Alfred R. Haas

ALFRED R. HAAS, M. D. The medical profession of Barton County has one of its best equipped members in Dr. Alfred R. Haas of Ellinwood. To a thorough education and technical equipment Doctor Haas has added long years of successful professional experience, and through it all has maintained the alert and studious mind which is almost a prerequisite for continued advancement in this learned calling.

Doctor Haas came to Barton County when he was thirteen years old and represents a pioneer family. His father, the late Adam Haas, who was born in Germany in September, 1839, came to the United States with his parents in 1841. They first lived in Cincinnati and afterwards in Southern Indiana. Adam Haas learned his trade as a carpenter in Spencer County, Indiana, and was a journeyman worker in Cincinnati before the war. He was heart and soul for the Union, and in 1861 responded to the call for three months' men, joining the Forty-second Indiana Infantry under Colonel Denby. He participated in some of the early Virginia campaigns, and after the first three months re-enlisted for three years or during the war. He was in the first battle of Bull Run and served altogether thirty-three months. When he was mustered out on account of disability he held the rank of second lieutenant. In later years he became identified with the Grand Army of the Republic, and was a member of Joe Hooker Post at Hutchinson, where he was living at the time of his death.

On coming to Kansas in June, 1884, Adam Haas bought a farm northeast of Ellinwood, and was one of the quiet, hard-working factors in the rural community of Pioneer Township the rest of his active years. He improved his farm with most substantial home and other buildings, and though his ambition never extended to large holdings of land, he was in every sense a model citizen. In politics he was a stanch republican and filled several local offices of trust. He was a township trustee and during nearly all the years of his residence in Pioneer Township was a member of the school board. He was a man of ideas and expressed them fluently, and for many years was an active member of the Methodist Church. He married Minnie Wilsman, whose father came from Germany and settled in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, where she was born in May, 1846. Mrs. Adam Haas is still living at Ellinwood. Her children were: George, of Lyons, Kansas; John, who died in infancy; Dr. Alfred R.; Edwin, a physician at Claflin, Kansas; Charles, a farmer in Pioneer Township of Barton County; Jesse, who died in childhood, and Gilbert, who died in 1915, at the age of twenty-eight.

Doctor Haas was born September 26, 1870, his birthplace being within two and a half miles of Abraham Lincoln's boyhood home in Spencer County, Indiana. Many times he visited the historic spot where the martyred President lived and he became well saturated with anecdotes and the larger history of Lincoln. The place was called Lincoln City, but since the Haas family moved away its quietude has been disturbed by the building of a railroad. Doctor Haas attended primary schools in Spencer County and later attended school in Iowa. In his earlier experience is a record of a number of years spent on the farm. He had an ambition for a higher eduaction[sic] and secured it in the Iowa Wesleyan College at Mount Pleasant. He was there three years, paying his own way. As his funds became exhausted he replenished them by farming. Later he graduated from the Gem City Business College at Quincy, Illinois, and and soon afterwards took up the study of medicine. Entering the University Medical College at Kansas City, Doctor Haas graduated in 1901, and then returned to Ellinwood to begin a practice which has continued with unvarying success for eighteen years. Since 1903 he has been local surgeon of the Santa Fe Railway Company. Doctor Haas has taken three post-graduate courses, two in Chicago in 1904 and 1905, and one in New York in 1906. He is a member of the County and State Medical societies and the American Medical Association, and is one of the stockholders of the Citizens' State Bank of Ellinwood. He is a republican, and is affiliated with the Lodge, Royal Arch Chapter and Knight Templar Commandery of Masons.

At Hutchinson, Kansas, June 5, 1907, Doctor Haas married Miss Carrie Willms. Mrs. Haas was born in Kansas in June, 1884. Her father, Charles WilIms, brought his family to Barton County in 1876 and saw much of the pioneer life of this section. He was a farmer and stockraiser, and is now living in Colorado. Doctor and Mrs. Haas have four children, named Ellen, Maurice, Lucile and Franklin.

Pages 2510-2511.