Butler County Genealogy Trails Kansas Francis Marion Byrd Bio

BUTLER COUNTY'S EIGHTY YEARS BIOS

FRANCIS MARION BYRD

(transcribed by Sheryl McClure)

Francis Marion Byrd, one of the best beloved citizens of El Dorado during his sixteen years of residence here, head of the Byrd Funeral Home, and one of the enterprising, public spirited and generous citizens of this county, was born July 17, 1879, at Roachdale, Putnam County, Indiana. Mr. Byrd died at the age of fifty-three years, on May 20, 1932. A minute before his death, which was the result of a sudden heart attack, he sat talking and laughing with a group of Shriners in Scottish Rite Temple, Wichita.

Mr. Byrd's career was varied, successful and interesting. His parents removed from Indiana to Kansas in 1884, settling at Lane, in Franklin County, where Mr. Byrd attended school. He remained in Lane until 1907, when he removed to Mound City (Kansas) to become secretary-treasurer of the Mound City Brick Company, in which enterprise he had secured an interest. He disposed of his business in Mound City the following year and went to St. Joseph, Mo., where he enrolled in college. After graduation, he located at Parnell, Mo., in 1911.

Mr. Byrd remained in Parnell, until his removal to El Dorado in 1916. During his residence in the Missouri city, his neighbors elected him mayor, in which office he served from 1915-16. Prior to that, in 1914-15, he was a member of the board of education. As mayor, various constructive programs were accomplished and during the period he served on the board of education, the community registered its greatest progress in educational equipment, including the erection of a modern grade and consolidated high school building.

In the meantime, Mr. Byrd prepared himself for the profession of funeral director, and upon examination, was issued a diploma by the Kansas state board and since had practiced that profession.

Suggestive of Mr. Byrd's enterprise and his important associational connections, he was a member of the board of directors of the Chamber of Commerce, treasurer of the Red Cross; a member of the board of stewards of the Methodist Episcopal church; a member of the Credit Men's Association; the Kansas State Embalmers' Association and the National Embalmers' Association. Formerly Mr. Byrd was a Rotarian, withdrawing from that organization because of too many other activities. Socially, Mr. Byrd was a member of the Country Club, and fraternally, a thirty-second degree Mason, with membership in Patmos, No. 97, A. F. & A. M., El Dorado; Chapter and Commandery, El Dorado, the Consistory, Wichita; and the Midian Shrine Temple, Wichita. He was a past-patron and honorary life member of the local chapter of the Eastern Star; a Leading Knight of the local Elks lodge; also a member of the Security Benefit Association. In religion, he was a communicant of the First Methodist church and a member of the board of stewards of that congregation. Politically, he was a Democrat.

Mr. Byrd was of English stock and had a most illustrious ancestry. He was lineally descended from William Byrd, founder of the line in America and father of Colonel William Byrd, a Colonial official, prominent in the affairs of Virginia for nearly two score years, being at one time President of the King's council. Among his distinctions were the assembling of about 4,000 volumes (most valuable library in the Colonies); helping to lay out and found the city of Richmond in 1733; and acting as one of the commissioners in fixing the boundary line between Virginia and North Carolina in 1744. His plantation at Westover was famed and he was the first of the American colonists to use glass windows in his home. It is of historic interest that Colonel Byrd also is a lineal ancestor of Admiral Richard Byrd, the explorer, and Harry Byrd, for two terms Governor of Virginia, the former (Admiral Byrd) being among the most notable men of this generation. The parents of Frank M. Byrd, subject of this sketch, were John M. Byrd, (born November 11, 1853; died October 31, 1914 at Parnell, Mo.) native of Indiana, and Martha E. (LaFollette) Byrd, native of Roachdale, Indiana, born December 18, 1855, and died in Ottawa, Kansas, January 19, 1925. Both are buried at Lane, Kansas. Martha E. (LaFollette) Byrd, mother of F. M. Byrd, was the daughter of William B. and Mary (Kyle) LaFollette, who were married at Roachdale, Indiana, and remained there until 1882, when the family removed to near Lane, Franklin County, Kansas, where Martha E., the daughter, married John M. Byrd, February 26, 1875. The LaFollettes, being the maternal ancestral line of Frank M. Byrd, are among the earliest and strongest families of America and prominent in the development of Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Joseph LaFollette, founder of' the family in America, was born in France in 1745, coming to America during the Reign of Terror. He settled in New Jersey and his father, who also was banished from France, was killed while serving with the patriot army in the American Revolution. Later, members of the family pioneered into Kentucky and thence into Indiana and later further into the Northwest country.

