapter.
HENRY A. WORKMAN. The career of Mr. Workman, like that of his brother, E. S. Work- man, is a refutation of the old theory that ministers' sons are ne'er-do-wells. Henry Workman was born in Indiana, in 1870. Here he attended the district schools and also those of the towns of Rockport and Richland. At the age of ten he accompanied his parents to Missouri, and he subsequently moved to Ken- tucky and lived there seven years. He con- tinned to go to school and to farm, first with his father and later for himself.
Mr. Workman began by renting a farm. He continued this for twelve years and then bought eighty acres. His land cost him from twenty to fifty dollars an acre and is now worth fifty dollars an acre as a whole. He has improved the land and fenced it in and built two dwelling houses upon it. He does general farming and keeps a few horses, cattle, hogs and sheep. He cultivates corn, hay and cot- ton, and is a stockholder in the Farmers' Union Gin at Portageville. His family con- sists of his wife, Mattie A. Johnson Work- man, born in Kentucky and married to Mr. Workman in 1896, and their children, Lee, Guy, Mabel, Irene, Carl, Mary and O'Neal, all at home. Mrs. Workman is a member of the Mutual Protective Association and her husband of the Modern Woodmen of America. He was formerly connected with the Wood- men of the World.
Mr. Workman is a Democrat in politics and though not eager for office he has not shirked the responsibilities of civic duty. For seven years he was school clerk; he is now judge of elections and has served in that capacity be- fore; he was appointed constable and refused the office of deputy sheriff, and lastly, he served on the central Democratic committee of the county for seven years.
WILLIAM A. BARNES, son of Seth S. Barnes, was born in Henderson county, Illinois, Aug- ust 7, 1869. This was his home until he was three years old, when his parents moved to a farm near New Madrid. Until the age of twelve he lived on the farm, and from that time to 1899 alternated between New Madrid and the place in the country. He assisted his father in the store in New Madrid. When Mr. Barnes came to Marston in 1899 there was no town here, but the company moved its store from New Madrid to Marston and began operations. Mr. Barnes sold out all his inter- ests in New Madrid and came to Marston to work for the company of which he is now one of the directors. He has charge of the grocery and hardware departments of the establish- ment. In the town he has several lots and houses and he is a stockholder and director of the Bank of Marston.
In 1904, at Lilbourn, Mr. Barnes was mar- ried to Miss Marguerite Carmack, of Union connty, Illinois. They have four children; Mabel Lois, Laura W., Rosalind M. and Mor- ris N. Both Mr. and Mrs. Barnes are members of the Presbyterian church.
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In societies Mr. Barnes is a member of the Masonic order, of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, of the Woodmen of the World and of the order of Ben Hur.
JOHN H. KOHL. The able president and manager of the John H. Kohl Company, John H. Kohl, has spent his life in the business in which he is now engaged in Morehouse, having begun it in Illinois under his father, Louis Kohl. He has been highly successful in a business in which the keenness of competition weeds out all who are not men of splendid business capacities and in possession of a thorough knowledge of the business both from the manufacturer's standpoint and from the standpoint of the lumberman.
John H. Kohl was born in Akron, Ohio, in 1858, on the 4th of September. His mother was Mary Bowman Kohl of that city, and his father, as has been mentioned, was Louis Kohl. When John . was six years old, his parents moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where they re- mained for two years. They then moved to Marshall, Illinois, and here the father went into the cooperage business. After acquiring as much schooling as he thought necessary, young John went into his father's business and worked with him until he had learned the business so completely that he was put in charge of the factory as superintendent.
