Samuel H. Bauman

BAUMAN, STEINBERNER

Posted By: S.Ferrall - IAGenWeb volunteer
Date: 7/6/2020 at 12:53:08

A recent educator has said that "the true business college aims to fit men to live, and to make a living, too. It not only inculcates truth, honest dealing, industry, enterprise, thrift, temperance - the foundation of correct living - but also gives an occupation in which these virtues may be practically applied." This statement appearing as the foreword in the catalogue issued by the proprietors of the Great Falls Commercial College, of whom Samuel H. Bauman, the special subject of this brief personal review, s one, shows that this educational institution was established for a wise and useful purpose, and its large number of ex-students now numbered among the most successful young business men and women of the state, and its present body of wide-awake students, prove that its founding was not in vain.

Samuel H. Bauman was born in Lansing, Iowa, January 18, 1864, and grew to manhood on the parental farm. His father, the late Samuel A. Bauman, was born and bred in Switzerland. Inheriting the industry and thrift of his ancestors, he was anxious to begin life for himself under the best possible conditions, and as a youth bade good-bye to home and friends, and crossed the broad Atlantic in search of fame and fortune. He located in Iowa in pioneer days, and subsequently, having accumulated some money as a farm laborer, bought a tract of land in Lansing, Allamakee county, and on the homestead which he improved carried on general farming until his death in 1908, at the advanced age of seventy-eight years. His wife was born in New York state, and is still living on the home farm, in Lansing.

The third child in a family of nine children, Samuel H. Bauman was educated in the Lansing schools, being graduated from the high school with the class of 1881. Scholarly in his tastes and ambitions, he was allowed to continue his studies, and attended first the Buffalo Business College in Buffalo, New York, and the Davenport Business College, in Davenport, Iowa. Being graduated from the latter institution, Mr. Bauman, in 1885, accepted a position as instructor in the Helena Business College, at Helena, Montana, where he taught for eight years.

Coming to Great Falls, Montana, in 1894, Mr. Bauman, in partnership with Mr. Robert Deardorf, established the Great Falls Commercial College, which under their wise management has grown and flourished, being now the leading institution of the kind in northern Montana, if not in the entire state. This college aims to give to young men and young women a practical training in business affairs, the business course embracing bookkeeping, rapid calculations, banking, correspondence, business arithmetic, commercial law, spelling, and business writing. The shorthand course includes shorthand, touch typewriting, manifolding, letter copying, business writing, correspondence and spelling. The English course, with which it is necessary all should have a familiar acquaintance, comprises a course in reading, writing, spelling, grammar, arithmetic, history, geography, and letter writing. A rapid, legible and easy style of penmanship is taught with each course, and daily drills are given in spelling and the study of words, the ability to spell and use words correctly being of vital importance in every walk of life. To accommodate pupils who work during the daytime, a night school is in session three evenings each week for seven months, beginning in October, individual instruction in chosen studies being given to each student. The school has been successful from the start, at the present time, in 1912, one hundred pupils being enrolled.

Politically Mr. Bauman is a Republican, and fraternally he belongs to the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, at Great Falls. Religiously he is a member of the Presbyterian church.

Mr. Bauman married, at Helena, Montana, in April, 1893, Elizabeth Steinberner, who was born in Ohio. She passed to the higher life in April, 1900, in early womanhood, leaving no children.

~source: A History of Montana; Fitzgerald; 1913. Vol. III; pg 1536