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President, De Coursey Creamery Company
from Leaders In Our Town, Pub. Burd & Fletcher, Kansas City, Missouri, 1952
The year 1889 old Granddad James DeCoursey started the second commercial Creamery in the state of Kansas. What he left to his descendants was an adventurous spirit and a kind of destiny which decreed that all DeCourseys should be in the creamery business. He was an Acadian from Nova Scotia, descendant of the persecuted people of Longfellow's "Evangeline." 1 But if Granddad DeCoursey was abused he never knew it. In his youth, he followed adventure's trail to the California gold mines, a Forty-niner. He came back to Kansas, bought land, fought through the Civil War with "Jameson's raiders" 2 and pioneered the trade of the milk man. He branched out from a dairy farm to the early commercial creamery at Leavenworth. Two of his sons went into business which established the family tradition as far as the second generation.
Head of the modern class is another James DeCoursey, a man of a different world of big business and civic obligations. To this modern life, he has brought Granddad's adventurous spirit and zest for living. Like the grandfather, the grandson came around to the family destiny after a life in the mining towns of the West.
The people of Kansas City, Kansas, and all the older employees of his business know him as Jim. He is a tall man of long face and partly bald head, heavy, dark eyebrows over eyeglasses. Through these rather grim physical outlines shines the warm, friendly and exceedingly tolerant personality of Jim DeCoursey.
MAN WITH BIG IDEAS
People of his home town can't think of him as big business. He is the fellow who comes through the office door and, half embarrassed, gets around to the important subject that will require quite a sizable contribution. He is the fellow who has given his own time to all kinds of civic causes and such things as twelve years on the board of public utilities and a double World War II job of leading four bond campaigns and serving on the draft appeal board at the same time. He is the gay spirit who likes to dance and have fun and visit with people. On the business side, this destiny of the DeCoursey's has produced rather impressive results. With his brothers, Frank and Will, Jim DeCoursey committed the third generation to the tradition and it has grown and spread with the fourth generation.
With ice cream, bottled milk, butter and cheese, family plants operate at Kansas City, Kansas; Leavenworth, Wichita, Moline, Tulsa and Oklahoma City.
James H. DeCoursey is vice-president and one of the organizers of the American Dairies, Inc., which is a top corporate structure in the southwestern area for fourteen plants with three sales offices on the East coast: In Greater Kansas City, the American Dairies' hook-up includes the Aines Farm Dairy Company, the Arctic Dairy Products Company, the American Butter Company, the Meriden Creamery Company and the DeCoursey Creamery company.
In the dairy field, Jim DeCoursey is also a director with a substantial interest in the Allvine Dairy Company. And in other fields he holds enough directorates to keep him on a persistent schedule of meetings. As vice-president and director of Willard Breidenthal's Riverview State Bank, he gets around to banking for an hour every forenoon. In utilities, he serves on the boards of the Kansas City Public Service company, the Gas Service Company and the Central West Utility Company. His posts with both Gas Service and Central West have put him in a unique and somewhat embarrassing position. The two companies are now in the midst of a slugging match with the eventual object of a deal for the sale of the Central West properties in Clay County to Gas Service.
James H. DeCoursey is in insurance as a director of the Employers Reinsurance Corporation and the Pyramid Life Insurance Company. He touches a completely different field as a director of the General Metals Company of Wichita.
Modem business and civic responsibility have become something very different from the operations of old Granddad DeCoursey in Leavenworth. Still there is a spiritual link between grandfather and grandson. Some years ago, Jim DeCoursey and his brothers bought a creamery in Leavenworth and later built a fine new plant. The plant was built as a monument to the old Acadian who had once launched a Leavenworth creamery which was the second in Kansas.
GREW UP IN THE ROCKIES
The adventurous spirit of this first James DeCoursey took him to the California gold rush, his grandson, James DeCoursey, grew up with the silver mines of Colorado. The West was in his blood. There was a time when this Jim DeCoursey of the third generation had trouble reconciling himself to a Kansas-Missouri country without mountains.
