Charles Albert Connelly, whose long and able connection with the Independence Tribune has already been noted, has been one of the live and progressive citizens of Independence and has accepted many opportunities to serve the community in addition to his work as a newspaper man.
He was born in Parke County, Indiana, August 12, 1869. His father, Charles T. Connelly, who was born in Parke County, Indiana, in 1845, is especially deserving of note in a history of Kansas. He was reared and married in Indiana and in 1885 moved to Garden City, Kansas, and proved up a claim there. In 1887 he came to Independence, and resumed his earlier profession as a teacher. In the meantime he had made an honorable record as a soldier of the Union during the Civil war. He enlisted in 1862 at the age of seventeen and served 3½ years until the close of the struggle, being a member of the Ninth Indiana Battery. From Independence he moved to Coffeyville, and served as principal of schools there, and during the summer vacations filled the post of city marshal. It was while in the performance of his duty that he was killed in 1892, when the Dalton gang of outlaws raided Coffeyville. He was a republican, a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, was affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and was clerk of the camp of the Modern Woodmen of America at the time of his death. Charles T. Connelly married Mary McCord, who was born in Parke County, Indiana, in 1846 and died there in 1873. The two children of that union were Charles Albert and Grace. The latter, who died in 1908, at the age of thirty-eight, was the wife of William N. Cox, county assessor of Parke County, Indiana. Charles T. Connelly married for his second wife Sarah Alexander, who died in 1896, survived by one daughter, Jessie May, now wife of Harry W. Lang, a druggist at Coffeyville, Kansas. This branch of the Connelly family came from Ireland to North Carolina in colonial times, and subsequent generations moved to Kentucky and from there into Indiana.
Charles A. Connelly, best known among his friends and business associates in Independence as Bert Connelly, spent the first sixteen years of his life in his native Parke County, Indiana, attended the public schools there and the Bloomingdale Academy of Indiana, and after coming to Independence was a pupil in the high school until 1888. However, in the mean-while, in 1885, he had entered the office of the Tribune Printing Company. He made himself a master of its various details, and is an expert printer and newspaper man. In 1898 he was made a partner, and for a number of years has been business manager of the Tribune.
Mr. Connelly has served as director of the Independence Building and Loan Association, is a member and served as director of the Independence Commercial Club, belongs to the Rotary Club, served six years as treasurer of the school board, during which time four new modern school buildings were erected, and for two years was a member of the city council. President Taft appointed him postmaster of Independence, but his appointment was not confirmed on account of the closely following election of President Wilson. Mr. Connelly is a republican, is a trustee of the Methodist Episcopal Church, is affiliated with Fortitude Lodge No. 107, Ancient, Free and Accepted Masons, and a Royal Arch Mason at Independence; with Independence camp of the Modern Woodmen of America, of which he was banker four years, and his name is usually closely associated with any enterprise for the public good of his home city.
In 1894, at Independence, he married Miss Olive May Stout, daughter of E. W. and Margaret Stout. Miss Stout is a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution and Eastern Star lodge. Her mother is still living at Independence, and her father, now deceased, was a grocery merchant of that city, member of the school board and stood high in the community. Mr. and Mrs. Connelly have two children, Glenn, born November 28, 1897, a graduate of Montgomery County High School, and now attending Baker University, and Margaret, born November 14, 1901, now a sophomore in the Montgomery County High School.