Evening Free Press, Monday, June 16, 1914, Pg. 1

Vol. XXIV, No. 12

PIONEER DIED SATURDAY

______

W. E. Jimison Who Has Been Identi-

fied With the Town for 29 Years

Passed Away.

______

William E. Jimison, who has lived in Winfield for the past twenty nine years, died at his home on Church street, Saturday evening. The funeral services were held this afternoon at the Baptist church, he loved so well, at 3 o’clock, conducted by Rev. C. F. Mathews. W. C. Robinson spoke a few words of appreciation, and Mrs. A. H. Abrams, who was in his Sunday school class, spoke of his work as a Sunday school teacher. At the grave the services were conducted by the members of the G. A. R.

Wm. E. Jimison was born in Adams county, Ill., March 17th, 1840. His pioneer education was in a log school house which had only slab benches for seats. Here he received about two months schooling a year from the time he was eight years old until “graduating” from the first frame school house in the district at the age of eighteen. His early life was spent on a farm. On January 1st, 1862, he was married to Miss Lucy J. Corkins. He took two boys to raise, one when seven years, and the other when two days old, and gave them the care and influence of a good Christian home, as though they were his own sons. They are Robert Y. Howard, who now lives in Savannah, Ga., and E. R. Birdsill, of Winfield, Kansas. Mr. Jimison enlisted in Co. G, 58th Ill. Infantry in 1865, for one year, but was discharged after ten months service, at the close of the war.

In 1882 he left the farm and moved to Clayton, Ill., where he lived for two years, during which time he became superintendent of the Baptist Sunday school in which there was a boy of twelve or thirteen years of age, who grew up to be a Baptist Minister, and who was in later years, for five and a half years his pastor in the Winfield church. This was Rev. W. O. Shank.

In March 1884, the family moved from Illinois to Winfield, Kansas, where he has since lived, with the exception of ten years, when he was engaged in the mercantile business at Seely, Kansas.

Mr. Jimison united with the First Baptist church of Winfield, by letter in April 1884, and has always been a faithful and active church worker, until prevented by ill health.

He was ordained a deacon in 1870 and soon after uniting with the Winfield church, was elected to fill a vacancy in the board of deacons, which office he held until his death.