Meeker, Jacob Edwin
Jacob Edwin Meeker was born near Attica 7 October 1878 to Theodore Marston and Julia McKnight Meeker. His father had a tragic death, four years prior to Jacob’s passing as he fell in his barn with his lantern, starting a fire. By the time it was discovered he was burned to death along with eleven of his cows. After having attended the local schools he went to Union Christian College, where his father had graduated in 1870; Jacob graduating from there in 1900 and on to Oberlin Theological Seminary. While attending college there he was ordained as a minister in 1901, completing his studies in 1904. In Eldon, Missouri, he was at the Congregational Church after graduation, and in 1906 moved to St. Louis in charge of the Compton Hill Congregational Church which he resigned in 1912 to study law (Benton College of Law and admitted to the bar in 1914. Meeker was elected the Republican Congressman for Missouri and served from March 4, 1915 until he passed away in the flu epidemic Oct 16, 1918. He came back home again where he was interred in Union Cemetery at Attica (Wikipedia; photo from Biographical Directory of the US Congress; tombstone photo from Seth Musselman on FindAGrave).
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch 16 Oct 1918 p 1 had a touching article stating that he likely contracted the flu when he made a visit to the military camp at Jefferson Barracks where more than 1000 cases were under treatment. It went on to say that he married his secretary of six years (Alice V. Redmon) on his death bed at midnight, he passing away seven hours later. All those at the wedding including the bride and her mother (Circuit Judge Garesche who officiated the marriage); the doctor and nurses all wore gauze masks. The couple had been engaged for quite some time. Amicably divorced from his first wife, Ora Larr, ($200 a month child support and she had received a $20,000 life insurance), his four children arrived not long after the wedding ceremony to give their father their good byes. He was quite a prohibitionist and active for women suffrage. St. Louis had quite a rage of the flu and sadly, our Who’s Who here was one of them.
