Oakland In The News 1886 & Beyond Chapter 6

Oakland’s Biography’s

In my Introduction I said this book was about the people of Oakland. However in this case if I was to put all the information on each person I would not have room for anything else. Those of you who would like more on other Oaklanders I would recommend the following books:

Oakland’s First One Hundred Years
by The Shawnee County Historical Society
&
The Little City That Was
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The Billard Family

Mr. Gilbert Billard and his wife Antoinette and their two sons Charles and Jules left imprints on Oakland and North and South Topeka. Gilbert’s elder son died in a Civil War engagement. His sound son became an astute businessman and served as Topeka Mayor from 1910-14. Jules son Phillip was a gallant daredevil and expert mechanic and a test pilot and was killed over a French Air dome in W. W I, The Oakland Airport and veterans of Foreign Wars Post in Topeka are name after him.

Phil’s Grandfather Gilbert was Mayor Of St. Leon before he left his native land of France, in the day’s of Napoleon III. Who tort hard on free men’s belief’s . Under pressure of imprisonment Gilbert fled his native land. In the United States he a chance meeting in Kansas City with County man Charles Sardou. The men came together in 1854, to take adjoining claims of a 160 acres each. The Billard claim stretched toward the Shungenunge Creek. In 1860, he herd of a gold strike in Colorado, he took his family there in 1860, but before leaving he rented out the homestead . Where he had built a two-room stone house and had planted trees.

Charles the elder son enlisted in the first Colorado Volunteers when the Civil War broke out, he was killed in his first encounter at Apache Canyon in the New Mexico Territory
When Gilbert Billard returned to Kansas he rebuilt his neglected farm and added to his stone house. he died April 29, 1870 and is buried be side his wife Antoinette in Topeka Cemetery.

Gilbert second son served as Topeka Mayor from 1910-1914 during his years as Mayor it was brought to his attention that his father “ Gilbert” Naturalization had not included his wife or children. Jules attend the task. District records shows that he and his 75-old mother Antoinette were admitted to citizenship September 14, 1932.
Jules and his wife the former Hermance Laurent, had three sons . The eldest Reamer would lived out his adult life in El Paso Texas. Reamer’s son Jules Benoit was long time Editor of the U. S. News World Report. Robert and wife Leila would live out there life in the old Mansion in Oakland.

The youngest son was Louis Charles Phillip. Born April 29, 1891, He was called “ Baby” for several years and was listed that way on the 1895, census. Louis Charles name was dropped and “ Baby” was Phil for the rest of his life. Phil was born at the time when Kerosene Lamps were shed for Electric wall switches and houses changed for Automobiles. Bicycles put boys on wheels, cars gave them speed and Airplanes would open the skies. Phil loved speed he won a road race from 8th. and Kansas Ave. to the Baltimore Hotel in Kansas City, making the record trip in two hours over muddy roads. Phil also loved flying, Phil’s father never liked to watch Phil takeoff, or fly. In December of 1916 Phil Billard was the first to fly from Topeka to Kansas City. Phil Billard was killed July 24, 1918 in an air explosion testing the first U. S. Liberty Engine Machine from his homeland Phil brother Robert and wife Leila later went to France to carry his wishes that his ashes be dropped over Provins France, birthplace of their mother.

Charles Sardou and Family

Charles And Josephine Sardou must surely have accepted trouble as a condition of life and they met it head on. Charles Sardou had been a sailor in France, Influential in his seaport village. He was exiled as a political prisoner Charles was caught in December 2, 1851, and sent to Devil’s Island. He and 17 others eventually escaped to Dutch Guinea.
He sent word back to his wife Josephine who had been evicted from their home and was pregnant. Josephine sold what she could and with help from friends took passage on a freighter to join her husband. Charles well sick with fever arranged passage to New York, where men were said to be free.

Well in the Atlantic their son was born on January 16, 1854 and given the name of Freeman. In New York they heard of the newly opened Kansas Territory and begin the long trek west, landing in Kansas City. There they met a country man Gilbert Billard.
The men learned of fine land down yet another river the Kaw ( Kansas ) and they filed their claims in 1854 their claims lay together until the Sardou Bridge separated them.

Charles Sardou and wife returned to France in 1883 with $4,000 to aid the Republican cause, they stayed till Charles death in 1884, within site of his child hood home. He was buried in the Old Soldiers and Sailors Cemetery in Carquerance France. Charles wife stayed on in France until 1910 when she returned to live with her son Freeman.
Freeman married Mary Amoriss September 26, 1878. He had attended a Tinnier Craft School in St. Louis and worked at that tread for a well but he came back, to the farm he loved. Freeman started raising fruits, chestnuts, and berries. In 1890’s he opened the Sardou Cannery they advertising the purity and freshness of its products.
Freeman and George were heroes of the 1903 flood each of the Sardou men was awarded a gold medal afterward from a grateful populace, for “ heroic, tireless service in raging floodwaters.”