At the age of twenty-three John H. Kohl decided to go to the city. Selecting Terre Haute as the field of his endeavors he went there and secured work, subsequently going to Chicago. Here he stayed for six years, working in the cooperage business of John Eizner. At the expiration of this time he returned to Marshall to assist his father. He was associated with his father for one year and then started in business for himself at Martinsville, Illinois. He was successful in his venture and as the years passed began to acquire considerable. He remained at Mar- tinsville for thirteen years, and then feeling that he had both the capital and experience necessary for the management of a larger business, he began to look about him with the idea of making a change. He finally located in Greenville, Kentucky, and established a heading mill, at Greenville, under the name of the John H. Kohl Company, Incorporated. This plant was in operation from October, 1903, until June, 1908, when Mr. Kohl re- moved to Morehouse.
Here he bought the Morehouse cooperage Vol. II-36
factory, moved his
Greenville equipment to this city and started the present business, dealing in staves and headings, as well as lumber.
The company owns 282 acres of land. The stave mill has a productive capacity of thirty thousand slack barrel staves; ten thousand tight staves; three thousand sets of slack heading and five hundred sets of tight head- ing. The saw-mill capacity is about ten thou- sand feet a day. The other members of the firm beside the manager-president are A. W. Eiszner, of Chicago, and his wife and daugh- ter. Mr. Eiszner acts as secretary and treasurer.
Mr. Kohl was married on the 13th of April, 1900, at Marshall, Illinois, to Miss Elizabeth Viola Atkinson. Four children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Kohl, one of whom died at the age of two days. Another, Mary Katherine, died in Greenville, March 1, 1906. She was thirteen years old at the time of her death. Sidney J. Kohl, born on the 30th of Decem- ber. 1894, is still going to school in More- house in the winters, but he spends the sum- mers working in his father's establishment. Esther May, three years younger, is also in school in Morehouse. The mother of these children died nine years after her marriage to Mr. Kohl, who was wedded to his present wife on the 24th of July, 1901. Previous to her marriage Mrs. Kohl was Mrs. Anna Croll of Clark county, Illinois. She is still affiliated with the Presbyterian church of her home town and Mr. Kohl is still a member of the Methodist church in the same county, in the city of Martinsville.
Mr. Kohl's lodge connections are all in his old home town of Martinsville. There he is a staunch member of both the Odd Fellows and of the Modern Woodmen of America.
RALPH BRISSENDEN has lived in Fornfelt only since 1905, but in that comparatively short time he has won a place in the commu- nity, both as a business man and as an indi- vidual, which few citizens who have spent their lives here would not be proud to occupy. He was born in Clay City, Clay county, Illi- nois, and grew up there. His father, Henry Brissenden, was in the manufacturing busi- ness in Clay City and later in Pigott, Arkansas. In 1905 father and son came to Fornfelt and went into the furniture trade. After two years Henry Brissenden moved to Cape Girardeau, where he resumed his former occupation of manufacturing base-ball bats.
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Ralph is still in the furniture concern, of which he is the junior partner, as well as general manager. He is, in addition, under- taker and licensed embalmer. At present, Mr. Brissenden is serving his first term as postmaster of Fornfelt.
In the Republican party organization, Mr. Brissenden is an influential member. He is now chairman of the county committee of that party. His fraternal connections include membership in the Modern Woodmen of Forn- felt lodge, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, of Clay City, Illinois, and the Masons, at Illmo, Missouri.
During the Spanish-American war he was a member of troop K of the First Illinois volunteer cavalry.
On June 6, 1906, Miss Ida Gill of Clay City, Illinois, became Mrs. Ralph Brissenden. They had two children, but only the boy, Ralph Jr., is now living. The daughter, Dorothy, was called to the other life in 1908, on July 10th.
Mr. Brissenden is recognized as one of the rising citizens of this district. and he well deserves the esteem in which he is held by his large circle of friends and acquaintances.
JAMES A. FINCH. In James A. Finch, Fornfelt has an attorney of unusual talent. Perhaps he inherited some of his aptitude for the legal profession, for his father, James A. Finch, was a lawyer who practiced his pro- fession in Louisville, Illinois, until his death in 1883. James is the youngest of three chil- dren and was born the year of his father's death. His mother, Mrs. Florence B. Finch, is now living in St. Louis with her son W. B. Finch.
