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FRANK MAHER, who represents the third generation of
a pioneer family of Iowa, has for over twenty years been a busy lawyer at Fort
Dodge, Iowa. He was born on a farm seven miles north of the city, in 1884.
His grandfather, Stephen Maher, was a native of Ireland, and
after coming to America lived for a time at Kingston, Ontario. He was engaged in
assisting in the construction of the Erie Canal. Upon the completion of that
canal he moved with his family to Ottawa, Illinois. Charles Maher, the father of
Frank Maher, came with his father to Ottawa as a young boy. Stephen Maher, the
grandfather, assisted in the construction of the old Illinois Canal, and after
its completion, removed with his family to Fort Dodge, where they arrived in
1856. He homesteaded a farm seven miles north of the city, the land still being
in the family.
Charles Maher prior to the Civil war returned to
Ottawa, and learned a trade as a blacksmith and wagon maker. When the Civil war
broke out he enlisted the first day, and went with the Ottawa boys to Chicago.
They were transferred to Cairo the next morning. They arrived at Cairo without
any guns or war equipment. The commanding officer called for volunteers. Mr.
Maher told them of a man who was in charge of the wagon and machine shop in
Ottawa, and the officers gave him a team of horses and sent him back after that
man. Mr. Maher brought the man to Cairo, where a large machine shop and gun
foundry was erected. The man from Ottawa was put in charge, and Mr. Maher
assisted that man during the period of the war. He came back to Iowa immediately
after the war and became a very successful business man. He accumulated about
sixteen hundred acres of land, all of which is still owned by his heirs. Charles
W. Maher and Mary E. Calligan, who was born at Elizabeth, New Jersey, was the
first couple married in the Corpus Christi Catholic church at Fort Dodge. Her
father, Thomas Calligan, was born in Ireland, and settled at Fort Dodge, Iowa,
before the Civil war. He went to California in 1849 and had considerable success
in the gold fields. The Calligan home was on the site of the present post office
at Fort Dodge. He died in that city in 1923 and his wife in 1928. Of their nine
children eight are living, Frank being the sixth child. Both parents were devout
members of the Corpus Christi church.
Frank Maher attended high school at Fort Dodge, was in a
school at Morgan Park, near Chicago, Illinois, one year and spent two years in
Notre Dame University at South Bend, Indiana. In 1907 he was graduated from the
law school of the University of Iowa and since that date has been steadily
engaged in a general law practice in Fort Dodge. He also gives much time to the
supervising of his private business interests. Mr. Maher is a Republican in
politics, is a member of the Iowa State Bar Association and is affiliated with
the B.P.O. Elks and Ancient Order of the United Workmen.
He married in 1914, Miss Gertrude Early, who was born at Fort
Dodge, where her father, J. G. Early, was an early settler. He now lives in Los
Angeles. Mrs. Maher attended the Fort Dodge High School and finished her
education in the Castle School at Tarrytown, New York. They have two children:
Janice, born in 1915, in high school; and Charles, born in 1917, in the seventh
grade. Mr. Maher is a member of Corpus Christi Catholic church.
p. 360
HON. EDGAR A. MORLING is Emmetsburg's
most distinguished citizen. He began the practice of law there more than forty
years ago, accumulating honors and substantial increments of success through the
years until he was called to the larger service of the state as one of the
justices of the Supreme Court and at the present time he is chief justice of
that tribunal.
Judge Morling is of English parentage. He was born at
Boonville, New York, April 21, 1864. His parents Alfred and Eliza (Hines)
Morling, were natives of Cambridgeshire, England, and after their marriage they
came to the United States in 1857, their first home being at Gloversville, New
York, and later they settled in Boonville. Alfred Morling was a carpenter and
builder. He served as a non-commissioned office in the Union army during the
Civil war and for many years held the office of justice of the peace at
Boonville. He died February 4, 1903. He was born August 11, 1833. Mrs. Alfred
Morling after the death of her husband came out to Emmetsburg, Iowa, where she
passed away in 1911 in her eighty-fourth year.
Judge Morling attended public school at Boonville and was
graduated LL. B. from the Albany Law School in 1886. After a brief experience in
law work at Boonville he went to Saint Paul Minnesota in 1887, and for two years
labored as a member of the editorial staff of the West Publishing Company,
assisting in the compilation of some of the first law books of that famous firm
whose publications are known to every practicing attorney in America.
Leaving the West Publishing Company in 1889, Judge Morling
located at Emmetsburg. While he served as a member of the town council and as
county attorney he devoted his time and abilities with singular zeal and energy
to the routine of a growing general law practice. It was his reputation as a
lawyer of mature experience and ability that brought him, on October 1, 1925,
appointment to the Iowa Supreme bench, for the term ending December 31, 1930. He
has written some of the important opinions of the court during these five years
and his work has been in accord with the finest traditions of the bench.
Outside of his profession the cause of religion has probably
been Judge Morling's chief interest. He has attended four general conferences of
the Methodist Episcopal Church, has served on the board of trustees and board of
education of the Northwest Iowa Conference, for many years was a member of the
official board of the church at Emmetsburg. He is one of the trustees of
Morningside College and a member of the Wesley Foundation of Iowa. Fraternally
Judge Morling is a member of Earnest Lodge No. 399, A. F. and A. M., Earnest
Chapter No. 108, Royal Arch Masons, Holy Grail Commandery, Knights Templar, the
Eastern Star, and Medium Lodge and McPherson Canton, Independent Order of Odd
Fellows.
He married, April 25, 1888, Miss Flora B. Tripp,
of Cherokee, Iowa. She passed away October 6, 1920, leaving four children:
William E., who died at Emmetsburg October 29, 1926; Ruth M., wife of R.A.
Shover, in the real estate business at Emmetsburg; Max M., also in the real
estate and loan business at Emmetsburg, and Maynard A.
Among other interesting and gratifying honors Judge
Morling has received in his long experience as a lawyer and jurist one was the
conferring upon him of honorary membership in the legal fraternity Order of the
Coif at the University of Iowa in April, 1930.
p. 206
REV. WILLIAM B. MATHEWS is pastor of one of the
flourishing congregations of the Disciples denomination at Des Moines, the
Central Church of Christ, at ninth and Pleasant streets. Rev. Mr. Mathews has
had several assignments of duty in the ministry and for several years was
engaged in Y.M.C.A. work and was in that line of duty while overseas during the
World war and post-war periods.
He was born at Newcastle, Pennsylvania, May 30, 1892, son of
Thomas and Annie J. (Barnes) Mathews. His grandfather, William John Mathews, was
a native of Ireland, of Scotch ancestry, was a linen merchant at Belfast, and
later came to the United States and died in Pennsylvania. His son, Thomas
Mathews, was born in County Antrim, Ireland, and came to America at the age of
twenty-seven and has spent his life largely as a farmer. He and his wife reside
at Newcastle, Pennsylvania, and are active members of the Christian Church
there. He is a Republican in politics and has filled some minor offices in his
community. His wife was born at Pittsburgh, daughter of William Thomas Barnes,
who was born in Belfast, Ireland, and was educated at the University of Dublin
and became a minister of the Christian Church. Later he engaged in business as a
land dealer and farmer in Pennsylvania. Thomas Mathews and wife had a family of
five children and the four now living are: Lillian, at home; Sarah, wife of
George Shaffer, foreman of a tin mill at Newcastle, Pennsylvania; Miss Martha, a
school principal at Newcastle; and Rev. William B.
William B. Mathews grew up at Newcastle, attended public
schools there and graduated in 1917, with the A.B. degree, from Hiram College of
Ohio. He had taught school a year before going to college, and after being
ordained a minister of the Church of the Disciples had a church in Pittsburgh,
leaving that to go overseas as a Y.M.C.A. secretary under the war council. He
remained overseas until the latter part of 1920, having charge of Y.M.C.A. work
with the Greek forces in Turkey.
Rev. Mr. Mathews after returning home resumed his residence
at Pittsburgh, where he was continued under the authority of the Y.M.C.A. for
one year. For two years he was a student in the University of Chicago, form
which he was graduated with the degrees of Master of Arts and Bachelor of
Divinity. Since graduating Rev. Mr. Mathews has given his time to two churches,
spending four years at Bloomington, Indiana, and in 1926 came to Des Moines as
pastor of the Central Church of Christ. He has had a very congenial sphere of
work here, has a congregation of over 1300, and is the type of minister who is a
community leader as well as a successful churchman.
He married in 1923, Miss Edith E. Smith, of Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, where she was reared and educated. They have a son, Thomas George
Mathews, born in 1925. Rev. Mr. Mathews is a member of the Delta Theta Chi
honorary professional fraternity and is a member of the Kiwanis Club and the
Chamber of Commerce at Des Moines.
JAMES G. MACRAE, M. D., who is engaged in the
practice of his profession at Creston, judicial center of Union
County, and who gives major attention to the surgical branch of his
profession, has made a record of successful order not only in his
private practice but also in his service with the medical arm of the
United States army both in the Mexican border troubles and in the
World war, in which latter conflict he was with the American
Expeditionary Forces in France and there gained varied experience
that further and distinctively fortified him for the practice of
surgery according to the most approved and modern scientific
methods.
Doctor Macrae was born in the City of Council Bluffs, Iowa, January
25, 1885, and is a son of James and Sarah (Gilbert) Macrae, who now
maintain their home in that city, the father having retired after
many years of successful association with farm industry. James
Macrae was born on the Island of Arran, Scotland, of sterling Scotch
ancestry, and his wife was born in Nebraska City, Nebraska, her
parents having been pioneer settlers in that state. Of the children
of Mr. and Mrs. James Macrae the eldest is Mrs. Neil Harris, of
Lewistown, Montana; Dr. James G. is the next younger; and Mrs. Leroy
Rood resides in New York City. The parents are zealous members of
the Presbyterian Church and the father is a Democrat in political
alignment.
After completing his studies in the Council Bluffs High School Dr.
James G. Macrae continued his academic education by attending the
University of Nebraska, and in preparation for his chosen profession
he availed himself of the advantages of the medical department of
Washington University in the city of Saint Louis, Missouri. In that
institution he was graduated as a member of the class of 1910, and
after thus receiving his degree of Doctor of Medicine he served as
an interne in the hospital of his present home city of Creston,
after which he here engaged in the general practice of his
profession. In connection with the activities on the Mexican border
the Doctor was there in service with the hospital corps of the First
Iowa Volunteer Infantry, and after a service of nine months he
resumed his private practice at Creston. Soon after the nation
entered the World war, in 1917, Doctor Macrae was again called into
service, as a member of the Medical Corps of the United States army,
and his overseas service was as surgeon of the One Hundred
Twenty-seventh Field Artillery. He was in France on active duty one
year, had commission as captain and later was advanced to the rank
of major in the Medical Corps. He received his honorable discharge
in January, 1919, and in his substantial and representative private
practice at Creston he has since specialized in surgery. He has
membership in the Union County Medical Society, the District Medical
Society, the Iowa State Medical Society and the American Medical
Association. He has affiliation with both York and Scottish Rite
bodies of the Masonic fraternity, as well as the Mystic Shrine, and
is a member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the
while his World war associations are perpetuated in his affiliation
with the American Eight. He was reared in the faith of the
Presbyterian Church, and his wife is a communicant of the Catholic
Church.
In 1919 was solemnized the marriage of Doctor Macrae to Miss
Josephine Hopkins, who was born in Council Bluffs but reared and
educated at Creston, she being a daughter of Bierce Hopkins. Doctor
and Mrs. Macrae have no children. They are popular factors in the
social and cultural activities of their home community.
PETER MALCOLM. Probably no department of the state government at Des
Moines comes more frequently in direct touch with the farm and
farmers of Iowa than the division of animal industry, of which the
chief is Dr. Peter Malcolm, formerly state veterinarian and a very
accomplished member of his profession, who has been in Iowa for many
years.
Doctor Malcolm was born at Saint Mary's Ontario, Canada, in 1867, a
son of William and Catherine (Craig) Malcolm. His parents were born
and married in Scotland and immediately after their marriage came to
America and settled in Ontario. His father was a stone mason by
trade and that was his occupation, though he also owned and occupied
a farm. Both parents were very active Presbyterians and the father
was a Conservative in politics, a man of broad reading and
information and took an intelligent part in civic affairs. he served
on his city council and was a member of the school board. In the
family were five children, the tow now living being Dr. Peter, and
Mary, who remains in Ontario.
Dr. Peter Malcolm had a high school education. he worked on his
father's farm and as a boy showed a keen interest in all the
troubles of the farm animals. Veterinary medicine seemed to be the
natural choice for a professional career and he entered the
veterinary college at Toronto, perhaps the outstanding school of
veterinary science in America. He was graduated in 1890 and for
about a year practiced at Saint Marys.
Doctor Malcolm in 1892 became a citizen of Iowa, locating at New
Hampton. He carried on a general practice over that section of the
state for nearly thirty years. In July, 1920, his attainments led to
his selection for the office of state veterinarian. In 1925 he was
made chief of the division of animal industry, with which the office
of state veterinarian was consolidated in the same year.
Doctor Malcolm married, in 1893, Miss May Wing, who was born at New
Hampton, Iowa. Her father, H. J. Wing, was a pioneer settler there
and for many years operated a bus and dray line. Doctor and Mrs.
Malcolm have one son, Henry Craig, who was educated in the high
school at New Hampton and attended Iowa State College at Ames. He is
now with Swift & Company at Los Angeles, California.
Doctor Malcolm and wife are active Presbyterians and both have
membership in the Order of the Eastern Star, of which Mrs. Malcolm
is a past matron. Doctor Malcolm is a stockholder in the Masonic
Home at New Hampton. He is a York Rite Mason, also belongs to the
Knights of Pythias and is a Republican. While living at New Hampton
he served four or five terms as a member of the city council. He is
a member of the Iowa Veterinary Medicine Association, the American
Veterinary Association and an honorary member of the Eastern Iowa
Veterinary Association. He occupies one of the offices in the State
Capitol Building at Des Moines and has six persons working in his
division.
REV. HENRY V. MALONE is a native of Iowa, and for over thirty years
has been one of the able and zealous priests of the Catholic Church
in this state. Father Malone has been instrumental in building up
several Iowa parishes, and at the present time is one of the beloved
priests at Creston.
He was born at Winterset, Iowa, November 22, 1862. His parents were
Edward and Catherine (Hoy) Malone, the former a native of Ireland
and the latter of New Orleans. His mother now resides at Valley
Junction, Iowa. His father who died in 1905, was an Iowa farmer,
coming to this state about 1858. He owned a farm in Polk County.
Both parents were devout Catholics. His father was a Democrat and
served as a director of his home school district. Of their ten
children eight are living. The parents encouraged their oldest son,
Henry, to enter the priesthood, and his education from early boyhood
was directed with that in view.
After the local schools he went to Dubuque in 1880, and spent three
years in St. Joseph's College, and then was one of the first
students to enroll in St. Ambrose College at Davenport, where he
remained one year. In 1885 he was graduated from Creighton
University at Omaha and completed his theological training in St.
Mary's Seminary at Baltimore. On December 19, 1891, he was ordained
a priest by the late Cardinal Gibbons. He returned to Iowa and was
appointed to his first charge, at Maloy, where he remained two and a
half years. For thirteen years he labored faithfully at Dallas
Center, and at Granger, where he built the church. In 1904 he became
pastor at Woodbine, remaining there eight years, and in February,
1918, came to the people of Creston as pastor of the Immaculate
Conception Church. Since coming here he has seen his work prospered,
resulting in the building of a parish house, the paying off of the
church debt, and he now has a congregation numbering five hundred.
Father Malone is a fourth degree Knight of Columbus and has been
chaplain of the council and has worked on the degree team. Since
1923 he has, in addition to his parochial duties, held the office of
dean of the Creston Deanery.
