Kelley, Elmer E.

Elmer E. Kelley, best known as “E.E.,” died January 31, 1940, after a long career spent in education and journalism.

A contemporary wrote, “Few men or women in Kansas possessed so keen and discriminating a literary taste or so extensive and well selected a vocabulary...he was gifted with a keen wit and a poetic soul.”

Kelley was born Sept. 13, 1861, in Indiana. In 1887, he moved his wife and children to Toronto, Kansas, and became principal of schools.

He purchased the Toronto Republican in 1910, and added the Garden City Herald in 1924.

Kelley was president of the Kansas Press Association in 1914. He retired from the publishing business in 1929 but continued writing his “Kansas Grass Roots” column.

When he died after a long illness, Kelley had finished his customary three-day supply of copy for the column, which the Topeka Capital printed under his usual by-line.