FRANK KENTLING. In the midst of the failures and disasters of life it is a real pleasure to review the career of a man whose efforts have been crowned with success and whose life has been honorable in every particular, as has that of Frank Kentling. He is now a general merchant, farmer and stock dealer at Highlandville, Missouri, and is one of the foremost business men of his section. He possesses all the thrift and perseverance of his Teutonic ancestors and has met with the success that is sure to follow. Mr. Kentling was born in 1841 in North Germany, as were also his parents, Dr. Bennett and Johanna Kentling, the father dying there about 1883. He was a physician for many years. The mother is still living in the old country. Eight children were born to them. One child, Francis, came to the United States about 1875 and died in St. Louis, while attending the St. Louis Medical College.
Our subject received a good collegiate education in his native country and for some time clerked in a grocery and dry goods store. In 1865 he came to the United States and spent two years in the grocery business in Chicago. Later he spent the same length of time in the same business at St. Louis and in 1870 came to Highlandville, where he established a store. About a year later a post office was given the thriving little village and Mr. Kentling was postmaster there for about seven years. He began business with a capital of $350, but by his energy and good business acumen soon built up a thriving trade. He does an annual business of from $15,000 to $20,000 and is the owner of about 300 acres in this and Stone Counties, all the fruits of his own efforts. He handles grain, cattle, hogs, etc., and has been the means of building up quite a village at Highlandville, in which there is a good school, a hall, and three churches.
Mr. Kentling was married in St. Louis, in 1869, to Miss Catherine Sherch, a native of Hungary. There her parents died and she crossed the ocean to the United States alone. In this country she met and married Mr. Kentling. by whom she has had eight children: Amelia, Frank, Bennett, Johanna, Joseph, William, Antonius and Charles. Mr. Kentling belonged to the German Army for some time and was in the Reserve, from which he received a permit to visit the United States for one year prospecting, etc. During this time his country was at war with Prussia and he was summoned home. Calling on the German consulate at Chicago, he was a little too late, for the war was at an end. During the short time he was in this country he had seen enough to satisfy him that he could do better here than in the ” Fatherland” and he concluded to remain. He is a member of the Highlandville Lodge, I. O. 0. F., No. 331, and a man well liked by all who know him.