James A. Finch graduated from the Louis- ville high school and then attended Austin College. Later he attended MeKendree Col- lege, the oldest institution in the west and one which has many distinguished alumni, includ- ing Governor Deneen of Illinois. In St. Louis, Mr. Finch attended the Benton College of Law and although the youngest member of the class graduated at the head of the class of 1903. For two years after his graduation, Mr. Finch practiced in St. Louis alone. In 1905 he came to Fornfelt, Scott county, where he still resides.
In the brief time of his residence in Forn- felt, Mr. Finch has built up an extensive legal practice.
His abilities as an executive are greatly appreciated in the councils of the Republican
party, in which he is an influential member. He is at present secretary of the Republican state committee and in 1911, as secretary of the Missouri capitol re-building committee, he managed the campaign in Missouri for the $3,500,000 bond issue to build a new state capitol.
One year after coming to Scott county, Mr. Finch married Miss Carrie Lehman of Lebanon, Illinois. Their son James A. Jr. is four years old and the daughter Kathryn Mildred two years old.
G. R. DAUGHERTY is one of the two living children of the four born to Joel and Callie Fausett Daugherty of Stoddard county. The other surviving member of the family is Mr. James E. Daugherty, of Puxico, associated in business with Godwin & Jean. Mrs. James Daugherty was Miss Roberta Scott. Joel Daugherty was a farmer whose home was near Bernie. This place was the scene of his death, as well as that of his wife and two children who were taken from this life at its very be- ginning. Mrs. Joel Daugherty died in 1877, and after mourning her two years her husband also passed away.
G. R. Daugherty was born February 9, 1871. He attended the common schools and studied law in Stoddard county. His admission to the bar took place in Bloomfield in 1901. Mr. Daugherty practiced in Stoddard county until 1905, when he came to Chaffee and went into partnership with Mr. Marshall Arnold. He continued in the legal profession here until three years ago, when he abandoned it to go into the ministry. The Baptist church of Portageville, Missouri, was the scene of his labors in the field of the church. He followed that calling for two years and then ill health obliged him to give it up. The necessity of leaving the pulpit was a matter of deep regret to him, as he is profoundly interested in min- isterial work.
Upon leaving the ministry Mr. Daugherty established his residence in Chaffee and re- sumed his law business. In addition to his legal work he is interested in real estate and insurance. He was formerly a property owner in Benton. He maintains his connec- tion with the Mutual Protective League of that city. Other fraternal organizations with which he is affiliated are the Masons (Blue Lodge), the Odd Fellows and the Ben Hur lodge, all of Morley.
Mrs. Daugherty was formerly Miss Ida
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Garner, of Stoddard county. Her parents were Matthew and Mary L. Garner. She . became Mrs. Daugherty June 30, 1892. Eight children have been born of the union, six of whom are living. James Otto, nineteen years of age, Robert Lester, seventeen, Anna Lee, thirteen, Joel Bennett, ten, and Garner Reed, eight, are all still in school. The baby is Marshall Arnold, aged three. Norman R. died in July, 1899, at the age of two, and a daughter, Elsie May, in 1908, aged one year.
CHARLES O. BOOKER. President Eliot of Harvard in commenting upon his singularly happy life said it had been his good fortune to have spent his youth and the best years of his prime in "a profession which has no equal." The stern old Calvinist, John Knox, declared that every scholar was wealth to the community, and it is only because we have become so accustomed to the good conferred upon us by universal education that we are sometimes careless in our estimate of its value. We cheer the uniformed soldier as he marches forth to fight and the tale of deeds of daring warm our hearts. It is well that this should be so, for a people who could not be thrilled by the sight and thought of daring for a sacred cause would be a poor and mean one. But the teacher's work is that of the soldier of peace. He it is who trains up those whose discoveries add to the comfort and prosperity of the world. It would be great enough sim- ply to open one child's eyes to the wonders of the worlds of literature and science, but the teacher does more than this. It is he who makes it possible for us to profit by the intel- leets of those who chain the powers of elec- tricity and who cause the earth to yield her fullness. To be a part of the educational sys- tem of our land is to contribute more to its peace and prosperity than to serve on battle fields or to sail on our men-of-war.
