Biographical Sketches

Biographies from Cole County People



Jerry E. Camden

Jerry E. Camden came from a long line of native Missourians. His grandmother, Mary A. Schenewerk Camden, was born in Jefferson City. Her father came to Jefferson City from Ohio. Jerry E. Camden’s father was born in Pulaski County. He was of a roving disposition and lived at various places in the Ozarks before coming to Jefferson City. Jerry Camden was married in this city to Nina Van Huizen. They resided in California for some time, but returned to Jefferson City in 1933. His father, E. Camden, had started in the welding business and the son took up that trade. The father was known as one of the best welders in the state and he worked in the Highway Department garage for several years. When Mr. Camden died in 1933 the young man took over his father’s business at the corner of Elm and Marshall streets.


Rev. W.T. Campbell

 Campbell, William T., Minister
Rev. William Tinsley Campbell was born in Searcy Co., Arkansas on March 9, 1852. His father, G.W. Campbell was a Tennessee native, a captain in the Confederate army in the war of the Rebellion and died while in service in December of 1862. In the misfortunes of the war, the family lost their property and became separated. Rev. Campbell came to Missouri in 1865 with his eldest brother, settling on a farm in Greene Co., near Springfield, from which place he left for Saline soon after.

In 1867 he was converted, and in 1868, during a short stay in Arkansas, he was converted, transferring his membership to the Salt Pond Church in Saline Co., Missouri, soon after becoming licensed to preach.

In September of 1872, he entered William Jewell College at Liberty, Missouri where he remained six years as a student, working manual labor sawing by hand, over 100 cords of wood, so as to pay for his tuition. He was ordained to the ministry on January 26, 1876 while still a student and served as pastor for two years at two country churches.

In 1878 he entered Southern Baptist Theological Seminary of Louisville, Kentucky and was pastor of the Portland Avenue Baptist Church of Louisville. In 1880 he returned to Missouri accepting a position with the Baptist Church of Westport and stayed for two years, then being made missionary in Kansas City where he organized the Olive Street Baptist Church in 1884.

In 1891 he went abroad, traveling throughout Egypt, Palestine, Servia and Europe. After returning from Europe, Rev. Campbell spent several months in Baltimore and Chicago studying men and methods. In 1892 he was elected corresponding secretary of the Missouri Baptist General Association, a position he held for five years. He resigned this position to accept a call to pastorate of South Park Church in Kansas City of which he stayed three years. He then left to become pastor of the First Baptist Church of Jefferson City.

Rev. Campbell was united in marriage on December 29, 1880 to Jennie Spurgeon, daughter of J.R. Spurgeon of Pettis Co., Missouri. Two children were born to this union, one dying in infancy and the other, Spurgeon Broadus, was an infant of one week when his mother died on January 28, 1888.

Rev. Campbell was married a second time to Emma E. Spurgeon, a sister to his late wife, on May 25, 1892. Emma was a lady of culture, a graduate of the Lexington (Mo.) Baptist Female College and thoroughly in sympathy with the noble life work of her husband. Of this union two children were born, one named Mary Emma. Rev. Campbell made his home with his wife and interesting children in the Baptist parsonage, 315 East High Street.


Prof. W.T. Carrington

 Carrington, William T., Professor
William T. Carrington was born on a farm in Callaway Co., near a town bearing his name on January 23, 1854, where he attended the nearby district school until the age of 15, when he entered Sugar Grove Academy, continuing two years. He then attended Westminster College one year where he was a member of the sophomore class, later attending and graduating from McGhee College’s Commercial Department.

In the fall of 1872 he began teaching near his father’s home after which he entered the Kirksville State Normal, graduating in June 1876. He was then chosen Principal of the school at Piedmont, later serving in the same capacity at Arrow Rock, Oak Ridge and Cape Girardeau. While at Cape Girardeau, he was appointed County Commissioner of Schools and in January 1883 he was appointed Chief Clerk by the State Superintendent of Public Schools, a position he held for four years.

During 1883, he founded and published the Missouri School Journal and in 1887 was elected Principal of Springfield High School of which he held for two years until his election to State Superintendent of Public Schools. He served as President of the State Teacher’s Association in 1888 and was Missouri’s Director of the N.E.A.