ISIDORE P. MANTZ. In the somewhat complicated and difficult position
of consulting actuary, Isidore P. Mantz has won a broad and
substantial reputation among the insurance men of Des Moines.
Actively engaged in life insurance work for more than thirty years,
he is the author of technical and other works on this subject. His
career has been a very active and useful one, and few men are more
highly esteemed in the insurance field.
Mr. Mantz was born June 2, 1872, in Alsace-Lorraine, France, and is
a son of Isidore and Catherine (Schneider) Mantz. His father, born
in Alsace-Lorraine, France, immigrated to the United States and
settled in Lee County, Iowa, and was engaged in the real estate and
insurance business until his death. He was a member of the Catholic
Church and a man who was highly esteemed in his community. He and
his worthy wife, also a native of France and now deceased, became
the parents of seven children, of whom four are living: Isidore P.;
Joseph L., a jeweler and diamond broker of Peoria, Illinois; Mrs.
John O'Brien, of Louisiana, Missouri; and A. F., an architect and
landscape gardener of Hollywood, California.
After attending public schools Isidore P. Mantz took a business
course and then entered the insurance office of his father. In 1894
he entered the profession of consulting actuary, and has continued
in this business to the present, having attained a great success
therein. He has traveled extensively all over the United States in
this line of work, in which he is an acknowledged expert and
authority. Mr. Mantz is the author of a number of technical and
popular works on life insurance and economic subjects, and has been
an extensive contributor to both the insurance and secular press on
these subjects. He is credited with having been the author of the
double indemnity clause in insurance, and in 1918 originated and
promulgated, through the Western Life and the Des Moines Life and
Annuity Company, a form of policy known as educational or child's
endowment, which marks the inauguration of an entirely new branch of
life insurance service. As a consulting actuary Mr. Mantz
specializes in the preparation of policy forms, special calculations
and the installation of systems of accounts and home office methods.
In 1892 Mr. Mantz was united in marriage with Miss Bernadena
Schwartz, who was born and educated at Peoria, Illinois, and they
have had four children: Mrs. William Steinbrecher, the wife of a
contractor and grocer of West Chicago, Illinois; Martha, the wife of
William F. Goodson, an army man in the Government service, stationed
at san Antonio, Texas; Paul N., born September 25, 1897, educated at
Oklahoma University and Drake University, formerly general agent of
the Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Company of Des Moines, and is now
assistant secretary of the Lincoln Life Insurance Company of Fort
Wayne, Indiana; and B. J., who volunteered in the United States Army
among the first after the United States had entered the World war,
and was the first soldier from Oklahoma who died in camp.
Mr. Mantz and his family are members of St. John's Catholic Church,
and he belongs to the Knights of Columbus, the Modern Woodmen of
America and the Des Moines Actuary Club. His commodious offices are
located in the Insurance Exchange Building.
ALBERT MARCHANT, who is manager of the Iowa Canning Company's branch
at Storm Lake, is a master hand in the canning industry, which has
been the chief line of his business experience since boyhood.
Mr. Marchant, who has the distinction of being mayor of the City of
Storm Lake, was born in Benton County, Iowa, April 16, 1882. His
father, Joel B. Marchant, was born in Illinois, of French ancestry,
the original spelling of the name being Marchand. Joel Marchant came
to Iowa when a young man, and was a farmer in this state. Though
very young, he served out a period of enlistment in the Civil war as
a private in Company G of the Second Iowa Infantry. He died in
Benton County in 1917, when seventy years of age. Joel Marchant
married Nancy Arnold, a native of Illinois, who died in 1889, at the
age of forty-two.
Albert Marchant grew up on a farm, attended public schools at
Garrison, and it was with the Garrison Canning Company that he
received his first training in the canning business. He started as a
laborer and was given increasing responsibilities until he reached
the post of assistant superintendent of the plant. The Garrison
Canning Company subsequently became a unit of the Iowa Canning
Company. Mr. Marchant left there in 1908 and for about a year was
connected with the cannery at Dysart, Iowa, and in 1909 moved to
Storm Lake to become manager of the Storm Lake branch of the Sac
City Canning Company. He was also elected vice president of the
company. In July, 1929, the Sac City Canning Company was merged with
the Iowa Canning company. Mr. Marchant remains as manager of the
Storm Lake plant.
He has been a public spirited citizen, willing to do his part in
community matters and for two terms, 1911-1915, was a member of the
city council. He is now in his second term as mayor, the term ending
in March, 1931. He has also been a member of the board of directors
of the Chamber of Commerce and vice president of the Rotary Club.
Mr. Marchant is a member of the Masonic Lodge, Independent Order of
Odd Fellows, is a Republican and a Methodist. He married Miss Ella
May Graves, a native of Iowa, daughter of E. A. and Elizabeth
Graves, of Garrison, Iowa. Mrs. Graves died on November 27, 1913,
and Mr. Graves died January 30, 1918.
One of the principal accomplishments during Mayor Marchant's
administration is the cleaning of the lake of blue-green algae.
Another important item is the installation of an electrolier system
or white way along Lake Avenue.
CLARENCE C. MARTIN is a member of the law firm Johnson & Martin at
Fort Madison. Mr. Martin determined on a career as a lawyer when a
youth and began the study of law, but along with his law studies
went a great deal of practical business experience, so that his
career as a whole has been almost as much identified with business
as with his profession.
He was born at Fort Madison, Iowa, August 3, 1882, a son of Anderson
A. Martin, who was also born in this Iowa town. He spent his active
life in the lumber business, being connected with one company, the
Atlee Lumber Company, for fifty-three years. He died in 1927.
Anderson Martin married Hannah Seguin, of Pekin, Illinois, who died
in 1917. Of their six children five are living: Clarence C.; Mrs.
Jennie Kasten, of Davenport; Mrs. Daisy Arnold, of Fort Madison;
David, of Fort Madison; and Mrs. Kittie Lane, of Fort Madison.
Clarence C. Martin attended the common schools of Fort Madison until
1898, and while in high school he worked during his afternoons and
Saturdays in a livery stable. He was active in school athletics,
playing baseball, football and basketball. For a short time in 1898
he worked for the Iowa Farm & Tool Company, now the American Fork &
Hoe Company, as office boy and stenographer. He left that industrial
plant to become a stenographer and law student in the office of
Judge W. S. Hamilton, with whom he remained until 1901. During the
next three years he was stenographer to F. T. Dolan, superintendent
of the Santa Fe Railway Company, leaving him to enter the business
office of the Morrison Manufacturing Company, where he became sales
manager. In 1906 he established a retail grocery business, and for
twelve years was one of the prosperous local merchants of Fort
Madison.
In the meantime he had not abandoned his idea of becoming a lawyer
and had carried on his studies at home so far as his business and
other obligations permitted. In 1918 he became assistant manager of
the Shaeffer Pen Company, with which nationally known organization
he remained until 1920.
Mr. Martin in 1920 became associated with R. N. Johnson as law
student, and in June, 1923, was admitted to the Iowa bar. For four
years now giving him time to the large general law business of this
firm.
Mr. Martin has served a a member of the Fort Madison School Board.
He is a past president of the Rotary Club, is a knight commander of
the Court of Honor in Scottish Rite Masonry, and a past master of
the local lodge. He also belongs to the B. P. O. Elks and is a
Republican. During the World war he was a four-minute speaker and
early applied for the opportunity to serve in the field, but he was
not called to the colors until November 10, 1918, being scheduled to
go to Camp Fremont, California, but was discharged on the following
day, Armistice Day.
Mr. Martin married, October 1, 1903, Miss Harriett M. Scholes, of
Burlington, Iowa. They have one daughter, Mildred Louise, born
August 26, 1904.
EARL W. MARTIN, who is a skilled optometrist and who is established
in the successful practice of his profession at Carroll, judicial
center of Carroll County, has crowded many and varied experiences
into his life, though he is but little more than forty years of age,
and among those experiences was his representation of his native
State of Iowa in loyal overseas service in the World war.
Doctor Martin was born at Bedford, Taylor County, Iowa, October 5,
1886, and is a son of Charles B. and Anna (Gilbert) Martin, the
former of whom was born in Ohio and the latter of whom was born and
reared in Taylor County, Iowa, where her parents were sterling
pioneers. The marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Charles B. Martin was
solemnized in 1885, and he was for many years one of the substantial
representatives of farm industry in Union County, this state.
Charles B. Martin, now venerable in years, is living retired in the
State of Tennessee, his wife being deceased.
Dr. Earl W. martin was reared on the home farm in Union County and
supplemented the discipline of the district school by completing a
course in the high school at Afton, that county, in which he was
graduated in 1908, as the only graduate of that year. He thereafter
clerked in a jewelry store at Afton and there learned the trade of
watchmaker, besides studying and gaining practical experience in
optometry. he perfected himself in the trade of watchmaker and
jeweler by taking a course in the Bradley Polytechnic School at
Peoria, Illinois, and thereafter he worked at his trade at
Bloomington, that state. He finally enlisted in the United States
Marine Corps, in which he served four years, his experiences in this
connection having included his visitation of all important world
ports and his being under fire when his unit was sent to Nicaragua
to assist in quelling insurrection in that Central American area, he
having there remained with his command during an interval of three
days. After receiving his honorable discharge from the Marine Corps
Doctor Martin bought a jewelry store and stock at New Market, Iowa,
and this enterprise he conducted four years, or until he volunteered
for World war service. August 27, 1917, he entered the officers
training camp at Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and on the 27th of the
following November he there received commission as first lieutenant.
He embarked for overseas service January 11, 1918, and in the
meanwhile had been transferred to the air service. With his air unit
he landed at Brest, France, January 24, thence was sent to Saint
Maxiant, where he was stationed two months, at the expiration of
which he was transferred to the Third Aviation Instruction Center,
at Issodun. July 4, 1918, marked his transference to the First
Supply Depot, in the City of Paris, and within a short time
thereafter he went to the front lines as a member of the
Ninety-third Air Squadron, his service at the front having continued
from August 2 until the armistice brought the war to a close. Doctor
Martin was ordered home February 8, 1919, landed in Philadelphia
February 21, and at Camp Dix, New Jersey, he received his honorable
discharge two days later.
After the conclusion of his World war service Doctor Martin returned
to New Market, Iowa, and after there closing out his stock of
jewelry he proceeded to Chicago and entered the Northern Illinois
College of Optometry. In that institution he was graduated July 14,
1919, and during the ensuing five months he was engaged in the
practice of his profession at Council Bluffs, Iowa. Since April 27,
1920, the Doctor has been established in practice at Carroll, where
he has developed a substantial and prosperous professional business.
Doctor Martin is a Republican in political adherency, he and his
wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and in his home
community he has membership in the Commercial Club, the Rotary Club
and the Carroll Country Club. He is affiliated with the American
Legion, and his Masonic affiliations are as here noted: Signet Lodge
No. 264, A. F. and A. M.; Capstone Chapter No. 78, R. A. M.; Cryptic
Council No. 38, R. and S. M. Both he and his wife have membership in
the local chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star and they are
popular factors in the representative social life of their home
city.
November 10, 1914, marked the marriage of Doctor Martin to Miss
Lenna Harris, of New Market, this state, and they have three
children: John Earl, born September 12, 1917; Margaret Ruth, born
April 5, 1923, and Dorothy Lou, born October 13, 1924.
W. CAREY MARTIN. The present mayor of the City of Atlantic is W.
Carey Martin, a prominent young attorney, member of the law firm
Shaw, Martin & Martin, he and his younger brother comprising the
junior members of the this law partnership.
Mr. Martin's father, W. R. Martin, was born at Kewanee, Illinois,
and was brought to Iowa when a child by his parents, Mr. and Mrs.
Richard Martin. Richard Martin served with an Illinois regiment in
the Union army during the Civil war. W. R. Martin has been a very
successful farmer and stock man, and he and his wife now reside in
the City of Shenandoah, from which point he operates extensive
farming and live stock interest. He has been an officer in the
Christian Church. W. R. Martin married Mary R. Miller, who was born
in Hamburg, Fremont County, Iowa, in 1867. Her father, Squire
Miller, was an early justice of the peace and a well known character
of Fremont County. Mrs. W. R. Martin is a member of the Daughters of
the American Revolution.
The oldest of the three children is J. Stuart Martin, who was born
at Farragut, Iowa, February 4, 1891. He graduated from the College
of Business Administration, University of Michigan, in 1916, and has
since applied his energies to farming and the live stock business
near Shenandoah and at the present time is feeding 500 cattle for
the market. He married in 1916 Chloe Anderson, of Farragut, daughter
of Charles Anderson, one of the wealthy and prominent citizens of
Farragut. They have two children: Betty Jean, born April 1, 1918,
and Billie Charles, born in 1923. Mrs. J. Stewart Martin was
educated in Grinnell College and is a graduate of Tabor College.
W. Carey Martin was born near Farragut, Iowa, May 20, 1894, and
after the local schools entered Cotner University at Lincoln,
Nebraska. He received the degree Bachelor of Philosophy in 1915,
then spent a year of residence at the University of Chicago, taking
his Bachelors degree and in 1922 was graduated from the law
department of the University of Chicago with the degree of Doctor of
Jurisprudence, cum laude.
His military service interrupted his university studies. He enlisted
in the regular army in July, 1917, at Chicago and in February, 1918,
went overseas, went overseas, with the grade of sergeant. He was
stationed at the supply depot in France and after the armistice was
transferred to an entertainment troupe touring the various camps in
France and Germany. He received his honorable discharge at Camp
Mitchell, New York, July 1, 1919, and soon afterward resumed his
studies at the University of Chicago. After graduating he returned
to Iowa and has since been in practice at Atlantic, and has made a
highly favorable record as a well equipped and resourceful attorney.
He was elected mayor of the City of Atlantic in 1929.
Mr. Martin is affiliated with the Masonic fraternity, B. P. O. Elks
and American Legion. He is a member of the college fraternity Alpha
Tau Omega. He married, September 4, 1919, Miss Vera Anderson, of
Auburn, Nebraska. She graduated from the musical department of
Cotner University at Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1915. She is a member of
the P. E. O. and the Christian Church.
Mayor Martin's younger brother, R. Kent Martin, also of the firm
Shaw, Martin & Martin, at Atlantic, was born August 11, 1900, at
Farragut. He was graduated LL. B. from the University of Iowa in
1925 and at once joined his brother in practice at Atlantic. He
married, December 28, 1927, Miss Dorothy O'Donoghue, daughter of
Doctor J. H. O'Donoghue, of Storm Lake, Iowa. Mrs. Martin was a
member of the same class in the law school at the University of Iowa
as her husband and is thoroughly well-qualified for a professional
career. Mr. and Mrs. Kent Martin are members of the Order of the
Coif, the honorary legal fraternity. He is affiliated with the B. P.
O. Elks, and is a member of Phi Delta Phi and Alpha Tau Omega. They
are the parents o a daughter, Janet Mary, born October 25, 1930.
WESLEY MARTIN at the age of over four score has many interesting
duties to occupy his time and talent. He is senior member of the law
firm of Martin & Alexander, of Webster City, and is also president
of the First National Bank of that city. Mr. Martin is one of the
few survivors of the soldiers who fought for the cause of the Union
in the Civil war. He was one of the earliest pioneers to settle at
Webster City, where he has been in practice for over half a century.
Mr. Martin had a boyhood and youth of considerable hardship, and
lived on close terms with poverty and with hard labor. He was born
at Navarre in Starke County, Ohio, December 19, 1848, son of Samuel
and Matilda (Martin) Martin. His parents were born in Pennsylvania
and were married in Ohio. The mother died in 1853 and Samuel Martin
was killed during the Civil war.
Wesley Martin after the death of his mother grew up in the home of
his paternal grandmother and had only a common school education. He
attended school at New Philadelphia, Ohio, and was not yet sixteen
years of age when he answered the call to the colors. From May 1,
1864, until September he was with the 161st Ohio Volunteer Infantry,
and from November to October, 1865, was in the Second New York Heavy
Artillery. He received his honorable discharge in October, 1865.
