 J. B. WADE AND FAMILY. |
the agency here for the Sherman Nursery Company of Charles City, which has a territory covering northwestern Nebraska. He is a progressive and up-to-date business man and is making a gratifying success of this line which is financially most profitable. Mr. Wade is a member of the Masonic order. In April, 1872, Mr. Wade married Miss Charity Lynch in Boone county, Iowa, a native of Delphi, Indiana, the daughter of Parker and Maria (Hughes) Lynch, both Hoosiers. Six children have been born to this union: Carrie, deceased; Jennie the wife of Edward Callahan a farmer near Woodward, Iowa; Arthur A., a coal miner; Ralph P., a merchant at LaJunta, Colorado; was head of the guard squad at Fort Logan, serving in the army eighteen months during the World War; Roy L. a coal miner of Boone, Iowa, and also a talented musician; Mabel, the wife of Andrew Erickson, a station agent at Moingona, Iowa; and John S., on the ranch with his father, enlisted in the army in 1917, being located at Fort Logan before he was transferred to the Heavy Artillery and sent to France where he served three months. After the war was over he returned home and went to farming. ROBERT O. REDDISH, one of the younger members of the Box Butte county bar who is making an enviable reputation for himself in his profession and also in business circles of Alliance and the Panhandle, is a native son not only of Nebraska, but of this county, born April 26, 1889, the son of Frank E. and Mary E. (Fisher) Reddish, the former a Hoosier while the mother is a native of Nebraska, born in Nemaha county. Robert was the oldest of the three children born to his parents. Frank Reddish is a pioneer of the Panhandle as he came here in 1887, locating on a homestead fourteen miles west of the present city of Alliance on land that today is known by the name of Barrell Spring. The boy grew up on his father's farm but was sent into Alliance to school. After graduating from the high school in the spring of 1907, in the fall he matriculated at the State University. While in college, Mr. Reddish took a preliminary letters and science course and then entered the law school, from which he graduated in 1911. Having spent his boyhood in the country the young attorney realized the value of land of his own and soon after being admitted to practice started out to secure a farm. He took a Kinkaid homestead adjoining the town site of Angora, in Morrill county and to prove up on it had to actually live there seven months of the year for three years. This he did, the other five months of each year he devoted to his real estate, loans and insurance business in Alliance, in addition to engaging in the practice of his profession. On October 21, 1914, Mr. Reddish was married at Hastings, Nebraska, to Miss Ruth Tibbits who was born in Angelica, New York, the daugther (sic) of Lemuel and Aurelia (Burr) Tibbits, the former a native of New York, as was the mother. Mrs. Reddish is a graduate of the Nebraska State University and after receiving her degree she taught for one year, filling the office of principal of schools at Pauline, Nebraska. Mr. Tibbits has taken an active part in public life in Nebraska and at the present time is clerk of the district court at Hastings. Mr. and Mrs. Reddish have two children: Mary Ruth, aged four and Robert O., Jr., just past two. In 1914, Mr. Reddish and Eugene Burton entered into a partnership for the practice of law, opening an office over the First National Bank. Both are full of energy and push in business that is the marked characteristic of the successful Nebraskan of the present day. They have excellent executive ability, are students of human nature as well as the law and are handling many interesting as well as complicated cases which shows the high esteem in which they are held by the citizens. Mr. Reddish has made money on his farm and in his real estate business; he owns his fine modern home in Alliance and from the present outlook he and his partner have a bright future before them. Mr. Reddish is a Republican while his fraternal affiliations are with the Masonic order and he is a Thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason, Night Templar and Shriner and is a member of the Elks. JAMES M. KENNEDY, D.D.S., is one of the younger members of the medical fraternity of Box Butte county and Alliance where he has become well known to the people of the community as a skilled member of his profession since 1907, when he located in the Panhandle. He was born at Caledonia, Ontario, Canada, November 2, 1881, the son of Donald and Ellen (Madigan) Kennedy, the former born and reared at Glengary, Canada. James was the fifth in a family of seven children and spent his boyhood days in the locality where he was born. He started his education in the public school near his home, then entered the Caledonia high school, graduating in 1897. Though young in years he had already determined upon a professional career, passed the |
