On Thursday night of last week, March 27, the sorrowful news was telephoned about town about 9:30 p. m. that Rev. A. V. Stout was dead. The news was a personal grief to every citizen who heard it, for the kindly man who for sixteen years had been pastor of the Olathe Presbyterian church and had a friend in every man, woman and child in town.

 

He had been an unusually healthy man, of the most calm and dignified manner. No complaint of physical suffering was ever heard from him till the Sunday evening previous to his death, when a slight indisposition came upon him at the church which developed into a painful stomach trouble, causing him much suffering. His condition varied till Thursday morning, when he appeared to be better, but he realized more clearly than anyone else that his death was approaching and calmly met the great event.

 

He was a prominent member of the G. A. R. and the old soldiers had charge of the funeral, which was from the church in which the beloved man had for years preached. The modesty of his life was exemplified by the tasteful yet simple decorations. The church was fresh with flowers and plants and the beautiful flag of his country which he loved so well was the conspicuous evidence of the presence of his mourning comrades.

 

Mr. Stout was born at Circleville, in Pickway county, Ohio, his full name being Andrew Van Stout. He was born January 30, 1837, so that his age was only sixty-five years. His parents were of Dutch ancestry. His early life was spent on a farm and while very young he became a school teacher and later was a teacher at the academy at South Salem, Ohio, where Hon. J. B. Foraker, one of the United States senators from Ohio, was his pupil, the beginning of a friendship which lasted till his death.

 

Mr. Stout was married in 1858 to Miss Anna Dean at South Salera, Ohio, who survives him with three children, Mrs. Coleman, Mr. Will Stout and Dr. B. Frank Stout, all of whom are at home to sustain the bereaved mother.

 

The career of Rev. Stout was interesting and exemplary in every particular. From surroundings lacking opportunities he had acquired and built up a great and admirable character. At the beginning of the war of the rebellion he enlisted in Company I, Eighty-first Ohio Infantry, and was soon detailed to brigade headquarters as orderly and brigade postmaster. Toward the end of the war he had been commissioned a captain of infantry.

 

After the war he entered the ministry after graduating, from McCormick Seminary at Chicago. He came to Kansas, settling at Clinton, where he preached at school houses and did missionary work for six years. Then he located at Baldwin, where he preached in the local church and at Media and Black Jack for eight years. In 1882 he moved to Edgerton, where he was pastor four years, visiting also Wellsville and Leloup. In 1886 he came to Olathe, where the church was very weak and with a very humble house of worship. Here as else where he built up a strong organization and the new church house is a monument to his untiring labor and generosity. In all its beautiful details are the thoughts of the patient man who planned so much for its building.

 

In his discharge of his duty no distance nor rough road was a hardship to him. To funerals he had been called three hundred and thirty-five times since 1876, and two hundred and fifty-six couples had been married by him. He was a man of wide and generous thought, as was instanced on Monday evening before his death. It was St. Patrick's Day and the Catholics were to celebrate it with an entertainment at the opera house. Though ill he insisted on going, saying "The Catholics have always been good to us." His faith in the promises of the Christian religion was sublime and he fearlessly and nobly entered the unconsciousness that must awaken in the resurrection to eternal life.

 

Olathe Mirror

April 3, 1902

Page 2, col 1,2