During the war, between his term of enlistments, he completed a
course in the Eastman National Business College at Poughkeepsie, New
York. For three years he was employed in the office of Dr. John D.
Otis at New Philadelphia, at the same time attending school there.
Leaving Ohio, he went to Cambridge, Illinois, took up the study of
law and on January 7, 1876, was admitted to the bar by the Supreme
Court of Illinois. In May of the same year he arrived in Webster
City, and for several ears has been the dean of the Hamilton County
bar. On coming to Iowa he was admitted to practice in the District
and Supreme courts, and later was admitted to practice before the
United States Supreme Court and the other Federal courts. Mr. Martin
has handled many cases of great importance and has had his service
retained in two hundred cases that have gone before the Iowa Supreme
Court. He has for many years been a director of the First National
Bank of Webster City.
Mr. Martin has been honored with the office of president of the
Hamilton County Bar Association and has attended and been on the
programs of many bar conventions. He is a member of the Commercial
Law League of America, the Iowa State Bar Association, and was vice
president from Iowa of the American Bar Association. While an active
Republican and frequently making speeches and otherwise working for
his friends of the party, he has refused all offers of political
advancement for himself, including appointments to the bench. While
the Grand Army of the Republic was a flourishing organization in
Webster City he served as commander of The Winfield Scott Post at
Webster City. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity, is a
Baptist, has been deacon of his church, and for twenty-three years
was superintendent of the Sunday School.
Mr. Martin married, December 24, 1874, Miss Elizabeth Wonders. She
was born at Kewanee, Illinois, and was reared and educated in that
state. She passed away in 1918.
WILLIAM H. MARTIN is secretary, treasurer and general manager of the
Bettendorf Manufacturing Company. This is one of the big industries
located in the Davenport district, the plant being at 2527 State
Street in Bettendorf, Iowa. This company has to been in existence as
long as some of the older manufacturing concerns of the district,
but it has done much to extend the fame of Davenport as a
manufacturing center.
Mr. Martin was born at Davenport, October 5, 1882, son of Charles
Dyer and Johannan (Grace) Martin. Both parents are deceased. His
father was also born at Davenport, while his mother was born in
Louisville, Kentucky. The grandparents on both sides come from
Ireland.
William H. Martin attended parochial schools at Davenport, St.
Ambrose College and graduated A. B. from St. Mary's College at St.
Mary's, Kansas. For several years he was connected with the Red
Jacket Pump Company, but in 1910 became one of the founders of the
Bettendorf Manufacturing Company. He was associated with his father
and with Charles Schick in organizing the business. He has had
charge of the sales and business management. The vice president of
the company is Mr. J. W. Bettendorf and the president, J. Reed Lane.
The manufactured products of the Bettendorf Manufacturing Company
are Davenport oil engines, Schick baling presses, Midland cigar
lighters and Bettendorf oil burners. The oil machines manufactured
are powerful implements, which have met every test of engineering
and practical efficiency and are used not only all over the United
States but in many foreign countries. They have proved especially
adaptable as auxiliary engines for propelling ships in the fishing
fleet on the New England coast.
Perhaps the largest part of the business of the company is the
manufacture of the power baling presses originated and patented by
Mr. Schick and known as the Schick balers. the general line of
Schick power balers are extensively used by business houses,
manufacturing establishments and other plants for the baling of
waste paper and many lines of bulky manufactured goods and raw
materials, including hay and straw, clothing, scrap metal. The
present plant of the Bettendorf Manufacturing Company was erected in
1916.
Mr. Martin was married, February 6th, 1929, to Miss Irene Johnson,
of Davenport. He is a member of the Davenport Chamber of Commerce,
Rotary Club and B. P. O. Elks.
EDWARD R. MASON. There are few men in Iowa who have attained to a
higher position in the confidence of the public and the legal
profession than has Edward R. Mason, one of the learned and
scholarly lawyers practicing at the bar of Des Moines, and a man
whose record of achievement is worthy of permanent preservation, for
it proves what can be accomplished by an American citizen.
Edward R. Mason was born at Franklinville, New York, December 18,
1846, a son of Lewis James and Nancy (Willow) Mason, both of whom
were natives of New York, he born at Oxford, and she at Berlin, that
state. They came to Iowa and settled at Bentonport, Van Buren
County, in April, 1858. While he was a mechanic in New York State,
Lewis James Mason bought a hotel after coming to Bentonport, and
continued to operate it until his death, in it entertaining many of
the most distinguished men of the state. Of the fourteen children
born to him and his wife Edward R. Mason is the only survivor, and
he was the eleventh in order of birth, but a number of the family
lived to maturity, and one of them attained to distinction, Senator
William E. Mason, first congressman and later senator of the United
States Senate from Illinois. The parents were members of the
Episcopal Church in New York State. When they came to Iowa, not
finding any church of their faith, they united with the
Congregationalists. For years he was a Mason and belonged to the
Good Templars, one of the early prohibition societies. Until 1856 he
was a Democrat, but in that year became a Republican, and continued
loyal to that party until his death. While in New York he served as
a justice of the peace, and after he came to Iowa he was a member of
the board of supervisors of Van Buren County from 1860 to 1868, when
he died. While his educational opportunities had been very limited,
he possessed such good judgment and natural wisdom that men came to
him for counsel from all classes, and he was known over a wide
territory as a powerfully convincing speaker. The oratorical powers
of his sons were undoubtedly inherited from him.
Edward R. Mason entered the Bentonport Academy after coming to Iowa,
and he remained one of its students until he was sixteen years old,
at which time he began clerking in a general store, leaving it to go
to Keokuk, Iowa, where he continued clerking, but that was in a drug
store, and, after gaining considerable knowledge of the business,
returned to Bentonport and bought an interest in a drug store. While
conducting it he read medicine, but his studies were interrupted by
his military service during the closing months of the war between
the states, five in all, having taken with him into the war fifteen
associates whom he induced to enlist. After his honorable discharge
he resumed his study of medicine. He also took a correspondence
course, and when he secured his license to practice he engaged in it
at Bentonport for six or eight months.
In 1869 Mr. Mason came to Des Moines, and after reaching the capital
drove a delivery wagon for ten dollars a month and board. This not
proving satisfactory, he secured a position as a clerk in a grocery
store, and he continued to that position for some time.
In May, 1870, Mr. Mason took upon himself added responsibilities, as
he was then married to Miss Alice Losie, who was born at Cleveland,
Ohio, but educated in the public schools of Keokuk, Iowa. Mrs. Mason
died in 1877, leaving a daughter, Caroline May, who is the wife of
James A. Stewart, industrial commissioner of the Rock Island
Railway. On August 22, 1888, Mr. Mason was married at Kansas City,
Missouri, to Fannie Kiefer Rider, born at Norwich, New York, and two
children were born of this marriage; George Rider, who served in the
World war, and died in France; and Edward Winslow, who was in the
automobile business at Des Moines, Iowa, and is now with Sears
Roebuck.
Following his marriage the first time Mr. Mason went to Missouri,
but remained but sixty days, and then returned to Des Moines, and in
August, 1870, was appointed deputy clerk of the United States
District Court, which office he continued to hold until 1910, during
which period he studied law. In the meanwhile he was admitted to the
bar, in September, 1873, and began practice in 1910, and has
continued in it ever since, handling a general line of cases, as he
is equally able in all branches of his profession. A man of
diversified talents, he established an automobile business at Des
Moines in 1906, with the intention of manufacturing the Mason
automobile, a splendid car, and after he had built up a good
business he sold it. Like his father and brother, Senator Mason of
Illinois, he is a Republican, and he has served as a school director
in his district for twenty years. While his office is in Des Moines,
he resides on a small farm adjoining the city where he has raised
fast horses and Jersey cattle, which he has exhibited in years past
at different fairs and stock expositions, winning many ribbons for
his stock. He also built a cotton mill in the city in 1886, and
conducted it for three years with marked success, but it was
destroyed by fire in 1891, and this loss almost bankrupted him.
However, in other lines he has been very successful, and as he had
not a dollar when he began to be self-supporting at the early age of
sixteen years, too much credit cannot be accorded him.
When Mr. Mason was in the Federal District Court he served under
Judge Dillon, and that eminent jurist frequently declared that Mr.
Mason was the best clerk that Iowa ever had, and that there were few
better lawyers in the state, and so earnest was he in this that he
even embodied these sentiments in a public speech.
Although now past the eightieth milestone on the road of life Mr.
Mason is still actively engaged in the practice of law, and his
sagacity, his profound knowledge, not only of the law, but human
nature as well, and his resourcefulness make him a powerful opponent
in the courtroom, while in matters of counsel he is unsurpassed. His
life has been an eventful one, and it has always been a useful one,
and one filled with kindly deeds and helpfulness, for he has never
forgotten his years of struggle before he was able to secure a
foothold, and is glad to assist others less fortunate than he.
JOHN MacVICAR at the time of his death was serving as mayor of the
City of Des Moines. At different times over a period of thirty years
having acted in a similar capacity, his long experience made him an
authority on municipal government, and he was so recognized not only
in Iowa but over the nation. He was active in Des Moines politics
for over forty years, and his time and energies were generously
given to the community, frequently at the sacrifice of important
personal business interests.
John MacVicar was born at Galt, Ontario, Canada, July 4, 1859, the
youngest of the seven children of John and Mary (McEwen) MacVicar.
His parents were natives of Scotland and were Scotch Presbyterians.
Shortly after his birth the family moved to Guelph, Ontario, and
when he was nine years of age they established a new home at Erie,
Pennsylvania. There John MacVicar attended the public schools until
he was thirteen. After the death of his mother he went to work to
support himself, selling newspapers and acting as errand boy, during
which time he attended night school.
The Scotch characteristics of industry, thrift and perseverance
enabled him to see opportunities for advancement where the average
boy would have discovered nothing but an endless routine. In the
best sense of the word, Mr. MacVicar was an educated man. His mental
growth never stopped, and from his varied contacts with men and
affairs his abilities were adjusted to new needs and increasing
demands upon them.
In 1882 he came to Des Moines to accept a responsible position with
the large wholesale and retail paper house of Redhead, Wellslager &
Company, with whom he remained for ten years. For six years he was
in business for himself as a dealer in wallpaper.
The year 1888 saw his entrance into local politics, when he was
elected town recorder of North Des Moines. In attempting to correct
some of the evils existing in local affairs his course attracted
much attention and one of the results was that in the following year
he was elected mayor. In 1890 North Des Moines was annexed to the
city and that brought him into a larger sphere of political action.
He took a prominent part in the campaign against the high charges
maintained by the waterworks company. He was made chairman of
several mass meetings and member of committees, and a large share of
the success in reducing high water rates was credited to his labors
and untiring energy.
It was in 1896 that Mr. MacVicar was elected on the Republican ticket
for his first term as mayor of Des Moines. The chief plank in his
platform was a demand for the municipal control by the city of
public franchises. He also proposed a reduction of taxation. In 1898
he was reelected and was also chosen for a third term in 1900. For
some time he was also a member of the City Council. In 1908, when
Des Moines adopted the commission form of government, being one of
the first large cities in the Middle West to adopt the plan, he was
chosen superintendent of the department of streets and public
improvements, and served in that capacity from 1908 to 1912. In 1914
he was again elected mayor of the city or president of the
commission. During 1922-24 he was superintendent of public safety.
In 1928 he was again elected mayor of Des Moines, and was the
honored incumbent of that office when he died, November 15, 1928.
His practical service in enlarging the body of knowledge known as
political science was not confined to Iowa. Mr. MacVicar in 1897 was
chosen president of the League of American Municipalities, which had
just been organized. he was the youngest mayor represented in the
membership of the League. In 1916 he was again elected president of
this organization, which, as all students of municipal history know,
has exercised a powerful influence in the direction of municipal
efficiency and reform. From 1900 he served as secretary of the
League and also acted as editor of the publication American
Municipalities. As secretary of the League he spent a year and a
half in New York City in research work. He was author of numerous
articles on municipal affairs. In 1898 he was elected president of
the League of Iowa Municipalities. He was commissioner general of
the International Municipal Congress and Exposition at Chicago.
Mr. MacVicar in 1916 attended the Citizens Military Training Camp at
Plattsburg, New York, and was commissioned a captain in the
Quartermaster's Department, Ninth Regiment, Officers Reserve Corps,
February 7, 1917. He was the oldest man to enter the service from
Iowa during the World war. He did not receive an overseas
assignment, but was called to active duty as assistant quartermaster
at Fort Douglas, Salt Lake City, Utah, May 8, 1917. He was mayor of
Des Moines when war was declared. After the city was designated as
the site of Camp Dodge, with thousands of recruits coming from all
over the Middle West, and with other extraordinary problems
confronting the city government, it was necessary for the welfare of
the community that the mayor should be at hand. At the request of
the Citizens Committee he returned to complete his term and at the
same time perform his military duties. In handling the problems of
wartime conditions Mr. MacVicar earned the lasting gratitude of the
people of the city and the state at large. At the expiration of his
term of office he was assigned to military duty at Fort Sam Houston,
where he remained until after the armistice, being honorably
discharged March 6, 1919.
Mr. MacVicar was a staunch Republican. He was a member of the
American Legion, the Des Moines and Grant Clubs, was affiliated with
the Masonic fraternity and was a member of the Methodist Church.
He was married in 1884 to Miss Netie Nash. Her father, Rev. John A.
Nash, was a pioneer Baptist minister of Des Moines and the founder
of Des Moines College. Mr. MacVicar is survived by his wife and two
of their four children, Marjorie, Mrs. Locke Macomber, and John
MacVicar, Jr.
HON. EDWARD M. MCCALL. An able member of the bar at Fort Dodge,
Iowa, is Hon. Edward M. McCall, member of the prominent law firm of Helsell, McCall & Dolliver, and formerly, for ten years, judge of
the Eleventh Judicial District Court. Judge McCall is a native of
Iowa, in which state the family name for many years has been
conspicuous both in the law and in public life.
Judge McCall was born at Nevada, Iowa, August 30, 1873, a son of
Thomas Clifton and Mary Abigail (Boynton) McCall, he a native of
Ross and she of Knox, County, Ohio. They were married in Iowa, to
which state he came in 1853 and she in 1858, and both died here, the
mother of Judge McCall in 1875 and the father in 1892. The youngest
of his parents' four children, Judge McCall had two brothers and one
sister: John A., who died at Des Moines, Iowa, in 1913, was
prominent in the law there for many years; Minnie, who is the wife
of A. E. Cronenwett, of California; and Fred C., who died in 1922,
was president of the First National Bank at Nevada, Iowa.
The late Senator Thomas C. McCall, father of Judge McCall, was a
very successful lawyer, and soon after settling in Polk County,
Iowa, became interested in politics, and was the candidate of the
Whig party for the office of sheriff. Although he was defeated for
that office he was subsequently elected to the Iowa State
Legislature from Story County, and while serving, in 1862,
demonstrated the genuineness of the Union sentiment prevailing in
his speeches in the House by resigning his seat and enlisting in the
Thirty-second Iowa Volunteers, in which he served bravely on many a
battlefield before the war between the states was ended. After the
war he resumed his law practice, but later was again called into
public life and at the time of his death was a member of the Upper
House of the State Legislature, representing the senatorial district
that included Story and Boone counties.
Edward M. McCall attended Ames College three years, and in 1896
completed his course in law at the University of Iowa. For an
extended interval he engaged in the practice of law at Nevada, and
about 1915 was called to the bench of the Eleventh Judicial
District, where for ten years he continued, retiring in 1925, with
an honorable record for efficiency and administrative justice. Judge
McCall came then to Fort Dodge, where he is well known personally
and is highly considered professionally.
