Monroe, William Hall 1860-1946

MONROE, BEAVER, CLARK, COOK

Posted By: Patricia Max (email)
Date: 5/9/2005 at 11:36:22

Colfax Jun 1946
W. H. MONROE PROMINENT COLFAX MANUFACTURER DIES

Monroe, William Hall

Final Rites Held Monday Afternoon: Burial At Old Home In Dexter, Iowa William Hall Monroe, 86, prominent Colfax manufacturer, died at the Methodist hospital in Des Moines Friday night, following a long illness and general decline in health of several years.

Mr. Monroe came to Colfax in 1910, at the invitation of the Colfax Commercial Club and organized the Close-To-Nature Co., manufacturing a canvas house, that has been sold, not only in the United States, but throughout the world and still made by the Monroe Company, of which he was a treasurer at the time of his death.

The company he organized branched out into numerous other manufactured products, many of them of Mr. Monroe's own invention and designs. He enjoyed his work and spent extra time studying changes and improvement as time moved along. He was an ardent reader and right up to the last was alert to events of the world.

Funeral services were conducted from the Cutter-Hartnett-Bumgardner Funeral Chapel, Monday afternoon, with the Rev. Earl Kalp of the Colfax Presbyterian Church officiating.

The obituary, which was read by Chas. Lyon, Des Moines, is as follows: William Hall Monroe, the eldest son of Milton Tandy and Esther Beaver Monroe, was born on February 29, 1860, near Newton, Jasper County, Illinois, and died June 7, 1946 in Des Moines Iowa. With his parents, three brothers and a sister he came to Iowa in a covered wagon in 1876 and settled in a log cabin on a farm in Davis County. He attended the Bloomfield Normal School, and taught in country schools while he was completing his studies there.

He later received a master's degree from Parsons College at Fairfield, Iowa.

After teaching school for a year in Kansas he returned to Iowa to become superintendent of the Bloomfield Schools at the age of 22. Two years later he became; president of the Dexter Normal, and from 1891 to 1894 he was president of Greer College at Hoopeston; Illinois. At that time he was the youngest college president in the United States. He spent two years in Ludington, Michigan, and then returned to the Dexter Normal in 1896. He later spent one year with the United States Weather Bureau as a weather observer, a position for which he trained himself. He was superintendent of the Earlham schools from 1899 to 1910. He was one of the foremost leaders in the establishment of the consolidated school system in Iowa, which was one of the first such systems in the United States.

Mr. Monroe came to Colfax, Iowa in 1910 as general manager and treasurer of the Close-To-Nature Company, which he established two years earlier in Earlham. He was the inventor or the Close-To-Nature house and many other product manufactured by the company. He remained as treasurer when the Close-To-Nature Company was succeeded by the Monroe Company in 1935, and was active in the management of the firm until shortly before his death.

In 1886 he was married to Laura May Clark of Dexter, Iowa, who passed away in 1937. They became the parents of two children, Gladys Monroe Stribling or Des Moines, Ia., and Paul Monroe, head of the Monroe Company of Colfax. Mr. Monroe is survived, in addition to his children, by one sister, Mrs. Ralph Cook of Stuart, Iowa, one brother, Frank of Kansas City, Missouri, three grandchildren and two, great grandchildren.

The Business houses, of Colfax were closed from 1:30 to 2:30 for the services.

Pall Bearers were Howard Bell, John Doyle, Herbert Kline, B. A. Brown, Loyd B. Everett and George Weirick. Flower Committee: Mrs. Edna Grosvenor, Mrs. Agnes Janney and Mrs. Sue Weresh.