In Mr. Charles O. Booker Ripley county has a citizen who has given seventeen years of his life to the lofty calling of the teacher. He was born in Carroll county, Missouri, on St. Valentine's day of the year when our land celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of her independence. His father was John S. Booker, a native of Indiana, born in 1841, and later a resident of this county. Nancy E. (Gentry) Booker, his wife, was born in this state. Both are still living on their farm here.
Ripley county became the home of the
Booker family in 1886, when Charles Booker was ten years of age. He attended both the district schools and the Doniphan high school before beginning the work in which he is still engaged. In January, 1911, Mr. Booker was elected clerk of the circuit court to serve four years. While he has been working in this county he has not confined his interests to purely local matters, but has kept abreast of all educational movements, and in recognition of his intelligent interest in matters of such import he has been called to serve on the board of education and on the text-book com- mission for six years.
In 1904 Mr. Booker was married to Miss Frances Hufstedler, of Bennett, Ripley county, Missouri. The only child of this union is Vernie, born in October, 1906. Mr. and Mrs. Booker reside in Doniphan, although Mr. Booker owns a farm of one hundred and ninety acres near to the city, ninety acres of which are cleared and under cultivation, and which he rents. The remainder is heavily timbered and is a valuable piece of property.
The service Mr. Booker has done the county is not one to be measured by any finite means. He has stamped the lives of his pupils with the lofty ideals of citizenship and enlighten- ment which are the guiding forces of his own career, and which are destined to increase indefinitely and find expression in lives of usefulness, learning and benevolence.
JOHN HARRISON TIMBERMAN, M. D., who from the beginning of his identification with the city of Marston as a young physician has been one of the foremost members of society in that place, both from a professional and civic viewpoint, is a native of Missouri, born in Cotton Plant, Dunklin county, on Decem- ber 16, 1876. His professional experiences have covered but a brief period of years, but in that time he has made most worthy progress in his chosen work and is known as one of the leading members of his profession in New Madrid county.
Dr. Timberman is the son of John Davis Timberman and Mary E. (Bishop) Timber- man. The father was born on New Year's day of 1849, in Obion county, Tennessee, and was educated in the Clarkton public school, followed by a collegiate course at Arcadia, Missouri, and he was later graduated from the College of Medicine and Surgery at Keokuk, Iowa, from which institution he received his degree of Doctor of Medicine. Dr. Timberman
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HISTORY OF SOUTHEAST MISSOURI
practiced medicine at Cotton Plant, Missouri, for eight years, then removing to Clarkton, in Dunklin county, where he remained for two years, and where he was located at the time of his death, which came on his thirty-sixth birthday, January 1, 1885. The young life, so full of promise and already productive of so much of good, was thus cut off, and his son, who was but nine years of age when the father died, is now carrying on the work in which his father was not permitted to continue. Dr. Timberman was the son of John Timberman and his wife, Dilemma Hogan, and both father and son were Master Masons. The mother of Dr. John Harrison Timberman is the eldest daughter of Pleasant and Eliza E. (Wright) Bishop and a native of New Madrid county. Her parents were of English blood, the father being the son of Henry and Martha (Mayo) Bishop, the former born in 1782 and dying in 1841, and his wife, who was born in 1800, passing away in 1859. Pleasant Bishop was born on February 18, 1820. and died in 1900. He, also, was a Master Mason. His wife, Eliza E. Wright, was born in 1828, and she died in 1860. Their daughter, Mary E. Bishop, the mother of Dr. Timberman of this brief review, was born on July 31, 1856, at Mount Pleasant, Missouri.
