Gervas Bellamy

GERVAS BELLAMY owns and occupies what was formerly known as the Buchan place, a picturesque country home and fine dairy farm near Bethel, in Wyandotte county, Kansas. Mr. Bellamy is an Englishman by birth and education and an American by adoption, he having been a resident of this country for the past nineteen years and during this time having identified himself with the interests of the community in which he lives, in such a way that it entitles him to a personal mention in this biographical review of representative citizens.

Mr. Bellamy was born in Yorkshire, England, August 12, 1871, son of Algernon and Elizabeth (Moore) Bellamy, both natives of England, where the father, a clergyman in the Church of England, still lives; the mother died there some twenty-two years ago. In the Bellamy family were nine children, whose names in order of birth are as follows: Arthur, Constance, Gervas, Winifred, Dollie, Harold, Ralph, Dora and Reginald, all now living except the eldest, and all in England except Constance, a missionary in Palestine, and Gervas Harold, engaged in farming in Wyandotte county, Kansas, and Ralph proprietor of a hotel in Kansas City, Kansas.

In 1891, the subject of this sketch, then a young man just emerged from his "teens," left the old home in England and came to America, Kirksville, Missouri, being his objective point. After three months spent at Kirksville, he came over into Kansas. The next three years he lived in Leavenworth, and from there he came to his present location near Bethel in Wyandotte county, where he is extensively carrying on farming operations and conducting a large dairy. His farm, 310 acres in extent, is beautifully situated and is especially adapted for the purpose to which it is put.

On December 19, 1894, Mr. Bellamy married Miss Minnie Reeves, of Wyandotte county. She was born in that county May 9, 1874, and is a daughter of Ira and Amanda (Prater) Reeves, both now deceased. The parents were both Virginians and members of the Methodist Episcoal church, and the father was a Republican. Mrs. Bellamy was educated in the common schools. They have one child, Elsie, born May 9, 1896, who will enter the junior year of the high school in Kansas City, Kansas, in 1911.

Mr. Bellamy has membership in the fraternal order of the Modern Woodmen of America, Camp No. 6942 at Bethel, Kansas. Religiously, he maintains identity with the church in which he was reared, the Church of England. On coming to this county, he allied himself with the Republican party and has since adhered to the principles advocated by it. In local matters, however, he votes for the best man irrespective of party lines. As an up-to-date, progressive farmer and as a citizen of sterling worth, he is held in high esteem. The pretty homestead of Mr. and Mrs. Bellamy is known as "The Stellida Stock Farm" and is ten miles west of Kansas City, Kansas, and one and one-fourth miles from Bethel, Kansas.