This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list.
Surnames: Keller, Elliott, Patterson, Kemp
Classification: Biography
Message Board URL:
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/Ci.2ADE/5491
Message Board Post:
This book has no cover, and no index, and no author. I bought it on Ebay; it just has the
insides, but it is full of Indiana biographies. I am not researching this family, just
thought I would share. I do not know anymore about these families or these surnames. NOTE:
I don’t know if there is any additional mention of this family in the book, it has no
index. I do not want to sell this book. I am typing the biographies from it.
Typed by Lora Radiches:
Other surnames mentioned in the biography of ALVIN E. KELLER are, Keller, Elliott,
Patterson, Kemp,
ALVIN E. KELLER has made a record of cumulative success and prestige in educational work
in Indiana, and at the present time is giving a distinctly constructive and progressive
service as county superintendent of schools for Greene County, his executive headquarters
being maintained in the courthouse at Bloomfield and his incumbency of this
important office being the more gratifying to note by reason of the fact that he was
born and reared in this county. Mr. Keller was born on the parental home farm in
Washington Township, Greene County, June 28, 1888, and is a son of William E. and Emma
(Elliott) Keller. The father, alter many years devoted to the active and successful
management of his farm estate, retired, and his death occurred April 14, 1931, and his
widow survives and resides on the old farm. William E. Keller was a son of John A. Keller,
who was born in South Carolina and who came from Newberry, that state, to become a pioneer
settler in Indiana, he h!
aving here acquired a tract of land about the year 1828, when John Quincy Adams was
President of the United States, and having done well his part in the civic and industrial
development of the Hoosier State. The subject of this review was second in order of birth
in a family of five children, and the names of the other children are here given: Oscar
C., Claude, Clarence and Ralph, but the last named died November 11, 1980. Oscar C.,
eldest of the children, first married Lillian Patterson, and the one child of this union
was Lex, who died September 8, 1930. After the death of his first wife he eventually
married Dessie S. Kemp, and they have four children: Khiva William Hue, Ethel Lou and
Coila. Alvin E. Keller was reared to the Invigorating discipline of the old home farm that
was the place of his birth, and after profiting by the advantages of the district
school of the home community he completed his high-school course at Lyons. He thereafter
was a student in the !
Indiana State Teacher. College at Terre Haute, and alter teach
ing four years in the public schools at Lyon. Washington Township, he entered
Indiana University, in 1914. In that Institution he was graduated as a member of
the class of 1917 and with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. During the ensuing year he was
principal of the high school at Marco, Greene County, and during the following seven years
he was principal of the high school at Newberry, Greene County. His personal popularity
and his effective pedagogic service then gained to him election in 1925 to his
present office, that of County superintendent of the public school of Greene
County, a position in which he is giving a significantly loyal and progressive
administration. The schools of the fifteen townships of the county are maintained at high
standard, as are also the twelve commissioned high schools. The county superintendent is
favored in having the loyal cooperation of all school authorities and of a corps of
earnest and well-qualifi!
ed teachers. Mr. Keller has membership in the Indiana State Teachers Association and the
County Superintendents Association of Indiana, is a Democrat in political alignment, has
been for fully ten years a trustee of the Bethany Christian Church, and he is affiliated
with the Masonic fraternity, A. F. and A. M., and the Royal Arch Chapter and Council, also
with the Knights of Pythias, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and the Pi Gamma
Mu college fraternity. His name still appears on the roster of eligible bachelors in his
native county.