Okobojo. Sully County S D   Thursday, December 14, 1922.

BIOGRAPHICAL

by E.K.E.

Will Green first saw the light of day at Flora, Clay county, Illinois, on November 26^th, 1870 and departed this life on December 7^th, 1922, at Chamberlain, whither he had gone in search of health and happiness.

W. H. Green

The Green family were indeed pioneers.  They located near Olivet, Hutchinson county, Dakota Territory, in 1875, a time when Indians were as common as coyotes, and almost as little tamed. Stirring adventures with the redskins marked their early life in that section.

Removing to this region in 1883, the family again took up the tasks of the pioneer. It was in the spring of that year that Father John Green filed on the homestead near Okobojo which has since known by his name, and which afterward descended to his son.

In those early days the boy Will busied himself with his schooling and the tasks common to youth. He served his apprenticeship as a printer at eighteen years of age under Steve Travis, now State Industrial Commissioner, who for many years was proprietor of the Okobojo Times. 

The next event of importance to touch his life was the clarion call of war.  The clash between America and Spain, which resulted form the sinking of the Maine, brought the call for volunteers.  Ever a youth of unusual patriotic fervor, Will Green was among the most enthusiastic to respond, enlisting as a private in Company A, First South Dakota Volunteers, in May 1898.  His war record was one of faithfulness and loyal service from the beginning of the war until its close.  It was while serving his country that he contracted the malaria, common to the Philippines, from which he was ever after a sufferer, and which finally resulted in complications which caused his death.  Indeed his life may rightly be regarded as having offered on the alter of his country.

A few years after his return from the war he became associated with John Livingston in the conduct of the Okobojo Times, becoming its owner in 1910.  He has since been its sole proprietor, and has been active in public and local affairs.  As a business enterprise this venture was successful, and the business remains intact to those he has left behind, having in it the essential elements of endowment insurance.  Many men of financial reputation have not left as paying a legacy, which is entirely apart from his landed estate.

In July 24^th 1902, he was united in marriage to Madge Glessner, the ceremony taking place at the home of Mr. And Mrs. E. K. Eakin in Pierre.  Three children were born to them – Frances Catherine, Willis John, and George Hugh, who with his wife, are left to adjust themselves to entirely changed conditions of life.   Of his paternal family, his father, John Green, and his brother Hugh, both of Pierre and his brother, Charlie, of Portland Oregon, are bereft of the companionship of a son and brother.

It was in 1921 that the people of Sully county honored him very signally in his election as representative to the legislature.  While not a leader in that body, his official duties were discharged in a faithful and conscientious manner, always with due regard to the trust imposed in him by his constituencies.  He was not on the firing line, but in the public as in the private life, he was to be found in the supporting columns of that which he believed to be right.

Will Green was a kindly man, who possessed to a marked degree the art of making and holding friends.  His standards were not too rigorous for his judgment to be lenient.  He did not try to reconstruct folks.  He was given to accepting them and enjoying them as he found them.  He was disposed to take a humorous rather than a critical view of their shortcomings.  His chief interest was in people and what happened to them, a trait worthy of emulation.  This formed his chief asset as proprietor of a newspaper.  He was particularly interested in the events of early days.  That which savored of beginnings appealed to him strongly.  He reveled in all all that pertained to the early settlement and subjection of the country.

Fifty-two years is but a brief span, yet in his case it was long enough to make his loss irreparable to the small circle of loved ones and to make his going keenly felt by a larger company which can not easily be numbered.  His children have lost a chum, his wife a lover, and the community an upright and worthy citizen.

Two funeral services were held the first at ten o’clock at the Baptist church in Pierre on December the 11^th, Rev. H. H. Gunderson officiating.  This ceremony was held as a courtesy to the relatives and friends in Pierre.  The chief service was held from the home in Okobojo at 1:30 o’clock of the day following under the auspices of the Onida chapter of the Masons, who had entire charge of the service.  The pall bearers at the Pierre service were selected from the veterans of the Spanish-American war, with one exception.  Those acting at Okobojo were Masons.  The beautiful Masonic ritual, both at the home and at the grave, was most fitting an impressive.  Interment was at the Okobojo cemetery by the side of loved ones, on the hills which he had roamed when but a lad.  It is a fitting resting place, within easy distance of the old home and the scenes which charmed him most.  May his repose be as satisfying to him as the life which he lived among his loved ones and friends.

CARD OF THANKS.

In the recent affliction that has bereft us of our loved one, we have been the recipients of many acts of kindness, beautiful flowers, and words of sympathy.  For all of these we extend our heartfelt thanks, and wish to make special mention of the Spanish- American veterans, the Masons, the ones who served dinner to those coming from a distance, and Mr. Guy Harding who tendered us the use of his cars and his personal service as driver.

With sincere gratitude,

               THE GREENS