biographies
MAIN  PAGE       Belgians in
the Civil War
 
      Emigrants arrival        links 

    

 Sources 

BELGIANS IN AMERICA:    Biographies of Belgian settlers  

American Censuses
1850/1860/1870
:
link to the censuses by States 
 Distribution according
to the State of settlement
:
link to the State of settlement

The settlers

The Catholic Missions

J. H. Van Closter belong to that class of citizens wines aid and cooperation call always be counted upon to further any progressive public measure. Since 1906 he has been engaged in business as the proprietor of the Centropolis Hotel and has also promoted building operations. he we, born in Belgium in 1856 and when about two nerd a half years of any was brought by his parents, Mr. and Mrs. John Van Closter, to the United States, the family home being established in New York. Ile was educated in the high school of Wayne county-, that state, and afterward engaged in teaching school for eight years, imparting readily and clearly to others the knowledge that he had acquired. He also attended the Rochester (New York) Business Institute and engaged in teaching in that school for one year.

The rapidly developing business interests of the west with their opportunities attracted Mr. Van Cluster and in 1882 He made his may to Omaha, Nebraska, where for one year he was engaged in teaching in a business college. On the expiration of that period he accepted a position in the general office of the Union Pacific Railroad Company and was afterward engaged in the hotel business there until his removal to Kansas City in 1901. For two years he conducted the Ashland Hotel here, after which he devoted two years to building. He erected the Dresden flats at Eighth and Locust streets and pot up thirty apartments for negroes at Independence avenue and Harrison street. These he rents, personally superintending the rentals and collections. In 1906 he purchased the Centropolis Hotel from W. J. Cooper and has since conducted the only two dollar per day hotel in the city. It contains one hundred and fifty rooms and Ile employs fifty -fire people. He has installed natural gas for heating and introduced many other modern conveniences and has made this an excellent modern priced hotel.

In 1884 Mr. Van Closter was married in Omaha to Miss Addie P. Gaston, a native of Vinton. Iowa, who died in 1886, leaving one son, Herbert G., who is now attending the Ohio Wesleyan University. He is now a senior in the classical course and intends preparing for the medical profession. Mr. Van Closter was married again in Omaha to Mrs, Helen M. Tucker, a native of Missouri.

In community affairs Mr. Van Closter is deeply interested to the extent of giving active cooperation to many movements that have had direct bearing on the welfare and improvement of the city. He has made his own way in life, without the assistance of wealth or influential friends, and what he has accomplished is due to his force of character, laudable ambition and strong purpose that cannot be diverted from the honorable business path that he has marked out
 

Source : Whitney, Carrie Westlake. : Kansas City, Missouri : its history and its people, 1808-1908; Chicago: S.J. Clarke Pub. Co., 1908, 2083 pgs.