P. R. Kinsey, a leading merchant of Rose Hill, Kans., was born in Ohio, October 25, 1862. He is a son of A. E. and Sarah (Rimes) Kinsey, the former a native of Ohio, and the latter of Pennsylvania. They were the parents of eight children, as follows: William, janitor of the Washington school, Wichita, Kans.; James L., died in Leadville, Colo., during Leadville gold excitement: Mrs. Branson, of Wichita, Kans.; P. R., the subject of this sketch; Charles E., Kansas City, Mo.: Mrs. Elizabeth Myers, Wichita, Kans.: Mrs. Sarah E. Landon, Derby Kans., and Albert, Topeka, Kans.

P. R. Kinsey came to Kansas with his parents in 1876; they located in Gypsum township, Sedgwick county, and bought 160 acres of school land. His parents spent their lives there. P. R. followed farming on his father's farm for a number of years, and in 1887, bought eighty acres, one mile north of Rose Hill. Since then he has bought eighty acres, which he sold a few years ago. Mrs. Kinsey inherited 160 acres of valuable land, making 240 acres in all. Mr. Kinsey has followed general farming and specialized rather in stock; he fed a carload of cattle every year, buying and raising calves, which he found to be very profitable. Mr. Kinsey left the farm in 1901, and came to Rose Hill, Kans., where he bought one-half interest in the Hall & Canfield store. The next fall, he bought Mr. Hall's interest, and has since been the sole owner and proprietor. He carries a stock of general merchandise which is kept up to the minute. He has a large patronage, which has been won by fair dealing and honest methods.

Mr. Kinsey was married November 28, 1886, to Mary J. King of Pleasant township. Her father, George King, was a pioneer of 1873. He was a native of Bedfordshire, near London, England, and died at Rose Hill, Kans., February 4, 1910, and is buried in Rose Hill cemetery. Her mother, Frances Jane Axtell, was also a native of Bedfordshire, England, and died at Rose Hill, February 5, 1907. Mr. King's hardest day's work, says his daughter, was when he walked eighteen miles to

Wichita, cut a cord of wood and walked back home. The King family suffered many hardships in the pioneer days. The father cut wood on the Walnut river and hauled it with a team of horses to Wichita, where he sold it for $1.50 per cord. As Mr. Kinsey says, "That was not making money fast, but it kept them from starving."

Mrs. Kinsey had the dangerous and unusual experience of being bitten by a rattlesnake when a young girl. She was on the home place in Pleasant township, helping her father load oats at the time. The snake was thrown on the wagon with the oats where the girl was, and the reptile struck her three times with its poisonous fangs. Her father drove rapidly home, and then rushed to a neighbor, Mr. Sampson, one and one-half miles away for whiskey which he kept in the house. She lay for a week without being moved, and it was a miracle that her life was saved. She taught school for six years in Butler and Sedgwick counties, prior to her marriage. Her parents came direct from England and suffered many hardships before they got a foothold in the new country.

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