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John Francis "Frank" Coad III
(1871 - 1941)
Nebraska, The Land and the People, Vol. 3. Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., 1931. p. 512-513.
John F. Coad, who is president of the Packers National Bank of South Omaha, where is centered the great meat-packing industry of the Omaha metropolitan district, is another of the Nebraska native sons who have accounted well for themselves in worthy achievement that has contributed to progress and prosperity in this state.
Mr. Coad was born on a farm in Nemaha County, Nebraska, January 9, 1871, is a representative of one of the sterling pioneer families of this commonwealth, and both his father and his paternal grandfather were prominently identified with frontier activities in the early period of the development of the great empire of the West. Mr. Coad is a son of John F. Coad, who was born in County Kerry,1 Ireland, and who came to the United States in 1851, his parents likewise having come to this country, and he having borne the full patronymic of his father, John F. Coad I, so that the subject of this review is the third generation bearer of this name of John F.2 John F. Coad I [Patrick Codd] became concerned in early freighting operations across the great plans of the West, and in 1855 he, with about thirty other men, set forth with a train of wagons and ox teams from Nebraska City en route for Colorado. From that time no definite information was ever gained as to the fate of the party, and the supposition is that Indians captured the train and massacred all of the men of the company.
John F. Coad II likewise associated himself with freighting across the plains with ox teams, and in the Civil war period he served as a Union scout in various sections of the West. He later became a pioneer of cattle trading of Wyoming. With his family he came to Omaha and turned his attention to the banking business, he having been president of the Packers National Bank of South Omaha at the time of his death, in 1911, and also a director of the Merchants National Bank of Omaha. He had figured also as a territorial pioneer in Wyoming and was a member of the first territorial legislature of that now important commonwealth. His wife, whose maiden name was Ellen Leahy, likewise was born in County Kerry,3 Ireland, and she was a girl when she accompanied her parents on their immigration to the United States. She survived her husband by more than a decade and continued her residence in Omaha until her death, in December, 1923, at the age of seventy-six years.
John F. Coad III, the immediate subject of this review, was a child at the time of the family removal from Nebraska to Wyoming, where the home was established at Cheyenne, he having there attended school until he had attained to the age of thirteen years, when, in 1884, the family returned to Nebraska and established residence in Omaha. Here he continued his school work, and his youthful education culminated in his taking a course of study in Seaton Hall, a well ordered institution in the State of New Jersey. At the age of twenty-one years he took a position in the Merchants National Bank of Omaha, and one year later he became messenger for the Packers National Bank of South Omaha. With this substantial and important institution he has continued his alliance during the long intervening years, and here he has won advancement through the various grades of executive service, including the position of cashier, until he has become president of the institution, of which chief administrative office he has been the incumbent since 1914. Mr. Coad is one of the influential and valued members of the Nebraska State Bankers Association and has membership also in the American Bankers Association. He held during the period of 1897-1901 the important office of state bank examiner of Nebraska, and in this office gave a most careful and efficient administration that did much to maintain the financial stability of the state. Like his father before him, he is a stalwart supporter of the cause of the Democratic party, and he holds to the ancestral religious faith of the family, that of the Catholic Church, of which both he and his wife are zealous communicants. He is a member of the Omaha Chamber of Commerce and is affiliated with Omaha Lodge, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, besides which he is a popular and appreciative member of the Happy Hollow Club.
February 12, 1896, recorded the marriage of Mr. Coad and Miss Mayme Hughes,4 and she passed to the life eternal October 11, 1904, survived by three children, namely: Marion (Mrs. George Wiger), Pauline (Mrs. Peter Jeffrey), and John F. IV. The only son, now twenty-one years of age (1925), is taking a course in engineering at the Iowa State College at Ames.
On the 30th of June, 1912, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Coad and Miss Irene Dyer, and the one child of this union is a son, Ernest. The family home is maintained in the St. Regis apartment building in Omaha.
Mr. Coad has won prestige as one of the able and successful representatives of banking enterprise in his native state, and in this field of business his influence has been signally constructive and benignant. He had the distinction of being a member of the executive council of the American Bankers Association in the period of 1919-22, and from 1915 to 1918 he was a valued member of the executive council of the Nebraska State Bankers Association. He is liberal and progressive in his civic attitude.
1 Other sources indicate the Coads were from the Ballygillistown area of County Wexford, not County Kerry.
2 According to researchers of this family the name of the first Coad generation listed in this biography was not John F. Coad I, but Patrick Codd. The family changed the spelling of their surname from Codd to Coad after emigrating to the US. Thus John F. II is in actuality John F. I, and John F. III is the second. Patrick married Annie Kelly in Ireland.
3 Researchers indicate that Ellen Leahy was not from Couty Kerry either, but from Cappoquin, County Waterford.
4 Mary Dolores "Mayme" Hughes was the daughter of Martin D. and Mary (Wickham) Hughes.