On August 27, 1903, Mr. Byrd was united in marriage to Miss Jessie Merle Gray, at Lane. Mrs. Byrd was born in Franklin County, July 3, 1883, and is the daughter of R. J, Gray (born, October 6, 1849; died June 21, 1930) and Sarah Elizabeth (Worley) Gray, born July 30, 1852; married January 19, 1871. Sarah E. (Worley) Gray was the daughter of David Worley (born May 18, 1807; died March 31, 1880) and Elizabeth (Shinkel) Worley, born May 22, 1812; died May 5, 1895; married March 12, 1833. Elizabeth (Shinkel) Worley was the daughter of John Linenger Shinkel (born February, 1783; died August, 1827) and Mary Magdalena Shinkel, the latter dying in 1878. John Linenger Shinkel was the son of Phillip Shinkel (born October 25, 1753; died May 29, 1829), who assisted in establishing American Independence and who served in that historic conflict in the Heidelberg Company (Pennsylvania) commanded by Captain Hudson. Phillip, the Revolutionary patriot, was the son of Phillip Carl Schenkel, born June 8, 1717, at Edenkoben, Germany, and who came to America in 1752, landing at Philadelphia.

In addition to devoting much time to welfare work, Mrs. Byrd finds time for activity in many organizations. She is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, the General Aid Society, Circle Number Six, the Foreign and Home Missionary societies; is a charter member of the Cheer-Up Band Sunday School class, the Social Order of the Beauceant, Hospital Auxiliary and Book Lovers Club. She has served the Hospital Auxiliary as treasurer for seven years. Mrs. Byrd organized Job's Daughters of El Dorado, was the first guardian and is a member of the council. Among other organizations in which Mrs. Byrd is an interested and active member are Susannah French Putney Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution of which she formerly was regent; Order of the Eastern Star; Past-Matrons club of the Eastern Star; is president of the El Dorado chapter of the Needlework Guild of America; a member of the Chamber of Commerce; El Dorado Country Club, Business & Professional Women's Club; Woman's Christian Temperance Union, Woman's Relief Corps, State Funeral Directors' Association, American Red Cross, El Dorado Community Chest and the American Legion Auxiliary.

Three children were born of the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Byrd. They are: Pearl Olive Emmogene, born July 16, 1905, at Lane, and now the wife of Clarence G. Wilke; Ruby Evelyn Gray Byrd, born at Lane, January 14, 1907, the wife of Harry M. Harris, and Adaline Eleanor Elizabeth Byrd, born at Parnell, Missouri, August 19, 1916, now a student in Northwestern University, Chicago. There are two grandchildren, Richard Byrd Wilke, named for the famous Admiral Byrd and born in El Dorado June 18, 1930, the date his distinguished kinsman returned to New York .from his first successful South Pole expedition; and Patricia Jane, born October 20, 1930, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Harris.

Mrs. Byrd became the active head of the Byrd Funeral Home after the death of Mr. Byrd. Associated with her in this concern are her sons-in-law, Clarence G. Wilke and Harry M. Harris.

This tribute to Francis Marion Byrd was written by R. A. Clymer and published May 21, 1932 in The El Dorado Times:

El Dorado lost a strong, gracious, useful citizen when Francis M. Byrd passed from the earthly scene. In the years of his residence here, he had built up a strong circle of friendships and no wonder, for he gave of himself more than he took for himself. This can be said of few men—and should go down as an enduring epitaph for this lost neighbor. It once was the zenith of praise to say of a man that he attended strictly to his own business. That tells only half the tale. Mr. Byrd did attend to his business. There never was a man in the history of El Dorado who took his profession more seriously, who enobled it with the highest ideals, or who was more paintaking, more meticulous and more devoted to every detail of service that his institution rendered. A talk he made before the Rotary Club, of which he was a loyal member, will long remain in the memories of his hearers. In kindly but searching fashion, he deprecated the run of stock remarks made in a jesting, but thoughtless, way about the undertaking profession. He pointed out in a manner his Rotary friends will never forget the high and holy nature of the funeral director's art, and its ministry in times when hearts are sore and heavy and when the human outlook is darkest. This incident was typical of his strongly-held attitude toward his daily task, and explains in a large part his undeniable success.

But he was not wholly absorbed in his business. He found time—an abundance of it—to serve in manifold ways for the welfare of his town. No one ever went to him with a reasonable request for assistance and came away empty-handed. He poured his all-too-short life into semi-public and civic activities, he bestowed a helpful influence wherever it would count for most; he was amiable, he was compassionate, he was benevolent and he died, as he lived—a gentleman unafraid.

El Dorado's loss in citizens of upstanding worth and character have been all too severe in recent weeks. But none of these has occasioned a more genuine or poignant deprivation, and one that will increasingly make itself felt, than in the untimely death of Francis M. Byrd.