Circumstances developed in the person of one Edwin DeCoursey, a son of the old forty-niner. Edwin followed the lure of the Leadville, Colo., gold strike of '78. He moved on across Mosquito Pass to the silver mines around Alma which was then the highest incorporated town in the world. Where he met another adventurous spirit, a blonde school teacher who had come west to teach and to live with her sister, the wife of the hotel proprietor. The miner married the teacher and their son, Jim, was the eldest of a family of four boys and one girl.
To this day, Jim DeCoursey remembers Alma as one of the wonderful spots of the world, a little town of log and frame houses surrounded by some of the highest peaks of the Rockies. He was one of the gang of boys that was witness to the constant stream of action through a mining community of 700 persons. Around the five saloons and gambling places congregated the bearded miners, Irish and Cornish. At night when the liquor had fired old national feuds, the battles swirled with shouts and screams along the main street.
Each May the sheep-herders came up from the valleys with their flocks and joined in the night life. One eventful night, Jim and the boys stood petrified at the mob scene before the log jail. The menacing and generally intoxicated mob called for the old Mexican sheep-herder who was known to be quailing within. Barring the door stood the magnificent figure of a big miner named MacDougal. In each hand he held a shooting iron and with clear, cold voice he called the men of the mob cowards, and so-and-sos in the expressive language of the West. "The first one of you to come one step closer will die," he said.
The mob grumbled, threatened and gradually faded away. The next day the old sheep-herder was tried on the charge of attacking a girl of the town. By sober daylight, the girl's testimony was ridiculous and a life was saved.
At Uncle Ed Kilduff�s hotel, 3 Jim worked before and after school, filling the two tin bathtubs with hot water, building fires, and driving traveling salesmen to the next town. At the hotel he saw men of big names in Colorado - such men as Senator H. A. W. Tabor and Dave Moffat, the mining man who lost his fortune on the Moffat tunnel.
MOTHER LOVED GOOD TIMES
The fun-loving spirit that is deep in Jim DeCoursey's nature prevailed at the 4-room DeCoursey house in the Rockies. Gaiety and song followed the blonde, ex-school teacher who was his mother. She played the piano and led her five children in boisterous song. It was from his mother that Jim learned to dance, and a joyful dancer he was for most of his life.
In the small town social life, Jim and the son of a mine owner named Paul Fortune were the masters of light-hearted activity. They thought up the parlor games and the other things to do.
Summers he worked as a jack boy, the boy who helped the driver of a jack (donkey) train. Supplies to the mines high in the mountains moved by these trains of forty or fifty heavily-loaded donkeys. There were incidents such as the five donkeys going over the cliff in a July snowstorm, and the carrying of a dead man down the mountain slung between two donkeys. This life on mountain trails was commonplace for Alma, and Jim DeCoursey still thinks of it as normal outdoor routine - the same as he later regarded Boy Scout activities for his sons. He stepped up to a job handling the flow of water through the gravel pits of the placer mines. That, too, was part of the way of life in the mountains.
From this outdoor world, Jim DeCoursey emerged with his strongest single ambition, to be a lawyer. It was planted by the inspiration of a judge in the county seat town and nurtured by the fascination of speaking on his feet. Years after his dream was lost, Jim DeCoursey still liked to make speeches.
For many years, the name of James DeCoursey has been interwoven with the life of Kansas. But in the beginning, he came to the land of his fathers because of circumstances, not choice. The American voters defeated William J. Bryan, the white knight of free silver. As a silver mining community, Alma faced ruin. Early in 1900, Edwin DeCoursey gave up hope of ever seeing Bryan's election and the family moved back to grandfather's 320-acre farm near Leavenworth. Jim came to the farm as an unhappy stranger.
He went about his farm work wearing a white collar, the garb of important men in Colorado. "You in the white collar, you'll never make a farmer," said the devoted Grandfather DeCoursey. "I'll have to send you to college."
At St. Mary's college, St. Mary's, Kas., 400 boys followed the strict routine of the times. Even a visit to the quiet business district of the town required a permit. The joyful spirit of Jim DeCoursey thrived in confinement. He and a fellow named Sharp gave the boys dancing lessons. For big occasions they dressed half the boys as girls, a device that was taken with good nature in those simpler times. Jim was the battered substitute halfback of the football team who got into the game when it was either won or lost beyond any question. In debate he won two medals.
