JONAS D. HUFFMAN, head of the Huffman Real Estate Company, of Waurika, Jefferson county, has had a varied experience in the southwest, but his prospects and standing are now of the most substantial character. He was born in Iowa county, Iowa, on the 23rd of May, 1852, and his father was a minister of the United Brethren church, a pioneer of Iowa and Kansas. The son came to man's estate on the paternal homestead in Miami county, in the latter state, and his education was of the most incomplete as the period of the Civil war had its disorganizing effect on the schools of the far west ad on all other institutions of the country. For a time also, at this critical national juncture, the boy carried the government mail from Osawatomie across the country into Missouri. Upon one occasion bandits rifled his mail pouch. Until he was twenty-two years of age Mr. Huffman remained at the old home, when he moved to Mount Ida, Kansas, and resided there for three years, chiefly employed as a hay baler. His next home was at Minneapolis, that state, removing thence to Liberty, Missouri, and continuing his work already begun as a builder and contractor. The health of his wife forced him to depart for New Mexico, but when his family and household goods (loaded into two wagons) had reached Waukomis, Oklahoma, Mrs. Huffman's condition, as well as the state of the household purse, necessitated a halt. The husband there secured employment in a real estate office. His prospects were little improved when he commenced his eighteen months' of residence in what is now Waurika; but during that period the health of his wife improved, and the quarter section of land which he had purchased in the vicinity enabled him to assist a son who had drawn a claim in the Comanche country, as well as to finally improve his own financial condition. Being provided with a team, he also conducted a thriving transportation business in the location of new settlers, and was appointed the Rock Island immigration agent, which position he held for four years. In that comparatively brief time .he was the personal force which induced fully three hundred people to locate near Waurika, and his advice in the purchase and improvements of land has since been followed by many of them to their great advantage. He also platted Huffman's addition to Waurika, comprising sixty-five acres, and since his location here in 1902 he has transacted more profitable business than during the first fifty years of his life. In politics he is a Republican, is a member of the board of trustees of Waurika, but has little inclination for political activity.
     Jacob Huffman, the paternal grandfather, came to the United States from Germany, settled near Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and there married and reared a family. William Huffman, his son and the father of our subject, was born in the locality named in 1812, and when a young man of about twenty-six entered the work of the United Brethren church as a minister. After his first marriage he moved from Indiana to Iowa. As this was the early forties he thereby again identified himself with frontier life, and for a third time, when in 1856 he settled in Miami county, Kansas. In the county named he filed a claim, improved it and made it his homestead for the remainder of his life, dying in 1898. He was a neighbor of John Brown, was an earnest but modest opponent of slavery; was a member of the Home Guard during the Civil war, and for three terms served in the state legislature as a vigorous Republican. In addition he furnished two sons to the Union army, and the greatest fact in his active and useful life was that for a period of sixty years he faithfully preached the Gospel. The wife of his youth and the mother of his seventeen children was Alice, daughter of Edmund Davis, who at an early day moved from Ohio to Iowa. In 1868, Mrs. Huffman died in Miami county, Kansas, the mother of the following sons: Andrew P., of Osage county, Kansas; Gabriel M., of Topeka, Kansas; Hayden, of Florence, Kansas; John D., of this review; David S., of Waurika, Kansas;Charles, of Fruity, Colorado, and Elam, of Randlett, Oklahoma. The daughters of this family were: Lovica, wife of Calvin Tracy of Miami county, Kansas; Rebecca now Mrs. Albert Walley, residing in Wyoming;Patsy, who married Ambrose Karr and died in Miami county, Kansas, leaving a family, and Angeline, who married a Mr. Packard, and also left children. John D. Huffman married in Miami county, Kansas, on the 30th of August, 1875, Florence, daughter of Harvey Campbell, a native of Wisconsin, where Mrs. Huffman was born in 1854. The children of this union are as follows: Clarence, who married Blanche Boyle, and is a farmer of Jefferson county, Oklahoma: Percy, married and. a farmer of Comanche county; Frank, who married Maggie Stowe and lives in Waurika; Roy who was drowned in Beaver creek in 1905, and Hallie, a young business man of Waurika.