Charles Ward Reeder

CHARLES WARD REEDER located in Ellis County forty years ago and immediately took up the study of law. He was admitted to the bar and began practice in 1881, and since then has continuously impressed his ability and influence upon the profession and the public life of that community.

Mr. Reeder, a brother of Judge James H. Reeder, long prominent in Kansas professional life, was born at Rockville, Indiana, September 10, 1857, son of David and Margery (Harlan) Reeder. David Reeder was born in Ohio in 1798. He was a farmer, and about the middle period of his life moved to Rookville, Indiana, where he lived until his death in 1860. He was a republican and a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Margery Harlan, who was his second wife, was a sister of Senator James Harlan of Iowa. She was born in Eastern Illinois in 1818 and died at Montezuma, Indiana, in 1898. Her children were: Silas H., a farmer at Rockville, Indiana; James H., formerly a lawyer at Hays and a judge of the district court, died at Kansas City, Missouri, March 6, 1918; George, who died at Catlin, Indiana, in 1866, aged sixteen; Joseph C., a physician and surgeon at Montezuma, Indiana; Charles W.; and Margery Ann, who is unmarried and is living with her brother in Hays.

Charles Ward Reeder as a boy attended the public schools of Catlin, Indiana, and then took up teaching, spending one year in the schools of Jessup, Indiana, and another at Catlin, Indiana. The date of his arrival at Hays was July 22, 1878. He was then twenty-one years of age. He diligently prosecuted the study of law and acquainted himself with the people and affairs of this western country, and in 1881 was admitted to the bar and at once began the general practice which has absorbed his time and chief energies since. Upon his admission to the bar he became associated with his brother James H. Reeder, and the firm of Reeder & Reeder continued until his brother was elected judge of the district court in 1902. Since then Mr. Reeder has practiced alone. He owns the Reeder Building at Chestnut and Second streets, where his offices are. He has acquired a large amount of property in this section of Kansas, including his home, five dwelling houses in Hays, sixty lots in Reeder's Addition adjoining the Normal School grounds, and farms totaling 1,120 acres in Ellis County. Nearly all his land is devoted to wheat growing.

Mr. Reeder is chairman of the Legal Advisory Board of Ellis County and is a member of the State Bar Association. He served an unexpired term as clerk of the district court and is a member of the city council. He is a republican, a member of the Lutheran Church, and is affiliated with the Hays Lodge of Masons, Hays Chapter, Royal Arch Masons, and Aleppo Commandery, Knights Templar.

September 20, 1887, in Fairfield, Iowa, Mr. Reeder married Miss Elizabeth West, daughter of Otho and Elizabeth (Keys) West, both now deceased. Her father was an Iowa farmer. Mr. and Mrs. Reeder have a son and a daughter, whose achievements furnish a great deal of satisfaction to the parents. The daughter, Nellie May, graduated from the Hays High School, the Bradford Academy of Massachusetts, and received her A. B. degree from Wellesley College. In 1917 she earned the Master of Arts degree from the same institution. For two years Miss Reeder was employed in social settlement work in New York City as assistant at Greenwich House to Mrs. Simovitch. She is now in the government service in the District Ordnance Office, Production Division, Industrial Science Section, at 24th & Broadway, New York.

Charles West Reeder, the son, graduated from the Hays High School and had had two years of study in the University of Illinois when he enlisted in the army. At the close of 1918 he was sergeant of Company 34, One Hundred and Sixty-Fourth Depot Brigade at Camp Funston, and was selected as a student of and entered the officers' training school at Camp Pike, Little Rock, Arkansas, where he was honorably discharged November 29, 1918, on account of the armistice.

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