Frank H. Cron. Of the men who have in recent years taken a prominent part in the financial and public life of Butler County few are better known than Hon. Frank H. Cron, assistant cashier of the Citizens State Bank of El Dorado and ex-member of the Kansas State Legislature. He is a native son of Mercer County, Pennsylvania, born June 3, 1868, his parents being A. G. and Emma F. (Womer) Cron.
A. G. Cron, who is now a resident of Mulvane, Kansas, was born in Pennsylvania and came to Kansas in 1881, locating in Bourbon County, where he became engaged in agricultural pursuits. He succeeded in accumulating a valuable property through energy and good management and for several years had lived in retirement. On February 22, 1866, he was married to Miss Emma F. Womer, also a native of Pennsylvania, and February 22, 1916, they celebrated their golden wedding anniversary at their beautiful home at Mulvane, a number of their descendants being present to do them honor. A rather remarkable coincidence in this direction is that on the same date was celebrated the golden wedding anniversary of James M. and Tacy Stroud (Morgan) Stanley, the parents of Mrs. Frank H. Cron. Eleven children were born to A. G. and Emma F. Cron, all of whom are living, as follows: C. W., of Mulvane, Kansas; F. H., of this notice; D. R., who is engaged in the jewelry business at Wichita; Anna M., an instructor in the School of Industrial Arts at Denton, Texas; Mrs. Inez J. Church, of Augusta, Kansas; Mrs. Edna Margaret Gibson, widow of George Gibson, pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church of Lindsborg, Kansas, and she is now a chiropractic doctor; Mrs. Emma F. Crane, of Englewood, Colorado; Alpheus G., a teacher, residing at Mulvane; W. W., an agriculturist of Augusta; A. B., an employe of the United States Agricultural Department, now stationed at Amarillo, Texas; and Joseph, who is engaged in farming at Augusta.
Frank H. Cron received his early schooling in Dakota, whence his parents removed in 1873, and was thirteen years of age when brought to Kansas and fifteen when he came with the family to Butler County. He received his further education in the rural schools of Bourbon and Butler counties, the high school at Augusta and the Salina Normal School, and then became a teacher, being retained in the high schools at Augusta and Douglas for several years. He later studied law, and was eventually admitted to the bar, but had never practiced his profession. In 1896 Mr. Cron came to El Dorado to assume the duties of deputy county treasurer under Dr. J. D. Hamilton, and filled that office for two years, when he entered the Citizens State Bank as a bookkeeper. Shortly thereafter he was made assistant cashier of the same institution and had continued in that capacity to the present time. Mr. Cron is interested in El Dorado realty, being the owner of a business block on Fourth Avenue, several dwelling houses in various parts of the city and his own home at No. 612 West Central Avenue.
Politically a democrat, Mr. Cron’s influence is so strong and his popularity so great that in 1909 he was elected to the Kansas Legislature from a county which is normally strongly republican in sentiment–and this by a large majority. His service was so satisfactory that he was returned to that body to succeed himself in 1911 and his entire record was that of an efficient, energetic and conscientious legislator, known as one of the working members of the sessions which he attended. He was a member of the committees on Ways and Means, Banks and Banking, Mines and Mining, and others of importance; was instrumental in the formation and passage of the State Guaranty Bank Law in its present form, doing as much as any other one man to secure its adoption; was an important factor in securing the appropriation for the Memorial Building at Topeka; and was a supporter of the cause of Woman’s Suffrage. He was appointed by Governor Hodges as regent of the State Normal School at Emporia to fill out an unexpired term, before the present system of management of the educational institutions of Kansas was inaugurated.
In fraternal circles, Mr. Cron is widely and favorably known. He belongs to Patmas Lodge No. 97, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons; El Dorado Chapter No. 35, Royal Arch Masons of which he is treasurer; El Dorado Commandery No. 19, Knights Templar, of which he is treasurer; Wichita Consistory, of the thirty-second degree; Wichita Temple Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine; El Dorado Camp No. 647, Modern Woodmen of America, of which he is treasurer; and Andrina Chapter No. 92, Order of the Eastern Star, in which he also holds the treasurership.
