William Thornton Kemper Sr.

William Thorton Kemper Sr.
Born	(1866-11-03)November 3, 1866
Died	(1938-01-19)January 19, 1938

William Thornton Kemper Sr. was the patriarch of the Missouri Kemper family, which developed both Commerce Bancshares and United Missouri Bank to become a major banking family in the Midwest.

Life and career

Kemper was born in Gallatin, Missouri, the son of Sarah Ann (née Paxton) and James Madison Kemper. He moved with his family to St. Joseph, Missouri - about sixty miles west of Gallatin - before the age of six. His mother died in 1875, when he was nine years old.

Kemper never completed a formal high-school education. At the age of 14 he began work, sweeping the floor at Collins and White, a St. Joseph shoe store, and later became a salesman for Noyes, Norman and Company, a shoe distributor and manufacturer (also in St. Joseph), covering retailers in Eastern Kansas, including Valley Falls, Kansas, a small settlement on the Delaware River, about 35 miles due west of Leavenworth. In 1885 Kemper moved from St. Joseph to Valley Falls to establish a dry goods store, "Evans & Kemper."

Kemper would spend the next eight years in Valley Falls, where he courted and married Charlotte Crosby and began his career in commercial banking. Kemper's connection with the Crosby family had both business and personal aspects, and may have predated his move to Valley Falls. Charlotte Crosby's father, Rufus Henry Crosby, was a leading town citizen dating from soon after the opening of Kansas Territory in the 1850s. By 1885, Crosby had established and operated a newspaper, a dry-goods store and a bank. When he was traveling through eastern Kansas representing Noyes, Norman, one of Kemper's accounts was in with A.D. Kendall's, Rufus Crosby's dry-goods store. Notably however, when Kemper arrived in Valley Falls, Crosby had previously sold his remaining interest in this company to his partner (and brother-in-law, Alvin Kendall) to start (in 1879) his bank, the Valley Falls Bank of Deposit. In 1887, Kemper joined Rufus Crosby's bank as cashier, while also remaining active his other business activities. He married Charlotte Crosby in 1890, and became a partner in the Crosby bank in September 1891. Following Rufus Crosby's death in December of that same year, the Valley Falls bank was purchased by A.D. Kendall (and eventually rechartered as The Kendall State Bank).

W.T. and Charlotte moved to Kansas City, Missouri in 1893.

Banking

In 1906, Kemper was named president of the newly chartered Commerce Trust Company, an affiliate of the National Bank of Commerce. Following the 1916 merger of the National Bank of Commerce into Southwest National Bank of Commerce, W.T. sold his ownership in the trust company for $740 thousand in 1916 and retired in early 1917. However, following the death of W.S. Woods (who had led National Bank of Commerce from 1881 until 1908), W.T. returned in July 1917 as chair of the both banks. The National Bank of Commerce was finally consolidated with the Commerce Trust Company into a single corporation in March 1921. A year later, W.T. Kemper and others sold control of the Commerce Trust to the Theodore Gary and Associates.. for the price of $220 a share. In late 1932 W.T. Kemper and his son James reacquired control of the Commerce Trust at $86 a share.

W.T.'s sons followed him into banking: R. Crosby Kemper became president of City Center, a bank W.T. had acquired personally in April 1918 (and would later become City National Bank, then UMB Financial). James M. Kemper was appointed treasurer of Commerce Trust in 1924.

Other Business Activities

Prior his involvement with the Commerce Trust, Kemper founded the Kemper Grain Company and the Kemper Loan and Investment Company. He was treasurer of the Kansas City Commercial Club, a club made of local businessmen to promote Kansas City's growth.

In 1917, Kemper was appointed receiver for the bankrupt assets of the Kansas City, Mexico & Orient Railroad, an incomplete railroad system intended to link Kansas City to the Pacific, which was then in its second attempt at reorganization following insolvency and bankruptcy. In May 1923, oil was discovered along the railroad's West Texas service area. However, in March 1924 the U.S. Government ordered that the Orient be sold at auction to satisfy previous loans and accrued interest. Kemper and Clifford Histed were successful bidders in that auction, with a bid of $3 million (which was approximately the amount of government debt). The Orient's final reorganization (in August 1927) provided noteholders 35 thousand common shares through subscription based on their share of the debt, valued at $71.60 per share ($2.5 million). In 1928, Kemper and Histed offered the Orient for sale to the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, which offered $414.50 per share, for a total value of $12.4 million.

Political Activities

Kemper's history was intertwined with that of Harry S. Truman. Truman's father, John Anderson Truman, traded grain commodities futures alongside Kemper until John Truman lost his fortune. John took Harry, then a teenager, to the local Democratic functions in Kansas City where Kemper was also in attendance. Kemper arranged for Truman to be a page at the 1900 Democratic National Convention in Kansas City. As a young man Harry would go to work in the National Bank of Commerce, 1903–1905, where Kemper was a director. In 1934 during Truman's first run for the United States Senate, Kemper bought the assets of the failed Continental National Bank which included the mortgage on Truman's failed haberdashery and in turn allowed Truman to retire it for $1,000 (while at the same time also contributing $1,000 to Truman's campaign).

Personal life

W.T. Kemper and Charlotte had three children: Rufus Crosby Kemper, Sr. (1892-1972); James Madison Kemper, Sr. (1894-1965) and William T. Kemper, Jr. (1902-1989). He and Charlotte lived at 1007 Westover Road in Kansas City from 1912 until his death in 1938. He is buried in a crypt in Forest Hills Abbey, in the Forest Hills Cemetery in Kansas City. He is the great-great-grandfather of actress Ellie Kemper and writer Carrie Kemper.

References

• Roush, Chris (2015). Building Commerce. Essex Publishing. ISBN 978-1-936713-10-3.
• Schondelmeyer, Brent (1986). Building a First Class Bank - The Story of UMB. UMB Financial.
• Kerr, John (1968). Destination Topolobampo. Golden West Books.
• Garwood, Darrell (1948). Crossroads of America: The Story of Kansas City. W W Norton & Co.
• William T. Kemper resources at the Kansas City Public Library
• Caldwell County Oral History: James M. Kemper - Hamilton Merchant in the Sixties
• Kendall State Bank History
• Ferrell, Robert Hugh (1996). Harry S. Truman: A Life. University of Missouri Press. Columbia, Missouri. ISBN 0-8262-1050-3.
• McCullough, David (1992). Truman. Simon and Schuster New York. ISBN 0-671-86920-5.