Frank L. Shup
Mary Elizabeth Shup Yingst's 1st. Cousin Once Removed
From Newton Press - FRANK L. SHUP DEAD
Passed Away at 10:40 O'Clock Sunday Night of Heart Failure Caused by Leakage of the Heart
Funeral at the Presbyterian Church Thursday Afternoon
BORN NORTHWEST OF NEWTON
Was Editor and Publisher of the Newton Press for More than Forty-Four Consecutive Years
Has Been in Business Longer Than Any Other Citizen of This City
Frank L. Shup, for more than forty-four years editor of the Press died in his home in Newton at 10:40 o'clock Sunday night, from heart failure, following a spell of a minute or two duration caused by leakage of the heart, aged 72 years, 6 months and 5 days. He had been in ill health for a period of eleven months, suffering his first spell of heart trouble on the train on the second night out while on his way to Florida last February. He had been a sufferer from leakage of the heart ever since he was 16 years of age, when he had inflammatory rheumatism. At intervals during the past few months he recovered his strength sufficiently to go to the office for a few days, but gradually grew weaker. He was fully conscious to the last and discussed current events with friends and members of his family only a few hours before his demise and appeared in better health than usual.
He was born on a farm one and one-half miles northwest of Newton on July 4, 1854, a son of William and Emily (Coffin) Shup. He was the second son of a family of eight children of whom three died in infancy and one George A. Shup, a few months ago at his home in Burbank, California. William Shup, a veteran of the Mexican War, was born in Western Pennsylvania of German-Irish parentage. His mother, Emily Coffin, was born near Greensboro, North Carolina, and was of English ancestry, who came first to Massachusetts, landing on the Island of Nantucket in 1637.
Deceased was educated in the country and village schools of Newton, the family having moved here in 1860 where William Shup served four years as Sheriff of Jasper County. After the expiration of his term as Sheriff they moved to a farm in Richland County north of Olney where they resided several years, returning to Jasper County about 1868, and settling on a farm three miles southwest of Newton on the place now owned by Oscar Johnson.
Deceased made up his mind definitely to leave the farm when twenty years age and after teaching three or four terms of school at Raeftown, Willow Hill and Kedron, southwest of Newton, began to study law in the office of Brown & Gibson (The late D.B. Brown and James W. Gibson). In June, 1880, he was admitted to the bar by the Supreme Court of Illinois at Springfield, and at once went to Kansas, settling in Kingman, the county seat of Kingman County , then a struggling village reached by a tri-weekly stage from Hutchinson, the terminus of a railroad , forty miles away. Here he practiced law, transacted a real estate and loan business and served as examiner to assist the County Superintendent of Schools. From March 15, 1881, to May, 1882, he acted as associate editor of the Kingman Citizen, there serving his apprenticeship in the business that was to be his life work. His experiences during his last two years in Kingman were published in serial form in the Press last spring.
In May, 1882, Mr. Shup received a wire from his brother, John H. Shup that the latter had purchased the Newton Press and asking him to return and take charge. This he did on June 2, 1882, and in his first editorial expression published in the Press of June 6, wrote as follows: Commencing with number twelve, volume seventeen, of the Newton Weekly Press, the writer hereof assumes the editorial direction of the same. The political status of the Press under it's present management has been foreshadowed by our predecessor, Mr. A.N. Walker, and it is therefore unnecessary for us to add anything further as to what it's politics will be, than to state, that we shall continue to advocate the principles of the Democratic party as enunciated by the last national convention in 1880.
It is the provence of a newspaper to gather and report the news, to advocate such measures as have a refining influence upon society to elevate the social and moral standard of humanity - and to disseminate through its columns that will which have a tendency to educate its readers and to raise them to a higher plane of civilization. Whether we shall accomplish any of the purposes for which a newspaper should strive and which we have thus briefly outlined in the foregoing, we shall not here attempt to predict.
