Julia H. Ballinger
Mr. Ballinger is a native of New Jersey and comes of good, old English stock. He was born in Salem county, that State, November 21, 1845. His parents were John G. and Sarah Ann (Reeves) Ballinger, also natives of New Jersey. His paternal grandfather was John G. Ballinger, who married a Quaker woman and died when Thomas E. was but a boy. His mother was a daughter of Stephen Reeves, a scion of an old eastern family and a leading shipbuilder of New Jersey. The Reeves family settled in Alloway township, Salem county, New Jersey. John G. Ballinger, the father, was born in 1827, and died in 1906. He was a miller, and operated a mill during the active years of his long life. His wife, Sarah Ann, died in 1850, leaving three children: Stephen R., a miller, who resided in New Jersey, and died October 15, 1915; Samuel E., a retired farmer, living in the suburbs of Atchison, and Thomas E., with whose career this review is directly concerned. John G. Ballinger married a second time, to Sarah Austin, who bore him the following children: John, Charles, Walter, Ellen, Sadie, Emma and Minnie.
The elder Ballinger had both the means and the incentive to give his children an education. Accordingly, Thomas E. had the advantages of thorough schooling and, after attending the district school of his home neighborhood, he studied in the Cumberland County Academy at Bridgetown. N. J., the Crittendon School in Philadelphia and the Eastman Business College at Poughkeepsie, New York, completing his course in the latter institution in 1865. He then became a clerk in a grocery store at Glouster, N. J., and was later employed in a drug store. All the while, however, he was hearkening to the call of the West, which had reached the ears of thousands of young men in the East. The call proved so strong that in 1869 he made the long journey to Kansas to become one of the pioneers of the new State. For the first two years he worked out as a farm hand in Shannon township, Atchison county, saving his funds in order that he might begin farming for himself. In 1871 he made his first purchase of eighty acres of unimproved land in Lancaster township, Atchison county, at a cost of $15 per acre. On this tract he built a two room house in which he lived for two years, and was there joined by his brother, Samuel E. He then married, and the first five years of a happy wedded life were spent on this farm. He traded this farm for eighty acres of land in Shannon township, which served as the family home until 1888. He then exchanged the Shannon township farm for 240 acres, near Huron, Atchison county, which he retained for two years, and then made his last trade for 160 acres in the east central part of Lancaster township. For seventeen years, until his retirement to Atchison in 1907, this fine farm was the family home. Mr. Ballinger greatly improved this farm, added to it another forty acres, and with its two sets of buildings and well kept fields, is one of the finest and most productive agricultural plants in the county.
He was married on Saturday, March 21, 1874, to Julia H. Holland, and to this union have been born the following children: Ralph, a talented physician of Chicago, married Flora Groom, of Indiana; Mrs. Marie Shuffleberger, Doniphan county, Kansas, mother of three children, Dorothy, Reeves and Wayne; Adel, at home; Grace, wife of J. W. Coleman, of Atchison, having two children, John Ballinger, born June 14, 1911, and James Henry, born November 3, 1915; Thomas Edward, Jr., on the home farm, married Nellie Colgan and is the father of one child, John Edward; Julia Gladys resides at home with her parents. Father, mother and daughters reside in a handsome brick residence, erected by Mr. Ballinger at 210 North Eleventh street. Mrs. Ballinger was born December 29, 1853, in England, and is a daughter of Joshua and Maria (Relph) Holland, who immigrated to America in 1856, and first settled on an Illinois farm. The family came to Kansas in 1860, settling in Nemaha county, going from there to Ft. Leavenworth, where Joshua Holland followed his trade of stone mason. During the Civil war Mr. Holland served in the commissary department at Ft. Leavenworth. In 1870 he came to Atchison county and cultivated a farm of 120 acres near Lane until his death. Mr. Holland was born in April, 1822, and died in September, 1884. Mrs. Holland was born in November, 1824, and died in April, 1894. They were the parents of the following children: Emma, deceased; Misses Mary and Harriet Holland on a farm near Lancaster; Mrs. Julia Ballinger, and William, a retired farmer in Lancaster.
