Nelson, Samuel Jr.

NELSON

Posted By: Marilyn Holmes
Date: 6/20/2017 at 16:26:00

The Grinnell (IA) Herald

DIED.
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SAMUEL NELSON, JR.

Sad news was flashed over the wire to Grinnell yesterday morning, announcing the death in Chicago of Sam Nelson, Jr., son of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Nelson, pioneer residents of Grinnell, and one of the best known and most enterprising of the city's younger business men.

The first word announcing that Mr. Nelson was seriously ill at the Saratoga hotel, reached his relatives here on Wednesday afternoon, and his physician, Dr. E.F. Talbott, left for Chicago on the next train that night. On arriving in Chicago, however, he learned that Mr. Nelson had passed away at 7:45 o'clock on Wednesday evening, and phoned home at once to that effect.

Death was due to pneumonia, complicated by a weak heart. Mr. Nelson had been ill several days and was doing nicely until his heart failed under the strain.

Postmaster W.J. Nelson, brother of the deceased, accompanied by Will Nelson, left yesterday afternoon for Chicago, and returned this morning on the fast mail, bringing the body with them.

The funeral will be held from the Nelson home on Fifth avenue at 4 o'clock tomorrow afternoon. The Grinnell lodge of Elks, of which Mr. Nelson was a charter member, will attend in a body, and will have charge of the services after leaving the house. Secretary H.B. Westlake requests the Elks to meet at the club rooms at 3:45 o'clock.

Sam Nelson's career has been cut off just as he was on the threshold of success. For several years he has been developing a wholesale popcorn business and his advertising under the trade name of "Kernel Pop" had won him nationwide recognition. His business had been built up steadily until this year he purchased the mill on the M. & St. L. tracks and was filling it up for a manufacturing and distribution plant. The business of the Sam Nelson, Jr., Co. did not happened by accident. It was the child of a clever, original brain, which saw an opportunity and developed it and carried it on to success. The trip to Chicago a week ago, from which he never returned, was made for the purpose of interesting Sprague, Warner & Co. in his popcorn. This year he was planning to handle the output from upwards of 600 acres of popcorn which he had secured in the vicinity of Grinnell.

Sam Nelson was a booster for Grinnell. He believed in it and its future. He was always interested in things which made for the prosperity and improvement of his native town. As chairman of the band committee of the Commercial club he had done much this year to put the band on a paying basis. He was planning to pay a year's tuition in the wind instrument department of the Grinnell School of Music under Professor H.O. Hickernell, for a student on the clarinet.

Sam would have been 37 years old had he lived until the 29th of next December. His death forms the first break in a happy family circle of father, mother, and five children. He is survived by his parents, one brother, W.J. Nelson, and three sisters, Mayme, Grace, and Hattie Nelson. Mr. Nelson, Sr., is one of the oldest and best established merchants in Grinnell and his combined grocery and dry goods store has a reputation for square dealing and good goods. The Nelsons have the sympathy of all Grinnell in this heavy blow which has come upon them.