KELSO, HARRY EDSON, Jr.
Copyright 2011-2018 John N. Lupia, III
Harry Edson Kelso (1902-1988), was born in Grant City, Montgomery County, Iowa on July 23, 1902, son of Leon Edson Kelso (1875-1933), and Ella Jane Piper Kelso (1870-1945).
Harry E. Kelso never graduated high school finishing his junior year. He left school and took up the trade of a shoemaker when he lived at Arma, Kansas. He never married and lived with his parents working as a shoemaker in his own shoe repair shop at Pittsburg, Kansas. He conducted an antique business as a sideline buying old U. S. and foreign coins, paper money, postage stamps, old books, antique glass and jewelry, etc.
Fig. Kelso advertised in The Numismatist December 1919 on page 514, at age 17 after he dropped out of high school taking a job learning to be a shoe repairman.
Fig. Kelso advertisement in The Numismatist, December (1922) : 168
Fig. Kelso correspondence with Jesse J. Glass, Pacolet Mills, South Carolina. Courtesy Lupia Numismatic Library.
Fig. Kelso's 1935 List of Books Always Wanted. Courtesy Lupia Numismatic Library.
He died on May 21, 1988, at Miami, Oklahoma. He is buried in Highland Park Cemetery, Pittsburg, Crawford County, Kansas.
Bibliography :
The Numismatist, December (1922) : 168
US Census 1930
Hobbies (1936) : 125
Hobbies (1950) : 145
Numismatic Scrapbook, (1953) : 87
Popular Mechanics, July (1957) : 44
Railroad Magazine (1967) : 66