Mr. Conway was born May 3, 1868, on a farm in the Town of Rudolph in Wood County. He worked on the farm, in sawmills and in the woods, attending local public schools intermittently when he was not needed for the farm and other work.
Conway, a Democrat (by 1897 already a member of the Party's State Central Committee),[2] was elected Clerk of the Circuit Court of Wood County in 1890 at the age of twenty-two, and held the office for two terms. He was a member of the county board of supervisors,
Grand Rapids city attorney, and county district attorney,[3] and defeated a popular incumbent county superintendent of schools, the only victor on the county's Democratic ticket that year.
In 1912 Conway was elected to the Assembly, with 2,370 votes to 2,318 for Republican Robert Morris, 318 for Social Democrat Clark Lyon, and 112 for Prohibitionist F. E. Kellner (Democratic incumbent William E. Wheelan was not a candidate). Although Conway was elected on the Democratic ticket, in the 1913 Wisconsin Blue Book he chose to describe himself as a "Progressive Democrat", implying affiliation with 1912 Presidential candidate Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive Party. He was assigned to the standing committeeonrules.[5]
He was not a candidate for re-election in 1914, and was succeeded by Republican George Hambrecht.
Conway died at the Mayo ClinicinRochester, Minnesota, on December 15, 1926, and was described in his obituary as "active in state Democratic politics".[6]
