Floyd Alonzo Fennell, 1880–1923

Born on 28 December 1880 in Missouri, Floyd Alonzo Fennell was the son of William Price Fennell and Sarah A. Buroff. Floyd married Kate Evelyn Carpenter on 12 March 1904 at St. James Church in St. Louis. He and Kate had five children: Jeannette Margaret “Jane,” Floyd Julian, Robert William Percy, Kate M., and Evelyn Gertrude. The family resided at 2400 Laclede Station Road, Maplewood, Missouri.

After his marriage, Floyd worked as a motorman for the Street Railroad in St. Louis and later went into business as a landscape and garden contractor from his home on Laclede Station. One of his landscaping jobs was to deliver sod to the St. Louis Zoo. The invoice from that delivery shows that Floyd received $263.51 for 2,027 yards of sod delivered to the Wells Drive slope; $361.40 for 2,780 yards of sod delivered to the bear pit area; $87.10 for 670 yards of sod delivered to the fox pens; and $26.00 for work done at the office and lion house. Included in the payment was 10 cents for two suburban calls.

Floyd served as a teamster (taking care of horses) in the Spanish-American War. Along with his landscape business, he also became a deputy sheriff for St. Louis County and with this duty he rode a motorcycle. An article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, dated 22 June 1921, reveals that Floyd, as a deputy sheriff, was called to a disturbance at a residence in Kirkwood. The altercation escalated and a man at the residence was shot and killed by Floyd. In a later newspaper article it was revealed that the coroner’s jury returned a verdict of justifiable homicide in the shooting and exonerated Deputy Sheriff Floyd Fennell.

Floyd applied for and was selected to work as a guard at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, the World’s Fair in St. Louis, in May 1904. His granddaughter has all the documents from this exciting experience.

Floyd had an accident on his motorcycle and died from his injuries on 30 May 1923 at St. Louis Deaconess Hospital; his burial was at St. Peters Cemetery in St. Louis. His wife Kate died on 9 May 1963 in St. Louis with burial at Odd Fellows Cemetery in Bismarck, Missouri.

(Sources are family records.)

Written by Nancy Louise Fennell Hawkins, Topeka, Kansas
March 2017

© 2017, St. Louis Genealogical Society

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Last Modified: 11-May-2017 10:13