Lloyd S. Fry. When he came to the City of Manhattan in 1883, Mr. Fry engaged at once in the work which had occupied him for a number of years in Pennsylvania and Kansas and which brought him an enviable place among the state’s leading educators. He was employed as a teacher in the College Hill School, and in 1886 was elected superintendent of the city schools of Manhattan, a position he held two years. His record as an educator included two years in charge of the schools of Randolph, one year at Atwood, three years at Hays City. In all this time he was also an important factor in school institute work, and showed unusual ability not only as an instructor but in broadening and uplifting the general standards of school management in his county.
When he gave up teaching in 1894, Mr. Fry went to farming. For eighteen years he conducted a general farm and dairy in Manhattan Township of Riley county, and that was a business congenial as well as profitable, so that in 1912 he was able to retire from his active duties as a farmer and has since lived in a comfortable home in Manhattan.
Lloyd S. Fry was born near Millerstown in Perry County, Pennsylvania, April 25, 1855, a son of Simon H. and Catharine A. (Bretz) Fry. His parents were natives of Pennsylvania and of old Colonial families. The chief lineage of his ancestry is Netherland Dutch, though there is an admixture of Scotch-Irish. Both the Fry and Bretz names were represented by soldiers in the Revolutionary war and also the War of 1812. History mentions John Bretz as an aide-de-camp to General Washington. Simon H. and Catharine A. Fry had five children, one of whom died in infancy. The others are: Clarence, who died in 1881; Lloyd S.; E. Bertha, the wife of A. B. Eells, their home being now in California; and Jennie C., who married Robert J. Fleming and they also live in California. Simon Fry was also a successful teacher, having taught in Pennsylvania for a number of years, and he also managed a farm in that state. His death occurred in 1880, at the age of fifty-seven. In 1884 his widow and some of her children came out to Kansas, locating in Riley County, where she died in 1902, when nearly seventy-seven years of age.
The early education of Lloyd S. Fry was acquired in his native state. In 1882, he was graduated from one of the Pennsylvania state normal schools. He had in the meantime acquired considerable experience in teaching, and on graduating from the normal school was granted a life license as a teacher in Pennsylvania. He also holds a certificate in Kansas, granted him in 1884.
While a man of plain and unassuming disposition, Mr. Fry is, nevertheless, progressive and public spirited to a high degree, and has allied himself with several progressive movements in his home county and state. For many years he was active in the Grange organization, belonged to the Kansas State Grange, and was elected in 1912 lecturer of the Kansas State Grange and held various other offices. He is a republican, but has never sought political honors, but has held township offices. He is a Presbyterian and a member of the Ancient Order of United Workmen and the Anti-Horse Thief Association.
In 1886 he married Miss Mary L. Griffing. Her father was the distinguished Kansas Methodist missionary, Rev. James Sayre Griffing, now deceased. Mr. and Mrs. Fry have two children. Clarence G., [p.1783] who graduated from the Kansas State Agricultural College in 1912, married a classmate, Viva M. McCray; they how reside in Miami, Oklahoma, where he is principal of the city high schools, with his wife as principal of a ward school. Velora A., the younger child, graduated in domestic science in 1915 from the Kansas State Agricultural College and married Merrill L. Gould. They graduated in the same class in the college at Manhattan. They now reside near Jamestown in Cloud County, Kansas, where Mr. Gould is a farmer.