He married Mollie Holloway of Saline CO., in 1879 of which two children were born: William J. and Paul. Prof. Carrington was an active member of the Christian Church and was a member of the Business Board of that church in Jefferson City. He was also a member of the A.F. & A.M. at Springfield, Missouri and of the M.W.A. His home was at 804 East High Street.


F.E. Carter

 Carter, F.E., Bindery Operator
F.E. Carter was born September 15, 1854 in Philadelphia, Pa. Where he remained until the age of seven when he and his parents removed to Freeport, Illinois, where he was educated in the public schools. After completing his education he learned the trade of book-binding and then removed to Leavenworth, Kansas where he engaged in his own business, opening a book bindery and paper box factory, of which he continued nine years. He sold the plant and moved to Jefferson City on December 9, 1899 accepting the position of foreman of book bindery at the Tribune Printing Co.

Under his supervision the binding of the entire issue of the Revised Statutes of the State of Missouri (the largest contract of printing and binding ever executed in the state) was completed as well as binding Lesueur’s Manual, Election Laws, School Laws and many other state laws and reports. He also had charge of the binding for the Cole County Sketch Book.

He was married to Nettie A. Hunter of Freeport, Illinois on November 25, 1876. They had one son Lawrence A. who attended Jefferson City High School. There home was at 104 West High Street. Mr. Carter was a member of the Ivanhoe Lodge No. 14; the K of P of Leavenworth, Kansas as well as a member of the Stephenson Camp, No. 2892, M.W.A. of Joliet, Illinois.


F.N. Chandler

 Chandler, Freemont N., Shoemaker
Freemont Nathanial Chandler was born in Wisconsin on July 4, 1858. His father, Nathanial Chandler, was a shoe manufacturer. When Fremont was an infant he and his family moved to Boston and two years later moved to Thomasville, North Carolina where his father engaged in the manufacture of shoes, continuing for eight years with marked success. When the unfortunate incidents of the War of the Rebellion deprived him of his large accumulations, he returned to Massachusetts, where Fremont attended school and early-on learned the business of manufacturing shoes.

When of age, Freemont Chandler moved to Chicago where he worked for the C.M. Henderson Co. manufacturing shoes which he continued until the firm opened a shoe factory at the prison in Jefferson City, of which he moved to work. He became Assistant Superintendent of the Parker Shoe Company and later the Vice President and Superintendent of the L.S. Parker Shoe Company.

On December 9, 1882 he married Alice Stow of Chicago, a lady of culture and an accomplished musician having been previous to her marriage, a teacher of instrumental music. One son, Everett, was born to this union. Mr. and Mrs. Chandler were members of the M.E. Church South. They made their home at 310 Marshall Street.


Horace B. Church, Jr.

Horace B. Church, Jr., the son of Horace B. Church, Sr. and Katherine Clark Church, was a native son of Jefferson City. He was born May 23, 1869, and died March 13, 1937. He was educated in the public schools of Jefferson City, graduating May 22, 1885, after which he attended the University of Missouri. He was a member of the college fraternity out of which evolved the Beta Theta Pi fraternity.

On September 4, 1895, he married Miss Mary Louise Pope, the daughter of Winfield Scott Pope and Lucy Miller Pope. Mr. Pope was a prominent attorney of Jefferson City. They had two daughters, Elizabeth K. and Mary Louise, the latter the wife of Jesse W. Barrett of St. Louis.

For several years Horace B. Church, Jr., was Deputy County Clerk under the late F.W. Roer, during which time the County Court House was erected. Afterwards, Mr. Church entered the real estate business with the late L.D. Gordon, under the firm name of Gordon and Church. After his partner’s death, Mr. Church formed the Church Realty and Investment Company, and for several years was considered the outstanding authority on real estate values in Jefferson City. He later became interested in the mining business near Picher, Oklahoma, and, with a group of other Jefferson City men, profitably operated several lead and zinc mines.

For years Mr. Church was a member of the Chamber of Commerce and the Rotary Club. He was a Democrat in politics; was a member of the Methodist Church, South. Mr. Church was keenly interested in the welfare of his home town and his neighbors. His wife, Miss Mary Louise Pope Church, died suddenly at Brigham City, Utah, September 2, 1938, while on a vacation trip.


Horace B. Church, Sr.

