Rolla Edwin Long, superintendent of the city schools of Galena, is an educator of wide and diversified experience in the schools of this state, and has spent altogether upwards of twenty years in a profession which is one of the most important to the welfare of mankind.
In 1916 he entered upon his fourth consecutive year as superintendent of the schools of Galena. The people of that city take special pride in their schools, and Mr. Long has done much to raise the local school standards and improve the different departments of instruction. Under his supervision are six schools, a staff of thirty-seven teachers, and about seventeen hundred scholars enrolled.
The first school he taught was in 1888. It was a country district seven miles southeast of Osage Mission in Neosho County. After the year spent there, he has consecutively taught for two years in the country at Blancheville in Marshall County; two years as principal of the high school at Oswego; three years as principal of the city schools of Irving; two years superintendent of schools at Waterville; six years superintendent of schools at Axtel; six years superintendent at Lincoln; and from Lincoln he came to Galena.
Mr. Long represents a pioneer family both in Indiana and Kansas. His paternal ancestors came from England to Massachusetts in colonial times, and subsequently members of the family went south into North Carolina. His grandfather, Tobias Long, was born in 1790 anud about 1827 came west with his family and settled in Greene County, Indiana. He spent his career as a farmer there and died in 1871.
David Long, father of Professor Long, was born near Pilot Knob, North Carolina, October 2, 1824, and was a small child when brought to Indiana. He was reared in Greene County of that state, was married in Lawrence County, Indiana, and after living there until 1872 on a farm came in that year to Kansas. His first settlement was at a point nine miles north of old Osage Mission, now St. Paul, but in the following year he bought a farm of 160 acres two miles north of St. Paul, where he lived quietly engaged in his business as a farmer until his death in March, 1896. He was a republican and a recognized leader in the Methodist Episcopal Church in Neosho County. He served as a steward and trustee of his home church, and in every way gave liberally of his time and means to the support of the church movement. He married Jeannette Lowder, who was born in Lawrence County, Indiana, July 2, 1832, and died at Erie, Kansas, in November, 1910. They were the parents of a large family of children: Mathew Thomas, a minister of the Methodist Church at Shattuck, Oklahoma, and an inventor of more than local note; Lindia Ann is the wife of J. J. Fields, editor and owner of the principal paper at Sentinel, Oklahoma; Cornelius was a teacher and died at Walnut, Kansas, in 1886; Finley was a teacher in the Government Indian schools and died in New Mexico in 1908; H. C. Long is in the real estate and insurance business at Ottawa, Kansas; John R. is a farmer three miles south of Stark in Neosho County, Kansas; Rolla E. Long is the seventh in age among the children; Maggie May is a teacher of domestic science in California; Dr. L. L. is a physician and surgeon at Beaver, Oklahoma.
Rolla Edwin Long was born in Lawrence County, Indiana, April 27, 1869, and was about three years of age when his parents came to Kansas. Largely as a result of his ambition and earnest efforts he has acquired a liberal education. He began attending school in Neosho County, at first the country schools and the town schools of Osage Mission, and finished the high school course in the State Normal School at Emporia. He has received two life teacher’s certificates from the State Normal at Emporia, and in 1915 he was awarded the degree Bachelor of Science by the State Manual Training Normal School at Pittsburg, Kansas. He also has a diploma in architecture from the International Correspondence School at Scranton, Pennsylvania. He is a constant student and gained his higher education largely in the intervals of his work as a teacher. He is a man of broad human sympathies and keeps in close touch with every advance made in school affairs.
For many years he has been identified with the Kansas State Teachers’ Association and also with the Southeast Kansas Teachers’ Association. He is an elder in the Presbyterion Church, a republican in politics, and is affiliated with Axtel Lodge of Masons. His home is at 1005 Short Street in Galena.
On June 3, 1896, at Mound Valley, Kansas, Mr. Long married Miss Edith Brown, daughter of Finley and Bachel (Bonner) Brown, both now deceased. Her father, who was a farmer, died in March, 1916.