John T. Harrell

JOHN T. HARRELL has been a factor in the citizenship of Russell County for a number of years, was first known to the people of this section as a teacher, but has succeded[sic] in building up a fine store as a hardware merchant at Paradise.

Mr. Harrell was born in Hawkins County, Tennessee, August 11, 1874. His grandfather was an early settler in Hawkins County and he spent his life there as a farmer. Milton Harrell, father of John T. Harrell, was born in Virginia in 1831 and is still living, at the age of eighty-seven, in Hawkins County, Tennessee. When he was a young man his parents moved to Hawkins County and he has spent his entire active life as a farmer. In 1862 he enlisted for the war and served three years on the Union side with an Illinois regiment of infantry. He married in Hawkins County Miss Nancy Sandidge. She was born in Virginia in 1845. They had a large family of children, noted briefly as follows: Samuel C., a retired wholesale furniture merchant at Morristown, Tennessee; R. H., a farmer at Paradise, Kansas; Rosa, wife of James Whetzel, a farmer in Hawkins County, Tennessee; J. W., a merchant at Surgoinsville, Tennessee; J. T., the fifth in age; Delpha, wife of Abe Fleenor, a machinist living at Graham, Virginia; J. M., whose home is in California; G. B., clerk in a general store at Moreland, Kansas; Geneva, wife of Charles Hawthorne, a farmer in Hawkins County; G. E., a contractor living at Graham, Virginia; G. G., a farmer at Bernice, Idaho; H. C., who lives on the old home farm in Hawkins County; Claude, also on the homestead in Hawkins County; and C. W., who during the fall of 1918 was on the firing line in France with the United States army.

John T. Harrell first attended the rural schools of Hawkins County and in 1897 graduated from the Churchill Academy. After one year as a teacher in his native county he came to Kansas and in 1898 was put in charge of the school at Paradise, remained there two years and for another two years was connected with the rural schools of Russell County. Then followed an experience as a farmer for one year, and in 1904 he bought the only hardware and implement store at Paradise and has kept that business rapidly growing and developing until he now supplies most of the trade in a radius of fifteen miles around the town.

Mr. Harrell besides his ownership of the store building and other real estate has a modern home which was built in 1915. He is a republican in politics and is a past grand of Paradise Lodge of Odd Fellows, In September, 1905, at Salina, Kansas, Mr. Harrell married Miss Katie M. Murphy, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Adian Murphy. Her mother is now deceased. Her father, living retired near Lucas in Russell County, was first a farmer in Lincoln County, but for the past twenty-five years has been identified with Russell County. Mr. and Mrs. Harrell have two children: Cathryn, born March 24, 1916; and J. T., Jr., born September 16, 1918.

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