September 28, 1909
J. L. NORMAN, SCHOOL
BOARD PIONEER, DEAD.
SERVED WITH PUBLIC EDUCAT-
ION FOR TWENTY YEARS.
Appointed Secretary Year Ago After
Retirement From the Abstract
Business -- Funeral Arrange-
ments Not Made.
THE LATE JOSEPH L. NORMAN.
Joseph Lafayette Norman, civil war veteran, compiler of the first set of abstract books in Kansas City, member of the school board for twenty years and its secretary for the last year, died at his home, 816 West Thirty-ninth street at 10:15 o'clock last night after an illness of two months. The funeral arrangements probably will be announced today, by which time a son who is in Mexico, and another who is in California can be heard from.
Joseph Lafayette Norman was born at Hickory Hill, Ill, October 21, 1841. In 1857, the year following the death of his mother, the family moved to Greeley, Kas., and took up a homestead there. A year later Mr. Norman and his father returned to Illinois. In the fall of 1859 Mr. Norman and his father came back West and located at what was Westport, Mo., one mile west of what is now Fortieth street and State Line. The deceased conducted a private school in Westport, and he had to close it at the outbreak of the civil war, August 14, 1862, the day of the battle of Independence, Mo.
ONE SON AN ARMY OFFICER.
Mr. Norman closed his school and with five of his pupils reported at Fort Union on the west side of the city and tendered their services to the government. He served for three years as a member of company A of the Twelfth regiment of Kansas volunteer infantry. At the battle of Westport on his twenty-third birthday, Mr. Norman was aide to General S. R. Curtis and carried across the field of battle an important message under an extremely dangerous fire. His first wife, Miss Martha Jane Puckett, a native of Virginia, died January 1, 1901.
They had five children, the oldest of whom, Captain Trabor Norman, is at present in the infantry, in Southern California. Another son, Joseph L, Jr., is in Mexico. Fred, Frank and Miss Jennie Norman are the other children.
OF A MILITARY FAMILY.
On June 25, 1903 Mr. Norman married Miss Katherine Gent of Kansas City. A son, Howard, was born of this union. Mr. Norman was a member of Farragu-Thomas Post, G. A. R. No. 8, and was also a Mason. H e was the first quartermaster of the Third Regiment N. G. M. In politics he was a Republican.
All of his ancestors were inclined to the military life. His brother, Calvin M., his father, Jones, and his wife's father, William E. Plunkett, all served in the civil war.
His paternal grandfather, Joseph Norman, served in the war of 1812, and his great-grandfather served in the revolutionary war, enlisting from North Carolina.
Mr. Norman commenced the work of getting up a set of abstract books at Independence, Mo. In October, 1865, and in the spring of 18657, with Lafayette Trabor he opened an abstract office. Later the Trabor interests were sold to Richard Robertson. Mr. Norman retired from this business a year ago.
Labels: books, Civil War, death, history, Independence, military, pioneers, schools, veterans, Westport
