At least one g,grandfather veteran of Revolutionary War, father veteran of the Civil War.

h/o 1st Nellie Harrison, 2nd Anna Telfer Baty.

Birth: 2nd of seven sons and two daughters of the known siblings in Union township, Fayette county, Ohio. (There were a lot of Gossards in Labette county)

Census: 1860, age 1 Union township, Fayette county, Ohio, with parents and older brother.

1860, or soon thereafter, parents removed from Ohio to Indiana.

Census: 1870, age 10 Prairie township, Tipton county, Indiana with parents & four siblings.

Reportedly removed in 1876 from Indiana to Labette county, Kansas where father died July 1879.

Oecesmous was around eighteen with his humble amount of education upon arriving in Kansas with parents and siblings starting business life clerking in a hardware store, trying to be the best salesman in town. Frank W Blackmar said he then started a store in Hartland, Kansas. Then in March 1880 opened his store, O Gossard Hardware and Implement company in the fair town of Oswego, prospering to be able to purchase much local property, later becoming president and a board of director member of C M Condon & Company, State Bank, created 1904, becoming an executor of Mr Condon's will, in addition to his patriotic duties listed separately below. He was an active member of the Knights of Pythias, Methodist church and Republican party. His daughters were members of Class of 1918 and son of 1921 at the University of Kansas.

Census: 1880, age 22 Hackberry township, Labette county, Kansas with widowed mother & four siblings

Census (Kansas): 1 MAR 1895, age 36 Oswego, Labette county, Kansas with 1st wife.

Census: 1900, age 40 Oswego, Lebette county, Kansas with 1st wife & two kids, implement dealer.

Census (Kansas): 1 MAR 1905 age, 46 Oswego, Labette county, Kansas with 1st wife & three kids.

Orcesmous Gossard, owner of a hardware and farm supply store in Oswego, Labette County, wrote a letter toLucy Johnston regarding the upcoming election to determine whether or not Kansas women would gain universal suffrage. He assured her that he still supported women's suffrage because "every woman in the United States should have the same and Equal rights with every man in the U.S." He also promoted the cause of suffrage at a local meeting of Republicans.
Letter date: November 2, 1912

Census (Kansas): 1915, age 56 Oswego, Labette county, Kansas with 2nd wife & three children.

Taking up the war work in Labette County at the very first, Mr. Gossard had a great deal to do in organizing the various branches of home service in the county. Being appointed Chairman of the County Council of Defense he organized not only each town in the county but had live working organizations in every school district. As the war progressed and greater effort on the part of every citizen was necessary Mr. Gossard cheerfully gave up his business to give all of his time to aiding the Government in "winning the war, accepting the chairmanship of the Fuel Administration, Food Administration, Liberty Bond and Baby Bond drives, all of which were 100 per cent conducted. In the Liberty and Baby Bond drives Labette County far exceeded its quotas. Under the County Council of Defense Administration the work of creating a greater Americanism, greater savings, more production and less slackerism (there •was but little in Labette County) was very successfully executed. Besides being the directing head of these organizations in the county, Mr. Gossard took an active part in the Red Cross work, and is at this time a member of the Executive Board of the Labette County Chapter and doing peace time work in the community. Mr. Gossard resides at Oswego, Kansas.

On the bank reports of 1918 and 1920 he is noted as president (so elected to fill boots of C M Condon after his death in 1915) and on the board of directors of, C M Condon & Company, State Bank created 1904, Oswego, Labette county, Kansas, with both, W H, his brother-in-law of Oswego and C S Condon of Joplin, Missouri, also on the board. He and bank's cashier, Elmer S Nance were executors in 1915 of the will for Charles Monroe Condon.

Death: Kansas City, Jackson county, Missouri, at Research Hospital,
The death certificate can be viewed at Missouri Digital Archives/death certificates online website.
informant 2nd wife Anna.

