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children. Lela, the eldest, is eight years old and Teddy is two year old. 
Elias Foland was born in Madison county, Indiana, October 11, 1845. He lived on a farm and went to the district 3chools until seventeen years of age, when he enlisted in the 101st Indiana infantry, August 1862, serving to the close of the war.
He was in the battles of Stoneyhill, Kingston, Hoover's Gap and Chicamauga; and was besieged at Chattanooga one whole winter when the rebel, General Bragg, tried to starve them into a surrender.
Mr. Foland went through the war without a scratch, after being discharged and attending the grand review at Washington he returned to the farm.
On March 6, 1869, he was married to Elizabeth J. Schuyler of Hamilton county, Indiana.
In the fall of 1878 he moved to Norton county with his family, consisting of wife and two children, Mary C., born January 15, 1870; George R., born January 30, 1872 - one child died in Indiana.
He settled on the homestead he now occupies, putting a soldier's filing on it in August, 1878.
Mr. Foland has always been a republican, a popular man, having been elected three times trustee of Aldine township.
In 1888 he was elected commissioner of the first district, serving three years during which term the court house was built.
He received the nomination for probate judge in 1892, but was defeated by Judge Gray by only three majority.
Mr. Foland has been a successful farmer and says that, in his experience, he has received more rewards for labor on the Norton county farm than he ever enjoyed elsewhere. James Spencer was born in Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, February 4, 1816. He was raised on a farm. He moved to Fredricksburg, Ohio, when a young man; was married there to Mary A. Hutchison. She was born in Holmes county, Ohio, in 1826. Six children were born to them, three of them died before coming to Kansas. Their eldest living child married George L. Atkinson at Paxton, Illinois. Anna, their second daughter was born in Ohio in 1855, she died in Norton in 1879; Nelson J. Spencer, their only son, was born at Fredricksburg, Ohio, March 12, 1863. He came to Kansas with his parents in 1873 and settled in Clay county. They moved to Norton September 19, 1878. Mr. Spencer went on a farm after coming here, but he and Nelson went into the mercantile business in Norton in 1883, under the firm name of Spencer & Son. They continued in business until 1889, Mr. Spencer then retiring from business on account of his increasing age. Since that time he and his wife have lived in retirement. Nelson Spencer married Meda Kelsey, January 1, 1885; she was born at Kalamazoo, Michigan, March 19, 1867, she came here with her father, Edwin Kelsey, in 1879. Three children have |
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