Here in our own home, where we grew from childhood to manhood after an absence of nearly two years in the West we return to take charge of the Press. Our journalistic experience in Kansas is not without it's advantages to us; for out there, in the treeless, boundless plains of the great West we learned the key to success in journalism, viz: To publish the news. We live in an age which the great mass of the people read and reflect, and he who would succeed in journalism must keep his paper abreast of the times.
In the discussion of men and measures, we shall endeavor to free our columns from that invidious style of journalism, in vogue among the newspaper of the present, in which the individual is singled out and held responsible for the acts and edicts of the party he represents.
It will be our aim to make the press an index to the active, vigorous life that is manifested by the people of Newton and Jasper county. We shall leave no stone unturned to place the Press, where it properly belongs, in the front rank of County journalism. Success is not attained we are aware, without an effort, and we shall therefore strive with all our might to reach the goal we have in view.
We are in a measure, dependent on a people whose principal characteristics are their sociability, prodigality, and liberality, and if we fail and fall by the wayside, it will not be because we did not strive for success. And now friend having thus informed you of our aims and hopes, we will close the book for the present and give you an opportunity to judge as by what we accomplish. ----
Mr. Shup served as the first Village Clerk of Newton, the only elective office he ever held. In 1876, when the village was incorporated, two parties placed tickets in the field, but both had Dr. Anthony B. Faller as candidate for Village President and Frank L. Shup for it's candidate for Village Clerk. He served three terms as Master in Chancery of Jasper county, by appointment of Judges Jones and Landes. In 1905 he was appointed as one of the five commissioners from Illinois to the Lewis and Clark Exposition at Portland, Oregon, by Governor Charles S. Deneen, and made two trips to the coast to see the erection and furnishing of the Illinois building there. President Woodrow Wilson, in 1914 made him a member of the annual Assay Commission to test the fineness of the United States coinage, minted at Philadelphia during the year, an honorary office. Each member of the commission was presented with a silver medal, a little larger than a dollar, bearing on the obverse the bas-relief portrait of Woodrow Wilson, with the letters forming his name, and on the reverse an intricate design including an eagle surmounting a pair of balances bearing the legend. "Mint of the United States, Annual Essay.1914"
During 1919-20 he acted as supervisor of the Census for the Twenty third Illinois District, and visited each of the ten counties several times to select enumerators and look after the counting of the population and the obtaining of other desired information. He was also a Director of the Newton State Bank and Trust Company.
For many years Mr. Shup had been a member of the Illinois Press Association and at one time served as its Vice President.
All of his life he was a Democrat in politics and was active in party councils until his advancing age made this impossible. He was always interested in anything that made for the betterment of Newton and Jasper county, and contributed liberally to many causes.
He was a member of the Elks Lodge in Olney and had been a member of the I.O.O.F., Red Men and Knights of Pythias orders.
Mr. Shup, at the time of his death had been engaged in a single line of business in Newton longer than any citizen of this city.
Frank L. Shup and Miss Nannie Richardson, a daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. Frank D. Richardson, were united in marriage on May 3,1897 and they have lived happily together for nearly forty years. They were the parents of one child, Laurence E. Shup, now associate editor of the Press.
Mr. Shup's chief interest in life was the Press, and to it he gave his every attention. He considered a newspaper a quasi-public institution and always said that it must be issued in spite of any and all emergencies.
Mr. Shup had traveled quite extensively, having visited forty five of forty-eight states, the Dominion of Canada and the Republics of Mexico and Cuba.
Surviving, besides his wife and son, are one brother, John H. Shup of Newton, now spending the winter in St. Petersburg, Florida, two sisters, Mrs. Thomas G. (Effie) Love of Glendale, California and Mrs. William R. (Emma) Allen of Alicia, Arkansas, nieces and nephews, other relatives, and a host of friends.
Funeral services will be held at the Presbyterian church in Newton on Thursday afternoon, JANUARY 13, at 1:30 o'clock, conducted by Rev. James M. Burge. Interment will be at Riverside cemetery.