John A. Clements is assistant manager of the Hutchinson, Kansas, plant of the Morton Salt Company. This is the largest salt manufacturing plant in Kansas and the Middle West. It had a daily capacity of 4,000 barrels of pure salt, and it is one of the industries that have given a just fame to Kansas as a salt producing state. The plant of the Morton Salt Company is located two miles southwest of Hutchinson. Its importance as a local industry is indicated by the fact that it employs 275 hands.
Mr. Clements is an active young business man and had spent most of his career with the present company. He was born at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, July 27, 1887, and, represents a family of business people. His grandparents were James and Jane Clements, both natives of Ireland. His grandfather was born in 1823, came as a young unmarried man to this country and settled at Philadelphia, and about 1866 took his family to Oshkosh, Wisconsin. He spent the rest of his active business career as a coal and wood merchant at Oshkosh finally retiring and was a resident of Chicago at the time of his death in 1912, though he died in Oshkosh. His wife, Jane Clements, was born in Ireland in 1827 and died in Chicago in 1911. Seven of their children are still living. Margaret, who had never married, had an active career as a business woman, but since 1912 had lived retired at Chicago; David was for a number of years associated in business with his brother James but is now living retired at LaGrand, California; the next in age is James Clements, father of John A. John Clements now owned a coal and wood business formerly conducted by his father at Oshkosh. Robert is a salesman for Sears, Roebuck & Company of Chicago. William is connected with the traffic department of Sears, Roebuck & Company and lives in Chicago. Martha, unmarried, is a buyer for Marshall Field & Company of Chicago.
James Clements was born at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, August 1, 1861, and was about five years of age when his parents removed to Oshkosh, Wisconsin, where he was reared and educated and where he married. Soon after his marriage he moved to Antigo, Wisconsin, and for about fifteen years was in the coal and wood business there. He then removed to Chicago, was for a number of years connected with an engineering firm, and since then had been in the salt business with the Morton Salt Company, being foreman of the company’s extensive plant at Chicago. He is a republican, a very active member of the First United Presbyterian Church of Chicago, and is affiliated with the Modern Woodmen of America. James Clements married at Oshkosh Harriet Otis, who was born in that Wisconsin city June 16, 1863. They have two sons, Harvey W. and John A. The former is a resident of New York City, representing the Bemis Brothers Bag Company.
John A. Clements received his first instruction in the public schools of Antigo, Wisconsin, and in 1906, at the age of nineteen, graduated from the McKinley High School at Chicago. For a year or so he was connected with the Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Company and in January, 1909, entered the offices of the Morton Salt Company as a clerk at Chicago. After a year and a half he was promoted to manager of the company’s warehouses and in November, 1914, was sent to Hutchinson as assistant manager of the Hutchinson plant.
Mr. Clements is a republican in politics and is affiliated with Pleiades Lodge No. 478, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, at Chicago. His home is at 905 North Walnut Street, in Hutchinson. January 29, 1916, at Kansas City, Missouri, Mr. Clements married Miss Laura Lee Setliff, daughter of Rev. J. J. and Elizabeth (Wickert) Setliff. Her parents reside at Kansas City, her father being a minister of the Christian Church. Mr. and Mrs. Clements have one child, Helen Harriet, born December 5, 1916.