Father: Sargent Abraham Gossard b: 22 MAY 1838 Fayette county, Ohio.
Mother: Sarah Elizabeth Halloway b: 19 NOV 1838 Ross county, Ohio.

Marriage 1: Nellie Harrison b: 26 SEP 1869 Labette county, Kansas.
Married: 23 NOV 1893 Labette county, Kansas.

Known children

Mary Elizabeth Gossard b: 26 AUG 1895 in Oswego, Labette county, Kansas.

Agnes DeMar Gossard b: Mar 1899 Oswego, Labette county, Kansas.

Edgar Harrison Gossard b: 23 MAR 1901 Oswego, Labette county, Kansas (some have Kansas City, Jackson county, Missouri), died 18 JAN 1960, California.

Marriage 2: Anna Telfer Baty b: 24 JAN 1877 Bartlett township, Labette county, Kansas.
Married: 1910 in Labette county, Kansas. (following date of census)

No known issues

Above bio courtesy Bill Boggess

OBITUARY:

O. GOSSARD, CITIZEN AND PATRIOT, IS DEAD

End Came Suddenly to one of Oswego's Most Prominent Citizens at the Research Hospital in Kansas City, MO., at Six o'clock Monday Morning, following and Illness of a Year and a Half with Pernicious Anemia. He Became Undermined During and Following War Days, When He Had the Various WAr Drives and War Works in this County - Was Easily Labette County's Most Useful and Most patriotic Citizen - A Business Genius, A Diplomat, a Friend to Every Upbuilding and Uplifting Ente--. Funeral Rites Here Wednesday Attended by a Host of Friends From Far and Near and Telegrams of Sympathy and Messages of Esteem Come to Bereaved Family From Every Section of the Country. Interment in the Oswego Cemetery.

O. Gossard died at six o'clock Monday morning, February 12, 1923, at the Research Hospital in Kansas City, MO., whither he had gone on January 15, for further treatment in his noble fight with the dread disease, pernicious anemia, with which he had been afflicted since the fall of 1921, and perhaps longer.
When he left here for the last time just a month ago yesterday, his condition was serious, but was not considered critical, and friends and family felt that a few weeks in the hospital again would build him up. He did get better, and only a week ago the Independent carried a letter from him, written in his characteristic cheerful fashion, in which he told of his improvement and told of his craving for letters from home to relieve the monotony of a long hospital day. Hardly was the ink on last weeks paper dry until Mrs. Gossard received a call from Miss DeMar Gossard, who was at her father's bedside in Kansas City stating that a sudden turn for the worse had come, and to come at once. Mrs. Gossard, Edgar Gossard and W. H. Condon left on a night train and were in Kansas City early Friday morning.
A conference of physicians decided that a blood transfusion offered the only hope of saving his life and that the hope it offered was only a faint one at best. The daughter, Miss DeMar, whose blood most nearly met the test of the kind needed gave two ounces Friday morning, one ounce Saturday morning. Mr. Gossard rallied somewhat from the first infusion Friday, the response was not so great on Saturday and Sunday two severe chills followed the infusion, and all hope was abandoned. He was able to recognize the members of the family as they gathered at his bedside Friday morning.

