Hugh Joseph WADE

WADE, EGAN, CLARKE, DOUGHERTY, JONES, CASE

Posted By: Sharon R Becker (email)
Date: 3/27/2011 at 11:54:50

The Des Moines Register
Des Moines, Polk County, Iowa
November, 1958

Alaska Elects Native of Iowa
A native Iowa apparently has won election as Alaska's first secretary of state.

He is Hugh J. WADE, the running mate of EGAN, the Democratic candidate for governor. WADE, a Juneau attorney, is a native of Dougherty, Ia. He has held several territorial posts in recent year.

WADE, a Democrat, is a cousin of Wade CLARKE of Des Moines, recently elected Polk County district court judge here, and a nephew of the late Martin WADE, an Iowa federal judge. His father, the late John WADE, was a state senator and a member of the state board of control.

Hugh WADE, who was elected Alaskan territorial treasurer in 1954, attended Drake University here for a year and got his law degree at the State University of Iowa in 1924.

He practiced in Omaha before going to Alaska as an agent for the department of justice.

In addition to being territorial treasurer, WADE served in various federal offices in Alaska, such as director of the National Recovery Administration and social security.

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The Globe Gazette
Mason City, Cerro Gordo County, Iowa
February 10, 1959

Dougherty Man Now Heads Alaskan State Government

JUNEAU, ALASKA (AP) -- The first decision by Acting Gov. Hugh Joseph Wade - a native Iowan - was typical of the man who now heads the 49th state.

In an official statement, the devoutly religious Democrat, 57, called for prayers from all Alaskans for Gov. William A. EAGAN'S fight for life.

A quarter of a century of public service, including the last four years as elected treasurer of the Territory of Alaska, was behind WADE as he took over duties as Chief executive of the new state.

In his hands now rests the formation of policies which will guide the nation's newest and largest state in its early days.

WADE had expected, as secretary of state under EGAN, to assist in the creation of the first administrative program, bu this role was to have been that of aide.

WADE'S first elective office was that of territorial treasurer, a post he filled from 1954 until Jan. 1 of this year. Two days later Alaska was admitted to the Union, and Wade was sworn in as secretary of state.

WADE was born June 29, 1901, at Dougherty, Iowa. His father, the late John F. WADE, had been chairman of the Iowa State Board of Control and had long been active in Democratic politics. WADE'S mother was the former Mary DOUGHERTY, for whose family the little farm community had been named.

He attended grade and high school at Des Moines, and studied three years at Drake University. His major subjects were pre-law. He played two years on Drake's varsity football team and was an All-Missouri Valley Conference end.

For his last two years of college, WADE transferred to the State University of Iowa. In his last year of football eligibility, WADE was second string end on 1922 Iowa Big Ten grid champion team, coached by Howard JONES.

He was graduated with a law degree in 1924 and practiced one year as an attorney at Omaha.

"I started at $15 a week, and at the end of the year had worked up some - but not much," WADE recalls.

He joined the Federal Bureau of Investigaion at Omaha in 1925, and later was transferred to Seattle. In 1926 he made his first trip to Alaska, on an FBI assignment.

He left the FBI in 1928, to join the legal staff of a bond and mortgage company in Chicago. The following year he took an administrative post at Louisville, Ky., with an ice cream company.

In 1933, WADE went to Washington with the National Recovery Administration, and was tranferred to Juneau to administer NRA affairs in Alaska.

When the NRA was abolished in 1935, WADE moved to Washington on the legal staff of the Social Security Board. In Jan., 1937, he was sent to Juneau as social security administrator in the territory - and was in Alaska to stay.

In 1950 WADE became area director of the Alaska Native Service, and held that post until 1953. The following year he made his successful bid for election as territorial treasurer.

In 1933, WADE married the former Madge CASE, a Skagway girl he had first met in 1927 on a boat trip from Seattle to Alaska.

The WADES have three children. They are Hugh Gerald (Jerry), 25, a senior law student at Catholic University in Washington; Suzanne, 23, a graduate last June of Colorado State, Fort Collins, who now is working in occupational therapy at the Veterans Hospital in Portland, Ore.; and Michael Howard, 21, a junior in business administration at the University of Nore Dame.

NOTE: Hugh Joseph WADE died at the age of 93 years on March 25, 1995, Auke Bay, Juneau, Alaska.

Transcriptions and note by Sharon R. Becker, March of 2011

Cerro Gordo Biographies maintained by Lynn Diemer-Mathews.
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