Andrew Garfield Marple, a successful educator and school administrator, is now superintendent of the city schools of White Cloud, Kansas. He is a native of this state, was educated here, and most of his work in mature years had been secomplished within the borders of Kansas.
He was born at Yates Center, Kansas, November 16, 1881. His ancestors were Englishmen who settled in Virginia more than a century ago. His grandfather, David Marple, was born in Virginia in 1812, grew up and married in that state Miss Sneff, and subsequently removed to Northern Illinois, where he became a merchant. By trade he was a cooper. His death occurred at Sheffield, Illinois, in 1893, at the age of eighty-one.
His son W. F. Marple, father of the White Cloud school man, was born in Virginia in 1840, grew up and acquired his early education in that state, and was a young man when his parents removed to Bureau County, Illinois, near Sheffield. In that community he lived for a number of years, married there, and assisted his father in the mercantile business. In 1860 he went out to California as a gold prospector, crossing the plains with a party of men in prairie schooners. He had an experience in the varied events and activities of the far west, and in 1865 returned to Illinois. In 1870 he came ont to Kansas and located at Yates Center, where he was one of the early merchants in the hardware business. For a few years he was also in business at Osage City, and on returning to Yates Center he took up farming which he followed until his death in 1912. In politics he was a steadfast and loyal republican from Civil war times until he cast his last vote. He served as trustee of Center Township and a justice of the peace in his district near Yates Center. Religiously he was always an active member of the Methodist Eniscopal Church and assisted in building the noted Pleasant View Church in the pioneer days of Center Township in Woodson County. W. F. Marple married Sarah F. Dutro, who was born in Ohio in 1844 and is still living at Yates Center. Her children, nine in number, were: Grant, who died in infancy; Eva, wife of E. H. Kirkbride, who lives at Harrington, Kansas, and is a mechanic in the railroad shops there; Anna, wife of Fred Shenk, a baker at Yates Center; Emma, wife of Tom Wharton, who is in the poultry industry at Los Angeles, California; William F., a farmer at Dinuba, California; J. R. Marple, connected with the Harwi Wholesale Hardware Company at Atchison, Kansas; David H, who was drowned while skating at Yates Center at the age of thirteen; Andrew G., who is next to the youngest; and Edna, wife of Clark Cain, of Yates Center.
Andrew G. Marple attended the public schools at Yates Center, and was graduated from high school in 1901. After high school he entered the employ of a railroad and was in that service three years. With the earnings of that occupation he applied himself to securing a higher education and one that would flt him for his chosen work as teacher. For four years Mr. Marple was in Emporia College, where he was graduated A. B. in 1908. Since then his work had been as teacher and administrator of schools. For two years he was assistant principal of the schools at Osage City; was principal three years of the Dodge City High School; was principal of a school at Raton, New Mexico, one year; and in 1916 he came to White Cloud, Kansas, to take the superintendency of the public schools.
Mr. Marple is a progressive republican. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church at White Cloud and is chairman of the board of control. In 1911, at Clyde, Kansas, he married Miss Harriet Chesbro, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. George Chesbro, both now deceased. Her father was a pioneer farmer in Cloud County, Kansas. Mr. and Mrs. Marple have one son, Max Garfield, born September 14, 1914.