Ernest Edward Brown. Among Oklahoma’s educators, one who has come rapidly to the forefront within recent years, is Ernest Edward Brown, city superintendent of schools of Erick. Still a young man, he has had broad and varied experience as a teacher, having entered the profession when he was eighteen years of ago and devoted his subsequent career to it. Mr. Brown is an Illinoisan by nativity, having been born in Fulton County, April 8, 1892, and is a son of W. H. Brown and a member of an old and honored American family. Originating in England, there is record of the family in New Jersey as early as 1775, and it is probable that it was founded here even before that date.

W. H. Brown was horn in Fulton County, Illinois, in 186."!, and has passed his life as a farmer and stock raiser. He was the owner of a good property in Illinois, which he developed through industry and good management into one of the valuable farms of his community, one of the right agricultural counties of the middle western part of the Prairie State. Mr. Brown disposed of his Illinois interests in 1907, when he became a pioneer farmer of Olustee, Oklahoma, and settled on a farm in Greer County. There he continued to be engaged in agricultural operations until the time of his death, in 1912. Mr. Brown was a republican in politics but took only a good citizen’s interest in affairs of a political character. His fraternal affiliation was with the Court of Honor. As a business man he bore a high reputation and his many sterling qualities of character attracted many friends to him. Mr. Brown was married in Illinois to Miss Martha Chenoweth, a native of Fulton County and a member of an old and well known family of that locality, and they became, the parents of seven children, as follows: Ernest Edward, of this review; E. B., who is engaged in teaching and resides at Hollis, Oklahoma; Leaf a, who is a senior in the Central State Normal School, at Edmond, Oklahoma; Lela, who is a sophomore in the same institution; Emil, who is engaged in farming on the home property at Olustee; and Lila and Chela, who reside at Erick and are attending the public school. The mother of these children still survives and is a resident of Olustee.

Ernest Edward Brown received his early education in the district schools of Fulton County, Illinois, and in that locality his boyhood and youth were passed on his father’s farm. He showed himself an assiduous and receptive scholar and decided upon a career as an educator. After attending the State Normal School at Macomb, Illinois, for one year, in 1907 he came to Olustee, Oklahoma, with his parents, and in 1911 was graduated from the Olustee High School. Prior to this, in 1910, he had commenced the following of his vocation as an educator, in the public school at Olustee, and in 1911 went to Jackson County, Oklahoma, where he secured further experience. In 1913 and 1914 he was principal of the grammar school at Hollis, Oklahoma, and then, to further prepare himself, entered the Edmond Central Normal School, where he was graduated with his diploma and a teacher’s life certificate. In September of the year 1915 he located at Erick, as city superintendent of schools, the position which he now occupies. His career as a teacher has not been merely negatively worthy, while his services as superintendent have been such as to win the commendation of the people of the community in which his labors are being prosecuted. He has not been in favor of radical innovations, but has ever been alert, quick to see the value of modern developments and ready to apply them conservatively and in a business-like way. While he has been faithful to the educational interests of Erick he has also been a supporter of the interests of his teachers, comprising a force of eight, under whom there are 450 scholars. Mr. Brown is a democrat, but only in so far as they affect his community has he taken an interest in the activities of the various political parties.

Mr. Brown was married at Duke, Oklahoma, in 1913, to Miss Etta Beck, daughter of S. J. Beck, an agriculturist of Jackson County, Oklahoma.