Charles S. Locknane.—He whose name initiates this sketch is one of the prominent young business men of Topeka, where he is identified with a number of business interests, but especially with the financial insurance business. He was born on a farm near Wetmore, Nemaha county, Kansas, Feb. 12, 1869, his parents being David M. and Clarissa E. (Owens) Locknane, both natives of Kentucky, where the former was born near Winchester, March 13, 1823, and the latter, Dec. 30, 1830. They were married June 24, 1847. The father, who was a farmer by occupation, brought his family from Missouri to Kansas in '855, and settled in Nemaha county on a farm he had entered from the government, thus becoming one of that county's pioneer settlers. Both parents are deceased, the father's death having occurred Aug. 27, 1879, and that of the mother, Nov. 30, 1904. Of their family of four sons and seven daughters, but two sons and three daughter are now living. They are: Charles S., tenth in order of birth; Winfield Scott, born Jan. 17, 1853, is a resident of Wetmore; Mrs. Ella Hough, born Dec. 5, 1857, is a resident of Granada, Nemaha county; Mrs. Mary O'Donnell, born Sept. 29, 1861, is a resident of Council Grove, Morris county; and Mrs. Clara B. Vilott, born July 21, 1866, resides in Houston, Tex.

Charles S. Locknane spent his boyhood on the old Locknane homestead in Nemaha county, but in 1881, his father having been accidentally killed in a runaway in 1879, his widowed mother sold the farm and removed to Wetmore, where for the following five years he attended school and meanwhile learned the printer's trade in the office of the "Wetmore Spectator," a paper which is still published. At the age of sixteen he quit school, after having attended Campbell University, at Holton, Kan., two terms, but later he attended a business college at Atchison three months, and for one year was employed as a clerk in Wetmore and in Cedar, Smith county. A year later, or in 1887, he went to Heppner, Ore., where for one year he was employed in the office of the "Heppner Gazette." During the first years of his early manhood he was employed in various ways and in various places. In 1888, when nineteen years old, he sold books in Kansas. In the fall of 1889 he went to California, and spent one year in the southern part of that state, at Santa Ana, employed at any honorable employment he could find, part of the time as a waiter in a hotel, and later as a cook in a silver mine near Santa Ana. Returning eastward, he was first a clerk in a store at Clyde, Kan.; Humboldt, Neb., for several months; then for one year he was employed in the office of the Chicago Title & Trust Company, at Chicago. In 1892 he was traveling solicitor in Kansas and Nebraska; and in 1893 he was appointed postmaster at Wetmore, Kan., by Grover Cleveland, and served four years. Meanwhile, in 1895, while still postmaster at Wetmore, the office being a small one, he turned its management over to his wife and became a deputy traveling solicitor and camp organizer of the Modern Woodmen of America, and has been with them since that time. He was made a state deputy of the society in 1899, and was placed in charge of the State of Kansas, which position he still holds. He maintained his state headquarters at Wetmore until 1906, when he removed to Topeka, his present office being located in the New England Building. Beside his connection with the Modern Woodmen, Mr. Locknane has given much attention to accident insurance, having had for the past twelve years a business connection with what is known as the "Fraternal 22 Club," a sick and accident organization that is today operating in thirty-six states of the Union and since 1905 Mr. Locknane has been its sole owner. Also, for seven years following 1904, he was state manager for Kansas for the Woodmen's Casualty Company, now the Inter-Ocean Life Casualty Company, of Springfield, Ill.

Mr. Locknane was married June 12, 1893, to Miss Coral H. Hutchison, of Wetmore, Kan., and they have one child, Marguerite, born Sept. 27, 1899. Mr. Locknane is very widely and prominently identified with fraternal organizations, being a Thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and a Noble of the Mystic Shrine; a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Knights of Pythias, the Ancient Order of United Workmen, the Knights and Ladies of Security, the Modern Woodmen of America, the Royal Neighbors, the Life and Annuity, of Hiawatha, Kan., and the United Commercial Travelers. He also belongs to the Topeka Commercial Club and to the Young Men's Christian Association.