Horace B. Church, Sr., a native of Clarendon, New York, and son of John and Louisa Sawyer Church, was born April 29, 1834. After teaching school in early life, he moved in the 1850s to Belmont, Kansas. He served in the Quartermaster’s Department of the United States Army, and came to Jefferson City during the Civil War. At the close of the war he opened a shoe store at the southwest corner of Madison and High Streets, which he conducted for sixty years.

He died March 3, 1925. Although living past the age of ninety, he was to the last mentally alert, dignified and considerate. He married Katherine Clark on September 25, 1860 by whom he had four children, of whom Horace B. Church, Jr. was the third. A daughter, Helen married Vaughn Noland of Lincoln Nebraska. Fred C. Church died in 1924. Frank W. Church in 1938.


Dr. W.A. Clark

Dr. William Alfred Clark, born in Clarksburg, Moniteau Co., Missouri on September 11, 1865, died at his home in Jefferson City April 10, 1934. He was a grandson of Hiram Clark who came to this territory in an ox wagon and settled on the prairie of Moniteau County, then Cole County, where now stands the town of Clarksburg which was named for him. Doctor Clark’s father was George T. Clark, a leading citizen of his community, who married Mary Belle Yancey of that place.

Dr. Clark’s academic education was received at Clarksburg College and at Waynesburg, Pennsylvania. He was directly instrumental in the establishment of a high school at Tipton, Missouri, where he taught for five years. Graduation from the Washington University Medical School in St. Louis in 1897, he located in Jefferson City where he spent the remainder of his life in the practice of medicine.

Dr. Clark was personal physician to most of the leading families in Jefferson City. He was physician to the households of eight Missouri governors, and the close personal friend of most of these governors. He was for years a member of the state board of health, and served as president of the Missouri Medical Association. He was active in the Masonic Lodge, and was past grand master of the Missouri grand lodge. He was largely instrumental in the establishment of St. Mary’s Hospital.

Dr. Clark was married to Clara Neef, daughter of Herman Neef of Jefferson City on September 23, 1899. They had two daughters, Mrs. Helen Montgomrey and Mrs. Mary Louise Siebold. The family had a flat at Neef Terrace on West High Street.

 Neef Terrace, Residence Maj. Joseph M. Clarke
Neef Terrace, 105 West High Street


Major J. M. Clarke

 Clarke, Joseph M.
Major Joseph Marcus Clarke was born June 4, 1814 in Bethel, Clearmont Co., Ohio. His father, Houton Clarke, was a native of Yorkshire, England from which place he came with his widowed mother, to America, settling in Virginia, the year before the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. Joseph grew to manhood in his birth town, obtaining an education in the common schools and later excelled in advanced studies at Halls Academy in Batavia. At the age of 21 he joined his brother in conducting the Illinois State Journal at Shawneetown, the third paper established in that state. He was also editor and publisher of a semi-monthly literary journal called “Ladies Amulet”. After two years, he sold the newspaper plant and engaged in purchasing horses, for which he found a market in the state of Alabama and later in Virginia, where he met and married A.E.S. Liggon in Amelia Co., VA, 1835. They settled on a plantation in that county and in 1843 his wife died of consumption.

In 1845, he remarried Lavenia Nunnelly and in October of that same year, the moved to Liberty, Owen Co., Kentucky where he successfully engaged in merchandising. In 1854 he sold his interest and moved to Missouri settling on a farm on the Osage River near Castle Rock, which, with his slaves, he conducted a profitable business until the outbreak of the Civil War. Soon after the war he sold his farm and returned to Kentucky to edit and publish the “Owen News”. In 1874 he sold the paper and moved back to Missouri, settling in Jefferson City, until his death on December 7, 1889.

He was the father of 12 children, all who preceded him in death and only three reaching maturity. Victoria who died at the age of 18 and Marcus who died and left his property in Owen Co., Kentucky, were children of his first marriage. Julius, a son of his second marriage, was a lawyer and died in Jefferson City in 1878.

Major Clarke represented Osage County two terms in the State Legislature; he helped establish the Merchant’s Bank in Jefferson City, serving as the largest stockholder and their first president. He also served as President for many years of the First National Bank and owned a number of buildings, among them Clarke’s Row on East Main. He owned many valuable farms in this and many other state and was a large property owner in Chicago. He made his home on East Main.


