Butler County Genealogy Trails Kansas Matthew J. Long Bio

BUTLER COUNTY'S EIGHTY YEARS BIOS

~ M. J. LONG ~

(Transcribed by Lori DeWinkler)

Matthew J. Long was the youngest of four children when his mother, Mrs. Mary Jane Long, a young widow, and his maternal grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Matthew Robson, came to El Dorado in 1870 from Dwight, Illinois. His parents were born in England, his mother having come from Yorkshire and his father, Robert Whatkinson Long II, from Collingham, to America. His father died in Dwight, Illinois, in 1865. Mr. Long, with lively wit and high imagination, occasionally paints in vivid colors the adventures of his boyhood in El Dorado. His first real experience with the great world was an excursion to Florence on the new Santa Fe train when he was so little that a nickel looked like a cartwheel to him. He had three nickels that morning, all his own, to spend exactly as he pleased. After an orgy of window shopping, by process of wistful cancellation, he bought three pieces of apple pie! It was not so long after that adventure, that he became an enthusiastic member of the Sunflower Company, a fire brigade that passed dripping buckets of water from hand to hand, to the admiration of the citizenship. His mother, Mary Jane Robson Long-Clark, was the first postmistress of El Dorado, and the owner and manager of the first book store of the town. After she married Edmund H. Clark, in 1882, Matthew worked in his stepfather’s grocery store. After Mr. Long was graduated from El Dorado High School, he attended University of Kansas, at Lawrence. Being a young man of action as well as of intelligent speculation, he became, by degrees, a citizen of many interests and responsibilities. After school days, he bought a partnership in the grocery store of Mr. Clark. During this time he maintained a private farm-loan business, and also organized, with Hector Sinclair, Jr., a shoe company. In 1899, Mr. Long helped to organize the Citizens State Bank, and continued as a director in the bank for years. Upon the death of Mr. Clark, in 1907, he bought his stepfather’s interest in the grocery store. In 1919, Mr. Long sold the store and for some time devoted his time to real estate. In 1922, he joined with others and organized the Commercial Investment Company and was elected a director, serving in that capacity for six years. In 1928, Mr. Long and Ernest V. Yingling bought the Chevrolet Agency in Wichita. This enterprise, and other investments, occupy a great deal of his time and attention. Mr. Long was elected a city commissioner of El Dorado in 1918 and served one term. During this time the Municipal Auditorium was built. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Chamber of Commerce, the Country Club and other organizations. He has done effective work under auspices of the Kiwanis Club, of which he was a member, in sponsoring the Indian Scouts, an organization of boys too young to be Boy Scouts. He is fond of boys. He remembers his own boyhood, and, remembering, desires to make all boyhood happy in its own normal way. His sympathetic understanding of people, his interest in them and liking for them, and his active desire for a broad and eager living, make him a valued member of his community. It is indeed doubtful if his range of friendships is exceeded by that of any other resident of Butler County. Mr. Long was married in 1900 to Grave Robbins, whose death occurred in 1910. On August 4, 1915, Mr. Long and Susan Perry were married. Mrs. Long’s parents were Mr. and Mrs. James Cleveland and Clara (Brumback) Perry, the father a native of New York and the mother a native of Illinois. Mrs. Long is a member of Susannah French Putney Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution and of Mary Vance Tent Number Fifteen, Daughters of Union Veterans. Mr. and Mrs. Long have one daughter, Susanne Elizabeth, who is a member of the 1935 graduating class of El Dorado High School and a student in El Dorado Junior College.