LAW IN KANSAS CITY
And so he came to Kansas City to study law at the old Kansas City School of Law and realize his dream. Some of the Kansas City old-timers may still remember the street car company's "Seeing Kansas City" tours and the slender young fellow with the megaphone. His spiel on places of interest and his corny jokes helped pay his way at law school.
Everything went according to plan until the end of his second year. That summer he had a job with the Kansas City , Kansas, firm of McAnany & Alden at the lowest rung of the legal ladder and he was looking up. One more year would have completed his law course.
Such a neat pattern of progress was broken on the issue of ice cream. Whenever he took a girl into a soda fountain he asked for ice-cream and about half the time there was none. To most people this would have been a minor fact of life, but not so for the grandson of old Grandfather DeCoursey. He discovered that no ice-cream was made in Kansas City, Kansas. Horse-drawn deliveries from the Missouri side were uncertain.
It happened that this same summer his uncles in Leavenworth were changing to modern refrigeration and their old 10-gallon freezers were for sale. The destiny of the DeCourseys closed on the third generation. Jim borrowed $2,500 from his father to add to his own $300 and opened for business in a 25-foot rented room at 330 North Seventh Street. His plan was to drop out of law school for one year to get the business started - then, he would run it over to his brothers, Frank and Will, who were still on the farm at Leavenworth.
The chance for that last year of law school never came. Kansas City, Kansas seized on the reliable home source of ice-cream. For years Jim DeCoursey was in a race to keep ahead of a fast-growing business.
Early in 1906, the DeCoursey Creamery opened with a force of four persons and two horse-drawn delivery wagons. Jim drove one of the routes by day. At night he made ice cream and kept the books. From the beginning, the creamery was launched in family spirit. A brother, Ed, now deceased, was with him at the start. When he discovered he didn't know how to make ice-cream, he sent for a more experienced uncle. His father came from the farm to help when he was needed. Frank and Will left the farm to help with the heavy Fourth of July business and never went back. Later when the business become a partnership it was a brother operation by Jim, Frank and Will. It is in the same spirit that DeCoursey interests of the third and fourth generations are now spread though creameries of Kansas and Oklahoma.
IN A SWIFT EXPANSION
After three years, the family partnership had its own brick building with modern refrigeration at 644-49 Northrup Avenue. It spread its territory over Western Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska. To maintain a supply of fresh cream it operated skimming stations out in the small towns. Only the supply of fresh cream, limited the growth.
Jim DeCoursey was one of the seven organizers of the Kansas City Ice-Cream Association which has more than 100 members today. He served as its second president and for ten years as secretary. In 1919, the DeCourseys bought the Wichita bottled milk and condensing plant which tapped the big source of fresh cream in the Wichita area. The scope of larger business organization was revealed in 1928 with American Dairies, Inc. The original organizers were C. W. Kent, then manager of the Meridien Creamery Company; Lynwood Smith, manager of the American Butter Company, and Jim DeCoursey.
Youthful dreams of a legal career are likely to assume a fling at politics. Jim DeCoursey lost his profession to the surging demand for ice-cream, but for some years he compensated with a share in the Democratic politics of Kansas City, Kansas. He made speeches for candidates, worked in the party councils and was sent to two Democratic national conventions. He was an alternate delegate in 1924 and a delegate in 1928.
In 1917, he was a reluctant candidate for mayor who appeared to be very much relieved when he was defeated. Still, his greatest contribution to his city has come out-side of politics in the quieter promotion of civic projects. The modern civic pattern of Kansas City , Kansas, has come from many movements of the last thirty years. And in most of them Jim DeCoursey was a pioneer leader. His genially pushing influence is everywhere. Thirty years ago some people may have been surprised to see the successful young businessman, DeCoursey, taking to public causes. Men of his fun loving type usually turn spare hours to a good time. Nevertheless, a large part of his life away from business went into projects for the public will.
