As a wounded veteran of conflicts with the Sioux in Oregon and Montana, he drew a survivor's pension for fourteen years.
Kefnper's Collegiate School in Booneville, Missouri, in 1853 and then studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned a degree as a metallurgist in 1870.
In 1905 he was supreme commander of the Grand Council of the Legion of the Red Cross and presided at the organization's annual meeting in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
The wedding of the "well-known school teacher" to Beck, who was "about twenty-five years" her senior, came as a "great surprise," the Los Angeles Times reported, adding: "That the wedding was unexpected in some quarters is indicated by the fact that Miss Anderson was named by the Board of Education only a week or so to continue as principal.
[5][6] In those days the policy of the Los Angeles School Board was that married teachers had to resign their positions.