John Montgomery Belk

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Veteran Official of Big Merchandising Business Dies of Heart Attack.

Funeral services for Dr. John Montgomery Belk, of Monroe, one of the heads of the Belk department store system, and brother of W. H. Belk, of Charlotte, will be held at 3 o'clock this afternoon at Monroe.

Dr. Belk died yesterday morning at 8:45 o'clock following an acute heart attack which he sustained at 4 o'clock yesterday morning.

The funeral services will be conducted by Rev. W. B. S. Chanler, pastor of the First Presbyterian church of Monroe, assisted by Rev. H. C. Hardin, pastor of the First Methodist church of Gastonia. Interment will be in the cemetery at Monroe.

The active pallbearers will be John C. Sykes, J. W. Laney, Dowd Secrest, W. J. Rudge, Dr. C.F. Mahoney and C. Redfern. The honorary pallbearers will be T. P. Dillon, George Lee, Raymond Shute, Robert Crowe, John Crow and W. J. Hudson.

STORE CLOSES

Out of respect to the memory of Dr. Belk, who was vice president of the Belk store in Charlotte, the Charlotte store was closed yesterday at noon to remain closed until Friday morning.

The death of Dr. Belk, who shared administrative direction of the Belk system of 48 department stores with his brother, W. H. Belk, of this city, removes one of the merchant barons of the south from the field of activity. The fact, understood in business circles but never made public, that the system now does a business approximating $20,000,000 a year, testifies to the magnitude of the Belk enterprise, which is less than 30 years old.

BORN IN LANCESTER.

Dr. Belk was born July 12, 1864, in Lancaster, S. C., the son of the late Abel N. W. Belk and Sarah Walkup Belk.

Dr. Belk graduated in medicine from New York university and practiced his profession for several years in Morven, Anson county, this state, when he left the profession to join his brother, W. H., who had started a store in Monroe a little less than 30 years ago.

Dr. Belk married Miss Hallie Little, of Morven, who survives him, together with seven daughters. The daughters are: Mrs. A. F. Stevens, of Winston-Salem; Mrs. Michael Hudson, of Greensboro; Mrs. J. C. Daughtridge, of Rocky Mount; Misses Mabel, Daisy, Henry and Johnie Belk, of Monroe. Mr. Belk is also survived by his brother, W. H. Belk, of Charlotte; a half-brother, Dr. W. D. Simpson, Greenville, S. C., a half sister Mrs. George McClellan, of Monroe.

Surviving Dr. Belk also is his mother, Mrs. John F. Simpson, a woman of 92 years, with whom Dr. Belk took dinner every day of his life when he was in Monroe.

Dr. Belk was known to a wide circle of friends and acquaintances more as a philanthropist than as a business man. He was called the father of the Ellen Fitzgerald hospital at Monroe. He shared with his venerable mother and his brother, W. H. Belk, the support of a hospital in Tai Chow, China, together with a formidable staff; the whole under the supervision of the Presbyterian church. The three, also, according to records of the North Carolina synod, guarantee the salary of one of the home mission workers of the synod and have in the past few years aided in the founding and building of scores of churches in various parts of the state, particularly those of the Presbyterian, Baptist and Methodist faiths.

Dr. Belk was a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason. He had also been active in Pythian ranks in former years.

Charlotte Observer Thursday, March 22, 1928 Page 15