Randolph County Indiana Biographies Surnames Starting with L
Union City Times-Gazette, Tuesday, May 16, 1939 (Union City, Randolph County, Indiana)
Monday afternoon Union City had four interesting visitors. They were Mr. and Mrs.
Eddie A. Lewis
, of Belleville, Kansas; Mrs. Hattie Lewis Bartlett, and Austin J. Kelley, of Norway, Kansas. Lewis and his sister, Mrs. Bartlett, were born and reared here, and during their brief stay yeasterday they visited their old home on North State Line street. The late N. B. Lewis, of this city, former shoe merchant and city treasurer, was their brother. The two left here in 1876, and this is their first visit to their native city in 63 years. Lewis conducts a garage in Belleville, while Mrs. Bartlett, who is 78 years of age, has had charge of the post office of her town for 26 years.
When they moved to Kansas they found the country very primitive. Lewis, who was only four years old, remembers hearing the people describe Kansas as "the junping off place." "From this description," Lewis said yesterday, "I expected to find a cliff with only a space beyond." They described the development of Kansas in the past 62 years as truly remarkable.
Kelley, who was born at New Crydon, Jay county, married Mattie Lewis, sister of Eddie, Hattie and Noe B. Lewis. He is 81 years of age. His wife was 81 on the second day of last January, and on the following day she died suddenly. They had only recently before celebrated their sixty-first wedding anniversary. The Kelleys have spent their lives on a Kansas farm. The party came by automobile. They found some of their former acquaintance here, but had a brief visit with Charles Tritt, chief of West Side police, who formerly was associated in business with N. B. Lewis. Late yesterday afternoon they left for Huntington, Ind., to visit O. B. Lewis and Gertrude Judy, nephew and niece of Lewis and Mrs. Bartlett. They are enjoying their trip but were disappointed at their failure to find old acquaintances and landmarks in this city.