John Handley Tucker
1866 - 1939

John H. Tucker was born in Montfort, Wisconsin, on November 8, 1866, the eldest son of John Elisha Tucker and Hannah Rebecca Dwire. At age nine, about 1876, John came with his family by covered wagon to Greenwood County, Kansas. He worked on the family's farm and attended Maple Grove country school as late as 1887. His mother died in 1882, when John was 15 years old.

John H. Tucker settled in Wichita, Kansas in 1887, working first as a clerk in the checkroom of the swank new Carey House (later named the Eaton Hotel). He joined the First Methodist Church on February 5, 1888. he also attended Southwestern Business College in Wichita and worked for a cigar manufacturer for 2 or 3 years.

On June 8, 1892, he was married to Claire Estelle Miller, of Zenda, at Kingman, Kansas. Thereafter, he was variously a collector and bookkeeper for the WIchita Water Company and an implement dealer, had a business supply firm and real estate firm, and was cashier for a wholesale mercantile company from 1907 to 1929. He was then a realtor and bookkeeper until 1937. he was a 32nd degree Mason and sang baritone in several vocal groups and as a church soloist.

He died at age 72 on April 24, 1939, and is entombed in Old Mission Mausoleum, Wichita, Kansas.