The Kelsey’s

Kelsey is a name closely associated with Agriculture History of Oakland .. Kelsey a veteran of the Civil War was in an Indiana regiment, after the war he and his wife Mahala came west to home stead a section of rich bottom land in the Spring of 1868.
Kelsey eldest son Scott ( short for Winfield Scott ) was born July 1, 1847 Scott also a Civil War veteran, Scott tried to enlist at 14 but was refused, later he got into the Navy and served out the war with Admiral Farragut’s Flagship Fair Play, later joining his father venturing in potato raising . Scott children were Grant Elwood, Melvin Taylor and Prudence he had his first child before he was 20. On later years Scott would move into Oakland, and lived out his 88 years at 1400 Arter, he died in 1940.

Grant, Scott’s eldest son married Henrietta Jones who died Oct. 22, 1927. He then married her sister Gertrude, Grant died in 1940. He was survived by three sons, Allen L., Myron B., Lloyd A. and daughter Viola. The Kelsey’s had extended the Oakland farm then Lloyd went to Minnesota to manage the Albert Lea Corporation where his father Grant had bought a dry lake bed to use for an experimental Potato farm.

Scott’s son Melvin ( M. T. ) married Fannie Bell Jenkins, they had three sons, Richard, Sam and Scott Jr. , Scott Jr. married Iva Carothers. M. T. bought his father’s farm that stretched from Oakland Ave. to the Woolen Mill to the river. He called it Northland , he was active in the potato business and had built up the Kaw Valley Potato Association and was shipping 800,000 pounds of potato’s each year. Thirty-five years after his father became County Commissioner he to became Commissioner, in the mid thirties Lake Shawnee was built. During his administration amid opposition and erroneous prediction that it would be a muddy hole. Melvin Kelsey died in 1965 at the age of 94 years.

Alvin K. Longren

Alvin K. Longren was one of the earliest Kansas to fly his dream was production of “ House hold planes.” to sell at $1,000 each. The Lundgren Aircraft Corporation was in the old Woolen Mill for six years. On April 6, 1914 he married Dolly Trent who was born in Minneapolis Kansas. In 1970 Dolly moved to Houston to make her home with a niece, she died there in January of 1971. Mr. Longren built the plane that Phil Billard flew over Topeka in 1912. The Biplane sate in the Billard garage at 1400 Sardou for years then it was acquired by the Kansas Historical Society in 1930.

Longren abhorred stunt flying, wing walking, daredevil dives, and spiral glides stating “ I value my neck to much.” During W. W. I Longren worked as a test pilot at Mc Cook field in Ohio, on returning to Kansas he formed a Company to raise capital for a plane factory. It was to be in the old Woolen Mill, whose location near the air field was advantageous.
The Blue Sky Board the ( forerunner of the Kansas Corporation Commission ) on June 7, 1919 authorized the Longren aircraft factory a incorporation with a capital investment of $300,000and stocks of $800,000 for expansion operation.

The first plane scheduled for January 1920 launching was not completed until June. Government inspection agents visited the Oakland factory for possible big government orders. But there was not enough interest or capital to support the enormous amount of funds required. Longren not a public relations man lose the government contracts , they went to California. Longren operated his factory for six years Records show his trustee W. L. Dean handling $75,000 deficit in 1934 indicating Longren had bought the old mill on contract. Bankruptcy receiver Carl N. Trapp on March 5, 1926 accepted Lundgren’s patents and listed his belongings.

Longren left Oakland to work as Vice President in charge of production for the Spartan Air craft Company in Tulsa Oklahoma. The market he planned for really never existed he trailed the Wright Brothers by eight years. Longren wanted to make Kansas the center of the air industry in the mid west. A fine engineer with dreams a head of his time. Longren worked and consulted with major air industry’s until his death in Adin California, November 9, 1950, he was buried in Leonardville, Kansas.

Cornelius N. Poort
1873-1959

Cornelius Nicholas Poort was born on August 4, 1873 and died on Sept. 14, 1959. The family were popular Oaklandites. He was a traveling salesman for Red Ball Boots, and for a sideline sold boomerangs. His daughter Perle was a long time first grade teacher and wife of Herbert Lundgren, principal of the elementary school. His sons Harold, Milton, and Clarence were active in baseball, tennis and other community undertakings.

In 2005 I had the pleasure to have a interview with Marilee ( Poort ) Sexton, she is the daughter of Milton Poort, and this is what she had to say. “ I found the information lacking in the old book on Oakland ( Oakland’s First One Hundred Years ) because there was another daughter her name was ruby and was married to Carl Peterson, Ruby was also a first grade teacher. I don’t know where?, later on Perle and two others (Beulah Arndt and Ruth Grantham), had a nursery school for many years in south Topeka on 37th St. called Country Day.” She went on to say. “ My father ( Milton ) and his brother Harold Poort went to Washburn University and was on the Washburn AAU basketball team, and in 1925 Milton and Harold helped the team win a national championship, their coach was Dutch Lonborg.”

In a second interview with Marilee she had this to say. “Cornelius wife’s name was Emma Alvina ( Raduenzel ) Poort, she was born on Feb. 27, 1876 and died on Feb. 21, 1943. My father ( Milton ) later became the principal at Quincy and Potwin elementary schools and Harold went on to owned a grain elevator in Ogden, Utah and Clarence became a Federal probation officer.”