entrance examination to Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois and matriculated in the dental college where he spent four years in the special studies leading up to the degree of D.D.S., which was granted him by the university in June, 1901. For six years he was engaged in dental practice in Chicago, but desiring less confinement than he could secure in a large city and believing that there were good openings in the west Dr. Kennedy came to Nebraska in 1907, and after looking various locations over chose Alliance, where he has in less than a decade built up a practice that many an older dentist may well envy. He has a charming personality which counts so much in purely office practice. As in medicine and surgery, the science of dentistry is constantly developing new phases of usefulness, and in order to secure success today the dentist must keep fully abreast of the latest achievements of his profession. This Dr. Kennedy has done to a marked degree, and it is one of the reason he has attained such a large patronage in the thirteen years of his business life in the west and why he has retained uniform confidence in the minds of his patients and the citizens of the city. Dr. Kennedy has been an advocate of organization among the dental practitioners of the state and done general construction work in the association. He is a Democrat. In medical matters he has shown the greatest interest as he is a member of the National Dental Association, the Nebraska State Dental Association, while his fraternal affiliations are with the Elks and the Knights of Columbus. July 3, 1907, Dr. Kennedy married in Chicago, Miss Adelaide M. Forde, a native of that city, the daughter of James and Jane (Bodkin) Forde, both of whom were born and spent their childhood in Ireland and they have transmitted to their daughter that undefinable charm which is the happy heritage of the Irish woman, of the native land, or her descendents in America. Mrs. Kennedy is a graduate of the Sacred Heart Academy of Chicago and for several years after leaving college was engaged in teaching until about the time of her marriage. There are six children in the Kennedy family: Donald, Mary, Jean, James, Elen and Virginia. Dr. Kennedy has taken an active and interested part in the civic and communal life of Alliance since first settling here. He owns his modern home, where he and his wife dispense a charming hospitality to their many friends. He is a "booster" for the county and town and aids in every movement for the betterment of Box Butte county and his adopted city, whether it be good schools, good roads or social service. FRANK E. REDDISH. -- Closely identified with many important interests of Box Butte county, Frank E. Reddish, who has conducted a real estate business at Alliance for more than a quarter of a century, may be numbered with the early settlers and awarded pioneer honors for he came in 1887, settling on a claim about fourteen miles west of the present site of the city, when settlers were few, as the country was practically an unbroken wilderness. Since that time he has born his full share of responsibility in developing the natural resources of the county, has been truly public spirited, and has done much for movements favoring progress in every way. Mr. Reddish was born on the banks of the Tippecanoe river, in White county, Indiana, July 13, 1860, the son of Noah and Almira (Bartholomew) Reddish, the former born at Baltimore, Maryland, while the mother is a Buck-eye, born at Ashtabula, Ohio. Frank was the second boy in a family of five children and as his father was a farmer he grew up in the country, learning early to assume many of the duties about the home place and at an early age became a practical farmer. Noah Reddish was one of the gallant sons of the Union who responded to the call for volunteers at the outbreak of the Civil War and enlisted in Company I, Ninth Ohio, Volunteer Infantry. He participated in some of the hardest fought battles of the war, but was never severely wounded and when peace was established returned to the ways of peace and his farm. The school which the Reddish children attended was a log structure put up in the early days of Ohio, about a mile from home and they walked back and forth each day during the term. After finishing the grades in the country Frank Reddish attended the Monticello high school and after graduating began to teach, a vocation he followed six years but he felt that the life of a pedagogue was not what he desired and as there were many opportunities for young, ambitious men in the west decided to migrate there. In the spring of 1886, he came to Nebraska, located at Hartwell where he taught school one term while he was looking the country over to find land in just the location he had in mind. He had been reared on a farm, was thoroughly acquainted with every branch of farm industry and coming to Box Butte county in 1887, se- |