On September 16, 1902, Mr. Cron was married at Fort Scott, Kansas, to Miss Blanche A. Stanley, who was born in Bourbon County, Kansas, September 20, 1873, and who is well known throughout the state. She was educated in the public schools of Fort Scott, in the Kansas Normal College of that city, and the Ohio Wesleyan University, and, having displayed marked intellectual attainments, adopted the vocation of teaching, and for a time was an instructor in the Fort Scott Normal and the Fort Scott high schools. Since coming to El Dorado she had been particularly active in religious, social and political affairs and is of recognized leadership. A member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, she had been president of the Ladies Aid Society, and was one of the founders of the El Dorado Chapter of the King’s Daughters, in addition to raising the funds for a new organ for the church. She is president of the Eighth District of the Kansas Federation of Women’s Clubs and stands high in the councils of that organization. Mrs. Cron had the honor of being the only woman speaker at the state democratic banquet, held at Topeka during the first term of office of Governor Hodges, and declined the nomination for the presidency of the Kansas State Democratic Banquet Association. Likewise, Mrs. Cron is vice president of the Women’s Wilson League of the Eighth District. She was one of fifty women in the United States selected as members of the League for Progressive Democracy. Mrs. Cron did much to secure support for the president for his second term of office. Formerly Mrs. Cron was vice president of the Women’s Kansas Day Club of the Eighth District. She belongs to Susanna French Putney Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, her Revolutionary ancestors being traced a little later in this sketch. With all her acquisitions Mrs. Cron had retained the innate delicacy of her womanly nature, and while she had been and is prominent in the public life of Kansas, her home comes first and to it she devotes the greater part of her time.
Mrs. Cron is a daughter of James Madison Stanley, still a resident of Bourbon County, and who was born in 1838, in Delaware County, New York. He was reared and married in Knox County, Illinois, and in 1861 enlisted in Company K, Ninth Illinois Cavalry, with which he served until the close of the war, rising to the rank of sergeant. In 1867 he came to Kansas, becoming a homesteader in Bourbon County, and for a number of years was engaged in agricultural pursuits. Elected register of deeds of the county in 1879, he served two terms in that capacity, and remained in Fort Scott, where he had since been engaged in the abstract business. In 1866, in Knox County, Illinois, Mr. Stanley married Miss Tacy Stroud Morgan, who was born April 20, 1844, at Greencastle, Indiana, and to this union there were born children as follows: John S., who is interested in machine shops at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Blanche A., now Mrs. Cron; Anna M., who is the wife of Gilbert Blatchley, a member of the firm of Pritchard-Blatchley Drug Company, which had been located at Fort Scott since the founding of that city; and Tacy Maud, who died at the age of two years.
The paternal grandfather of Mrs. Cron, John O. Stanley, was born in Delaware County, New York, removed to Knox County, Illinois, as a pioneer farmer, and died in Bourbon County, Kansas. The Stanleys were originally from England, the progenitor of Mrs. Cron’s line locating in New York in Colonial days. Several members of the family fought as soldiers during the Revolution. On the maternal side Mrs. Cron’s grandfather was John Rittenhouse Morgan, born at Philadelphia, who died in Knox County, Illinois, where he had been a pioneer farmer. He was descended from the Rittenhouse family who had the first paper mill in the United States, located at Germantown, Pennsylvania. Perhaps the most distinguished member of this family was David Rittenhouse, who was appointed by General Washington as a member of the Peace Commission, was the second president of the American Philosophical Society, and was subsequently professor of astronomy at the College of Philadelphia, and first director of the United States mint in Philadelphia. John Rittenhouse Morgan was a son of Benjamin Morgan, the latter a son of Morgan Morgan, who married Ann Robert. She was a daughter of John Robert, who was born May 28, 1714, and died October 8, 1801. On March 13, 1736, John Robert married for his first wife Jane Hank, who was born in 1714 and died in 1762. John Robert assisted in establishing American independence while acting in the capacity of first lieutenant and as captain-lieutenant in Capt. Nathaniel Tom’s company in the regiment of foot, Continental troops, commanded by Col. William Nelson, during the Revolutionary war. He entered service March 17, 1777, and resigned April 1, 1779. Mrs. Cron had three other bars for her membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution, one from her father’s maternal grandfather, John Flansburgh, another from the latter’s father, Mathews Flansburgh, and one from Jacob Becker.