Harry Trumbull Sutton

Harry Trumbull was born on 20 September 1867 at El Paso, Illinois.  He was the grandson of Samuel Sutton of Virginia (later Illinois) and the second of four children of Critton Sutton.  He was bereaved at age 6, when a tree fell on Samuel.
     Harry was said by a relative to have gone to school “everywhere and all the time.  He was one of those whose idea of a good time was sitting down and studying the dictionary.  He loved words and loved a good conversation.”  He studied at Nevada Christian University, at Northwestern Christian College, and at Drake University.
     He began preaching in 1889, at a Church of Christ in Milford, Indiana.  He was a supply pastor at many small churches and had some connection with the Disciples of Christ denomination; his family records are preserved by the Disciples of Christ Historical Society.
     Mainly, he taught speech at several small colleges, his 11-year tenure as head of the Department of Eloquence at Cotner College being his longest time at any one place.
     Sutton wrote much poetry, efforts which his relatives considered to be “pretty bad.”  Only some of it was ever published.
     Mrs. Sutton, née Lola Miksch/Mix, was a pianist and singer who had studied at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music.  They met while performing on the Chautauqua Circuit.  After their marriage, they settled down at Cotner in order to raise a family.
     While at Cotner, Sutton gained a regional reputation as a speaker, name-recognition which led him to enter politics.  Soundly defeated in his quest for Governor of Nebraska in 1906, he never tried again.
     Harry Sutton died in 1962, aged 95 years, while living in the Florida “Penny Homes” community for retired clergy.

-- Abstracted from Jerome A. Jackson’s 2007 biography of Harry’s son George, George
Miksch Sutton:  Artist, Scientist, and Teacher. University of Oklahoma Press. (George
Sutton was the Pennsylvania State Ornithologist.).  Located by Adam Seaman.

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