Eugene F. Clibourn

Eugene F. Clibourn was born in Cole County near Russellville, March 18, 1875. He was the son of Charles Clibourn, born in Cole County in 1841, died in 1918, a Confederate soldier in the Civil War. Charles Clibourn was married in 1868 to Ellen Josephine Pratt who was born in 1850 and died in 1914. She was the daughter of Washington Burdette Pratt.

Washington Pratt was born near Downer’s Grove, Illinois, in 1827. Prior to the Civil War he moved to Decatur in this county, where he became a man of influence. In the election of 1860 he cast the only vote in his precinct for Abraham Lincoln for president. This so enraged the radical faction of the Democratic Party which was in a large majority in that precinct, that it was planned to take his life. A Democratic friend warned Mr. Pratt and he left home on the evening the murder was to be committed.

Later in the course of the Civil War Mr. Pratt organized a company called the Russellville Guards, of which he was captain, for the purpose of protecting the community against bands of marauders who under the guise of soldiers followed a career of banditry. He established a store at Russellville to which he brought the innovation of a considerable number of ladies’ hats. Money being practically non-existent, ladies of the community knitted socks which they exchanged for hats. To Mr. Pratt was assigned the task of reading aloud to the assembled crowd each week the single copy of a weekly newspaper which reached Russellville. This was a custom prevalent in many Missouri communities about the time of the Civil War. Later in life Mr. Pratt moved to California where he conducted a milling and export business. He was a descendant of Joshua Pratt who emigrated from England to the Plymouth settlement in 1623. Mr. E.F. Clibourn had a remarkable photograph of Abraham Lincoln which was taken by Dewitt Clinton Pratt, brother of Burdette Pratt, bearing the imprint of his studio at Aurora Illinois.

Charles Clibourn was the son of John Andrew Clibourn who was the son of John Clibourn, who was born in Virginia in 1789 and emigrated to Cole County. John clibourn died in 1866. John Andrew Clibourn in 1840 married Frances Virginia Kennon, member of a pioneer family of Virginia ancestry.

Eugene F. Clibourn was reared on a farm near Russellville. For a time he worked in a store at Decatur, and for twenty years he was employed by the Schultz Dry Goods Company of this city. He then went into business for himself. He was married November 3, 1901, to Miss Nora McClung of Mount Lookout, West Virginia, daughter of W.A. and Amanda McClung. Miss Amanda Clibourn was the only child of this marriage.


Stephen Cole

Stephen Cole, one of the first pioneers of central Missouri, settled with a small party at the present site of Boonville in 1810. He was instrumental in the construction of Cole's Fort, at the present site of Boonville, and aided in its successful defense against the Indians in the War of 1812. Cole was a large, strong, uneducated frontiersman, a captain of militia and an Indian fighter. He pioneered in Santa Fe trade and was killed by an Indian on the banks of the Rio Grande in 1822.

Cole, while Justice of the Peace was fined for contempt of court by Judge David Barton. Later that day, Justice Cole was holding court in the open, on a log, when Judge Barton strolled along, smoking his pipe, and stopped and leaned against a tree to watch the proceedings. Cole promptly fined Judge Barton a like amount for smoking while court was in session.


Julius H. Conrath

Julius H. Conrath, for many years a leader in business and political life of Jefferson City, died August 6, 1937, at the age of seventy-four.

Mr. Conrath was born in this city, the son of Louis Conrath who settled here in 1859 and established a soda factory. His mother was before her marriage Julia Andrae. His father for many years operated a confectionery on High Street.

On graduating from Jefferson City High School, Mr. Conrath for a time clerked in stores in Sedalia and Kansas City. In 1898, in company with Gus Lohman, William Nolen and Al Zuendt, he went to the Alaskan gold fields. The following year he became associated in business with his father, was made assistant postmaster a short time later, becoming postmaster in 1912.

He served the Republican Party as county and as city chairman for many years. He was a member of the constitutional convention from this district, and was in 1916 a candidate for the nomination for state auditor, this being the only time he ever aspired to public office.

Mr. Conrath was president of the Farmers’ and Mechanics Bank for a number of years. Resigning, he and Mrs. Conrath made a trip to Europe. Returning, he was again placed in management of the bank. Regarding the bank to be in a failing condition, he closed it and turned it over to the state finance department for liquidation. Depositors were paid in full. On his retirement from banking he established an insurance agency which he operated until his death. He was a member of the Elks Club, the Kiwanis Club, and for many years a member of the library board.

