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Obit For Frederick J. Bannister
Headline WIDLEY KNOWN BUSINESS MAN DESPONDENT TAKES OWN LIFE WITH GUN
Once President of Long-Bell Lumber Co. Frequent Visitor Here
Text Frederick J. Bannister, age 65, widely known business man and once president of nationally known Long-Bell Lumber Company and head of Kansas City Chamber of Commerce shot and killed himself Saturday at the home of his brother-in-law in Kansas City.

The reason assigned for Mr. Bannister taking his own life is ill health and general despondency.

For sometime after Bannister shot himself he was conscious, Kansas City papers state that Bannister’s nurse said Bannister told her that he had shot himself because he had given up hope for recovery from Bright’s Disease.

A short time before Bannister retired to the room in the home of his brother-in-law, where he committed the act, he had been told by his physician that he was not physically able to carry out his plan to go to New York to spend Christmas with his daughter.

Mrs. Bannister died about eight years ago. He was very much devoted to his wife and is said to have grieved much over her passing. In recent years, Mr. Banninster had experienced heavy financial reverses. This fact, added to his increasingly bad health are believed to have brought on the general condition of despondency which led to the tragic end.

Mr. Bannister and members of his family have been coming to the Cassville and to Roaring River where they owned a cottage for a number of years. He had showed quite an interest in Cassville and community. He owned for several years the business building at the Southwest corner of the Square, now known as the Ford building. He loved Roaring River so much that he never would stay away very long at a time, and in recent years would stay weeks at a time when he would come to his cottage there. He was so genial and pleasant, a man with such broad sympathies and understanding, that our people here all loved him and were grieved to learn of his death.
Newspaper or Funeral Home Cassville Democrat
Date Dec. 27, 1934
Death Cert Link Death Certificate
Resource -
Submitted by Barbara Erwin