Sam C Henderson

HENDERSON, CARRUTHERS, JACKSON, TAYLOR

Posted By: Deb Barker (email)
Date: 12/12/2006 at 19:02:23

Nebraska, The Land and the People, Vol. 3

Sam C. Henderson is Nebraska state general agent for the Great American Fire Insurance Company of New York, and in the city of Omaha maintains his well appointed suite of offices on the seventh floor of the Brandeis Theater Building. He is making a most excellent record as one of the vigorous, resourceful insurance men of Nebraska, and as one of the loyal and progressive business executives of the younger generation in the metropolis of this state.
Mr. Henderson was born at Bloomfield, Iowa, September 7, 1892, and is a son of Colonel Stonewall Jackson Henderson and Belle (Carruthers) Henderson, both of whom were residents of Omaha at the time of their death. Colonel Stonewall Jackson Henderson was born at Parkersburg, West Virginia, in 1865, the year that marked the close of the Civil war, and his personal name indicates the parental appreciation of the distinction of the great Confederate leader, General Thomas J. Jackson, who in history is better known as General Stonewall Jackson. Colonel Henderson was reared and educated in his native state, and it was in Bloomfield, Iowa, that his marriage was solemnized with Miss Belle Carruthers, whose birth there occurred in the early '60s and who was a representative of a sterling pioneer family of that section of the Hawkeye State. Colonel Henderson, who gained in Nebraska his military title through service on the staff of Governor Morehead, with the rank of colonel, gained precedence as one of the representative insurance men in this state, he having been state agent for the Insurance Company of North America, with headquarters in Omaha, at the time of his death in 1922. He was also the owner of the Henderson Alfalfa Seed Farms near Benkelman, Dundy County, and the important industrial enterprise that he there developed is being successfully continued by his son Sam C., of this sketch, who succeeded him in the ownership of the valuable property and business. Mrs. Henderson survived her husband about two years and passed to the life eternal in August, 1924, the subject of this sketch being the only child. Colonel Stonewall J. Henderson never wavered in the political faith in which he was reared, that of the Democratic party.
Sam C. Henderson was a mere boy at the time of the family removal from his native town of Bloomfield, Iowa, to the City of Waterloo, that state, where he gained his early education in the excellent public schools. Thereafter he was a student four years in Kemper Military Academy at Boonville, Missouri, and for two years continued his studies in Leland Stanford, Jr., University, in California, the family home having in the meanwhile been established in the City of Omaha. In this city Mr. Henderson initiated his active association with the fire insurance business shortly after he had attained to his legal majority, and after two years of service in the rating department of the business he became special agent for the Insurance Company of North America, of which his father was at the time the Nebraska state agent. He continued his successful activities along this line until the nation entered the World war, when he promptly volunteered for service in the United States army. He received preliminary training at the University of Michigan and at Camp Hancock, located in Augusta, Georgia. He was stationed for a time at the arsenal in Augusta, Georgia, was next assigned to Camp Jackson at Columbia, South Carolina, and in the field ordnance service he was stationed at Mays Landing, New Jersey, at the time when the armistice brought the war to a close, he having been commissioned second lieutenant.
At the conclusion of his World war service and his reception of his honorable discharge Mr. Henderson returned to Omaha, where he has since continued his constructive and successful service as Nebraska state agent for the Great American Fire Insurance Company, besides which he is state agent also for the American Alliance Insurance Company, New York, and the Massachusetts Fire & Marine Insurance Company of Boston, Massachusetts.
Mr. Henderson is aligned in the ranks of the Democratic party, is a Knight Templar Mason, is affiliated with Omaha Post No. 1, American Legion, and has membership in the Omaha Chamber of Commerce and the Omaha [p.199] Athletic Club. Aside from his predilection for hunting and fishing, Mr. Henderson finds his chief diversion in the management of his fine Henderson Alfalfa Seed Farms, representing a landed estate of somewhat more than 400 acres, with 200 acres devoted to the propagation of Grimm alfalfa seed.
At Broken Bow, Nebraska, on the 4th of September, 1920, occurred the marriage of Mr. Henderson and Miss Clara Hazel Taylor, and she has become a popular factor in social and cultural circles in the Nebraska metropolis, where she is an active member of the First Church of Christ, Scientist, and holds membership also in the Omaha Fine Arts Club and the Omaha Dramatic League.