Judge McCall married, March 1, 1896, at Nevada, Iowa, Miss Genevieve
Fitchpatrick, daughter of Senator J. A.. Fitchpatrick, who served
three years in an Iowa regiment in the war between the states and
for nine months was confined in Andersonville Prison. Judge and Mrs.
McCall have two daughters: Mary, who is the wife of Philip Allen, a
farmer near Nevada; and Harriet, who is the wife of Allen Sowers,
also a farmer near Nevada.
In politics Judge McCall is a Republican, and while residing in
Story County, served four years as county attorney. He is a member
of the Webster County Bar Association, the Iowa State Bar
Association and the American Bar Association, the Masonic fraternity
and the Sons of the American Revolution. With his family he belongs
to the Presbyterian Church.
EARL D. MCCLEAN, M. D. In the difficult field of general surgery Dr.
Earl D. McClean, of Des Moines, has won a recognized position among
his associates. For a time orthopedic surgery claimed his attention
to the exclusion of other branches of his profession, but eventually
he entered the broader field which has given him wider scope for the
exhibition of his special abilities.
Doctor McClean was born at Union, Hardin County, Iowa, June 18,
1884, and is a son of Charles and Carmellia (Caster) McClean. The
great-grandfather of Doctor McClean, John McClean, served a a
drummer boy in the American forces during the War of 1812. Neil
McClean, the grandfather of Earl D., was born in New York State,
where he enlisted in a volunteer infantry regiment in the Union
army, and served all through the war between the states. He then
returned to New York, but in 1868 came to Iowa, where he spent the
remainder of his life in agricultural pursuits.
Charles McClean was born in New York State and was still a youth
when he accompanied the family to Iowa in 1868. Here he was reared
to agricultural pursuits in Hardin County, where he spent the active
years of his life in the cultivation of the soil. He developed a
well cultivated and valuable property near Union, from which he and
Mrs. McClean moved to Union in 1928 and are now residing in
comfortable retirement. They are attendants of the Congregational
Church, and Mr. McClean is a Republican in politics and a member of
the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. They were the parents of the
following children: Prof. Clarence G., who took his theological
course at Cleveland, graduated from Penn College and won the
oratorical contest during his freshman year, then held a pastorate
while he was still a student, and following his graduation and a
post-graduate course spent fifteen years in missionary work in teh
Philippines and Cuba and is now a professor at Whittier College,
whittier, California; C. R., who died in 1921; Mrs. Pearl Glenney,
who is residing on the old home farm near Union; and Dr. Earl D., of
this review. The maternal grandfather of Earl D. McClean was John
Caster, a native of Illinois, who came to Iowa at an early date and
engaged in farming, but died when still a young man.
Earl D. McClean attended the public schools of Union, and after his
graduation from high school entered the medical department of the
University of Iowa, from which he was graduated in 1908, following
which he took post-graduate work at Harvard. In 1909 he commenced
the practice of his profession at Oskaloosa, Iowa, where he remained
until the United Stares became involved in the great World war. As
soon as he could arrange his affairs he enlisted in the Medical
corps, July 14, 1917, and was sent to the Medical Officers Training
Camp at Fort Riley, Kansas, where he spent six weeks. Following this
he was transferred to Camp Pike, Arkansas, where he remained until
the latter part of July, 1918, when he went overseas, being
identified with Base Hospitals Nos. 88 and 69, in the surgical
service. He won promotion from lieutenant to captain, and received
his honorable discharge September 28, 1919. During his military
service he was able to do post-graduate work at the Royal Army
Medical College, England.
Following his relief from military duties Doctor McClean settled at
Des Moines, where for a time he was engaged in orthopedic and
general surgery, but now has no specialty, his practice, which is a
large and representative one, covering the whole surgical field.
Doctor McClean occupies offices in the Iowa Building and has a high
standing in his profession. He is on the staffs of the Mercy and
Methodist Hospitals, and belongs to the Polk County Medical Society,
the Iowa State Medical Society, the Missouri Valley Medical Society
and the American Medical Association. He likewise holds membership
in the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the Woodmen of the
World and the Pi Epsilon Rho fraternity. Politically he is a
Republican, but not an office seeker. He is likewise a charter
member of the American Legion.
On January 1, 1909, Doctor McClean was united in marriage with Miss
Mary Burns, who was born and reared at Chicago, Illinois, and they
have one child; Ruth Mary, born October 26, 1920. Mrs. McClean is a
member of the Catholic Church. She is an accomplished vocalist, and
is well known through her frequent appearance in musical recitals in
Chicago and throughout Iowa.
JOSEPH MCCORMICK. Beginning his career as a poor boy without
educational advantages, but with much ambition and great industry,
Joseph McCormick, of Cedar Rapids, has fought his way laboriously
but consistently to a place of prominence among his fellow-citizens,
and for the past eleven years has been state secretary of the Iowa
Knights of Columbus. A large part of his life has been devoted to
newspaper work, in which he has become nationally known, and he has
been also identified with many movements which have contributed to
the betterment and progress of his native state.
Mr. McCormick was born at Dewitt, Iowa, March 10, 1878, and is a son
of Joseph and Jane (Boyle) McCormick, the latter a native of Boston,
Massachusetts. His father, who was born in Ireland, came to this
country in young manhood and soon found employment at his trade of
baker. At the outbreak of the war between the state he enlisted in
the Union army, and throughout the struggle acted in the capacity of
camp cook. Following his release from military duties he came to
Iowa and settled at Dewitt, where he conducted a bakery until 1882,
in that year removing to Manchester, this state, where he was the
proprietor of a similar establishment until his death.
Joseph McCormick, the younger, had only the advantages of a grade
school education, and while attending school managed to learn the
printer's trade. Having saved up a few dollars, in January, 1893, he
started what was known as the world's smallest newspaper, the
Manchester Herald. This was located in a part of his mother's
kitchen and the first issues were compiled and struck off with the
rudest of printing implements, such as the youth could secure from
printing establishments who had no further use for them. The idea at
first seemed ridiculous, but Mr. McCormick's mother, sensing the
lad's earnestness, encouraged him, and to everyone's surprise the
little sheet not only began to attract attention but to secure a
bona fide subscription list that made the publishers of older and
much larger newspapers wonder. The Herald was unique, interesting
and original and what it lacked in size it fully made up in quality.
Every cent that the youthful editor and publisher could acquire he
put into equipment and new machinery, and finally it was moved from
its kitchen birthplace to a good-sized printing plant, which Mr.
McCormick sold after fifteen years of successful publications.
In 1907 Mr. McCormick moved to Sioux City, Iowa, where he was city
editor of the Sioux City Journal until 1910, then locating at Cedar
Rapids as city editor of the Cedar Rapids Gazette. In 1914 he
retired from this position for other activities, although he has
continued his connection with newspaper work as a feature writer and
correspondent for metropolitan publications. In July, 1918, he
became state secretary of the Iowa Knights of Columbus, and in
addition to his regular duties in this connection has edited The
Caravel, the official organ of the fraternity. He is a past grand
knight (1914-1915) of Cedar Rapids Council No. 909, Knights of
Columbus, and has attained to the fourth degree. During the World
war he was in charge of publicity of the United War Work campaign in
Iowa, and of the Red Cross drives at Cedar Rapids, and has been
active also in publicity campaigns of the Cedar Rapids Chamber of
Commerce and various other civic movements. He is a member of the
Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church, and was one of the
hardest workers during the building fund campaign. Mr. McCormick is
a popular member of the Country Club and as recreations is greatly
fond of hinting and fishing, being also quite an expert golfer. His
entire life has been an example of what can be accomplished by
industry and perseverance.
At Manchester, Iowa, May 1, 1909, Mr. McCormick was united in
marriage with Miss May Rooney, who prior to her marriage was a
teacher of music in schools conducted by the Dominican Sisters at
Milwaukee and Appleton, Wisconsin, and Jackson, Nebraska. Three
children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. McCormick: Joseph, a student
at St. Mary College, Kansas, Mary Catharine and Margaret Jane.
HAROLD J. MCCOY, M. D. The broad field of medical and surgical
science offers so many activities and opportunities in its different
branches that a large number of the fraternity have applied their
studies and energies to some special line, although naturally a
broad knowledge of general medicine and surgery is essential to the
man who seeks success in any branch. Among the modern specialists of
Des Moines, one who has won prosperity and position through natural
talent, close application and constant study is Dr. Harold J. McCoy,
who has specialized in the diseases of the eye, ear, nose and throat
in this city since 1920.
Doctor McCoy was born on a ranch in Chase County, Nebraska, December
17, 1891, and is a son of Sherman E. and Susan (Werts) McCoy. His
paternal grandfather was Maj. A. M. McCoy, an officer in the Union
army during the war between the states and for many years a resident
of Iowa, where he was engaged in agricultural pursuits, mainly in
Lucas County. The maternal grandfather of Doctor McCoy was John
Werts, a native of Ohio, who settled in Lucas County, Iowa, in young
manhood and passed the rest of his life in farming.
Sherman E. McCoy was born in Lucus County, Iowa, where he was reared
and educated, but as a young man moved to Chase County, Nebraska,
took up land and developed a large ranch in the vicinity of the City
of Imperial. He and his wife are now living in retirement, but Mr.
McCoy still operates a large amount of land in the same community,
of which he is the owner, and the supervisor of which is constantly
under his attention. He is a man of high character and public
spirit, of good business judgment and integrity, and has the
confidence and esteem of the people of his community. To Mr. and
Mrs. McCoy have been born five children, Harold J. being the eldest
child and only boy. In politics he is a Democrat, as is his father.
The public schools of Nebraska supplied Harold J. McCoy with his
early education, and after he had attended and graduated from the
Congregational Academy, of Franklin, that state, he taught in a
rural school for one year. He then entered Drake University, where
he spent three years, following which he became a student in the
University of Chicago, graduating there from with the degree of
Bachelor of Science in 1916. His medical studies were then
prosecuted at the University of Illinois, he being graduated as a
member of the class of 1919, degree of Doctor of Medicine, and spent
one year as an interne at Mercy Hospital, Chicago. Having
specialized in eye, ear, nose and throat at Chicago, he became
assistant to Dr. C. M. Werts, with whom he was associated in
practice for three and one-half years. Since then he has practiced
alone at Des Moines, with offices in the Bankers Trust Building, and
has built up a large and representative patronage, attracted by his
reliability, professional talent and attractive personality. He is a
member of the Polk County Medical Society, the Iowa State medical
Society, the American Medical Association, the Des Moines Academy of
Medicine. The Medical Study Club of Des Moines and the Oto-Laryngological.
He also holds membership in the Gold and Country Club, the American
Legion, the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, the Phi Beta Phi medical
fraternity, the Masons and the Benevolent and Protective Order of
Elks. He and Mrs. McCoy both belong to the First Methodist Episcopal
Church, in the work of which they have taken a keen interest and
active part both in the church and Sunday School. During the World
war Doctor McCoy enlisted in the army, and at present is a member of
the Naval Reserves.
In 1922 Doctor McCoy was united in marriage with Miss Dorcas Baker,
whose parents died when she was a child. She was reared in the home
of an aunt and completed her education at the East Des Moines High
School. They are the parents of one son: Robert Sherman, born
November 17, 1925.
HARLAN LINNEUS MCCRACKEN is a native Iowan, a representative of that
solid element of citizenship known as Quaker stock, and is president
of the outstanding Quaker institution of high learning in Iowa, Penn
College at Oskaloosa.
Doctor McCracken was born in Jefferson County, Iowa, February 3,
1889, son of William Hadley and Rebecca (Jones) McCracken. His
father was of Scotch-Irish ancestry and his mother Welsh. She was
born in Keokuk County, Iowa, and taught school in early life.
William H. McCracken was also an educator, and at one time was
county superintendent of public instruction in Jefferson County. He
became interested in the education of the negro and for three years
taught in a negro school in Mississippi. During the latter part of
his life he followed farming.
Harlan Linneus McCracken attended public schools, was a student in
the Friends School, Pleasant Plain Academy for three years,
graduating in 1906, following which for three years he engaged in
teaching, spending one year in the Richland High School. In 1910 he
entered Penn College at Oskaloosa, and was graduated in 1914 with
the Bachelor of Science degree and being the only man in his class
he was awarded a scholarship to Haverford College in Pennsylvania.
Haverford gave him the Bachelor of Science degree in 1915 and in
1916 he won his Master of Arts degree in Penn College.
Doctor McCraken in 1915 accepted a call to the faculty of Hastings
College in Nebraska as professor of social science and public
speaking. In 1918 he returned to his alma mater as professor of
social science, and has been with Penn College ever since except for
a leave of absence of two years, 1920-22 at the University of
Wisconsin, where he continued his post-graduate studies and acted as
assistant instructor in economics. His Doctor of Philosophy degree
was conferred by the University of Wisconsin in 1923. On returning
to Penn College he took the chair of economics, and in 1923 became
vice president of the college, served as acting president for the
year 1927-28 and since 1928 has been president.
Since his undergraduate days in college Doctor McCracken has
followed his inclination for research and study of the institutions
of government and economics. He acted as economics adviser to the
problems of industry division of the general federation of women's
clubs in 1924-26. He is a member of the American Economics
Association, the American Association for Labor Legislation, the
Iowa Association of Economists and Sociologists, of which he was
president in 1927 and for four years member of the executive
committee. He is also a member of the American Sociological Society,
and is associated with the Commonwealth Conference of Iowa sponsored
by Benjamin F. Shambaugh, head of the political science department
of the University of Iowa. Doctor McCracken is a scholar and a very
able public speaker. he is a member of the Oskaloosa Chamber of
Commerce and the Kiwanis Club and is a member of the committee on
prohibition and public morals of the five years meeting of Friends
of America and executive secretary of the committee on recording
ministers in the Iowa yearly meeting. As president he is also
ex-officio trustee of Penn College.
Doctor McCracken married, August 12, 1915, Miss Irene Hayes, of
Oskaloosa, daughter of Frank and Anna (Hurt) Hayes. Mrs. McCracken
is a talented singer and for some time appeared on the Chautauqua
platform. She graduated from Penn College in 1914. The two daughters
of Doctor and Mrs. McCracken are Pauline Louise and Genevieve Mae.
DR. ARTHUR HENRY MCCREIGHT was born and reared in Illinois, and soon
after graduating from Rush Medical College of Chicago came to Fort
Dodge. He has had a very successful career in his profession, stands
high among his professional brethren in the various organizations
and is a citizen who has proved his usefulness and his capacity for
service in many ways.
Doctor McCreight was born on a farm in Mercer County, Illinois, July
25, 1866, a son of John Willis and Rebecca (Nevius) McCreight and a
grandson of Mathew McCreight and William I. Nevius. Both
grandfathers were born in Ohio. Mathew McCreight spent his last
years in Iowa, where he became a farmer. William I. Nevius moved to
Illinois during the 1830's and was a pioneer in the north central
section of th estate. The old block house used for the protection of
the pioneers against the Indians was still in use at Monmouth when
he reached there. he acquired land for himself and also made
purchases for some friends back in Ohio, and when they failed to
join him he had more land than he knew what to do with . John Willis
McCreight was born in Ohio. He moved to Illinois in 1854 and married
his wife in Mercer County, where she was born. They lived on their
farm until 1890, when they took up their residence at Viola,
Illinois. John Willis McCreight always showed a public spirited
attitude toward his home community and was postmaster in his home
town, was an active Republican and a member of the United
Presbyterian Church. Of the eight children six are living.
Arthur Henry McCreight was an Illinois farm boy, attended district
schools and the academy at Aledo and prepared for work as an
educator in the Illinois Normal University at Normal. He was a
teacher for six years, and teaching gave him the means to complete
his medical education. In 1897 he was graduated from Rush Medical
College in Chicago, and began practice in Fort Dodge. He has been
satisfied with the service he could render in the general field of
medicine and surgery, though he has long enjoyed a very high
reputation for his skill in obstetrics. He is a member of the
Webster County, Iowa State and American Medical Associations. During
the World war he enlisted and was commissioned a captain and was on
duty at the Base Hospital at Camp Dodge until honorably discharged
on March 1, 1919. For three terms Doctor McCreight was coroner of
Webster County.