lected a homestead fourteen miles west of the present city of Alliance, on the stream called Snake creek. On April 26, 1886, Mr. Reddish married Miss Mary E. Fisher in Nemaha county, a native of that county and the daughter of Owen and Mary (Tufts) Fisher, the former born in New York, who came west and was a pioneer settler of Nemaha. Three children have been born to this union: Robert 0., an account of whose life will be found on another page of this history, is a lawyer of Alliance who married Mary R. Tibbits, and they have two children; Howard E., attended the Alliance high school, the Lincoln academy and then entered the state University, but at the close of the first semester returned to Alliance and entered the real estate business handling loans and insurance as well, being associated with his father with offices in the Reddish Block on Box Butte Avenue, married Miss Gail Ericson at Lead, South Dakota in 1916. She was born at Atchinson, Kansas, graduated from the Lead high school and then entered the school of music at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. Her husband is a member of the Elks and also a Scottish Rite Mason, and they have one child. The third child is Edith, who married Lyle Anderson, also in the real estate and loan business. They have one child. Mr. Anderson graduated from the Alliance high school and then attended Milwakee-Downer (sic) College, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for one year. She is a member of the Eastern Star. After locating on his claim Mr. Reddish proceeded to build the regulation "soddy" for a home, but it was warm and comfortable, and with his wife settled down there and began the improvements on their farm. There were no railroads here then and Mr. Reddish had to freight in his supplies in true pioneer style from Hay Springs, sixty-five miles away. Their neighbors were few and far apart as they were almost the first settlers of the section. James Leith, settled a half-mile southwest of the Reddish homestead and James L. Underwood lived a mile and a half to the east. Lewis M. Kennedy was next on a claim seven miles away, which shows how isolated the first settlers were, especially when one considers that there were no towns, no stores and no doctors in the entire district. For seven years Mr. Reddish remained on his homestead, made good and practical improvements and in 1894, moved into the town of Alliance, opened a real estate office where he practiced as a land attorney, helping many men locate on homesteads and was one of the early surveyors of the section as men of this profession were hard to get and correct boundaries of claims were most important. Mr. Reddish bought and sold land, was agent for insurance companies and practiced before the United State Land Office for twenty years. He had great faith in the future of the Panhandle which caused him to locate here and that faith was never allowed to falter throughout the years of drought, grasshoppers and winter blizzards; he held on when other settlers became discouraged and returned to their home in the east, many never to return. He bought more, and more land until he accumulated a landed estate of three thousand, seven hundred and sixty acres of the finest farming land in Box Butte county, an achievement of which any man may well be proud, as this fortune has been accumulated by his own unaided efforts. For many years Mr. Reddish has been a heavy and successful speculator in western lands. He bought the large brick building known as the Reddish block on Box Butte Avenue in 1907, which is a modem office building. In addition he owns a modern home and numerous other investments here and other places in the middle west. At the present time he is so well fixed financially that he can afford to spend the remainder of his life with no thought or care for financial affairs. He can look back and see that his life has been constructive, of benefit to his community and the many settlers who have come here since he and the other few pioneers blazed. the pathway for the present progress, development and civilization of this favored section. Part of his time is spent in Alliance and part at his home at Long Beach, Califorina (sic). Mr. Reddish is a sound Republican in his political faith, but of the most progressive type, while his fraternal association is with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. Mary E. Reddish is a descendent of Revolutionary ancestors on her mother's side of the family and a descendent of the well known Israel Putnam family. Frank E. Reddish also, is a descendent of Revolutionary stock on his mother's side of the family. Mrs. Howard Reddish is a descendent of Revolutionary ancestors on her mother's side of the family and belongs to the Daughters of the American Revolution. W. J. MAHAFFY, one of the gallant sons of our country who enlisted in the army to serve during the Spanish-American war and a man widely traveled over various portions of the globe, is a recent member of the dental |
