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CLYDE DUNBAR HARRIS. Prominent among the best citizens of Dongola, and a man who possesses the esteem and good-will of all who come in contact with him is Clyde Dunbar Harris, superintendent of the Dongola Public Schools. He has occupied that responsible position but a short time, but in the months that have elapsed since he became the incumbent of the important office he is so successfully filling, he has found favor with his fellow citizens, and is conducting his work in fullest confidence of the support and loyalty of the entire community.
Clyde Dunbar Harris is the son of Frank R. Harris, a native of Union county, and a former teacher. He died in 1894. His mother is Minnie Lane Montgomery, the daughter of Dr. E. L. Montgomery, who settled in Union county in 1866. He came thence from Louisiana where he was a slave owner before the war, being the possessor of fifty-five slaves, who worked a large plantation for him. Dr. Montgomery served in the Confederate army as a cavalryman during the war. He fought valiantly for the cause of the south, giving of his substance freely, and at the close of the war he found himself to be
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financially ruined. His father was an itinerant Presbyterian minister who helped to spread the gospel among the early settlers and among the Indians of Louisiana and Mississippi.
Dr. Montgomery studied medicine at Keokuk, Iowa, graduating in 1868, and he practiced his profession at Mill Creek until the time of his death in 1898. His daughter, Minnie Lane Montgomery and the mother of Clyde Dunbar Harris, has been thrice married. Her first husband was William Karraker, and she bore him two sons. Oscar and Charles Karraker. By her second marriage, when she became the wife of Frank R. Harris, she became the mother of a son and daughter; Clyde Dunbar and Grace, the latter dying at the age of nine months. Her third husband was Thomas Jasper Karraker, a well-to-do farmer in the vicinity of Dongola. Two children have been born of this latter union: Oral and Lois.
Clyde Dunbar Harris was born April 15, 1889, on a farm in Union county. He passed through the common schools of his home town and later attended the Southern Illinois Normal University at Carbondale, graduating therefrom in the spring of 1911. In that same year he was elected to the position of superintendent of the Dongola schools. He is ably assisted by a corps of six efficient teachers, and the schools have an enrollment of two hundred and thirty-three pupils. The curriculum of the schools includes a four year high school course, which is up-to-date and thorough in every detail. Mr. Harris has already shown especial ability in his line of work, and a brilliant future for him is freely predicted.