DeWitt C. Wood

DEWITT C. WOOD. - The present able and popular incumbent of the position of foreman of the Bonner Springs Cement Company is DeWitt Clinton Wood, who has been a loyal and public spirited resident of Bonner Springs, Kansas, since 1910. Mr. Wood is a native son of Wyandotte county, Kansas, where his birth occurred on the 19th of August, 1870, and he is scion of a fine old pioneer family in this state. His parents, George B. and Anna (Bonham) Wood, were natives respectively of Syracuse, New York, and Clark county, Virginia, their marriage having been solemnized in Clark county, Virginia, in the year 1856. Mr. and Mrs. George B. Wood came to Kansas in 1857, locating on the bottoms in Kansas City. The father was a physician during the greater part of his active career and he was called to the life eternal in the year 1887, his cherished and devoted wife surviving him until 1910. They were the parents of five children: Mrs. Minnie I. Groff, born in 1858; Mrs. Elnour W. Hochstetler (deceased) born in 1861; H. H. Wood and D. C. Wood, twins, born in 1870; and W. L. Wood, born in 1863.

DeWitt Clinton Wood was reared to maturity in Wyandotte county, attending the public schools and graduating in the high school of Kansas City. Subsequently he attended Winter Park College, in Florida, for a period of two years, at the expiration of which he became interested in the insurance business, entering the employ of the Travelers' Insurance Company in 1887. He continued to be interested in the insurance business until 1894, at which time he accepted a position on the board of trade of Kansas. From 1895 to 1898 he was government hog inspector and later was with the Armour Packing Company. Subsequently he served as a volunteer in Bryan's regiment, in the Spanish-American war, and for four years he was a member of the police department, serving in that capacity for two years in Kansas City, Kansas. In 1910 he became interested in the cement business and entered the employ of the Bonner Springs Cement Company, having served for twelve months as caretaker of the plant at Bonner Springs. He gives special attention to the cement shipments, which amount to about one thousand barrels per day. The great trust imposed in him by his employers is the best indication of his adaptability for this particular line of enterprise and to say that the business has prospered under his capable management is to state the case but mildly. Mr. Wood is a man of unusual executive ability and tremenduous[sic] vitality and all his business dealings have been characterized by fair and honorable methods.

In Kansas City, Kansas, on the 2nd of July, 1903, was recorded the marriage of Mr. Wood to Mrs. Jennie May Setterberg, who was born in Ohio, and who is a daughter of George W. Fritts, of Wyandotte county. Mr. and Mrs. Wood have no children. In politics he is a stalwart supporter of the cause of the Democratic party but he has no ambition for public office of any description.