John Bednar (Luther, OK)
John Bednar (June 17, 1880 – January 27, 1939)
Biography
- Name: John Bednar
- Birth: June 17, 1880 Bohemia (Austria-Hungary)
- Death: January 27, 1939 Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
- Husband of R. G. Bednar
- Father of Gladys Bednar Hickok
John William Bednar (1880-1939) was a was a banker and community leader for some thirty years in Luther, a small agricultural town in Oklahoma County, about twenty-five miles northeast of Oklahoma City. Bednar spent the bulk of banking career first as Cashier and then as President of the First National Bank of Luther (Charter 8563).
Early Life and Family
Born in Bohemia (now the Czech Republic), John Bednar emigrated with his family to the United States in 1887, first settling in Cuba, Kansas (a small colony of immigrants from Bohemia) before moving to Oklahoma in 1890. The 1900 Census placed the family in Spring Creek Township (Oklahoma County), a few miles from the town of Britton. While his parents continued to live in Britton, Bednar relocated to Luther in 1902, where he engaged there in the flour milling business. Somewhat later he apparently had gone to Lawton before returning to Luther, where he married Ruby Gladys Goodrick, a local girl, at dawn on New Year’s Day 1906 at Ruby’s parents’ house. Their first child, a daughter Gladys, followed in April 1907; three years later they had a son, John Jr.
Banking Career
John Bednar’s banking career began in July 1907, when the Luther State Bank was organized. Bednar was one of the original stockholders and worked as Assistant Cashier. Eight years later in August 1915, Bednar took over as Cashier of the First National Bank of Luther when its incumbent Cashier, James D. Kivlehen, left the post suddenly. The Assistant Cashier of the First National, Paul M. Vorel, took over Bednar’s old position with the state bank. The two men would go on to serve for many years together in the Town of Luther’s government, Bednar as Town Clerk and Vorel as Town Treasurer. In addition, Bednar was president of the Commercial Club of Luther. In politics, Bednar was a Republican, active on the Republican State Central Committee at least during the early 1920s.
Bednar assumed the helm of the FNB of Luther in 1925, after the President, R. A. Vose, sold his interest in the bank. By this time, Bednar’s daughter Glady had begun working at the bank as a bookkeeper as early as 1923. His wife Ruby is also listed as having been employed as Cashier for one year (1926), although there is no evidence for this in the newspapers of the time. In 1929 Gladys married Galen Hickok, a classmate of hers at the University of Oklahoma. She continued working as Gladys Bednar Hickok in the Cashier position during the 1930s. At some point her first marriage ended, for in 1939 she married Frank Tansel, a local farmer, and remained active at the bank under the name Gladys Tansel as Cashier, Assistant Cashier, and Director into the 1940s. While her younger brother John Jr. never worked for his father’s bank, he did enter the banking field, beginning as a teller at the First National Bank & Trust Co. of Oklahoma City. Much later he would be engaged in that bank’s oil brokerage business.
Robbery Attempts at the Bank
In Bednar’s time at the bank, the First National was the object of two robbery attempts. In the first attempt, in early October 1919, thieves broke into the building and sought, unsuccessfully, to chisel their way through a brick wall into the bank’s vault. The second episode was far more dramatic and generated lurid headlines in local newspapers. At 11am on May 22, 1931, three men later identified as C. C. Gregory, W. M. Banes, and Claude Fugate entered the bank’s premises. At the time Bednar and his Cashier, Walter L. Hayes, were present; the only customers were a Mrs. Bessie Booker and her seven-year old daughter. Brandishing six shooters, the three men ordered Bednar and Hayes to lie face down on the floor while they rifled through the contents of the till, taking $1464. Locking Bednar and Hayes in the vault, the robbers fled to their idling car and made their escape.
At Mrs. Booker’s alarm, a posse of 200 local men quickly formed, “armed with weapons ranging in efficiency from a 22-calibre pistol up to a machine gun”, supplemented by sheriffs from three different counties and bloodhounds brought up from the McAlester penitentiary. The getaway car was soon found, abandoned and burning; two of the men, Banes and Fugate, were caught some five miles southeast of Luther. Later that evening, a tip on the whereabouts of the third man led to the formation of a second posse that caught Gregory in a foot chase after wounding him in the leg. All but $16 of the stolen money was recovered, a remnant which was presumably destroyed in the burning getaway car.
The quick and successful response to this robbery occasioned some amount of civic self-congratulation. Observing that this was only the first bank robbery that the town had ever experienced, the Luther Register opined that this reflected the existence of the Luther Gun Club, “most any member of which can drive a nail in a tree at a hundred yards, with either a pistol or a rifle. This fact it is believed has caused bank robbers to stay away from the town.”
Justice to the three accused was meted out swiftly. In June 1931 Claude Fugate and Melvin Warren Banes, both Sapulpa natives, pled guilty to bank robbery and were sentenced to 25 years in the McAlester penitentiary. In 1943 Fugate earned a life sentence for killing a foreman during an attempted prison break from there. C. C. Gregory, who had been wounded in the dragnet, denied his guilt and his case went to trial. In September 1931 he received a 30-year sentence at the penitentiary.
Later Life and Death
In August 1937, the Oklahoma Banker noted that John Bednar was “enjoying his first vacation”, thanks to his two children, Gladys B. Hickok and John Bednar Jr., operating the bank while he was away. In early 1939, John Bednar Sr. contracted pneumonia and died in St. Anthony’s hospital in Oklahoma City. As an obituary put it, “he was a just and upright citizen, and many friends mourn his passing.”
Bank Officer Summary
During his banking career, John Bednar was involved with the following bank(s):
- Luther State Bank, Luther, OK: Asst. Cashier 1907-1915
- National Bank/First NB, Luther, OK (Charter 8563): President 1925-1935; Cashier 1915-1924
Sources
- Bio written by Loren Gatch
- Obits in Oklahoma County Register, February 2, 1939; Oklahoma Banker, March 1, 1939.
- Chickasha Daily Express, October 19, 1943; Cushing Daily Citizen, June 19, 1931; Edmond Enterprise, January 5, 1906; Edmond Sun, October 2, 1919; Luther Register, July 13, 1915; May 28, 1931; Oklahoma Banker, August 1, 1937; Oklahoma County Register, April 5, 1907; April 10, 1908; January 29, 1920; April 7, 1922; May 24, 1929; Oklahoma County News, August 6, 1915; May 18, 1923; June 23, 1922; Seminole Morning News, September 16, 1931
- Findagrave.com: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/44969805/bed
- Banks & Bankers Historical Database (1782-1935), https://spmc.org/bank-note-history-project