Kenelm Lawrence Shirk Sr. (1894-1956)

From the Lancaster New Era, June 13, 1942.

  At the same time as Menno Brubaker Rohrer's service as Burgess of Lititz in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, another curiously named man was serving as that county's District Attorney. That man was Kenelm Lawrence Shirk, a World War I veteran who had previously served as U.S. district court commissioner and as assistant district attorney. Shirk's time as district attorney was cut short due to his resignation to enlist in the U.S. Army, where he attained the rank of lieutenant colonel. Following his return from service, Shirk served nearly a decade on the Lancaster city council, being appointed in 1946. The son of Martin and Anna (Landes) Shirk, Kenelm Lawrence Shirk Sr. was born in Lancaster County on August 11, 1894.

  Shirk spent a portion of his early life in Richmond, Virginia with his family, and his early education was obtained in schools local to Lancaster County. Following graduation from the Ephrata High School in 1912, he enrolled at Washington and Lee University in Virginia and graduated with his law degree in the class of 1915. He was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar the following year and put his career on hold to enlist for service in WWI. By December 1917 he was stationed at Camp Meade in Maryland and was commissioned a lieutenant. Assigned to the 314th Infantry of the 79th Division, Shirk served through the duration of the war and returned to Pennsylvania in May 1919. Following his return, Shirk was commended for his bravery by the Philadelphia Inquirer, titling him the "Damndest Daredevil Yet." In a writeup on his actions, the Inquirer further related that:

"There is another regimental hero who has no decorations at all. He doesn't even have a wound stripe to show for his bravery. His name is Lieutenant Kenelm Shirk, and he resides just outside of Philadelphia. Shirk, he did not. Anytime there was a hazardous job Shirk did it. Where the bullets and shells were thickest Shirk was. Every risk he took. Men were killed all around him, but his was a charmed life, and because nothing happend to him his specialty was walking around with a couple of hand grenades in his pocket, ready for any action."

Kenelm Shirk during WWI, from the Philadelphia Inquirer, June 20, 1919.

  After returning to Lancaster County Shirk was cited for "gallantry in action and meritorious service" in June 1919 for his actions on the evening of November 8, 1918, when he "made repeated trips to keep contact between companies under heavy artillery fire, which necessitated great personal danger." He recommenced with the practice of law in Lancaster, and in the early 1920s was a member of the law firm headed by John A. Coyle.  In February 1922 Shirk married Beatrice Marie Wertz and had two children, Kenelm Lawrence Jr. (1922-2006) and Joan Shirk Janeski (1925-2010). The couple later separated, and Shirk remarried in June 1937 to Alice Margaret Cawood (1895-1991), who survived him upon his death in 1956.

  In the 1920s Shirk was selected as a U.S. district court commissioner for Lancaster County, and in 1930 was elected as the exalted ruler of the Lancaster Lodge No. 134, Benevolent Protective Order of Elks. In October of that year, he was elected president of the Young Republicans Club of Lancaster and held that office until at least 1933. He continued his rise in public life in December 1931 when he was appointed assistant district attorney of Lancaster County.

From the Lancaster New Era, October 10, 1930.

  Shirk's time as assistant district attorney extended eight years, and in July 1939 announced his candidacy for district attorney of Lancaster County. That November he trounced his Democratic opponent, A.E. McCullough Jr., by a vote of 34,360 to 13,681, and took office in January 1940. Several months into his term Shirk made headlines by ordering the arrest of seven Communist Party candidates in Lancaster County for "conspiracy and perjury under the election laws", arising from falsified signatures and duplications. Two of those men, J. Granville Eddy and Reuben Carr, were candidates for state office that year and had circulated petitions which had garnered over 1,200 signatures. Following a two-month investigation, a number of those signatures proved to have been obtained under false pretenses, with dozens being recorded as either duplications or forgeries. Interviewed by the Lancaster New Era in August 1940, Shirk remarked that:

"I think its one of the rottenest things I've ever seen...The further into it you go, the more you find the Communist circulators had no regard whatsoever for the Commonwealth's election laws. One person whose name was on a petition told us that the circulator said 'We've got to get to 2,700 names somehow.' Apparently that's what they did. They didn't care how they got them."

 In addition to the police investigation and Shirk's comments on the arrests, "similar investigations" were announced in other Pennsylvania counties where the Communist Party obtained signatures in 1940. Shirk resigned as district attorney in May 1943 to join in the war effort and reentered the U.S. Army as a major. Early in his service he was stationed at the Army School of Military Government at Harvard University and was later transferred overseas. His full period of enlistment extended 29 months and saw him stationed in North Africa, Sardinia, and Italy, and was a provincial commissioner in the latter two areas. These positions saw him responsible for organizing "local Italian governments and directed operations in hospitals and orphanages." He also was named a trial judge advocate for the Fourth Army Corps near Trieste, Italy. Upon his return stateside in February 1946, he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel at Indian Gap, Pennsylvania.

   Just months after his return to Lancaster Shirk reentered city politics when he was appointed to a vacancy on the city council, being assigned to the Department of Public Safety. He won a full term of his own in November 1947 and began his third term in November 1951. He retired from the council in early 1955 as director of accounts and finance, and for the remainder of his life practiced law in Lancaster with his son Kenelm Jr. In addition to his time on the city council, Shirk was a member of the State Tuberculosis Society Board, the Lancaster Post 34 of the American Legion, the Reserve Officer's Association, the Loyal Order of Moose, and the Kiwanis Club, among other organizations.

  After decades of prominence in Lancaster, Kenelm Lawrence Shirk Sr. died at the Lancaster General Hospital on May 18, 1956, succumbing to the effects of a stroke he'd suffered a week previously. He was survived by his wife and two children and was interred at the Keller Cemetery in Springville, Pennsylvania. Public service continued in his family with his son Kenelm Jr., also a veteran of WWII. A past president of the Lancaster Bar Association, Shirk served as chairman of the Young Republicans of Pennsylvania on two separate occasions and from 1964-71 served as chairman of the Lancaster County Republican Committee.

From the Lancaster Daily News, May 18, 1956.