Wesley Virgil Griffitts is proprietor of the leading general mercantile business at Lovewell. His business experience began early in life, and the resources at his command have been the energy of his own character and such capital as he had acquired by thrifty management and hard work.
Mr. Griffitts was born in Gentry County, Missouri, near Albany, April 13, 1879, and still had the promise of the best years of his life ahead of him. He is of Welsh and English descent and his family were early settlers in Kentucky. His father, Aaron Griffitts, was born in Hancock County, Illinois, at Plymouth, in 1840. He grew up and married there and spent his active life as a farmer. In the spring of 1879 he removed to Gentry County, Missouri, and a few years later established a home in Allen County, Kansas. He died fourteen miles southeast of Humboldt in 1913. He was a democrat, and always a consistent Christian and after 1885 a strong supporter of the United Brethren Church. He married Marcella Jane Thompson, who was born at Hillton, West Virginia, in 1847, and is still living on the home farm in Allen County, Kansas. When she was thirteen years of age her parents moved to Illinois, making the entire journey by wagon or steamboat. Aaron Griffitts and wife had three children: A. P., a farmer at Rockyford, Colorado; J. C., a farmer in Allen County, Kansas; and Wesley V.
Wesley V. Griffitts secured a rural school education in Allen County, Kansas, and spent the first twenty-four years of his life on his father’s farm. He then went to Humboldt and was identified with construction work in the oil fields until 1911. After that he spent seventeen months as a farmer and blacksmith, and on Angust 26, 1913, came to Lovewell, where he traded other proparty for the general mercantile business on Main Street. He is now sole proprietor and had a trade all over the country district around Lovewell.
Mr. Griffitts is independent in politics, is affiliated with Formoso Lodge No. 336, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, with Consistory No. 3 of the Scottish Rite at Salina, and had long been a member of the Aneient Order of United Workman. His affliation since 1898 had been with Erie Lodge No. 275, of which he is past master workman. He and Dr. H. S. Braden organized Ellsmore Lodge, which was installed by Grand Master Workman John H. Crider of Fort Scott. In 1902 Mr. Griffltts was representative to the Grand Lodge at Fort Scott of Ellsmore Lodge No. 410. On February 20, 1901, at Iola, Kansas, he married Miss Anna C. W. Samp, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Fred Samp. Her mother died in 1903, and her father is a retlred farmer now living at LaHarpe. Mr. and Mrs. Griffitts have one child, Escot Merle, born May 8, 1905.