In 1890 Mr. Conrath married Miss Lucy Schults. They had one son, Philip A., of St. Louis, and a daughter, Mrs. William J. Graham of Hutchinson, Kansas.


Louis Conrath

Louis Conrath was born in the Province of the Rhine, Prussia on November 20, 1828, attending school at the Kirn until the age of 16 when he immigrated to London on the 10th of November, 1845. While there he engaged as a baker for three years and then sailed for America, settling in St. Clair Co., Illinois where he engaged a short time in farming. In 1850 he moved to Hannibal and worked for four years at various bakeries.

He then left for Maries County, entering a claim, cultivating the land for a year and a half and then selling the farm and moving near Tipton in Moniteau Co. After one year there he moved to Jefferson City and opened a bakery on Madison Street, in the building that was once occupied by the City Hotel office. He moved two years later to his own building at 405 Madison Street but in 1882 he purchased the land and erected a handsome building at 224 E. High Street where he continued his bakery until 1893 when he retired, selling the business to his son, Julius.

In 1860, Louis Conrath was married to Julia Andrea in Jefferson City. Five children were born to this union; two sons Julius and Fred, and three daughters Emma, Alma and Laura. Laura died in Germany in 1888, where her father had taken her in hopes that the sea voyage and the climate would help restore her health.

Mr. Conrath was a Republican and made his home at 224A E. High Street.


Sam B. Cook

Sam B. Cook, for years a leader in Jefferson City business, civic and political life, came to this city in 1900 on his election to the office of Secretary of State. HE was born on a farm near Front Royal, Virginia, January 11, 1852, his parents being William and Sallie Kelly Cook. When he was seven the family moved west, and after spending a year in Nebraska settled in Saint Francois County. Because of radical Unioni sentiment in his neighborhood, William Cook, who had several sons in the Confederate Army, moved to Warren County. There he and his wife died.

Sam B. Cook at the age of twenty-one was working as a farm hand in Warren County for fifteen dollars a month. HE soon became a leader in local politics, and at the age of twenty-six was elected on the Democratic ticket as sheriff of this strong Republican county. This was in 1878. In 1880 he was re-elected. At the conclusion of his second term he organized the Bank of Warren County at Warrenton, then the only bank in the county and was its president until 1885.

That year Mr. Cook moved to Mexico where he became owner and editor of the Mexico Intelligencer, a widely influential newspaper which brought him into state-wide prominence. He served one term as secretary and two terms as chairman of the Democratic state committee. In 1900 he was nominated by acclamation for Secretary of State, and elected. Meanwhile he sold the Intelligencer and on assuming office made Jefferson City his permanent home.

Mr. Cook was re-nominated for Secretary of State in 1904 but in the Republican landslide of that year was defeated. In 1905 he became president of the Central Missouri Trust Company, a position he held until his death February 5, 1931. During this period the assets of the company increased from half a million to two and a half million dollars.

Sam B. Cook was a member of the Christian Church. In 1879 he married Miss Ella Howard of Warren County who died leaving two daughters. In 1888 he married Miss Olivia Hord. Two sons were born to his last marriage, Howard, who became president of the Central Missouri Trust Company, and Lewis Hord, an attorney who practiced in Jefferson City.


Edward W. Creedon

E. W. Creedon was born on Swift’s Highway, Jefferson City, the son of W.J. and Christine Freshly Creedon. His mother dying when he was eight years old, the boyhood of Mr. Creedon was a period of struggle and privation. He worked as a boy in the Meyer Meat Market, in the John Doehler Grocery and in John Linhardt’s store.

In 1904 Mr. Creedon was married to Miss Susan Elizabeth Moles, who lived with the family of Sam Keller, the well-remembered correspondent for the Globe-Democrat. In this year he ran a lunch wagon on High sTreet, and also had a pop corn stand on the corner of High and Madison. In 1911 he bought a confectionery on High Street which he moved the following year to Madison Street. About four years later he bought the building occupied by the McKinney Café, in which the Creedon Restaurant was established.

Beginning as a small place with five stools, customers were attracted in constantly increasing numbers by appetizing food and by that personality which the owners gave the place. It was remodeled and enlarged to accommodate increasing business. As the business grew, Mr. and Mrs. Creedon continued to maintain strict personal supervision over the preparation and serving of food. They canned their own fruits. They used great care in the selection and preparation of the country cured hams for which their place became famous.