He married in November, 1899, Miss Margaret Cromwell, of Dows, Iowa,
where she was reared and educated. Her father was James Cromwell.
Mrs. McCreight died in 1920. In 1926 Doctor McCreight married Mrs.
Mabel S. Johnston, of Webster County. Doctor McCreight has two
children, Clifford, an adopted son, who is now manager of the
Greyhound Bus Line at Sudberry, Pennsylvania. His daughter Rachel,
is the wife of James I. Dolliver, one of Fort Dodge's prominent
attorneys. Doctor McCreight is one of the trustees of the
Congregational Church, is a York Rite Mason, a member of the Rotary
Club and in politics, a Republican.
GEORGE MCCULLOCH. The respect and esteem paid to Dr. George
McCulloch, of Humeston, is readily understood when it is recalled
that he has been a physician and surgeon in that community for
fifty-seven years. He did all the work of a pioneer country doctor,
and has also responded to the modern demands upon his professional
skill. He has gone steadily about his work through all the years,
and is a wonderful example of the family practitioner and he ranks
as one of the oldest practicing physicians in Southern Iowa.
Doctor McCulloch was born in Holmes County, Ohio, October 24, 1848.
He is a son of Joseph and Nancy (Miller) McCulloch. The McCulloch
family came originally from Edinburgh, Scotland. His father, Joseph
McCulloch, was an Ohio farmer, and manage his business affairs very
successfully. In 1856 he came out to Iowa and bought 800 acres of
land from the Government at $1.25 an acre. This was an investment,
and while he held the land he never made his home in this state.
Four hundred acres of this tract is still in the family, the
possession of Doctor McCulloch, who has the patent to the tract
signed by President Franklin Pierce. Doctor McCulloch through all
the years of his professional work has been interested in land and
agriculture, and his farm, two miles southwest of Humeston, has
afforded an opportunity for his son, a scientific agriculturist, to
work out his plans. It is one of the model farms of Wayne County.
Dr. George McCulloch grew up in Holmes County, Ohio, attended school
at Millersburg and Haysville, and when a young man came out to Iowa,
partly because of his father's landed investments here. While at
Brooklyn he worked in a drug store and began the study of medicine
with E. Rayburn. In the fall of 1871 he entered Rush Medical College
of Chicago, and was graduated from that institution in 1873. Doctor
McCulloch was in Chicago at the time of the great fire which started
in October, 1871.
With his medical diploma he returned to Iowa and in the same year
began his professional career at Humeston. For many years he had a
large practice that taxed his full strength and energy to attend to
it. Along with his medical practice he has been interested in
business and public affairs. Including the land originally acquired
by his father he owns about 1,700 acres of Iowa farming land. In
business he has always been conservation, and he takes considerable
pride in the fact that he never signed a mortgage for all his
extensive land ownership. Since 1880 he has been engaged in banking
at Humeston and is now president of the Citizens State Bank of that
town. He is local surgeon for the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy
Railway.
Doctor McCulloch has for many years been a leader in the Republican
organization of his county. He has been a member of the Humeston
City Council and for several terms was a faithful legislator. He was
a member of the House of Representatives in the Nineteenth,
Assembly, this being the last session held in the old capitol
building in 1882. A number of years later he was elected to the
House, serving in the Thirtieth and Thirty-first sessions, and was a
member of the State Senate in the Thirty-third and Thirty-fourth
Assemblies. Doctor McCulloch has for fifty-seven years been a member
of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and his Masonic membership
covers a period of forty-eight years. His many interests and
activities have probably done much to prolong his life and keep his
interests keen, so that at the age of eighty-one he is younger in
attitude than many men a score of years his junior.
Doctor McCulloch married in 1880 Miss Druscilla Maxwell, of Holmes
County, Ohio. She died at Humeston in March, 1929, when they had
been married nearly half a century.
Doctor McCulloch's son, Milan E. McCulloch, is an Iowa authority on
agricultural science. He graduated from the Iowa State College at
Ames, and is also a graduate of the Chicago Law School. He has won
numerous honors in agriculture, particularly as a soil specialist,
and has served as soil inspector of Iowa.
JOHN MCDANNELL, M. D., of Nashua, has had a busy and active
professional career of forty years. It has been a career of service,
expressing not only the skill and knowledge borne of his training
and experience, but also high ideals and a conscientious devotion to
the work which he chose early in life as the medium by which he
might best make his talents available to the world.
Doctor McDannell, whose home has been at Nashua sine 1908, was born
at Rock Island, Illinois, March 9, 1871, son of Decatur S. and Etola
(Hughes) McDannell. His father was born in Ohio and his mother in
Pennsylvania, and they were married in Ohio. Decatur McDannell was
an artist by profession, painted many notable canvassed, and some of
his favorite subjects were scenes in the Rocky Mountains. However,
his great fame and his most notable artistic achievement was
painting that magnificent panorama of the battle Gettysburg, which
for years was housed as a feature in a building at Chicago and
attracted thousands and hundreds of thousands of visitors. Decatur
McDannell died at Moline, Illinois, in 1890
John McDannell derived from his father a vivid sense of beauty and
keen powers of observation. His early education was in the public
schools of Illinois. Later he studied at the University of
Wisconsin, and while in that state lived with Dr. W. P. Hartford, of
Beetown. Doctor Hartford became his preceptor in medicine, but
later, in 1888, he entered the Kentucky School of Medicine at
Louisville, at that time rated as one of the leading schools in the
country. Doctor McDannell distinguished himself by his student
record and won the gold medal for proficiency in anatomy and was
appointed demonstrator in anatomy. He was graduated in 1891 and
began his practice at Glen Haven, Wisconsin. From there he went to
Arlington, Iowa, and eight years later in 1908, located at Nashua.
Doctor McDannell took post-graduate work in Chicago in 1907-08,
spent six months in the New York Polyclinic and has been a constant
student and has attended many clinics and medical conventions.
He is a member and past president of the Chickasaw County Medical
Society and in 1927 had the honor of being president of the Austin
Flint-Cedar Valley Medical Society. Before that society, in July,
1926, he read a paper entitled "The General Practitioner's Service
to Medicine," which was published in the journal of the Iowa State
Medical Society in 1927. A great deal has been said and written
concerning the general practitioner, but perhaps nothing better as a
concise review of all the essentials of the subject than that
contained in Doctor McDannell's article. he has himself been a
general practitioner, and his friends in the profession say that
during his work of forty years he has realized many of the splendid
tributes that have been paid to a family physician of both the older
and modern times. Doctor McDannell is also a member of the Iowa
State and American Medical Associations. He is local surgeon at
Nashua for the Illinois Central Railway.
He married, September 18, 1892, Lottie E. Ishmael, of Cassville,
Wisconsin. They have one daughter, Lucile. Lucile has many of her
father's intellectual characteristics, and all through her school
work was distinguished by her intellectual abilities. She had the
highest average grade through four years in high school among all
the high school students of Iowa, and this record was awarded a four
year scholarship at Grinnell College, of which she is an honor
graduate. Her record at Grinnell brought her the award of a year's
scholarship at the University of Lyons, France. She is now an
instructor of French at Northwestern University in Chicago, and is
the wife of Z. S. Fink, also a member of the faculty of
Northwestern. Doctor McDannell is a past master Mason and is
affiliated with the Knights Templar Commandery at Charles City and
Elkahir Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Cedar Rapids.
WALTER H. McELROY at Ottumwa continues the traditions of one of the
oldest names in the bar of that city. His father began practice
there about 1871, and Walter was associated with his father for
several years, and then continued to occupy the same office after
his father's death until 1925, when the building was required for
other purposes. That ended a tenancy of more than fifty-three years
in one location by the McElroy law office.
Mr. McElroy's father was the late Ebenezer E. McElroy, a very
capable lawyer and also distinguished for his fine public spirit and
helpfulness as a citizen of Ottumwa. Ebenezer E. McElroy, who was of
Scotch-Irish ancestry, was born at Greenfield, Ohio, in 1849, oldest
of the five children of Thomas G. and Esther (Kerr) McElroy. Thomas
G. McElroy during the Civil war was engaged in recruiting service
for the United States Army. He lost his life when burned to death in
a railroad accident. Ebenezer E. McElroy graduated in 1870 from
Cornell University of New York, and at once came to Iowa and entered
the law department of the State University. He graduated and
admitted to the bar in 1871, and in the same year began the practice
of law at Ottumwa. He was engaged in the routine of a general law
practice for over a third of a century, until his death in 1905. He
always gave freely of his time, efforts and means to promote worthy
projects in the community. For twenty-one years he was a member of
the city school board and ten years of that time president of the
board. During all those years the city never paid a legal fee for
anything in connection with the schools. That was one of his
contributions of good citizenship. he also served for a number of
years as a member of the city council, and was a ruling elder of the
First Presbyterian Church. Ebenezer E. McElroy married, in Ohio,
Miss Belle Hamilton, who was born in that state. They were the
parents of five children: Clifford T., of Minneapolis; Carl E., of
Seattle, Washington; Walter H.; Ralph T., in the real estate
business at Ottumwa; and Evalyn, whose home is in Amarillo, Texas.
The mother of these children died in may, 1883, and Ebenezer McElroy
in 1884 married Elizabeth A. Milner. She likewise was a native of
Ohio. By this union there were two children, Mrs. Edna M. LeCompte,
of Oklahoma, and Edith K. Fezler, now deceased.
Walter H. McElroy was born at Ottumwa, August 15, 1879, and
graduated from high school in 1898. He at once entered the law
department of the University of Iowa, and was the youngest member of
the class of 103 graduates to receive a diploma in 1900. He was
admitted to the bar and at once joined his father in practice. They
were together for five years. Mr. McElroy is widely known as a
lawyer who had specialized in land and real estate law. In
connection with his law practice he operates an abstract business.
For the past quarter of a century he has been a stockholder and a
director of the Citizens Savings Bank of Ottumwa. He is a member of
the American Association of Title Men, the Iowa Title Association,
and the Iowa State and American Bar Associations.
While Mr. McElroy is a specialist in his profession, his part as a
citizen is that of a man of broad spirit, interested in everything
that will contribute to the making of a better and greater city. He
was one of the organizers of the Boy Scout movement in Ottumwa, and
for three years has served as president of the Southern Iowa Area of
the Boy Scouts of America, his jurisdiction comprising seven
counties. For fourteen years, 1912-26, he was treasurer of the
Ottumwa City School Board. From 1919 to 1928 he was treasurer of the
local Red Cross, and is still a member of its board of directors.
Always a loyal Republican, he never sought office or political
honors. His serious effort in the matter of politics has been
directed on election days to getting out a full vote, and this has
been an important instrumentality in getting an effective expression
of opinion in ways that have counted for the progress and
development of the community. Mr. McElroy is a Rotarian, and for a
number of years was trustee of the First Presbyterian Church, and
served on the building committee when the congregation erected in
1927 one of the finest church edifices in the state. He is a member
of the Social Service Commission of Ottumwa, the Wapello Club and
the Country Club.
He married at Ottumwa in October, 1906, Miss Lucile Wyckoff,
daughter of H. E. Wyckoff, of Cedar Rapids. She is a graduate of the
Ottumwa's High school and attended Coe College at Cedar Rapids. Mrs.
McElroy is of English, French and Swiss ancestry. They have two
children. Their daughter, Dorothy Alice, attended Iowa State
University, of which both her father and grandfather were alumni,
and is now the wife of Andrew Fluetsch, Jr., living at Dubuque. They
have a son, Andrew Fluetsch III. The only son of Mr. McElroy is
Robert H., who graduated as honor student from the Columbia Military
Academy at Columbia, Tennessee, and is now a student in Wabash
College, Crawfordsville, Indiana, preparing for the study of law in
the State University of Iowa.
WILL T. McELROY represents the third generation of the McElroy
family of Ottumwa. His career has been devoted to business, while
that of his father was associated with the bar, and his grandfather
was an eminent pioneer minister in this section of Iowa. On other
pages of this publication is a sketch of his grandfather, Rev. John
M. McElroy, the pioneer Presbyterian minister of Ottumwa.
Will T. McElroy was born in Batavia, Iowa, March 8, 1882, on of
Addison Hodge and Emma (Durr) McElroy. His father was born at
Greenfield, Ohio, was brought to Iowa in 1855, and was admitted to
the state bar in 1884. He practiced his profession forty years,
until his death in 1925. Emma Durr, mother of Will T. McElroy, was
member of a highly cultured and prominent family. Her father, Casper
Durr, was born in Berne, Switzerland. He was liberally educated, and
had the command of seven different languages. For several years he
represented houses of Paris, France, and a traveling salesman for
silk goods, traveling through the Holy Land, Asia Minor, Africa and
over Europe. In 1854 he came to the United States, and at Saint
Louis married, in 1856, Miss Salome Scholer, also a native of Berne,
Switzerland. She was educated in a private convent. immediately
after their marriage they moved to Batavia, Iowa, where Casper Durr
was for many years a merchant. He and his wife enjoyed a highly
esteemed position because of their education, refinement and their
broad interests. Casper Durr and wife reared a family of ten
children.
Will T. McElroy grew up in Ottumwa, graduating from high school in
1902, and later pursued a course in Wooster University in Ohio. For
a quarter of a century his efforts have been directed in mercantile
lines and he carries on a brokerage business in Ottumwa. During the World war he was a dollar a year man, serving as chief of the sugar
division of the United States Food Administration in Iowa.
Mr. McElroy is a member of the Scottish Rite Consistory of Masons at
Davenport, and Kaaba Temple of the Mystic Shrine there. He is also a
member of the B. P. O. Elks, the Chamber of Commerce, the Wapello
and Country Clubs. He married at Hampton, Iowa, October 4, 1928,
Miss Lillian Mae Galland. She is a native of Ottumwa.
OSIE L. McINTIRE. Superintendent of the Iowa State School for the
Deaf at Council Bluffs, every early in his educational work prepared
to equip himself for teaching and administrative work in schools for
the deaf and had held several responsible positions in that special
field before coming to Iowa.
Mr. McIntire was born at Fulton, Missouri, in 1884, a son of John W.
and Frances (Craig) McIntire. Both families were early settlers of
Central Missouri and both came from Kentucky. His parents were born
in Kentucky, his father a son of James R. McIntire, a native of the
same state, who went to Missouri and followed farming and the
butcher business. The maternal grandfather. Tolliver Craig, was a
Missouri farmer. John W. McIntire and wife still reside in Fulton.
He is now past eighty years of age. For a number of years he was in
the ice business. He is one of the most highly regarded citizens of
Fulton not only as a business man but for his broad and active
interest in local affairs. For years he was a member of the board of
stewards of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, was on the school
board and member of the city council. During the war between the
states he was in the Union army and was twice wounded. He has voted
as a Democrat and is a Knight Templar Mason.
Osie L. McIntire was seventh in a family of nine children and he
grew up in a center of culture, Fulton, where he attended high
school an was graduated in 1909 from Westminster College of that
place. For a time he was principal of the high school at Fulton, but
resigned in order to take up work as an instructor of the deaf. The
Missouri School for the Deaf is located at Fulton. Mr. McIntire had
special training in Gaullaudet College at Washington, D. C., the
chief institution in the country for the training of teachers of the
deaf. he received his Master of Arts degree there in 1920. He was a
teacher in the American School for the Deaf at Hartford,
Connecticut, for two years, and for three years was principal of the
School for the Deaf at Sulphur, Oklahoma, and for three years
superintendent of the Oregon School for the Deaf. In December, 1925,
he accepted the post at Council Bluffs as superintendent of the Iowa
State School for the Deaf, and that institution has been kept up to
very high standards under his direction. The school has an
enrollment of about 350 pupils, with a staff of fifty teachers.
