Elmer Stover Emmert, senior partner of the well known firm of Emmert Brothers and thus head of one of the strong insurance agencies not only of Muskogee but of the state, was born in Humboldt, Kansas, May 18, 1868, and is a son of David B. and Margaret D. (Moffett) Emmert, the former a newspaper publisher. During the early boyhood of Elmer S. Emmert the parents removed with their family to Wichita, Kansas, and there he pursued his education in the public schools until a further removal was made to Albuquerque, New Mexico. After the death of his father, at that place, he went to Lanark, Illinois, where he finished his high school education, and then went west to seek his fortune, stopping at Topeka, Kansas, where he entered the employ of the Santa Fe Railroad Company and was thus employed for a period of ten years. He afterward became connected with a building and loan association and while thus engaged extended his efforts into the insurance field, writing insurance at various points in Colorado and Texas. The business career of his brother, Robert G. Emmert, was similar and with the ambition to establish an agency of their own they came to Muskogee in 1904, representing the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company of Milwaukee. Soon afterward the firm of Emmert Brothers was made general agent for eastern Oklahoma and Arkansas and has so continued. Its business is steadily increasing. The agency of Emmert Brothers, as general agents of the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, is the largest general agency in the state, and as this is the only business of this firm, it goes without saying that they render a real service to their friends in the life insurance line. Starting as strangers, their first year’s business was about four hundred thousand dollars of written business, while in the year 1920 they placed five million dollars of new business on the books of their company, until today the receipts passing through their hands run close to a million dollars annually. The brothers are thoroughly familiar with all points of the insurance business, are alert, wide-awake and energetic and get what they go after. They attack everything with a contagious enthusiasm and they never fail to reach their objective.
On the 16th of October, 1889, Mr. Emmert was married to Miss Ida J. Quinche of Topeka, Kansas, and their children are: Harry David and Donald Redburn. Business life constitutes but one phase of the intense activity of Mr. Emmert, who is interested in all those forces which make for intellectual, cultural and moral progress. He and his wife are members of the First Congregational Church, contributing generously to the cause and taking helpful part in various branches of the Church work. Mr. Emmert is serving as chairman of the board of trustees. He was also one of the organizers and is now the Vice President of the Young Men’s Christian Association. He formerly served as a director of the Chamber of Commerce and during the World war period was Vice President of the Council of Defense. He has likewise filled the presidency of the Lions Club and it is characteristic of the career of Mr. Emmert that in almost every organization with which he has been identified he has been called to fill official positions. He belongs to the Masonic fraternity, is a Consistory Mason and member of the Mystic Shrine. His social nature finds expression in his membership in the Town and Country Club and in the Wauhillau Outing Club. He holds friendship inviolable and regards citizenship as a sacred trust. He is constantly working toward higher ideals and supports all projects which tend to uplift the individual and benefit the community at large.