Leigh Dudley Dowling

LEIGH DUDLEY DOWLING. A high minded and spirited worker in the educational field of Northwestern Kansas is Leigh Dudley Dowling, principal of the Cheyenne County High School at St. Francis, who began teaching at the age of twenty-one and who has carried on the work consecutively ever since.

Mr. Dowling was born in Haney, near old Fort Crawford, now Prairie du Chien. Wisconsin, March 21, 1884, but has lived in Kansas since early boyhood. He is of remote Irish stock. The great-great-grandfather came to this country from Ireland at the time of the Catholic uprising, he being a Protestant, and was an early colonial settler in Pennsylvania. Mr. Dowling's grandfather, James Dowling, was born in Pennsylvania February 8, 1828, and saw active service as a soldier in the Union army during the Civil war. He was a bridge builder by trade, also a carpenter, and at different times lived on a farm and taught school. He was an early settler in Southwestern Wisconsin, and died at Haney, that State, in 1906. He married Rhoda Graves, also a native of Pennsylvania, whose maternal grandfather, Mr. Bates, served seven years in the Revolutionary war and starved to death on his way home. Mrs. Rhoda Dowling died at Haney, Wisconsin.

W. R. Dowling, father of Leigh Dudley, is a resident of Northwestern Kansas, at Norcatur. He was born in Pennsylvania July 28, 1853, but grew up at Haney, Wisconsin, on his father's farm. His career has likewise touched many avenues of usefulness. He has been a farmer and stock raiser, school teacher, was deputy sheriff in Wisconsin, and while there his progressive ideas and energy introduced to his community the first registered Poland China hogs, the first registered Oxford sheep and the first registered Shorthorn cattle. In 1896 he settled at Norcatur, where he has succeeded as a stockman. He introduced the first Percheron horses and registered Shorthorn cattle into that region. He is a democrat and represented Norton County in the State Legislature in the session of 1913. He is a Mason, Odd Fellow and Modern Woodman of America, and his name is known and esteemed over a wide section of Northwestern Kansas.

W. R. Dowling married Alice Ellen Brown, November 17, 1875. She was born in Ohio in 1852 and they were married at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. Their children are as follows: Nellie May, wife of O. G. Bell, a farmer at Norcatur; Sadie Ann, wife of N. V. Myers, a mail clerk living at Belleville, Kansas; Leigh Dudley, third in age; Loren, who died when three years old; Gertrude, who died at the same age; Leslie Loren, who was with the American armies in France during the great war; and Charles William, living at home and assisting his father.

Leigh D. Dowling began his education in Wisconsin, and to the age of twelve attended the public schools of Norcatur. He graduated from the Norton County High School in 1904. Since then he has attended Kansas University one year and during 1915 was a student of the Kansas State Agricultural College at Manhattan. He taught his first term near Norcatur in 1905. He was connected with the country schools of that vicinity five years. Another five years he spent as superintendent of the city schools of Clayton, then one year as principal of the high school at Jennings, and in the fall of 1915 came to St. Francis as principal of the Cheyenne County High School. He is a man of splendid personality and of real leadership in educational work. He has been connected with normal institutes as an instructor, spending two terms in Norton County, two terms in Decatur County, two terms in Rawlins County and three terms in Cheyenne County. He served as treasurer of the Northwest Kansas Teachers Association in 1917, and is an active member of the State Teachers Association. He has taken a course in law by correspondence in the Hamilton College of Law at Chicago.

In the fall of 1914 Mr. Dowling was a candidate before the primaries for the office of superintendent of schools of Norton County. He is affiliated with the democratic party, is a member of the Lutheran Church and belongs to Norcatur Camp of the Modern Woodmen of America.

In 1908, at Norcatur, he married Miss Dora Sophia Jorn, daughter of G. C. and Doretta (Utermohlen) Jorn. Her parents were both born in Germany and her mother is now deceased. Her father is a farmer and stockman at Norcatur. To Mr. and Mrs. Dowling have been born two children: Gordon Waldo, born August 2, 1911; and Jorn Dudley on May 7, 1914.

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