Mr. McIntire in 1922 married Mary Ann Blattner, whose father, J. W.
Blattner, is superintendent of the School for the deaf in Oklahoma.
She was educated in the University of Texas, where she took her A.
B. degree, and has a Master of Arts degree from Columbia University.
Before her marriage she was teacher in the high school at Sulphur,
Oklahoma. Mr. and Mrs. McIntire have three children: William Leigh,
born in 1924, George Craig, born June 15, 1925, and Richard Jones,
born in 1928.
Mr. McIntire and family are members of the Methodist Episcopal
Church and his is on the board of stewards of the Broadway Church at
Council Bluffs. He is a member of the Phi Delta Theta college
fraternity, the Masonic fraternity and the Rotary Club. he is a fine
example of a thoroughly Christian educator and has always been
active in church causes. While at Fulton, Missouri, he was a member
of the board of stewards of the church there.
JOHN O. McKIBBEN is a native son of Decatur County, a representative
of one of the honored pioneer families that was here established
nearly seventy years ago, and even as his father was a substantial
agriculturist and stock-grower of the early days, so he himself has
well maintained along these lines the prestige of the family name.
His well improved farm estate is situated a short distance to the
northeast of Garden Grove, and here he has the oldest herd of
Shorthorn cattle consecutively maintained in Decatur County, the
herd having been established by his father in the early '70s. Mr.
McKibben has been for thirty years one of the progressive exponents
of farm industry in his native county and is well entitled to
recognition in this history.
John O. McKibben was born on the parental home farm in Decatur
County, Iowa, May 25, 1872, and is a son of the late John and
Harriet (Hurd) McKibben. John McKibben was born and reared in
Trumbull County, Ohio, where he continued to reside until 1857, when
he came to Iowa and gained much of pioneer precedence in Decatur
County. In 1864 he returned to Ohio, and from that state he drove
1,000 sheep overland to his farm in Decatur County. He was long one
of the prominent and successful stock growers of this county, and was
a pioneer in the raising of Shorthorn cattle, as indicated in a
statement in the initial paragraph of this sketch. He was one of the
sterling and progressive men who aided in civic and industrial
development in Decatur County, and here he and his wife continued to
reside until the close of their earnest and worthy lives, both
having been members of the Methodist Episcopal Church and Mr.
McKibben having been a staunch Republican in political adherency.
John O. McKibben was reared to the sturdy discipline of the pioneer
farm, received the advantages of the local schools, and in his
native county he has long stood forward as an enterprising and
successful representative of agricultural and live stock industry,
the while he has shown deep interest in all things touching the
welfare of his home community and his native county and state. His
political allegiance is given to the Republican party, and while he
has had no desire for political office his civic loyalty has been
shown in his several years of efficient service as secretary of the
school board of his district. He and his wife are zealous members of
the Methodist Episcopal Church at Garden Grove.
November 12, 1900, marked the marriage of Mr. McKibben to Miss
Nellie Thomas, who was born in Virginia and who prior to her
marriage had been a successful and popular teacher in the public
schools of Garden Grove. Mrs. McKibben is a daughter of Henry B. and
Julia (Woodbridge) Thomas, the family having come from Virginia to
Iowa in the early '80s and Mr. Thomas being now one of the
patriarchal citizens of Decatur County, where he is living retired
at Garden Grove. He is ninety-three years of age at the time of this
writing, in 1930, and admirably retains his mental and physical
powers. Mrs. McKibben has continued to be prominently identified
with church, cultural and social affairs in her home community, and
is a popular member of the Country Culture Club, which is not only
one of the oldest in Decatur County but also in the entire
state. Roberta L., eldest of the children of Mr. and Mrs. McKibben,
graduated in the Iowa State Teachers College at Cedar Falls and is
now a popular teacher in the Iowa public schools; Julia H. likewise
received advanced education and she is now a successful teacher in
the public schools at Warren, Ohio; Martha L. and her husband,
Charles E. Smith, reside on the old home farm of her father, near
Garden Grove, and they have one child, John Andrew; Norma N. is, in
1930, attending a nurses training school in the City of Burlington,
this state; and Esther L. and John Henry remain at the parental home
and are students in the public schools.
ALEXANDOR D. McKINLEY, M. D. In 1917 the medical fraternity of Des
Moines was augmented by the entrance into its midst of a capable and
energetic physician and surgeon, Dr. Alexander D. McKinley, who had
come to this city to practice his profession and was soon appointed
on the Military Draft Advisory Board at the beginning of the World
war. Answering the United States Government's appeal for more
medical officers for the army he resigned from the Advisory Board
and enlisted in the army for medical service, receiving a commission
as captain in the Medical Corps. At the completion of his military
service he returned to Des Moines, where he has since made his
permanent home and has required a large and representative practice.
Doctor McKinley was born at Clermont, Fayette County, Iowa, December
24, 1876, and is a son of Alexander and Rebecca Ann (Clark)
McKinley. His paternal grandfather was Archibald McKinley, of Balley
Castle, Ireland, who on coming to the United States settled in
Clayton County, Iowa, where he spent the rest of his life in
agricultural operations. Alexander McKinley was born in Balley
Castle, Ireland, and was a youth when he immigrated to the United
States, when he first secured work as a moulder in the foundries at
Meriden, Connecticut. During the great gold rush to California in
1849 he joined a party which made the trip around Cape Horn, but
later he returned to Iowa, and during the '60s established a general
mercantile business at Clermont, which he conducted until his death.
He was a member of the Roman Catholic Church and in politics a
Democrat, and served as postmaster of Clermont during both of the
administrations of President Cleveland. He married Rebecca Ann
Clark, who was born at Zenia, Ohio, a daughter of Daniel Clark.
Rebecca Ann Clark was descended from an early American family, one
of whose members on her mother's side, immigrated to America from
the Isle of Jersey and participated in King Philip's war. Daniel
Clark was born in Ireland and in young manhood immigrated to the
United States, where he soon found employment during the great
period of railroad construction and was a contractor in this work in
Ohio. Later he came to Iowa in a covered wagon and took up farm land
in Fayette County, subsequently passing through all the hardships
and privations that attended the early settlement of the state.
Through industry and good management he became one of the
substantial citizens of his community and a man who was highly
esteemed. To Mr. and Mrs. McKinley there were born eight children,
of whom six are living, Alexander D. having been the fifth in order
of birth.
The early education of Alexander D. McKinley was acquired in the
graded and high schools of Claremont, following which he entered
Ames University and was graduated therefrom with the degree of
Bachelor of Science, in 1900. For two years thereafter he taught
school at Waterloo, Iowa, in order to increase his meager means, and
when he found this too insufficient to pay for his tuition at Rush
Medical College he worked his way through that famous institution by
waiting on tables, playing in a band, and otherwise working at such
honorable employment as he could find. Eventually, in 1906, he
received the degree of Doctor of medicine and for one year
thereafter was an interne at St. Mary's Hospital, Milwaukee,
Wisconsin. He then spent two years in the City Hospital at
Milwaukee, and in February, 1910, commenced practice at Lawler,
Iowa, where he continued until the fall of 1917. At that time he
located at Des Moines and took a place on the Medical Advisory Board
for the district, but resigned and secured a commission as captain
in the United States Medical Corps. He was ordered to Camp Grant in
August, 1918, and served in the base hospital there until
transferred to Camp Benjamin Harrison at Indianapolis, Indiana.
Joining Base Hospital No. 105, he went with this outfit to France,
where he landed November 9, 1918, just two days before the signing
of the armistice. He served with Base Hospital No. 105 and later was
transferred to Base Hospital No. 65 in France until June 20, 1919,
when he was ordered back to the United States, and received his
honorable discharge at Camp Dix July 7, 1919. He returned to Des
Moines and resumed a general practice, with offices in the Equitable
Building, and is a director of the Des Moines Health Center. Doctor
McKinley is a member of St. John's Catholic Church and is much
interested in its work. He is a former vice president of the Polk
County Medical Society, is a member of the Iowa State Medical
Society, the American Medical Association, the Missouri Valley
Medical Society and the Des Moines Academy of medicine, and belongs
to the American Legion. He is vice president of the State Building &
Loan Association of Des Moines. He is a Republican in politics, but
has found no time from his practice to engage in civic matters or to
run for public office.
On February 9, 1910, Doctor McKinley was united in marriage with
Miss Viola B. Wormwood, who was born at Green Lake, Wisconsin, where
she was educated, and was at the time of her marriage occupied as a
trained nurse, being a graduate of a nurses' training school at
Milwaukee. To the marriage of Doctor and Mrs. McKinley there has
come one daughter: Ann Elizabeth, who was born November 29, 1912.
JAMES F. McNEILL, who is well and appreciatively known by his
military title of colonel, has been a resident of Oskaloosa,
judicial center of Mahaska County, forty-five years. His has been a
staunch and constructive influence in connection with the civic and
material advancement of this city within the passing years, and here
he is now living retired in the beautiful residence that he erected
fully thirty-seven years ago and which he and his gracious wife
continue to maintain as a center of generous hospitality. Colonel
McNeill was a gallant young soldier of the Union in the Civil war
and is a veteran member of the Grand Army of the Republic.
Colonel McNeill was born in Springfield, capital city of Illinois,
October 15, 1841, and is a son of Rev. Francis A. and Mary (Cronise)
McNeill, the former of scotch and the latter of English lineage.
Rev. Francis A. McNeill was a clergyman of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, but later prepared himself for the medical profession, as a
representative of which he was long engaged in practice in Illinois,
both he and his wife having continued residents of that until their
death and he having served as surgeon of the Thirty-fourth Illinois
Volunteer Infantry in the Civil war, besides which he was at one
time representative of Ogle County in the Illinois legislature.
Colonel McNeill was graduated from the Springfield High School as a
member of the class of 1862, and shortly afterward he gave evidence
of his youthful patriotism and loyalty by enlisting as a private in
Company G, One Hundred and Fourteenth Illinois Volunteer Infantry,
in which he was advanced to the rank of sergeant major. He continued
in active service with his regiment until the close of the war and
received his honorable discharge August 15, 1865. After being thus
discharged he served as post quartermaster at Camp Butler, Illinois,
until that military camp was closed by the Government. He was with
his command in many engagements that marked the progress of the
great conflict between the North and the South, and among the major
battles in which he took part were those of Nashville and Mobile.
The command was in line of march from Mobile to Montgomery, Alabama,
when it received news of the assassination of President Lincoln. It
has already been noted that Colonel McNeill is affiliated with the
Grand Army of the Republic, and it should further be stated that in
1828-29 he is serving as commander of the post in his home city and
that he takes deep interest in his old comrades in arms, the ranks
of which are thinning from year to year.
In their youth both Colonel and Mrs. McNeill had passing
acquaintance with Abraham Lincoln, who was then established in the
practice of law at Springfield, Illinois, the native city of Colonel
McNeill. In 1876 attempts were made to steal the body of President
Lincoln from the tomb at Springfield. In 1878 was organized the
Lincoln Guard of Honor, a company of nine men assigned to guard the
tomb of the Great Emancipator, and all but three of the organization
were Civil war veterans. Colonel McNeill of this review is now the
only survivor of the nine members of this historic guard. Mrs.
McNeill recalls that when she was a child she was frequently greeted
by President Lincoln. Wilbur A. McNeill, brother of the Colonel and
long his business associate, was likewise a soldier of the Union in
the Civil war, he having been a corporal in the Fourth Illinois
Cavalry.
In the year 1883 Colonel and Mrs. McNeill established their
residence in Oskaloosa and where they have maintained their home
during the long intervening years and where they have the
affectionate regard of the community. In the earlier period of his
residence here Colonel McNeill was engaged in the banking business,
in which he had gained practical experience in the First National
Bank of Springfield, Illinois, which he entered after the close of
the Civil war and with which he remained until coming to Oskaloosa.
In the late '80s he became associated with his brothers, Hobart W.
and Wilbur A., in forming and incorporation the concern known as
McNeill Brothers. This corporation owned and operated coal mines in
the states of Iowa and Washington, as well as in the Canadian
Northwest, and also owned and operated the Oskaloosa Heat, Light &
Power Company, a subsidiary corporation. The concern was well
ordered in all departments of its operations and proved very
successful. The death of Hobart W. McNeill occurred in 1900, and the
two surviving brothers continued the business until the death of
Wilbur A. McNeill in 1913. This left Colonel McNeill as the sole
executive head of these large and important industrial and
public-utility interests, and he continued in control until 1919,
when the corporation of McNeill Brothers was dissolved and he
retired from active business.
Colonel McNeill has ever been a stalwart in the ranks of the
Republican party. He is affiliated with the Masonic fraternity, the
Knights of Pythias and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks,
and he is one of the honored members of the Rotary Club in his home
city. he and his wife are affiliated with the Congregational Church,
and Mrs. McNeill, long a gracious figure in the social, cultural and
church circles of Oskaloosa, is affiliated with the P. E. O.
Sisterhood.
In the capital city of Illinois, on the 18th of November, 1872, was
solemnized the marriage of Colonel McNeill and Miss Julia E. Hibbs,
who was born in New York City but who was a child at the time the
family home was established in Springfield, Illinois, where, like
her husband, she was reared and educated. She is a daughter of the
late James M. and Maria (Hunt) Hibbs, the former of whom was born in
Pennsylvania, a representative of one of the old and honored
families of that state, and the latter of whom was born in the State
of New York. Mr. and Mrs. Hibbs passed the closing years of their
lives in Springfield, Illinois, where they had maintained their home
many years and where Mr. Hibbs was a citizen of prominence and
influence. The devoted and idealic companionship of Colonel and Mrs.
McNeill will have covered in November, 1929, a period of fifty-seven
years, and they can but feel, in the gracious twilight of their
lives, that their "lines are cast in pleasant places," for they are
enjoying peace and prosperity, good health, and association with
friends who are tried and true. Walter F., elder of the two children
of Colonel and Mrs. McNeill, has become a naturalize citizen of
Canada and he and his wife reside at Calgary, where he holds
government office, that of member of the Compensation Board of the
Province of Alberta. He and his wife have one son, Wilbur F. Mable,
younger of the two children of Colonel McNeill, is the wife of
George M. Martin, and they maintain their home in Oskaloosa, their
one child being a son, Larkin McNeill Martin.
WILLIAM McNETT, whose death occurred January 23, 1928, initiated the
practice of law in Iowa in the year 1868, and here his professional
activities were continued until a short time prior to his death - a
period of virtually sixty years. In intrinsic nobility of character,
in ripe scholarship and in high professional attainments he stood
forth as a man well qualified for leadership in popular sentiment
and action, and he long held precedence as one of the foremost
members of the Iowa bar. His professional activities were centered
in the city of Ottumwa, judicial center of Wapello County, from 1871
until the close of his long and worthy life, and no citizen
commanded a fuller measure of popular confidence and esteem than did
this veteran lawyer, whose influence was ever cast in the advocacy
and support of those things that represent the higher ideals in
communal life.
William McNett was born at Mount Morris, Ogle County, Illinois,
March 10, 1845, and died in Ottumwa, Iowa, on January 23, 1928, and
thus he was nearly eighty-three years of age at the time of his
death. He was a son of Walter and Susan (Knodle) McNett, who were
sterling pioneers of Ogle County, where the father was an early
wagon maker at Mount Morris and likewise became a substantial farmer
of that locality. The subject of this memoir was reared to the
sturdy discipline of the farm, and he supplemented the discipline of
the common schools of his native county by attending, in 1862-64,
the old Rock River Seminary, an institution that is now known as
Mount Morris Seminary. As a youth he diversified his activities by
continuing farm work during summer months and teaching school during
the fall and winter terms until he was able to follow the course of
his ambition and take up the study of law. He received his early
legal training under the effective preceptorship of Judge Turner of
Freeport, Illinois, and early in 1868 he was admitted to the bar of
his native state. In June of the same year he opened a law office at
Marshalltown, Iowa, and since his financial resources were very
limited, he borrowed money to tide him over during the trying
novitiate that was the portion of the average young lawyer of the
period. In this connection, with characteristic loyalty, he took out
his first insurance policy as a means of protecting his creditor. In
April, 1869, in company with Eugene Fawcett, another young
barrister, Mr. McNett transferred his residence to Ottumwa, but he
soon removed to Eddyville, a town that gave at that time promise of
becoming the metropolis of Wapello County. He remained at Eddyville
until September, 1871, when he returned to Ottumwa and formed a law
partnership with his friend Eugene Fawcett, and firm of Fawcett &
McNett having here developed a prosperous general law practice and
the partnership alliance continued until the impaired health of Mr.
