Dean S. Landon

DEAN S. LANDON. If there is any office in county government requiring unusual balance of judgment, common sense, appreciation of motives and strict integrity it is that of probate judge. The people of Russell County feel that they have as the incumbent of that office a man thoroughly qualified for all its duties and responsibilities. Judge Dean S. Landon is a native of Russell County, has lived here most of his life, and took up his present duties after a successful record as a farmer and business man.

Judge Landon was born June 17, 1881, on a farm eight miles south of Russell on Landon Creek. His paternal ancestors came from England to the United States in colonial times. The Landons were members of the Wisconsin colony in Russell County, locating here in 1871, when the county was first organized and established. Judge Landon's grandfather, Luther Landon, a native of New York, arrived in Kansas in 1871 and located eight miles south of Russell on a creek named for him. Later he went back to New York State and died there. Luther Landon had moved out to Waupun, Wisconsin, as early as 1846, when Wisconsin was still a territory. He served three years in the Civil war.

R. B. Landon, father of Judge Landon, was born in New York in 1844, but grew up at Waupun, Wisconsin. He enlisted in the Nineteenth Wisconsin Heavy Artillery during the last year of the Civil war. He homesteaded in Russell County 160 acres in the Landon Creek Valley, made of it a good wheat and stock farm and lived there until his death in 1916. He was an independent voter and a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. R. B. Landon married in Wisconsin, Loretta E. Sizer, of Adrian, Michigan. She was born at Blanford, Massachusetts, in 1846, and died on the old farm in Russell County in 1906. She was the mother of five children: Grace, wife of D. B. Close, a farmer at Gladewater, Texas; Elosia, wife of Henry M. Bosserman, a traveling salesman living at Salina, Kansas; Dean S.; Luther, on the old home farm; and Mabel a student in the Fort Hays Normal School.

Judge Landon spent the first twenty-four years of his life on his father's farm. In the meantime he attended the rural schools and on leaving home went to farming for himself. This farm, which he still owns, comprises 320 acres ten miles south of Russell. He was successfully engaged in its management until 1912, when on account of the poor health of his wife he moved to Denver, Colorado, and while there, attended a business college. In 1913 Judge Landon returned to Russell County. He was elected probate judge in the fall of 1914 and was re-elected in 1916 and 1918, having no opponent for the office in the last election.

Judge Landon is a republican, a member of the United Brethren Church, is noble grand of Russell Lodge of Odd Fellows and a member of the Rebekahs. In 1905, at Russell, he married Anna E. Kindsvater, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Kindsvater, both now deceased. Mrs. Landon died at Russell in 1915. In January, 1917, at Russell, Judge Landon married Mamie L. Maag, daughter of William and Sophia Maag, who reside in Russell, her father being a retired plasterer. Judge and Mrs. Landon have one daughter, Isabelle Louise, born in September, 1918.

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