Claude Keller

CLAUDE KELLER is one of the progressive young business men of western Kansas and is now manager of the Lumber Company at Sawyer, having resumed his duties at the close of 1918 after his muster out from army service.

Mr. Keller was born in Stafford County, Kansas, November 21, 1889. His remote ancestors came from Germany and settled in North Carolina in colonial days. His father, John Keller, was born in Tennessee in 1856, and for a number of years lived in Greeneville in Eastern Tennessee, where he was in the drug business. In 1883 he brought his family to Kansas, and was one of the pioneers of Stafford County, where he homesteaded 160 acres. He lived on his farm and claim for fifteen years, and during that time developed a half section of land. He finally gave up his farm and went to Chicago, Illinois, where he was engaged in the drug business until his death in 1901. He was a republican and a member of the Masonic fraternity. John Keller married at Greeneville, Tennessee, Susan Dykes, who was born in that state in 1854 and is now living at Stafford, Kansas. They were the parents of six children. E. C. Keller, the oldest, is a resident of Portland, Oregon, and is photograph editor of the Portland Oregonian. Josie, unmarried, is a teacher in the Indian Government School at Ignacio, Colorado. I. B. Keller is a farmer at Cheyenne, Wyoming. Monta E. is unmarried and is a stenographer at Wichita, Kansas. Claude is the fifth in age, and Chester L. was with the American Expeditionary Forces in France.

Mr. Claude Keller acquired his early education in the rural schools of Stafford County, and graduated from the Stafford High School in 1906. He learned the lumber business thoroughly, beginning with nine months experience in the lumber mills around Beaumont, Texas. He then turned his attention to the selling and was manager of a retail yard at Mineola, Kansas, for five years, and in 1913 located at Sawyer as manager of the Houston Lumber Company. The only interruption to this business service was when he entered the army August 27, 1918. He was first in camp at Fort Riley and from there was sent to Camp Sherman in Ohio, where he was granted an honorable discharge December 14, 1918, after a little more than three months of training.

Mr. Keller is a democrat in politics. He is active in Masonry, being affiliated with Coats Lodge, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, Wichita Consistory No. 2 of the Scottish Rite, and Midian Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Wichita. He also belongs to Sawyer Lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and Mineola Camp of the Modern Woodmen of America. Mr. Keller built his modern home in Sawyer in 1915. He married at Dodge City, Kansas, in 1909 Miss Pearl Johnson, daughter of James W. and Martha (McCarty) Johnson. Her parents live in Mineola. Her father was an early settler and farmer at Cimarron in Gray County, Kansas.

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