Fawcett led him to remove to California, where he attained to
prominence and wealth. This firm's first case before the Iowa
Supreme Court was presented at the December term in 1871. In
continuing his law practice at Ottumwa Mr. McNett was associated
professionally with Judge William D. Tisdale, John W. Lewis, and
finally with his son Walter, under the successive firm names of
McNett & Tisdale, NcNett & Lewis and McNett & McNett, and here his
son Walter still controls the large and important law business in
which the tow were associated at the time of the death of the
honored subject of this memoir. Judge Tisdale, who is still engaged
in practice at Ottumwa and who is represented in a personal sketch
in this publication, has stated that in Southern Iowa Mr. NcNett has
no superior as a lawyer. The broad and fine intellectual ken of Mr.
McNett came to him through his close and appreciative study and
reading throughout the entire course of his life. He was familiar
with the best in classical and contemporary literature, was a deep
Bible student, and was well fortified in his religious faith and
practice, which showed no trace of bigotry or intolerance. He was
for many year an earnest member of the Congregational Church in his
home city, and his wife likewise was a devoted member. Mr. McNett
loved good books and their thought-promotive area, and his private
library was one of the largest and most select in this part of Iowa.
As a man of broad views and mature judgment he was frequently called
upon to make addresses of public order, especially in connection
with matters touching civic interests and the communal welfare. He
was an earnest supporter of the work of the local Y. M. C. A., and
his unbounded civic loyalty found divers avenues for expression.
The intrinsic independence of Mr. McNett touched all phases of life,
and thus he was not constrained by strict partisanship, though a
staunch advocate of the principles and policies of the Republican
party. He often held men and measures above mere partisan dictates.
He was eminently qualified for public office, and could undoubtedly
have had a seat on the bench of the Iowa Supreme Court, but he
preferred the work of his profession in a direct way to service in
any public office. He had to the fullest extent that which is so
frequently expressed as "the courage of his convictions." He loved
his home, his friends and his books, and they filled a large part in
his gallant and earnest life. He was the friend of all classes and
conditions of men, and was ever ready to respond to the call of
suffering and distress.
As a lawyer Mr. McNett was retained as attorney for large and
important corporate interests. In 1886 he became legal
representative for John Morrell & Company, controlling the largest
industrial enterprise at Ottumwa, and he served as attorney also for
the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific and the Chicago, Burlington &
Quincy Railroads, as well as the Wabash Railroad. He served as
attorney for J. C. Osgood, one of the leading coal mine owners and
operators of Iowa, and while much of his time was given to the
affairs of the important corporations of which he was legal
representative, Mr. Mcnett appeared also in other than corporate
cases, including a number of will cases. His final court appearance
was in August, 1927, when he participated in a fourteen day trial in
the Wapello District Court. He gave a long period of service as
president of the Wapello County Bar Association, and was president
of the Iowa Bar State Bar Association in 1917.
After the death of Mr. McNett an appreciative estimate of his life
and service was prepared by Judge M. A. Robers, of Ottumwa, and from
the same the following paragraph is taken with but slight
paraphrase: "William McNett was a most congenial man, personally
known by practically all of the people of his home community and
loved by all who knew him. He met everybody with a smile and sought
in his daily contact to scatter sunshine and dispel gloom. he was
considerate of the wants and needs and misfortunes of others and
ready to extend relief at all times, so far as lay within his power.
his encouragement and friendly assistance to young lawyers entering
the local bar and his courteous demeanor to both bench and bar were
a matter of general comment among his lawyer friends."
On July 24, 1872, occurred the marriage of Mr. McNett to Miss Mary
B. Stoddard, of Eddyville, Wapello County, to whom were born five
children. Three are living: Walter, who continues in the practice of
law in Ottumwa, as the virtual successor, even as he was the
professional associate, of his father; James W., who is a resident
of Seattle, Washington; and Miss Mary S., who remains at the old
family homestead in Ottumwa.
Walter McNett, who is well upholding the civic and professional
prestige of the family name in his native state, was born at Ottumwa
on the 12th of November, 1877, and here his public-school discipline
terminated when he was graduated in the high school. Thereafter he
continued his studies at Grinnell College, this state, and later he
was a student in the law department of the University of Iowa,
graduating with the degree of LL. B. in 1905. His earlier study of
law was under the able preceptorship of his father, with whom he was
actively associated in practice from 1905 until the death of the
latter, since which time the father's name has been retained in the
title of the law firm of McNett, mcNett & Kuhns, of which the son is
now senior principal.
June 15, 1909, marked the marriage of Walter McNett to Miss Blanche
V. Garner, and they have two children, William and Wesley Garner.
JOHN HANSON THOMAS MAIN. Many people, Iowans and others in the
Middle West, think of Grinnell College as the highest expression of
liberal culture in the state, and undoubtedly it is one of the best
colleges in the Middle West. It had high standing, sound traditions
not too old, a well balanced plan of instruction, and altogether is
an almost ideal environment in which a boy or girl can spend the
formative period of life.
Those who know and love Grinnell emphasize the great value of the
faculty personnel, and most of all the president, who as professor,
dean and head of the administration had been with the institution
for over thirty-vie years.
John Hanson Thomas Main, who became president while it was still
known as Iowa College, was born at Toledo, Ohio, April 2, 1859, son
of Hezekiah Best and Margaret (Costello) Main. The Main family is of
English ancestry, but the ancestor who came to America in the early
seventeenth century and settled in Maryland was direct from Germany,
where his branch of the family had lived for some time. The family
was represented in the Revolutionary war. Hezekiah Best Main was a
native of Maryland, a farmer, stock man and building contractor. On
account of ill health he was rejected for service in the Civil war.
His wife, Margaret Costello, came from Cork, Ireland. She died in
1859
The son attended school at Fremont, Ohio, and in 1875 entered Moores
Hill College if Indiana, where he was graduated with the Bachelor of
Arts degree in 1880 and received the master of Arts degree in 1883.
From 1888 to 1889 he held the chair of professor of ancient
languages in Moores hill College. During 1890-91 he was assistant
professor of Greek and Latin in the Woman's College of Baltimore, at
the same time carrying post-graduate work in Johns Hopkins
University, and was senior fellow in Greek at Johns Hopkins in
1891-92. His Doctor of Philosophy degree was given him by Johns
Hopkins in 1892. Several institutions have recognized his
contributions to scholarship and education, Oberlin College giving
him the Doctor of Laws degree in 1911, and he has similar degrees
from the University of Iowa in 1912, and Grinnell College in 1916,
followed by a similar degree from Harvard University in 1926.
Colorado College bestowed upon him the degree Doctor of Humanity in
1927.
Doctor Main entered Iowa College in 1892 as Carter professor of
Greek language and literature. He held that chair until 1900, was
acting president from 1900 to 1902, dean of the faculty from 1902 to
1906, and since January, 1906, has been president. Grinnell has
offered him a congenial routine of labor, and undoubtedly he derives
his greatest satisfaction from the wonderful growth the college has
made under his administration. In the field of scholarship he has
specialized in transportation and education, and his contributed a
number of articles on many subjects to magazines and other
publications. Since 1924 Doctor Main has been a trustee of the
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of teaching. He was a member
of the American Philological Association, the Archaeological
Institute of America, and belonged to the University Club of
Chicago, the Grant and Des Moines Clubs of Des Moines, the Century,
City, Transportation and Harvard Clubs of New York. He served as a
member of the American Relief Commission to the Near East. Doctor
Main married, June 18, 1881, Miss Emma Myers, of Jeffersonville,
Ohio. Since the writing of this above sketch John Hanson Thomas Main
died April 1, 1931.
CHESTER LAWRENCE MEADE is a Doctor of Dental Surgery, a native of
Iowa, and has practiced his profession at Mason City for the past
twenty years. His offices are in the First National Bank Building.
He was born on a farm in Poweshiek County, Iowa, June 14, 1887, son
of James L. and Fannie (Baxton) Meade. The Meade family is of
Scotch-Irish descent and his father was born in Whiteside County,
Illinois, and spent his active career as a farmer. He had a brother,
Eli Meade, who enlisted in an Illinois regiment and served in the
Union army. Doctor Meade's mother was born in England. After leaving
the farm the parents moved out to California, and made their home at
Riverside for twenty years, James L. Meade died there September 17,
1926, and his wife, September 20, 1924. he was a Republican in
politics, and took a keen interest in the local affairs of his Iowa
community. he was senior elder of the Christian Church for many
years and his wife was a talented musician and had much to do with
church music. James L. Meade and wife had three children, Pearl,
wife of Albert Haas; Chester Lawrence; and Mattie, wife of Ernest
Rea. Both daughters are living at Riverside, California.
Chester Lawrence Meade was graduated from the high school of
Marshalltown, Iowa, in 1905, and completed his course in dental
surgery at the University of Iowa in 1908. Since that date he has
been engaged in practice at Mason City, and is one of the
outstanding representatives of his profession in that community. He
is a member of the District, State and National Dental Societies.
Doctor Meade did some valuable work with local committees during the
World war, and is a member of the Mason City Chamber of Commerce and
in 1921 became a charter member of the Glee Club. He is affiliated
with the B. P. O. Elks and Congregational Church.
Doctor Meade married, June 14, 1910, Miss Rena V. Ikenberry, of
Mason City. By this marriage she has two children, Lawrence K., born
July 14, 1913, and Gwendolyn Joyce, born December 10, 1915. Lawrence
is preparing for entrance to West Point Military Academy. Doctor
Meade on January 1, 1924, married Mabel A. McQuaters, of Northwood,
Iowa, daughter of Elam and Alice McQuaters. Mrs. Meade has a sister,
Vera, Mrs. Guy Bosswell, of Los Angeles, and a brother, Donald,
living in Des Moines.
WILLIAM B. MEANS. Comparatively few of the men who came to Boone
during the early '70s remain amid earthly scenes. Among these
survivors is William B. Means, who took up his residence here in
1870 and for many years prior to his retirement was engaged in the
loan and abstract business, in addition to being one of the pioneer
newspaper men of the city. Likewise he served in the capacity of
postmaster under the administrations of three presidents, and
throughout his career has maintained a reputation for high character
and integrity and probity in whatever position he occupied.
Mr. Means was born at Paris, Illinois, February 5, 1846, and is a
son of John C. and Margaret (Shelledy) Means, natives of Ohio. The
Means family was founded in Ohio by the paternal grandfather of
William B. Means, a native of South Carolina, who was a pioneer of
the Western Reserve, where he hewed a home from the wilderness and
passed his life as a farmer. John C. Means was born in Ohio but was
reared and educated in Illinois, where he was married. he secured a
tract of land near the town of Paris, and continued to be engaged in
its cultivation for many years. He lived retired in Paris, Illinois,
at the time of his death, at the age of seventy-nine years. He was
content to spend his career in the tilling of the soil, and was a
man of plain tastes who had no desire for public honors or
preferment, although he served one term as sheriff of his county.
William B. Means received a public school and academic education at
Paris, Illinois, and was associated with his father in farming until
he was about twenty-one years of age. Later he pursued a course at
Miami University, from which he was graduated with the degree of
Bachelor of Arts as a member of the class of 1869, and after some
further study was admitted to the bar in 1870, but did not follow
that field as a profession, although his training therein aided him
greatly in the vocations in which he was engaged in later years. In
1870 he came to Boone and took up his residence in the Fifth Ward,
in the section known as Boonesborough, and there entered upon his
journalistic career on the Boone County Advocate, with which he
remained one year. In 1874 he founded and was the first editor of
the Boone Republican, which later became, as now, the
News-Republican, and with which he continued to be identified until
disposing of his interests to the present owners in 1886. He then
entered the abstract and loan business, and while thus engaged was
appointed postmaster of Boone, an office in which he served with
ability under Presidents Benjamin Harrison, McKinley and Roosevelt.
he left office in 1907 and again became active in the loan and
abstract business which had been operating continuously under the
firm style of Means Brothers. This continued until 1916, when a
reorganization was effected, the business then becoming, as at
present, the Boone County Abstract & Loan Company. Although he
retains an interest in the business, Mr. Means has not been active
therein since the reorganization. During his incumbency of the
postmastership Mr. Means had the name of the town changed from
Boonesborough to Boone. He has always been an active Republican and
for many years was an influential member of his party in Boone
County. A man of civic pride and public spirit, he contributed
materially to the various projects which have aided the upbuilding
and betterment of the city, and has been a supporter of education,
religion and better citizenship.
On December 3, 1872, at Boone, Mr. Means was united in marriage with
Miss Helen C. Dennison, who was born in Ohio, daughter of N. W.
Dennison, in his day a leading attorney and newspaper man in the old
town of Boonesborough. Mrs. Means died at Boone, October 14, 1905.
She and her husband had five children, of whom three are living. Mr.
Means makes his home with his youngest daughter: Mrs. Mary Louise
Hannum, of Boone, who is the mother of four children, as follows:
William Means Hannum, who is a graduate of the University of
Nebraska, where he received a fellowship of the Rice Institute, at
Houston, Texas, from which place he also received a fellowship to
the University of Oklahoma, at Norman, Oklahoma; Helen Hannum, a
graduate of the Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanical
Arts, at Ames, and now teaching school at Lyton, Iowa; Jane, who is
attending Simpson College, at Indianola, Iowa; and Thomas, who is
attending the Junior High School at Boone.
WARREN H. MEEKER, professor and head of the mechanical engineering
department of the Iowa State College at Ames, has been a member of
the faculty of instruction and administration there for over forty
years.
Mr. Meeker was born in Pennsylvania, May 5, 1868, son of Charles J.
and Georgiana (Wilbur) Meeker, also natives of Pennsylvania. His
father was a Pennsylvania farmer but in 1874 moved to New York State
and engaged in farming. In 1882 moved to Binghamton, New York, and
engaged in the heavy draying business. His father and mother both
died there.
Warren H. meeker was educated in the common schools and attended
grade and high school at Binghamton, New York, and in 1887 entered
Cornell University, where he was graduated in 1891, with the degree
of Mechanical Engineer. Immediately after graduating he was
appointed by President William M. Beardshear, of Iowa State College,
as assistant in the mechanical engineering department of the Iowa
State College. At the present time (1931) he is the oldest man in
length of service in the engineering division of Iowa State College.
He was made assistant professor in 1892, associate professor in
1900, in 1907 professor of mechanical engineering and superintendent
of heating, light and water service and in 1912 became head and
professor of the mechanical engineering department. For a number of
years his entire time has been taken up with the heavy routine of
administrative duties. His service has not only been directly
connected with the college itself but to the state at large. In 1924
Governor Kendall appointed him one of the members of the elevator
conference board to prepare a code for the construction, equipment,
maintenance and operation of elevators. He has filled a number of
similar advisory or practical positions on similar boards from time
to time.
Mr. Meeker in 1915 married Ethel U. Underwood who was born at Ames,
Iowa, and is a graduate of the high school of that city. Mr. Meeker
is a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the
Society for the Promotion of Education, National Geographic Society,
is an honorary member of the engineering society Tau Beta Pi and is
a Phi Kappa Pi. For the past twenty years he has been a member of
the board of directors of the State College Y. M. C. A.
