J. F. JARRELL

J F. JARRELL is a native Kansan; his birthplace, a farm near Lancaster, Atchison county, where his parents settled in 1855. He was born September 19, 1866. His father was Sanford Jarrell, a school teacher, farmer and plainsman before the Civil War; a veteran of that conflict, serving in company E, Second Kansas cavalry; later a farmer and stockman. His mother was Annie Fletcher, who, as a pioneer girl, organized the first Sunday school in her neighborhood, holding the sessions under a tree. His schooling consisted of a few terms in rural districts, and at the age of sixteen he left the farm with the intention of becoming a locomotive engineer. He got a job firing a threshing-machine engine, which blew up, scaring him out of his ambition in that direction. For two years he experimented with various "walks of life"—herded cattle, sold books, sold pianos and organs, trucked freight, taught singing-school, managed a theatrical company, kicked a job press, and set type. On January 1, 1884, he was given his first assignment as a newspaper reporter, on the Atchison Patriot. From then on for twenty-six years he was actively engaged in reportorial and editorial work on the Atchison Patriot, Atchison Champion, Atchison Globe, Kansas City Times, Topeka Capital and Holton Signal, in the order named. He owned the Holton Signal for five years, and for a short time in 1903 was a third owner of the Atchison Globe, his partners being J. E. Rank and Ralph Tennal. That was when E. W. Howe went to Kansas City to run the Daily Mail. Mr. Howe did not like the Kansas City venture, so he returned to Atchison and bought the Globe back. Mr. Jarrell's work on the Topeka and Kansas City papers mainly was as a staff correspondent, handling political and legislative news and matters having to do with the settlement and development of western Kansas and of Oklahoma. In 1910 he was appointed publicity agent of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Company, with headquarters in Topeka, which position he holds to date. In 1895 Mr. Jarrell married Myra Williams, of Topeka, daughter of the late A. L. Williams, a former attorney-general of Kansas. Mrs. Jarrell is also a writer. She contributes to newspapers and magazines, and has three books, a play and an opera to her credit. There are four children in the family—two already in the writing game, the others training for it.

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