L. M. Roome is an oil producer and contractor whose activities have brought him considerable success in Kansas territory and whose business headquarters are at Tyro, in Montgomery County. His first experience in the business was gained in the Illinois oil district, and he came to Kansas about two years ago.
His ancestors came originally from England and settled in old Virginia during colonial days. His grandfather, Edward Roome, was born in Pennsylvania, spent most of his life as a farmer in West Virginia, where he died.
Mr. L. M. Roome was born in Sistersville, West Virginia, July 23, 1886, and for a young man of thirty has made an enviable business record. His father is E. M. Roome, now a resident of Tyro, Kansas, who was born in West Virginia April 7, 1861. He grew up in his native state and a number of years ago became connected with the oil business as a producer, following that work in West Virginia, Illinois and Oklahoma, and since 1915 has continued in the same line with headquarters and home at Tyro, Kansas. He is very strongly grounded in the faith of the democratic party and is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In Tyler County, West Virginia, he married Emma Martin, who was born in that county April 1, 1860. Their children are: Maggie, wife of P. J. Garvey, who is in the automobile business at Pine Grove, West Virginia; Edith, wife of E. M. Mayfield, a wholesale grocer who resides at Middleburn in Tyler County, West Virginia; Mr. L. M. Roome, who is third in order of age; Frank, a resident of Okmulgee, Oklahoma, and field foreman for the Carter Oil Company; and Mary, whose home is with her parents, but is now a member of the senior class in the Tulsa High School.
The first school L. M. Roome attended was at Sistersville, West Virginia, where he was born, and he was also in the public schools of Martinsville in that state, and in 1907 graduated from the West Virginia University at Morgantown. The following year he pursued a business course in the Wheeling Business College at Wheeling. For two years he was connected with a bank at Pine Grove, West Virginia, and in 1910 engaged in the oil business as a contractor for the drilling of wells and as a producer. His first work was in the Illinois field, but in March, 1914, he moved to Tyro, Kansas. He now has a field of seven producing wells two miles east and one mile south of Tyro, and recently disposed of a number of wells which he had brought in. As a contractor he keeps his outfit employed in many parts of the Kansas oil field.
Mr. Roome is a democrat, a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and in Masonry is affiliated with Tyro Lodge No. 386, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons; Wichita Consistory No. 2, of the Scottish Rite, and with Mirzah Temple of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine at Pittsburg, Kansas. He also belongs to the United Commercial Travelers at Lancaster, Ohio.
On October 31, 1909, at Pine Grove, West Virginia, he married Miss Elsie Warner, a daughter of A. E. and Delia Warner, residents of Clarksburg, West Virginia, where her father is a wholesale grocer.