In his favorite corner of the great hallway the casket was stationed, the background a bower of beautiful and fragrant flowers, the casket itself literally covered with them while grouped on all side of it were other magnificent floral pieces. The tributes of friends from all sections of the country. This was intensely fitting too, for no man loved flowers and the beauties of nature more than who was resting in their midst.
The service itself was beautiful and simple, just as he would have had and was in charge of Dr. Fred Bailey, of Kansas City, Kansas; District Superintendent of that District of the Methodist Episcopal Church here, and Dr. J. M. Kersey of Parsons, a long time and close personal friend of the deceased.
Mr. Fred Rettig, always a favorite singer at the Gossard home, sang very effectively at the opening of the service, "Crossing the Bar," and at the close, "Beautiful Isle of Somewhere."
His accompaniment was by Mrs. L. Parker, of Parsons, girlhood friend of the family.
In the prayers that were offered, the sermon in the word tributes that were said, there was a personal touch and personal references that impressed more vividly, if possible, than ever before, the loss this community has sustained.
Dr. Kersey's tribute, a most beautiful and touching one, dealt with the character of the man as he had worked with him shoulder, as a patriotic citizen in the loan drives during the war, the Red Cross drives, in politics, in religion endeavor. He knew, better than any one else, perhaps the great service Gossard had rendered to his country and the drain that it had been upon him, for during those days they were almost one and inseparable. In the work, Mr. Gossard has always been want to introduce Dr. Kersey, as the man who never failed him when called, and the parting words of the speaker, addressed to his deceased friend were, that he hoped in the last call to speak a word over his body that he had not failed him.
Dr. Bailey brought his tribute from a bit of another angle, as he said that of the younger man, who he learned to know of of the well spring human help and kindly sympathy and advice that radiated from him, and which stimulated and guided youthful endeavor, and inspired it to bigger and better things. It will be remember that F. M. Bailey came to Oswego a number of years ago to accept his first pastorate, after having been engaged in special missionary work in Mexico, which he was obliged to give up on account of his health there. It was while struggling with this first pastorate that Dr Bailey learned to know and love "Sim" Gossard. His recital of numerous personal experiences where the Gossard counsel and Gossard enthusiasm had sent him out with renewed hope and vigor, where typical indeed of the experiences of many others in this community. Couched in beautiful words and with his whole soul behind it, Dr. Bailey's funeral address was a fitting one indeed for the life that had gone out.
Burial was made in the family lot in Oswego Cemetery, where, despite the biting cold, a long procession of cars journeyed. The business houses of the city were closed during the funeral hour as the final tribute to one who had been one among us for well over a quarter of a century.
Honorary pallbearers were old and honored friends and associates.

OBITUARY
Orcemous Gossard was born Dec. 19, 1858 in Fayette county, Ohio near Washington court house, and was one of nine children born to Mr. and Mrs. Abraham Gossard. His father volunteered as a Union soldier in the Civil War, completing his enlistment in 1863, when the family then moved to Tipton county, Indiana. Here he again enlisted in the army and fought to the close of the war, coming out as a First Lieutenant. In 1875 the family moved to Kansas, locating on the prairies about two miles southwest of Altamont in Labette county. In 1878 the husband and father died and a short time afterward the family moved to what is now the Stewart farm a mile west of Oswego. "Sim" as he was always called, secured for himself the best education possible in the country schools, as he could get the time from his farm work. Later he taught five terms in the country schools of his neighborhood. He came to Oswego and accepted a job as clerk in a hardware store owned by Dr. Baker, on the site where the Burwell Grocery now stands, and in the course of a year or two had developed such ability as a salesman that Henry Hayter entered a partnership with him and they bought a store at Hartland, Kansas about 35 miles west of Garden City. He conducted the hardware there for five years and made good. Then he sold out and returned to Oswego to become a full partner with Henry Hayter in what is now the Corner Hardware. In 1888 he bought Mr. Hayter's interest int he store and has since conducted it and on the well known "Gossard's Plan" has built up one of the biggest businesses of its kind in this part of the state. In addition to this, he was also interested at different times in various other enterprises and had many other business interests at the time of his death. Following the death of the late C. M. Condon, he became the President of the Condon State Bank, was President of the Citizens Ice Co., Etc.
In 1893 he was united in marriage with Nellie Harrison and to this union three children were born; Mrs. Mary Williams, now of Lawrence, Kansas; Miss Agnes DeMar Gossard of Kansas City, MO., and Edgar Gossard, at home. Mrs. Gossard died in 1907. In 1910 he was united in marriage with Miss Anna B. Baty, who with the three children above named survive. He is survived also by one grandson and by three brothers; E. M. Gossard, well known farmer of Fairview township
Prepared by Bill Boggess