Home County: St. Louis City
Term of Service at the Supreme Court of Missouri: January 1921 – December 1922
Judge Conway Elder was born December 8, 1880, in Perryville, Missouri. Elder was educated in the public schools of St. Louis and attended Central High School there. For his legal education, he attended Washington University Law School in St. Louis. and was admitted to the bar in June 1905. He served as counsel and trust officer of the Lincoln Trust and Title Company. Elder also served as counsel and vice-president of the West St. Louis Trust Company.
In 1914, Elder was elected to the Missouri State Senate, representing what was then the 32nd District. As a member of the 48th General Assembly, Elder served on the Committee of Wills and Probate Law and County Courts and Justices of the Peace, along with other numerous committees. As a member of the 49th General Assembly, he additionally served with the Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence. During his service with the 50th General Assembly, he was a member of the committees on Judiciary and Statute Revision. In addition to his legislative duties, Elder served as a member of the legal advisory board during World War I for the 25th ward of St. Louis. He was reelected as a state senator in 1918 but resigned from the position in 1920 when he was elected to the Supreme Court of Missouri.
Judge Elder began his service with the Court in January 1921, filling an unexpired two-year term. He served with the Court until his term expired December 31, 1922. In 1924, the United States Supreme Court appointed Elder as a special commissioner in Michigan v. Wisconsin, a boundary line dispute case, that was decided in 1926. He subsequently resumed his practice of law.
Elder was a member of the Missouri Bar Association of St. Louis, the Missouri Bar Association, and the American Bar Association. Additionally, Judge Elder was a former chairman of the Executive Committee of the Lawyers’ Association for the 8th Judicial District.
Judge Conway Elder died December 10, 1957, in Clayton, Missouri. He was 77 years old.
Biographical information authored in 2022 by Michael Patton, University of Missouri-Columbia, Missouri.
Sources used (please note a copy of each is located on file at the Supreme Court of Missouri Law Library)
Charles U. Becker, compiler, Charles U. Becker, Secretary of State, Official Manual For Years Nineteen Twenty-one and Nineteen Twenty-two (Jefferson City, MO: The Hugh Stephens Company, 1922), 89, information courtesy of Missouri Digital Heritage website, Missouri State Archives, accessed March 15, 2022.
“Conway Elder, Former Judge, Dies at Age 77,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, (St. Louis, Missouri), December 11, 1957, information courtesy of Newspapers.com, accessed on March 15, 2022.
Cornelius Roach, compiler, Cornelius Roach, Secretary of State, Official Manual of the State of Missouri For the Years 1915-1916 (Jefferson City, MO: The Hugh Stephens Printing Company, 1916), 61, information courtesy of Missouri Digital Heritage website, Missouri State Archives, accessed March 15, 2022.
Ernest Knaebel, reporter, United States Reports, Cases Adjudged in the Supreme Court, vol. 270, (Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1926), 295.
John L. Sullivan, compiler, John L. Sullivan, Secretary of State, Official Manual of the State of Missouri For the Years 1917-1918 (Jefferson City, MO: The Hugh Stephens Company, 1918), 41, information courtesy of Missouri Digital Heritage website, Missouri State Archives, accessed March 15, 2022.
John L. Sullivan, compiler, John L. Sullivan, Secretary of State, Official Manual of the State of Missouri For the Years 1919-1920 (Jefferson City, MO: Hugh Stephens Company, 1920), 43, information courtesy of Missouri Digital Heritage website, Missouri State Archives, accessed March 15, 2022.
Perry S. Rader, reporter, Reports of Cases Determined by the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri, vol. 286 (Columbia, MO: E.W. Stephens Publishing Company, 1922), iv.
“Standard Death Certificate for Conway Elder,” Missouri Death Certificates, 1910-1971, information courtesy of Missouri Death Certificates Database, Missouri Digital Heritage website, Missouri State Archives, accessed March 14, 2022.
“Three Supreme Judges, 1922,” The Rolla Herald, (Rolla, Missouri), December 2, 1920, information courtesy of the State Historical Society of Missouri’s Digital Newspaper Project, accessed on March 16, 2022.