John R. Hays (1843-1921)

HAYS, MILLS

Posted By: Dorian Myhre (email)
Date: 11/3/2021 at 23:01:34

From Nevada Representative January 24, 1921 (page 1)

OBITUARY OF JOHN R. HAYS

Word has been received that John R. Hays died at his home in Norfolk, Nebr., on the morning of Saturday, Jan. 22, 1921. He was born in 1844 in Highlan county, Ohio, and the family moved from there to Livingston county, Illinois, about 1853.

Mr. Hays was a graduate of Cornell College at Mount Vernon, Iowa. He came to Nevada in the year 1867 and began his career in Story county as the teacher of the grammar department of the Nevada public schools. The fall term of 1868 of said schools began with Mr. Hays as the principal. At the general election of October, 1869, he was elected to the office of county superintendent of schools for a term of two years, beginning January, 1870.

During the last months of the year 1871, he served as deputy county auditor and at the general election of October, 1871, he was elected to the office of county auditor and, being repeatedly elected he held said office for the period of ten successive years. A short time before he retired from the office of county auditor, he was, on motion and without examination, admitted to the practice of law by the district court of Story county, and after the expiration of his term of office as county auditor, he engage in said practice in Nevada and continued therein until he moved with his family to Norfolk, Nebr., in the year 1886, having accepted the position of cashier of a bank there that had been instituted by N. A. Rainbolt, a former resident of Ames. During a portion if not all, of the time he was engaged in the practice of law in Nevada, he was in partnership with John L. Stevens, who was then a resident of Ames but later of Boone.

After retiring from the bank at Norfolk, he continued the practice of law there. For some years he was postmaster at Norfolk, and at one time he received the Republican nomination for congress, in Nebraska but it was during the time then Populism was quite rampant there, and at the election he was defeated by a small margin.

Mr. Hays will be remembered by the older residents of Story county as one of its prominent citizens during the years of his residence therein.

He was widely and well known thruout the county and was quite prominent for some years in political circles.

He was a very capable man and filled his various offices to his credit and the credit of the offices.

In the year 1871 he was married to Miss Susan A. Mills, a Nevada girl, and the daughter of Rev. Samuel T. Mills, a retired Presbyterian minister then residing in Nevada. To them were born two children--a son, Charles R., now living, and a daughter, Edith, who passed away a number of years ago, leaving a husband and a baby daughter, the baby daughter being now a married woman.

T. A. Mills of the Farmers Bank of Nevada, is a half brother of the deceased.