Mr Creedon died March 27, 1931, after which Mrs. Creedon sold the business. She later operated a home-like rooming house on Capital Avenue. The couple had one adopted son, Edward Earl.


H. J. Crevelt

H. J. Crevelt, Jefferson City furniture dealer, was born in this city February 8, 1890. When through school, Mr. Crevelt was employed for a number of years by the Central Broom Company. Around 1926 he opened a furniture business on Capital Avenue.

On Thanksgiving Day, 1910, Mr. Crevelt was married to Miss Almeda Brinegar of Barnett, Mo. Mrs. Crevelt was the daughter of Robert and Tabitha Brinegar. Mr. and Mrs. Crevelt hada son, Henry H., who was associated with his father in the management of the store. Henry married Miss Virginia Gannt, of a distinguished Missouri family, and they had a daughter Kay. The other children of Mr. and Mrs. Crevelt were Richard Lee, Robert, John, Mary Margaret and Patrick.


Pearl Crump

 Crump, Pearl, Vocalist
Pearl Crump was a native of Fayette, Howard Co., Missouri. She was a popular and talented soprano of Jefferson City and was educated under the direction of Frances Ehrman who at the time was in charge of the Musical Department at Howard-Payne College. She was a vocalist of rare ability, possessing a voice of exceptional sweetness, volume strength and ranges which enabled her to reach with ease, the most difficult pitches in the whole diapason of music. Few vocalists of the state were so highly complimented by the press. In addition to her rare talent as a vocalist she is an excellent artist. She lived with her parents at 208 East Main Street.













Lieutellus Cunningham

The Cunningham family came to Virginia from Scotland before the Revolutionary War and several members served with the Colonial troops. James Cunningham, the great-grandfather of Lieutellus Cunningham, was born in 1765. He married Margaret Winning and located at Martinsburg now in West Virginia. She died February 20, 1810, nine days after their twin sons, Samuel and William were born. Their other children were Hugh, Josiah, Jane and James. He moved to Bellaire, Ohio in 1824 where William and Samuel helped to clear the farm and build a house of hewed poplar logs. He then married Nancy McGrew and their children were Edward, John, Wilson and Margaret. Samuel married Marinda Shahan and their children were Winfield Scott and Lieutellus James. William married Jemima Nesbit and their children were John James, Margaret, Sophia and Elizqabeth. John answered President Lincoln’s first call for troops and died in the service at Baltimore.

James Cunningham was born August 12, 1835, at Woodfield, Ohio, served throughout the Civil War in the 50th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, died December 24, 1915 and is buried at Bolivar, Missouri. He married Elizabeth Bickel who was born February 17, 1848 and died September 5, 1904 and is buried by his side. They came to Bolivar in 1873 and their children were Gertrude, Dorah, Harlan, Jessie and Lieutellus.

Lieutellus Cunningham was born at Bolivar, Missouri, October 4, 1877. He was reared on farms in Polk and Cedar counties, educated in the public schools, Ash Grove Academy and the Missouri University. He was elected prosecuting attorney of Polk County in 1902 and again in 1906. When World War I came on, he volunteered for the first training camp and passed the examination at Springfield, Missouri May 2, 1917, but was not called for military service. He then turned his attention to civilian war activities and as chairman of the Polk County Chapter of the American Red Cross was instrumental in raising over forty thousand dollars for its work. He also served on the Legal Advisory Board and took part in the Y.M.C.A. and Liberty Loan campaigns.

He was a member of the 1922 Constitutional Convention and the author of the judicial plan adopted by that body, except the judicial council provision which he opposed until through his efforts it was amended to make the action of the council subject to the legislative branch of the government. Although opposed to inserting the anti-nepotism amendment in the Constitution, he was the first officer to give it life to support it in the Supreme Court. This was in keeping with his belief that when the people adopt a constitution, or an amendment, it becomes the supreme law of the land to be obeyed and enforced and not be disregarded or nullified. HE was also the author of the provision giving soldiers and sailors the right to vote in all elections, and of amendments to the initiative and referendum.

He served as Assistant Attorney General of Missouri from January 1, 1927, to September 1930 when he resigned and became one of the attorneys in connection with the building of Bagnell Dam. He returned to Jefferson City and opened an office for the general practice of law in September 1931.

