John F. Heston

JOHN F. HESTON. The Heston family came to Sherman County forty years ago. John F. Heston was not a member of the family then, but for several years worked on farms in Iowa and contributed his surplus earnings to the family, who greatly needed all available cash while improving the land. For thirty years, however, John F. Heston has been an active factor in Goodland and Sherman County. He had a long, successful record as a teacher, also as a business man, and for a number of years has been cashier and active head of the Kanorado State Bank.

Mr. Heston was born in Warren County, Illinois, October 26, 1868. His grandfather, William Thomas Heston, was a native of Pennsylvania, and in early times moved west to Illinois, establishing his home on a farm. He died in Fulton County, that state. Charles Heston, father of John F., was born in Westchester County, Pennsylvania, in 1824. He grew up in Ohio and Illinois and spent all his active life as a farmer. After his marriage in Warren County, Illinois, he moved to Adams County, Iowa, spent two years there, and in 1886 came to Northwestern Kansas and located in Sherman County, not yet formally organized. For ten years he occupied his homestead quarter, and then sold it and removed to Goodland and was a farmer near that town for many years. When stricken with his last illness he was sent to a hospital in Topeka, and died there in 1916. He was a republican of the old school and an active member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, being regular in his attendance at church worship and a supporter of all church activities. He also had a record as a Union soldier, having enlisted in 1864 in the Fourteenth Illinois Infantry, and being in service until the close of hostilities. He was for many years a member of the Grand Army of the Republic.

Charles Heston married Mary Susan Hall, who was born in Warren County, Illinois, in 1840, and died at Goodland, Kansas, in 1914. Several of their children are well known people in Northwestern Kansas: Anna, the oldest, is the wife of Oris Perkins, a farmer in Thomas County, Kansas; William Thomas was a farmer and carpenter and died in Sherman County February 23, 1890; H. M. Heston, now manager of the Chicago Lumber Company at Goodland, was for six years clerk of the District Court under Judge Charles W. Smith; the fourth in the family is John F.; Edward E. is an employe of the Rock Island Railroad Company at Goodland.

John F. Heston when a very small child was taken by his parents to Iowa, and received his early education in the public schools of Corning in Adams County. After his father moved to Kansas he remained in Iowa working on farms by the month and attended school during the winters. Then in the fall of 1888 he joined his people in Kansas and for a short time was employed in the construction forces that were building the Rock Island Railway west from Goodland. Then followed a period of eighteen years in which he taught schools during winter terms in Sherman County and farmed during the summers. Afterwards he engaged in the real estate, coal and feed business in Goodland, but sold that business in 1905. In that year B. F. Brown organized the Kanorado State Bank, and Mr. Heston has been cashier continuously from the day the bank opened its doors for business. The bank was organized with a capital of $10,000, has $20,000 capital and a surplus of $6,000. The president of the bank is F. S. Brown, of Funston, Kansas, and the vice president is A. D. Stewart, of Goodland.

Mr. Heston is president of the Stock Growers State Bank of Burlington, Colorado, is a director in the Farmers National Bank of Goodland, a stockholder in the Siebert State Bank, and is owner of some valuable tracts of farming land in Sherman County, Kansas, and Carson County, Colorado. His modern home in Kanorado was built in 1907, and is furnished with every comfort. Mr. Heston has been a strong factor in republican politics in Northwestern Kansas for a number of years. He is a member of the Central Committee, representing State Line Township in Sherman County. In the congressional campaign of 1918 he did much to further the election of Hays B. White for Congress, to represent the Sixth Congressional District over the democratic incumbent J. R. Connelly. Mr. Heston is a member of Goodland Lodge of Masons and was one of the organizers and is a past grand of Kanorado Lodge of Odd Fellows.

On April 28, 1892, in Sherman County, he married Miss Minnie M. Shirley, daughter of J. A. and Angie R. Shirley, the former now deceased and the latter living at Brewster, Kansas. Mr. Shirley was one of the early day farmers in Sherman County. Mrs. Heston is widely known over this section of Northwestern Kansas. For twenty years she was a successful teacher in that region, and at the present time has not given up her public duties, being assistant cashier of the Kanorado State Bank. Mr. and Mrs. Heston have one son, Leroy Francis, born February 6, 1893, and during 1918 was in the Quartermaster's Department as a commissioned officer with the American Expeditionary Forces in France.

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