In 1878 when he was twenty-one years old, Andrew Baskin Purdy, we'll call him A.B.,
  came out to Kansas from New Market, Ohio, riding his horse. He loved horses and he 
  liked to sing. Sometimes alone on the rode he would "tenorize." On the way, while
  fording a swollen stream after heavy rains, he lost his horse. Shaken and stunned,
  he pushed on and eventually made it to Medicine Lodge.
     His first business venture was selling apples on the street, and from this humble
  beginning a merchantile business emerged to retail dry goods and groceries. He met
  Anna MOre through her mother, a wido who later remarried to become Grandma Vaughn. 
  She was not a matchmaker, but she admired A.B. for his quick intellitgence and
  industrious ways, she said, and considered him to be a good husband for her second
  daughter, Anna Marie. The young Anna Marie was pretty and had learned to cook, and
  since she and A.B. felt as her mother did, they soon married. One of their first
  homes was in the south part of town not far from Carrie Nation's home. Anna Marie
  remembered well Carrie's return from her "bottle breaking day" in Kiowa. She could
  hear the rumble of the wagon wheels on the road as Carrie coaxed her team of horses
  along, crying "they're after me."
     A.B. was county sheriff several terms, a city councilman, and a member of the
  Fair Board of Directors. Mr. Robert Clay was a member also, and he and A.B. formed
  a partnership dealing in livestock, cattle, and land. They bought and sold city lots,
  ranches, and transported young steers up from Texas to ready them for market. They
  shipped their herds to the Kansas City stock yards, supplying not a few of those
  Kansas City steaks; and when the Santa Fe train whistled in, bringing them home, it
  also brought barrels of goodies to stock their cellers.
     Both families were memgbers of the Christian Church, and their partnership lasted
  many years. A true picture of their pleasant and happy relationship came through on
  a Christmas Eve when "Mr. Bob" played Santa Clause to A.B.'s family, coming to the
  house with a merry "Ho, Ho, Ho! He dressed in Santy's red suit with long white beard,
  he distributed a bag of gifts all around, then left quickly, as though reindeer were
  waiting for him, leaving the impression he was the real Santy - and he really was.
  After "Mr. Bob's" death, A.B. sold his Medicine Lodge property and in 1920 moved his
  family to Garden City to look after his interests in Western Kansas. He died there in
  1945, just a few days before his 88th birthday.
               
     Source:Chosen Land - Barber County, Kansas,  pg. 372  
     Submitted by: Ruth Purdy Tucker