Dennis Joseph Sheedy. One of the sons of the Nutmeg State who had achieved prominence at the Kansas bar is Dennis Joseph Sheedy. A practitioner at Fredonia since 1906, he had won a reputation in his profession through his conservative, self-assured, well-prepared, clean-cut and successful handling of the cases placed in his charge. He was born at Portland, Connecticut, October 14, 1874, and is a son of Thomas and Mary (Marooney) Sheedy.
Mr. Sheedy comes of good Irish stock, his grandfather having been Dennis Sheedy, a native of County Cork, who passed his entire life in his native Erin as a farmer and died there in 1858. Thomas Sheedy was born in County Cork, Ireland, in 1848, and was seventeen years of age when he emigrated to the United States and settled at Portland, Connecticut. There be was employed for several years as a quarryman and followed the same vocation subsequently in New York, New Jersey and Ohio. In 1884 he came to Kansas and engaged in farming in the vicinity of Fredonia, where the remainder of his life was passed in industrious and useful labor. In 1914 he retired from active pursuits, and his death occurred at Fredonia, July 19, 1915, when he was sixty-seven years of age. He was a democrat in politics, but not a seeker for office, and a faithful member of the Roman Catholic Church. Mr. Sheedy married Miss Mary Marooney, who was born in 1854, in County Waterford, Ireland, and was seventeen years old when she came to America and settled in New York City. Shortly thereafter she removed to Portland, Connecticut, and was married to Mr. Sheedy, whom she still survives, her home being at Fredonia. To Mr. and Mrs. Sheedy the following children were born: Dennis Joseph, of this review; Ella T., of Fredonia, proprietress of the Fredonia Business College, which, it is said, is the only institution of its kind conducted and managed by a woman in the United States; Mamie, who is the wife of T. O. Thompson, of Redell, Kansas, superintendent of the pumping station of the Prairie Oil and Gas Company; Dan, a stationary engineer in the employ of the Swift Packing Company, of St. Louis, Missouri; Kate, who is the wife of C. H. Mulliken, of Dewey, Oklahoma, a hardware merchant; Agnes, who is a teacher in the Fredonia Business College; Josephine, who is a musical instructor, and attending the Conservatory of Music of St. Louis, Missouri; Anna, who is the incumbent of a clerical position with the Mercantile National Bank of St. Louis, Missouri; and Thomas L., who is a stenographer in the employ of the Wells Fargo Express Company at St. Louis.
Dennis J. Sheedy attended the public school at Berlin Heights, Ohio, the rural schools of Wilson County, Kansas, and the public and high schools at Fredonia, and graduated from the State Normal School at Emporia, with the class of 1904. He then matriculated at Kansas University, from the law department of which institution he was graduated in 1906 with the degree of Bachelor of Laws. In that same year he entered upon the practice of his profession at Fredonia, where he had since continued, with an ever-increasing clientele in the practice of civil and criminal law. He maintains a suite of offices in the Otto Building, while his residence is at No. 415 North Fifteenth Street. He is known as a strong trial lawyer and an able advocate and his clientage had been drawn from the larger and more representative business houses.
Mr. Sheedy’s political affiliation is with the democratic party. While he had been active in civic affairs he had not been a seeker for political preferment, although he had served as city attorney of Fredonia on two occasions. Reared in the faith of the Roman Catholic Church he had always been faithful to its teachings, and is a member of Leo Council No. 727, Knights of Columbus, of Emporia, his only other fraternal connection being with Fredonia Camp No. 1264, Modern Woodmen of America. In a professional way he belongs to the Kansas State Bar Association, and as one of the men who are working for the civic interests of Fredonia holds membership in the Commercial Club. Mr. Sheedy had been a member of the National Guards for the past eighteen years, and for eight years of this time was captain of Company E, First Regiment, Kansas National Guards, but is now on the unassigned list. In 1898 he enlisted in Company H, Twenty-second Regiment, Kansas Volunteer Infantry, for service in the Spanish-American war, but his regiment got only as far as Camp Alger, Virginia, and Mr. Sheedy was mustered out of service November 3 of the same year.
On October 12, 1909, at Lawrence, Kansas, Mr. Sheedy was married to Miss Josephine Millar, daughter of Richard and Mary (Estes) Millar, both of whom are deceased. Mr. Millar, who was a lifelong farmer, was one of the earliest residents of Kansas, locating in 1854 at Lawrence, where he attended the first district school in Kansas, located two miles southwest of Lawrence, which city boasted of only one house at the time of his arrival. Mr. and Mrs. Sheedy are the parents of one child, Joseph, who was born June 23, 1914.