JESSE HUGHES COFFMAN

The Erie Record, Friday, Sept. 22, 1911

Died: Sept. 18, 1911


JESSE COFFMAN DEAD.
______
Lived a Useful Life and Was Trusted
and Respected.

On Monday, September 18, Jesse Coffman died in this city. He had been in poor health for several months and it was commonly known that his days on this earth were numbered. He was one of the most highly respected citizens who ever resided in Erie and possessed that very rare quality of knowing how to make many friends and very few enemies. The following is a brief history of the life-time happenings of the late Jesse Coffman.

Jesse Hughes Coffman, born December 17, 1839, in Fairfield county, Ohio, died at Erie, Kansas, September 18, 1911. When a child his parents moved to Adams county, Ind., where he grew to manhood. He was a veteran of the civil war, serving as sergeant in Co. E, 10th regiment Ohio volunteer cavalry. He was appointed postmaster at Pleasant Mills, Ind., for a time. In 1869, he with his wife and little daughter, came to Kansas by wagon route and settled on a claim in Ladore township. He lived there until 1881, when he moved to a farm near Moran, Allen county, Kansas. In 1903 he moved to Erie and in 1909 to Emporia where he resided until his death. He was an active member of the Christian church.

He was twice married, his first wife having died in 1879. He leaves a wife, one daughter, Mrs. F. M. Lee, of Compton, Calif., a son, Harold Coe Coffman, of Spearville, Kansas, ten grandchildren, two sisters, Mrs. Sarah Steele, Pleasant Mills, Ind., and Mrs. Belle Springer, VanWert, Ohio, one brother, G. M. Coffman, Rocky Ford, Colo., and many other relatives. One daughter, Mrs. Edith Weast, died in 1907.

Well might it be said of him, as Dickens said of one of his favorite characters. “You have been useful all your life, steadily and constantly occupied, trusted, respected, and looked up to.”