In the early 1920s he was one of the Y. M. C. A. directors who raised the money for a building. As a director of the Old Mercantile Club, he helped lead the movement to set up a modern Chamber of Commerce. In 1924, he was the chamber president who swung behind Maurice Breidenthal's hotel promotion. He continued to take part in the hotel movement through the years of hope and discouragement that have culminated in the fine new Town House.
The DeCoursey zeal went into the organization of the Community Chest and he served as one of its early presidents.
INTENSE INTEREST IN YOUTH
Mr. DeCoursey has always been wide open to appeals for help on anything that concerned youth. He was one of the first counselors of the Girl Scouts and one of the early Boy Scout directors. At the operating level of Boy Scouts work, he served on the troop committee of Troop 9 in which his sons were scouts. Back in the 1920s he worked on the athletic council of Ward High School, a job of stimulating support for the school's athletic program. He has worked on drives for Rockhurst College and is one of the Rockhurst honorary directors.
In the early 1930s, Jim DeCoursey went on the city's board of public utilities which caused some half-amused comment. By nature he resists and resents the trend toward public ownership of anything, including utilities. He is a private ownership advocate as indicated by the fact that he now serves on the boards of three private utilities. But like most people in Kansas City, Kansas, he looked on the local municipal ownership as a long established fact and a special case. He gave it twelve years.
World War II gave him his peak load of outside work with the leadership of four bond campaigns and the draft appeal board added to everything else. Soon after the war, serious illness forced him to get away from the heavy pressure of business as well as outside activities.
The DeCoursey approach to public causes is strictly his own. He responds to the projects of warm human appeal. City building also requires some actions that step on a certain number of toes. Building expansion sometimes forces condemnation of property and eviction of people from their homes, Jim DeCoursey recognizes the principle of the greatest good for the greatest number, but he wants no personal part of throwing anybody out of a home. On that side of civic progress he is counted absent.
Through the decades of projects, he has served as president of various things, but more significant is the fact that he usually manages to keep out of the top job and the limelight. The DeCoursey technique involves bringing other men to the front.
In the last thirty years, few men have raised as much money for so many different public enterprises and all the way it has been done in a constant state of embarrassment. He is convinced that other men must hate to see him come through the door and that is a dark thought for such a warm, friendly individual as Jim DeCoursey.
Few persons know what Jim DeCoursey has done to help boys go to college. For his part he says only that it is very unusual for him to be disappointed in any boy.
Mrs. DeCoursey is the former Jennie Mathews, the tall brunette he met at a church dance. And he still dances in spite of the comments of his doctor.
His eldest son is Edwin M. DeCoursey, president of the Pure White Dairy of Tulsa. His second son, James H. DeCoursey, Jr., is one of two boys in the fourth generation of the DeCoursey family who are not in the dairy business. He is completing his freshman year at Notre Dame University. The two daughters are Mary Agnes, a medical technician in California, and Patricia, who is Sister Mary Edwin, a teaching nun at St. Mary's College, Leavenworth.
In recent years, the DeCourseys have spent summer vacations in Anaheim, Calif., south of Los Angeles, where Mr. DeCoursey likes to have his son, Jimmy, round up all the young people he can find. Until recent years, his retreat was a ranch in a valley of the Rocky Mountains below Alma.
Wherever he goes, Jim DeCoursey is with people. If they don't come to see him, he goes to see them. "Without people what would anything be worth?" he asks.
1 It is highly unlikely that James DeCoursey was Acadian, as they were French settlers of eastern Canada who were expelled from Nova Scotia in 1755 by the British. All records indicate that his parents immigrated to Canada around the early 1820�s from Ireland. This was probably a fabricated embellishment by the author.
2 Jameson�s Raid took place 1895-1896 in South Africa, and was an attempt to overthrow the Boer government in order to reincorporate mineral rich land in the British Empire. It seems the author definitely played a little fast and loose with the facts, perhaps to make up for a lack of true information?
3 Edward and his wife Frances (McCormick) Kilduff ran the St. Nicholas Hotel in Alma from about 1876 to 1902.
[picture] Helen DeCoursey Ruysser in front of the Alma, Colorado home of Edwin and Mary DeCoursey.
[picture] Jim, Eddie, Grandpa Edwin, Sister Mary Edwin I, Will and Frank.
