Bruce W. St. John

BRUCE W. ST. JOHN, president of the Morland State Bank, is an old settler of Western Kansas and his active career has been almost entirely devoted to business affairs. He was born in Burlington, Iowa, September 29, 1874. His father, Lee St. John, was born in Ohio in 1850, grew up in that state, went to Iowa as a young man, and followed railroading there. In the fall of 1886 Lee St. John brought his family to Kansas, stopped at Norton for three months, and then entered a homestead of 160 acres in Graham County, where he died in 1887. He was a democrat and member of the Baptist Church.

Lee St. John married Elizabeth Seavers. She was born in Iowa in 1853 and is still living at Morland. Bruce W. is the oldest of his parents' children; Della married Ray Siler, a farmer in Alberta, Canada; Bertie married Arthur Collins, a merchant at Morland, Kansas; Patty is the wife of Mr. Siebert, who is connected with the Carnegie Steel Works at Youngstown, Ohio; Winnie is the wife of a business man in Kansas City, Missouri; Mamie married Ted Murdock, a civil engineer living in California. Mrs. Lee St. John married for her second husband Isaac Gray, and by that union had two children: Lena, who is married and lives at Manitou, Colorado; and Pearl, of Kansas City, Missouri.

Bruce W. St. John was educated in the rural schools of Graham County and had a good deal of training in the work of the farm and ranch. At the age of twenty-five he entered the lumber business at Morland, and his yard and offices are along side the Union Pacific tracks. It is the only lumber yard in town, and he has made the business a source of reliable service to a large community. In 1911 he became president of the Morland State Bank, and his other evidences of business success found in his farm of 800 acres adjoining the townsite on the southwest and where his blooded livestock is kept.

Mr. St. John has served as treasurer of Solomon Township, and is a member of the school board at Morland. He is an independent democrat and a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. His only fraternity is Morland Lodge of the Ancient Order of United Workmen. In 1900, in Graham County, Mr. St. John married Miss Bessie Baird, daughter of James and Bessie Baird, residents of Graham County, where they were early settlers. Mr. and Mrs St. John have four children: Bruce, born June 12, 1901, now a sophomore in the Morland High School; Lee, born March 8, 1903, a student in the public schools; Ross, born February 13, 1906, also in school; and Dale, born January 27, 1917.

Pages 2288-2289.