My Genealogy Hound

W. C. Spann, editor and proprietor of the Aurora Daily Advertiser, was born in Neosho, Mo., on the 23d of January, 1847, and is a son of Dr. J. W. H. and Parthenia (Gore) Spann, both of whom were born in the “Blue Grass” State and immigrated to Greene County, Mo., in 1842. Here they resided until the big flood of 1844, and then made their home in Newton County until 1855 and afterward made their home in Mount Vernon, Mo. The father was a graduate of St. Louis Medical College, and practiced medicine throughout Southwest Missouri. He was postmaster at Mount Vernon when the war broke out and immediately enlisted in the Union army, and was surgeon at Rolla, Mo., at the time of his death, November 23, 1862. His wife died in 1877. Three of their seven children are now living: Bailey, Frank and Walter. The latter was reared in Lawrence County, and here received a liberal education. In 1863 he enlisted in Company A, Seventy-sixth Missouri Cavalry, and afterward became a veteran in Company F, Fourteenth Missouri Cavalry. He served on the plains until 1865, when he was mustered out at Leavenworth, Kas. At the close of the war he went to Springfield, Mo., where he began learning the printer’s trade working on the Springfield Patriot. He afterward worked as a journeyman in some of the large cities, Chicago, St. Louis and Cincinnati being among the number, and he also worked in Colorado and New Mexico. In 1884 he returned to Southwest Missouri and started a paper at Billings, called the Billings Advertiser, which he conducted for eighteen months, then located in Marionville where he edited the Marionville Advertiser until February, 1888, at which time he came to Aurora, and has since edited the Aurora Daily Advertiser. His office is equipped with good material, presses, etc., and he is doing a lucrative business. He was married in 1885, to Miss Mollie Ogilby, of Marionville, by whom he is the father of two children, John and Dora. Mr. Spann is a member of the Masonic and A. O. U. W. fraternities, and also belongs to the Typographical Union and G. A. R. His wife is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.