As a boy Dr. Timberman attended the pub- lic schools of Clarkton, Mt. Pleasant and the West Plain high school. He also attended West Plain College, and entered the medical department of the St. Louis University, from which institution he was graduated in May, 1906. Previous to his entering upon the study of medicine, however, the young man was em- ployed as a clerk in a West Plain grocery store for five years, after which he engaged in an independent grocery business and con- tinued in the same for three years. It was not until 1902 that he began the study of medicine, having with the passing years de- cided that the profession of his father was the only one in which he would achieve suc- cess. and immediately upon his graduation in 1906 Dr. Timberman began the practice of his profession at Marston, Missouri, where he has remained continuously and which represents his present home.
Dr. Timberman has identified himself with the communal life of Marston in a manner which freely evidences his free-heartedness and his genuine public spiritedness. He is president of the Marston school board, and is likewise a member of the Marston board of
trustees, and has in numerous ways shown his willingness to bear his share in the civic bur- dens and in the communal life of the city. He has always supported the Democratic poli- cies, platform and nominees, but has never held office. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church of South Marston, and is a member of the board of trustees of same. Fraternally he is affiliated with Point Pleasant Lodge, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons; Marston Lodge, No. 719, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, in which he is a past grand ; Star Camp, No. 7314, Modern Woodmen of America, of which he is a past consul ; Marston Grove, No. 168, Woodmen Circle; Marston Camp, No. 502, Woodmen of the World; Mazeppa Lodge, No. 231, Ancient Order United Workmen. In the line of his profes- sion Dr. Timberman is a member of the New Madrid County Medical Society, of which he is secretary, and he is likewise a member of the State and American Medical Associations.
On June 14, 1903, Dr. Timberman was united in marriage with Edna Belle Ham- mond at Mexico, Missouri. She is an only daughter of Charles W. and Mattie Hammond, the father being a veteran of the Civil war, in which he served from its inception to the return of peace. Mrs. Timberman was edu- cated in the schools of Paducah, Kentucky. and West Plain, Missouri. She has been active in church work all her life and since her coming to Marston has been prominent in social circles of the city. Dr. and Mrs. Tim- berman have one child, a daughter, Lucile Frances, aged six years. She was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on October 1, 1905, and is now attending the Marston schools.
J. F. RIDDLE, M. D., who is most success- fully engaged in the practice of medicine at Bernie, Missouri, has during his seventeen years' residence in this place won recognition in a liberal and constantly growing practice by reason of his innate talent and acquired ability along the line of one of the most humanitarian professions to which man may devote his energies. In addition to his medi- cal work he is the owner of a fine rural estate of some five hundred acres, on which special attention is given to the raising of high-grade stock, and in the town of Bernie he has erected a number of large business buildings and residences.
Dr. Riddle was born in Dunklin county, Missouri, on the 5th of March, 1869, and he is
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a son of John and Ella (Beckwith) Riddle, the former of whom was a native of Kentucky and the latter of whom claimed Virginia as the place of her birth. Mrs. Riddle accompanied her parents to Missouri abont the year 1840, location having been made in Dunklin county, where she grew to years of maturity and where was solemnized her marriage in the early '50s. John Riddle came to Missouri in 1848 with his father, George Riddle, who died in Dunklin county. Of the ten children born to Mr. and Mrs. Riddle the subject of this review was the ninth in order of birth and of the number eight are living in 1911, most of them being in Dunklin county. John Riddle virtually hewed a farm out of the virgin wilderness, the same having been located six miles west of Malden, on Crowley's Ridge. He devoted the major portion of his active career to farming operations and passed the residue of his life on the farm referred to above, where his death occurred in August, 1904, at the venerable age of seventy-seven years. His cherished and devoted wife, who preceded him to the life eternal, passed away in 1897, at the age of sixty-six years.
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