Thomas E. Ballinger has always been a Republican in politics and took an active part in political and civic affairs in his home township, serving as township clerk for a number of years. He was elected to the office of county commissioner in 1910, and served from January, 1911, to January, 1915. While a member of the board of county commissioners the best interests of the county were paramount with him, and he was an honest and capable public official. He and his family are members of the Presbyterian church.
ROGER PATRICK SULLIVAN.
The accounts of many of the prosperous and substantial families who are the backbone and substance of the rural population in Atchison county are very similar, beginning far away, across the ocean, in one of the older countries from whence the parents came to seek fortune in America. The Sullivan family had its origin in Ireland and it was from the Emerald Isle that the father of the family came when twelve years of age, struggled from poverty to comparative wealth and left his sons well provided for, as a reward for their filial devotion to the parents when old age came upon them. Roger Sullivan, a progressive farmer of Benton township, is one of the best known men in his section of the county. The Sullivan home is an attractive one, and the home farm of Mr. Sullivan is one of the most fertile and best kept in Atchison county.
Roger Patrick Sullivan was born December 4, 1862, in Atchison, a son of Michael and Bridget (Tobin) Sullivan, natives of Ireland. Michael Sullivan was born in 1826 and lived in his native land until he was twelve years of age when he made his way to America. His travels while seeking fortune in the new country took him ever westward and he was married in Keokuk, Iowa, to Bridget Tobin, who was his faithful helpmate during the years when he was rising from poverty to affluence. In 1860 they came to Atchison, Kan., where Mr. Sullivan engaged in railroad contract work and assisted in the grading of the Central Branch railroad. He made money in his railroad contract work and was enabled to purchase a farm in Grasshopper township, or rather traded for it. While living in Atchison, with true Irish thrift, he and his wife managed to become owners of a home which they exchanged for eighty acres of land in Grasshopper township, upon which they moved and developed it into a fine farm. Mr. Sullivan in the course of time bought an additional quarter section and with the help of his sturdy sons he increased his acreage to 320 acres of well improved farm land. When old age crept upon Michael and his wife they turned over the farms to their two sons, who cared for them in their declining years, which were spent in peace and comfort. Mr. Sullivan died at the home of his son. John Edward, December 24, 1906, and his wife followed him to the great beyond two years later, February, 1908. Three children were born to this worthy couple, namely: John Edward, a farmer residing in Grasshopper township; Roger Patrick, the subject of this review, and Mary, deceased.
Roger P. learned when a youth the art of cultivating the soil, and diligently applied himself to the task of helping to build up the family estate, and received as his share of the farm lands owned by his father a fine quarter section of land upon which he resided until his removal to his present location in the spring of 1908. Prosperity has smiled upon his efforts, and he is now the owner of 360 acres of land, 160 acres of which are comprised in his home farm, eighty acres is located five miles west of his home in Kapioma township, and he still retains 120 acres of the original Sullivan farm, which is entirely devoted to pasture. If one should ask Mr. Sullivan how he had managed to attain the considerable acreage which he now possesses, his answer would probably be, “By hard work,” which would be true, but the reviewer is also of the opinion that the “hard work” was also supplemented by intelligent effort, self-denial at times, sobriety, and good financial judgment.
Mr. Sullivan was married January 11, 1892, to Miss Mary Linehan, who was born in Atchison county, Kansas, in 1865, a daughter of James and Kathryn Linehan, natives of Ireland, and who were pioneer settlers in Atchison county. To this union four children have been born, namely: Catharine, aged seventeen years, and a student in the Atchison County High School, class of ’17; Daniel, fifteen years old, a freshman in the county high school; Mary, aged twelve years, and Helen, aged nine, pupils in the parochial school at Effingham.