fraternity of Box Butte county to become established in Alliance but within a short time he has been a citizen of the Panhandle, the doctor has won the confidence of the public and is enjoying a practice that many an older man might well envy. Dr. Mahaffy was born in Red Oak, Iowa. He attended the grade schools in his native town and then graduated from the high school, following which he matriculated in a college at Tarkio, Missouri, but his college course was cut short when he enlisted in the First Illinois Cavalry, in 1898, at the commencement of hostilities with Spain. The same year he received his honorable discharge from that organization and in the spring of 1899, enlisted in the Sixteenth Regiment United States regulars and was sent to the Philippines during the "Philippine Insurrection." Within six days of arriving in the islands he was promoted to corporal-sergeant and later made sergeant, then first sergeant, all before he had attained his majority, a, rather good record for a middle western boy just out of his first year in college; but it is such men who have made the records for the army of the United States and enabled the volunteers to win the chevrons and citations for the regiments of which they are members. After being discharged from the army Dr. Mahaffy visited China, Japan, Iberia, Corea (sic), Australia, Judea, Persia, Egypt, Spain and England. He made two trips around the Horn, and visited practically every South American country. After this remarkable period of travel and adventure the young man returned to the United States and having had wide and varied experience had decided upon a professional career and entered the dental college of Northwesten University, in Chicago, in October, 1909. Three years later he received his degree from the college and entered into practice in Chicago, where he was continuously engaged in office work of his profession until he decided to come west. In August, 1914, Dr. Mahaffy came to Alliance, opened an office and became one of the well recognized members of the dental profession. He rapidly gained a gratifying practice for so young a man. As in medicine and surgery, the science of dentistry is constantly developing new phases and in order to secure success the dentist of today must keep fully abreast of the latest discoveries and achievements of his profession. Dr. Mahaffy has done this for in 1916, he took a post graduate course in one of the finest dental schools in the west at Kansas City, Missouri. His office in Alliance is located over the Alliance National Bank. That the doctor has "made good" and gained the confidence of the citizens needs not be told when we learn that he has earned two fine farms and owns a modern home in Alliance, and still has a continually increasing practice among the best class of the residents. Since first locating in the Panhandle the doctor has taken an active part in civic and communal life for he is modern in his professional methods and advocates all modern improvements for the county and his home city. He is a director of the Alliance Commercial Club, is a member of the Masonic order, the Knights of Pythias, the Modern Woodmen, the Macabees and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. E. B. O'KEEFE, D.D.S., a native son of Nebraska, Box Butte county and Alliance is one of the younger generation of the dental fraternity to locate in this city where he has been known since childhood and already has built up a very substantial and satisfactory clientele for so young a professional man. Dr. O'Keefe was born in Alliance, the son of John O'Keefe. The doctor was reared here, attended the public schools and after graduating from the high school in June, 1916, matriculated in the dental college of Creighton University, at Omaha, as he had decided upon a professional career. He spent three years of study in the dental department of the university, receiving his degree in 1919 and came back to his home town to practice dentistry. He is a young man of pleasing personality, which is so important in an office practice and is well acquainted with the latest discoveries in dental surgery which have come about by the special dental work done since the World War opened a new field for the dentist, he is progressive in his ideas and methods. Already he has inspired the residents of the city with the fact that he is one of the young energetic and painstaking men of his profession, able to cope with the many oral diseases as well as teeth. While in college Dr. O'Keefe was a member of the Xi Psi Phi National Dental fraternity and is one of its loyal alumni. He is also a member of the Nebraska State Dental Society and fraternally belongs to the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and Knights of Columbus. Everyone predicts a bright future for this young professional man, whose parents are among the well known and prominent members of the pioneer colony of Box Butte county. |
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