He married Maud Metier May 27, 1908, and the couple had two sons, Lieutellus, Jr., who practiced law in Camdenton, Missouri, and William James. Mrs. Cunningham was elected chairman of the Polk County Republican Committee in 1923, a member of the State Committee in 1924 and 1926, and Vice-chairman of the Republican State Committee in 1926. She was a delegate at large from Missouri to the 1928 Republican National Convention, and was in charge of the Missouri women’s organization in the 1928 campaign.

Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham were members of the Christian Church of Jefferson City, Missouri, and of the Ann Adams Hays Circle of the Ladies of the G.A.R. to which he was elected an honorary member. She was also a member of the P.E.O. and he was a life member of the American Red Cross, a member of the Cole county and Missouri Bar Associations, the Jefferson City Town Hall, the Cole County Conservation League, and of the I.O.O.F. and K. of P. Lodges.


W. A. Curtis

W. A. Curtis was a native of Reynolds County, the son of John W. and Percy Jane Curtis. John Curtis was a blacksmith and wagon maker, a native of Indiana, who died in 1908 at the age of fifty-seven. Mrs. Curtis, whose maiden name was Murray, was a native of Tennessee; she died in 1918 at the age of sixty-five.

At the age of seventeen W. A. Curtis went to Iron County where he worked in a wagon manufacturing company plant at Ironton. In 1902 he came to Jefferson City as a guard in the penitentiary. He became mail clerk and afterwards record clerk, working there until 1922 when he resigned to become street commissioner of Jefferson City. Prior to this he had served continuously as a member of the city council from 1915, from which body he resigned on becoming street commissioner.

Mr. Curtis was married in 1904 to Miss Vivian May Benson, then a resident of Arkansas but a native of Cole County, born at Elston. She was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Wm. H. Benson. Mr. and Mrs. Curtis had two sons. Benson, born in September 1904, went to Hollywood and worked in the advertising department of Warner Brothers Film Company. He married Jewel Ott, daughter of Fred J. and Mrs. Ott. Mr. and Mrs. Benson Curtis had a son, Ronald. Raymond was the second son of Mr. and Mrs. W.A.Curtis and born in 1913. He went to medical college in New York City where he graduated in 1939.


Charles Czarlinsky

 Czarlinsky, Charles, Clothing Merchandiser
Charles Czarlinsky was born in Prussia on October 20, 1850. At the age of eighteen he immigrated to America, settling in Jefferson City. With no resources other than his own intelligence, thrift and industry, for awhile he carried a peddler’s pack. He established a store in Koeltztown, Osage County, which he conducted for several years before coming to Jefferson City in 1888. He became manager of the J. Siegfried clothing store where he remained ten years. He then helped organize the Globe Mercantile Company on March 3, 1899 with a capital stock of $10,000, he being Secretary and Manager of the company. The store was located at 210 East High Street. On May 1, 1900 he purchased controlling interest of the Globe Mercantile Company. It was later called the Jumbo store. Several years before his death, the store was moved to 304 East High Street.

Mr. Czarlinsky was united in marriage in March of 1897 to Minnie Davidson of St. Louis. They had two children. Solomon, who was born in 1898, assisted his father in the store and managed the business after the death of his father until his own death in 1934. A second son, Ben, was born in 1900. Charles Czarlinsky died in 1928, universally respected and one of the leading citizens of the town.

Mr. Czarlinsky was a member of the M.W.A. and the I.O.O.F. lodges of Jefferson City and also a member of the Hebrew Church. He made his home at 107 East Miller Street.


Ben Czarlinsky

Ben Czarlinsky was born in this city in 1900. On finishing school he traveled and worked in the west for a number of years, returning to Jefferson City in 1925 on account of his father’s failing health. During World War I he served in the Navy.

In 1925 Mr. Czarlinsky was married to Miss Gladys Schatzkey, of Texas. They had two children, Betty Jane and Charles. Since the death of his brother, Solomon, in 1934, Ben was in sole charge of the business. They stocked an extensive stock of high quality merchandise, catering to the more discriminating customers of the Jefferson City trade area.

Mr. Czarlinsky was a member of the board of directors of the Chamber of Commerce, past president of the Rotary Club, a Mason and Shriner, and active in various other fraternal and civic organizations.




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