Nathan Shumate DeMotte. In the days of the Huguenot persecution in France, three brothers DeMotte were expelled from their native land, and found sanctuary with many another in America. These men located in North Carolina, and from the families they established then many branches have come into being. Nathan Shumate DeMotte is of the progeny of one of those men. He is a son of Rev. William DeMotte, born in Rising Sun, Cecil County, Maryland, and his wife, Minerva J. Jones, born in Marysville, Kentucky, in 1830. The father died in Kansas City in 1890 and the mother in Polk County, Missouri, in 1886.

Rev. William DeMotte was a Methodist minister and a member of the St. Louis Methodist Episcopal Conference from 1857 until he died. Prior to his entry into the ministry he was a sailor. His work in the ministry was carried on in the State of Missouri, in the northern part up to 1866, and after that in the southern part of the state. He was in early days a Douglas democrat, and after that a republican. He served the Union during the Civil war as chaplain of his regiment, and he was a member of the Masonic fraternity during the best years of his life. To him and his wife were born three children. William T., the eldest, was a marble cutter and a printer. He died in 1888 in Windsor, Missouri, at the early age of Twenty-seven years. Nathan Shumate of this review was the second son, and Samuel M. lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where he has been the owner of several printing plants.

Nathan Shumate DeMotte was born in Cass County, Missouri, on February 21, 1867, and he had his elementary education in the public schools of Southern Missouri. He was only fourteen years old when he left school and entered the office of the Windsor Review at Windsor, Missouri, under the management of W. H. Walker, who is now editor of the Purcell Register in Purcell. Oklahoma, and who is perhaps the oldest editor in point of service in the state. Up until 1888 Mr. DeMotte was employed in various printing offices in Missouri towns, and in that year he went to Kansas City, Missouri, and secured a place on the Star, later working for the Journal, and for certain job printing houses in that city. He was there until 1909, when he decided to go into the business on his own initiative, and he accordingly bought the Bethany Democrat, at Bethany, Missouri. After one year he sold the paper, and then bought the Nodaway Forum, which he later consolidated with the Maryville Republican and the Nodaway Democrat, calling the paper the DemocratForum. This was a daily and weekly publication, and Mr. DeMotte continued to edit it until January, 1914, when he went to New Mexico in search of health. In April, 1915, he came to Weatherford, Oklahoma, and soon after bought an interest in the Weatherford Democrat, then owned by Harry J. Dray. Mr. DeMotte has since then been editor of the paper, Mr. Dray having other interests that do not permit him to give much attention to the management of the paper. The paper was established in 1899 and it had passed through the trials that ordinarily attend the history of the small town newspaper. The efforts of Mr. Dray, however, after he came into ownership, had established it on a sound basis, and the combined efforts of Mr. Dray and the editor, Mr. DeMotte, leave nothing to be desired in the way of successful management.

Mr. DeMotte is a democrat, and he served for some years as a school director in Kansas City while a resident there. He is a member of the Methodist Church, and is fraternally connected with the Woodmen of the World at Maryville, Missouri.

In 1890 Mr. DeMotte was married in Kansas City to Miss Luella Myers, daughter of John Myers, now deceased. Four children have been born to them. Loren, the eldest, is his father’s assistant in the business. He is married to Pearl Daniels, of Maryville, Missouri, and they have one child, Nathan Shumate DeMotte II, born March 1, 1913. Maude is a graduate of the Artesia (New Mexico) High School, and is now attending the Southwestern State Normal at Weatherford, Oklahoma. Grace was graduated from the Maryville High School and from the Fifth District State Normal in Missouri. She is now employed in the public schools of Arapaho as a teacher. Dorothy is a graduate of the Artesia High School, and is now a student in the Southwestern State Normal School.