Bios.Tulsa,OK LEONARD, Oliver H. 
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Posted by Charmaine Keith on Mon, 23 Nov 1998
Surname: LEONARD, ADY, BENNETT
OLIVER H. LEONARD
Vol. 3, p. 1245-1246 
The vigorous and thriving City of Tulsa is favored in having gained the interposition of Mr. Leonard in connection with business and civic affairs, and he is prominent and influential in banking circles in the state, besides which he stands forth as a representative citizen also in his progressiveness and public spirit. He has been vice president of the Exchange National Bank of Tulsa since 1910, is president of the Tulsa Clearing House Association, and was the first president of the Carnegie Library Association of this city. 
Mr. Leonard was born in Muscatine County, Iowa, on the 26th of July, 1863, and is a representative of a sterling pioneer family of the Hawkeye State. He is a son of Joshua and Ellen H. (ADY) Leonard, both natives of the State of Ohio, the father having passed away in 1899, at the age of sixty-five years, and the mother being still a resident of Iowa, at the venerable age of eighty years, in 1915. Of the seven children the subject of this review was the third in order of birth and all of them survive the honored father. 
Joshua Leonard was born in Delaware County, Ohio, where he was reared and educated, and where he continued to be identified with agricultural pursuits until 1854, when he removed to Springfield, the capital of Illinois. In 1856 he removed thence to Iowa and became on of the pioneer settlers of Muscatine County, where he reclaimed a productive farm from the virgin prairie and where he continued to reside until 1864, when he removed to Poweshiek County, that state. There he repeated his strenuous pioneer experiences by developing a valuable farm, and he became one of the prominent and influential citizens of that section of the state, his well directed efforts as a farmer and stock-grower having brought to him a large and substantial measure of prosperity. He served nine consecutive years as a member of the board of county commissioners and he passed the closing period of his life in the attractive little City of Brooklyn, that county, where his widow still resides. In politics he was originally an old-line whig, but he gave his allegiance to the republican party from the time of its organization until his death, his religious faith having been that of the Methodist Episcopal Church, of which his widow also has long been a devoted member. 
After negotiating with proper facility and curriculum of the public schools of his native state, Oliver H. Leonard pursued a higher course of academic study by attending the University of Iowa, from which he retired prior to the completing of a full course. At the age of twenty years, in 1883, he initiated his active association with the banking business, by assuming the position of assistant cashier of the Poweshiek County Bank, at Brooklyn. In 1885 he was advanced to the office of cashier of this institution, and of this office he continued the incumbent until 1898, when he resigned and disposed of his stock in the bank. Now an able executive of proved experience in this field of business enterprise, Mr. Leonard then removed to Pipestone, Minnesota, where he effected the organization of the Farmers and Merchants Bank. He later disposed of his interest in this institution and became a stockholder in the Citizens Savings Bank in the City of Cedar Falls, Iowa. He served with characteristic ability as cashier of this bank until 1910, when he sold his stock in the institution and came to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he has since served as vice president of the Exchange National Bank, in which he is one of the principal stockholders and in the administration of the affairs of which his long experience and marked financial acumen have made him a resourceful and influential factor in the expanding of the large and substantial business controlled by this representative financial institution. Mr. Leonard is giving also most effective service as president of the Tulsa Clearing House Association. He is a director of the Tulsa Commercial Club, of which he served one year as president, and he was one of the organizers of the Carnegie Library Association of Tulsa, of which he was the first president. He is distinctively liberal and progressive in his civic relations and always ready to lend his aid in the furtherance of measures and enterprises tending to advance the best interests of his home city, county and state. Though never imbued with ambition for political office or other preferment. Mr. Leonard is aligned as a stalwart supporter of the cause of the republican party, which he believes is destined to come again to its own in national affairs. 
September 22, 1885, recorded the marriage of Mr. Leonard to Miss Nellie B. BENNETT, who was born at Brooklyn, Poweshiek County, Iowa, and the three children of this union are Lucille A., Virginia C. and Howard B. 
Transcribed by Charmaine Keith, November 12, 1998