Early in 1918 he was appointed by the president of the college a
director of war training and had charge when 2,000 men, in groups of
500, were in course of training for war service at Ames. he also
served in 1917-1918 as a member of the citizens committee to report
Camp Dodge activities, and he submitted that report to Secretary of
War Baker at Washington. Mr. Meeker in 1928 was appointed by
Governor Kendall a member of the education conference board. For the
past twenty years he has been a member of the Ames City School
Board, and part of the time president of the board. He is a member
of the scholarship committee of the Iowa State College and for the
past eight years has been its chairman.
CHARLES I. MERRICK, division manager of the Iowa Railway & Light
Corporation at Nevada, is a graduate of Iowa State College at Ames,
and is an engineer. He had a notable service in the Aviation Corps
overseas during the World war, and is one of the very prominent men
who have come into the life of Iowa with the background of the World
war.
Mr. Merrick was born in Eldora, Iowa, October 27, 1893, son of Irwin
H. and Minnie (Brooks) Merrick. His father, a native of Tioga
County, Pennsylvania, came out to Iowa and settled at Eldora in
1871, and is still living there, after many years of life as a
farmer. His wife was born in Grundy County, Iowa, the daughter of William J. Brooks, a farmer, who came to Iowa
from Monmouth, Illinois.
Charles I. Merrick attended grade and high schools at Eldora, and
spent five years in Iowa State College at Ames, taking the
electrical and mechanical engineering courses. He was graduated May
22, 1917, and almost immediately joined the Aviation Corps, having
his ground training at the University of Illinois, at Champaign, and
eight weeks later was sent to Fort Wood, New York, and on July 18
went overseas. He was in the French flying schools, was transferred
to the American school at Issoudun, again was transferred to the
French school on March 12, 1918, was located at Paris, where he
remained until May 1. He was then put with the Ninety-fourth
Squadron, the first American unit, and on June 18 was transferred to
the One Hundred and Third Pursuit Squadron, formerly the La Fayette
Escadrille. He was on active duty over the lines with this squadron
until August 28, when he was transferred to the Twenty-eighth
Squadron in the St. Mihiel sector, being made flight commander and
second in command of the Twenty-eighth. On October 20 he was
transferred to the headquarters of the Third Pursuit Group and later
was detached and as a casual ordered to the depot at Issoudun. While
in the air as an American pilot he brought down three enemy planes,
lacking only two to achieve the coveted distinction of being an
American Ace.
Mr. Merrick was honorably discharged February 10, 1918, at Garden
City, Long Island, and soon afterward returned to Eldora, Iowa, and
entered the service of the Iowa Railway & Light Corporation as an
engineer, where he remained only a few months. In July, 1919, he
went to Kansas City, Missouri, to become industrial engineer, for
the Kansas City Power & Light Company, where he remained until May,
1922. At that time he returned to Ames where he engaged in the
manufacturing business for two years. In 1924 he was made division
manager of the Iowa Railway & Light Corporation with headquarters at
Nevada. Lieutenant Merrick is a member of the American Legion,
Rotary Club and Commercial Club. He holds a commission as first
lieutenant in the Officers Reserve Corps.
He married Miss Norma Lee at Ames on December 31, 1919. Her father,
C. G. Lee, is an Ames Attorney. They have two children, James Lee,
born at Kansas City, September 17, 1920, and Mary Ann, born May 1,
1924, at Ames, Iowa.
HAROLD METCAFF, who was elected mayor of the City of Davenport in
May, 1928, has been one of the outstanding figures in the public
life of that Mississippi River city for the past eight years.
Mr. Metcalf was born in Western Illinois, on a farm near
Blandinsville, January 10, 1883, son of Charles and Elizabeth
(Thomas) Metcalf. Both parents are deceased. The Metcaffs were early
settlers in Western Illinois. Harold Metcalf grew up on an Illinois
farm, attended the country school, and out of his own efforts and
ambitions rose from the obscurity of his environment. All his life,
whether as a lawyer or public official, he has had sympathy with the
common men and those who toil, borne out of his own early hard
working experiences. He worked and paid his way through Lombard
College at Galesburg, where he graduated with the Bachelors' degree.
By his own earnings he also completed the course of the Harvard Law
School, graduating in 1909, and had his practical training as a
lawyer at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where for several years he was law
clerk with a prominent firm.
Mr. Metcalf has been a resident of Davenport since 1916. He started
his practice a stranger in the city, and in twelve years has made a
notable record as a member of the bar. He is a learned lawyer,
skillful and resourceful, but his outstanding characteristics both
as a lawyer and official have been his humanity and his
understanding of the deeds of human motives.
Mr. Metcalf began his political career as a candidate for Police
Court judge, on the Socialist ticket, in 1920. In 1922 he was a
candidate for reelection on the same ticket, and the only candidate
chosen. This was due in part to his personal character, his freedom
from any of the taint of general incompetence in the city
administration of the previous two years, and also to the splendid
manner in which he had conducted his own court. The confidence of
the people in his integrity and impartiality was increased during
his second term. In 1924 he announced himself as an independent
candidate for police judge and was elected by nearly eight hundred
votes over the two candidates of the major parties. Judge Metcalf
gave six years of service to the Police Court bench, and his record
in that office will stand for a long time as witness to his
industry, consideration of the right of all parties that came before
him, and his most scrupulous integrity. While he was on the Police
Court bench he established a Morals Court, which removed form
general publicity and prurient curiosity the hearings of the cases
of young girls and women, and as judge of his court Mayor Metcalf is
credited with having solved the crises in the lives of many persons
in a way that could not be effected by any other agency or
institution.
Several years ago Mr. Metcalf announced his allegiance to the
Republican party, and in the city convention of 1928 he was
nominated as Republican candidate for the office of mayor and was
elected as the head of that ticket. In reality he is as broadly
representative of the citizenship of Davenport as any official could
be. His friendship and his clientele include all classes of people,
but mainly those who earn their daily bread by the labor and skill
of their hands. The confidence of business and professional men was
placed in him because his record showed that when he gave a promise
he would not break it, and that his ideals were safe for a bigger
and better city.
Mr. Metcalf is a member of the Loyal Order of Moose, the Improved
Order of Red Men, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Fraternal Order
of Eagles and the Mystic Workers. He married, in 1908, Idore Braunne,
who was born in the State of Maine. They have two children, Bertram
and Idore.
ALEX M. MILLER. Among the younger members of the legal profession in
Iowa few have made more rapid strides in recent years than Alex. M.
Miller, assistant county attorney of Polk County, with offices in
the Courthouse at Des Moines. A veteran of the World war, since his
return from overseas his time has been passed in study and practice,
and his record has been such as to command him to the attention of
his fellow citizens and to those who appreciate conscientious
service in public office.
Mr. Miller was born at Des Moines, February 18, 1896, and is a son
of one of the best known and most brilliant attorneys of Des Moines,
Jesse A. Miller, a review of whose career will be found elsewhere in
this work. The public schools of his native city furnished him with
his early education, and after graduating from high school he
entered Grinnell College, which he attended until 1917. The United
States having become a participant in the World war, in July, 1917,
Mr. Miller enlisted in the army and received his training at Camp
Dodge. He was a assigned to Company A, Three Hundred and Thirteenth
Field Signal Battalion, of which he became corporal, and served on
two fronts, from August 18, 1918, until June 6, 1919. Upon his
return to the United States he resumed his studies and in 1922
entered the Iowa State University, from which he received the degree
of Bachelor of Art in 1924 and Doctor of Jurisprudence in 1926. Mr.
Miller commenced the practice of law in association with his father,
with whom he was connected until January 1, 1927, when he was made
assistant county attorney, a position in which he has served to the
present. He has built up an excellent record for integrity and
honesty in office and for energetic prosecution of all matter placed
in his hands. He is a member of the Polk County Bar Association, the
Iowa State Bar Association and the American Bar Association, and the
Beta Theta Pi, Sigma Delta Chi (journalistic) and Phi Delta Phi
(legal) fraternities. While his career has been comparatively short
as compared with those of many of his professional brothers, he
occupies a position of honor in his calling that has been won by
solid merit and personal effort. Mr. Miller is a member of St.
John's Lutheran Church. He is a Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner, and
belongs to the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the Loyal
Order of Moose, the Kiwanis Club, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the
American Legion and the Reserve Officers Association.
On July 12, 1924, Mr. Miller was united in marriage with Miss Hazel
Samuelson, daughter of August Samuelson, and a sister of Agnes
Samuelson, who occupies the position of superintendent of public
instruction of the State of Iowa. Mr. and Mrs. Miller have no
children.
MRS. LAURA E. MILLER, D. O. In personality and technical training
Doctor Miller is specially well qualified for the practice of her
chosen profession and has made a record of success as a
representative of Osteopathic science and practice in Dallas County,
where she maintains her home and professional headquarters at Adel,
the county seat.
Doctor Miller was born in Mercer County, Missouri, January 31, 1886,
and is a daughter of Tipton and Margaret (King) Evans, both of whom
were born and reared in Missouri, where the father gave the greater
part of his active life to farm enterprise, his death having
occurred at Ravanna, that state, in 1898, and his widow being still
a resident of that place.
In the public schools of her native state Doctor Miller continued
her studies until she was graduated in the high school at Ravanna,
and in 1914 she entered the Still College of Osteopathy, Des Moines,
Iowa, in which institution she was graduated May 23, 1918, the
following month having marked her initiation of the practice of her
profession at Adel, where she has since remained and where she has
won marked success and prestige in service as a skilled Osteopathic
physician and surgeon.
June 18, 1926, was the date that recorded the marriage of David H.
Miller to Dr. Laura E. Evans, but the gracious marital bonds were
soon severed, for the death of Mr. Miller occurred January 20, 1927,
in Des Moines, where he was in attendance at the session of the Iowa
Legislature, he having shortly before been elected representative of
Dallas County in the Lower House of the Legislature. Mr. Miller was
a lawyer of distinctive ability and had been engaged in the practice
of his profession at Adel a number of years prior to his death.
Doctor Miller has membership in the Iowa State Osteopathic
Association and the National Osteopathic Association, her religious
faith is that of the Christian Church, she is a popular member of
the Atlas Club in her home city, and is affiliated with the woman's
sorority of the Osteopathic profession.
REV. WALKER W. MILLER, of Pulaski, is one of the well loved
ministers
of the General Conference of the Mennonites of North America. He was
born in Virginia, in 1858, and was six years of age when his family
moved to Indiana, where he grew up and where for twenty years he
engaged in work as an educator. In the spring of 1897 he came to
Davis County, Iowa, and located at Pulaski, where he entered the
ministry of the Mennonite Church. He gave his time to the church at
Pulaski until 1914, when he was called to Chicago to establish a
church, looked after its administration and spiritual welfare for
five years and later established a church in Goshen, Indiana. In
1922 he was recalled to the Chicago church and in 1924 accepted the
invitation to return to his old home and neighbors in Davis County,
and has since been the pastor of the Pulaski church. He has twice
been honored with the office of president of the District
Conference.
Rev. Mr. Miller married, in 1880, Miss Mary C. Nusbaum, a native of
Indiana, daughter of Rev. John and Marie (Pletcher) Nusbaum. They
have three children, Mrs. Elsie Auxpurger, Mrs. Edith Chester and
Mrs. Ethel Massey.
PLEASANT J. MILLS is a native son of Des
Moines, and during the
years of his early manhood was in the railroad service. It was his
knowledge of transportation and traffic conditions that proved
valuable when he established a transfer business many years ago,
later adding storage facilities, and he has made the White Line
Transfer and Storage Company a big and prosperous business one of
the largest and most progressive concerns of its kind in Iowa.
He was born at Des Moines July 6, 1857, son of Noah Webster and
Sarah A. (Hackleman) Nills, and a grandson of Daniel Mills and
Pleasant A. Hackleman. Mr. Mills for twenty years has been an
honorary member of the Loyal Legion, an unusual distinction but one
that very properly belongs to him. Both his father and his maternal
grandfather were Union officers in the Civil war, and both of them
lost their lives in the battle of Corinth. Daniel Mills was a native
of Ohio, moved to Indiana and then to Iowa, and was an early member
of the bar, practicing at Jefferson, Iowa,. Pleasant A. Hackleman
was born in Franklin County, Indiana, and became an officer in the
Thirty-second Indiana Regiment in the Civil war. Noah Webster Mills
was born at Crawfordsville, Indiana, came to Iowa shortly after his
marriage, and conducted a printing and publishing business, known as
N. W. Mills and Company, at Des Moines. He was also in the book and
stationery business. He went into the Union army as colonel of the
Second Iowa Infantry, and was wounded at Corinth on October 4, 1862
and died on the 12th of the same month. He was a Republican in
politics and a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. His widow
survived him over forty years, passing away January 22, 1906. She
was a native of Franklin County, Indiana. Of the three children
Pleasant J. is the only one now living.
Pleasant J. Mills was educated in public schools at Des Moines and
from early boyhood was accustomed to work, partly from necessity and
partly from choice, and had a good training in initiative and in
making his own way in the world. One of his first regular jobs was
car reporter for the Rock Island Railroad. Later for two years he
attended a military school at Stamford, Connecticut, and when the
school was moved to North Granville, New York, he returned home and
resumed employment with the Rock Island Railroad. For one year he
was a brakeman, then went into the ticket office, and for a short
time traveled with a circus. He was in the freight department as car
reporter, then East Side agent, and was for a short time cashier of
the freight office.
On December 6, 1880, Mr. Mills and Clarence Jones bought a transfer
business which had been established in 1870. Mr. Mills was able to
get into this business by sue of some capital he had saved from his
earnings as a railroad man. The firm started under the name Jones
and Mills. Because of his familiarity with the railroad business Mr.
Mills thought it well to call his company the White Line Transfer
Company. After a storage department was added the title was changed
to White Line Transfer and storage Company. In 1883 a warehouse was
erected, this being the first building in Iowa for such a purpose.
In 1909 the company erected the first completely fire proof
warehouse in the state. It is a business that has been in existence
now for practically half a century, and has steadily grown and
modified its service in keeping with changing business conditions.
The storage of merchandise and household goods is now a large part
of the work of the organization. The organization also has a large
fleet of trucks and other facilities for long distance moving of
household goods and freight, at this time operating the largest
institution of its kind in Iowa.
Mr. Mills married, November 8, 1882, Miss Annie May Easton, who was
born at Clayton on the Saint Lawrence River in New York State, about
forty miles from the City of Buffalo. She came out to Iowa when a
girl and finished her education in Grinnell College, being a student
there when the school and town was visited by a severe tornado. Her
father, John Salem Easton, was an early settler in Iowa, having been
a merchant at Cleveland, Ohio, before coming west. He conducted a
lumber business at Newton, Iowa, and for a time had a store at Des
Moines, and later a lumber business at Dallas Center, Iowa.
Following that he became secretary of a large lumber company in
Texas, but returned to Iowa to spend his last years. Mr. and Mrs.
Mills have one daughter, Margaret, who is the wife of Frederick W.
Lehmann, Fr., a lawyer. Mr. and Mrs. Lehmann have two children,
Webster Mills and Janet.
The family are members of Saint Paul's Episcopal Church. Mr. Mills
is a Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner, member of the Knights of
Pythias, B. P. O. Elks, Des Moines Club, Hyperion Club, Wakonda
Club, Rotary Club, Chicago Traffic Club. For a number of years he
has pursued an interesting hobby as a collector of firearms, and
owns a notable display of guns, pistols and other weapons. His hobby
is fishing.
JAMES A. MITCHELL is an Iowa business man whose basic achievement
consists of having built up an organization known as the Gold Bond
Products Company, at Denison, a manufacturing and jobbing
organization known all over the state through its traveling
representatives and through its relations with fifty jobbing houses
outside of Denison. Mr. Mitchell has mastered his business, that of
beverage manufacture, and is undoubtedly one of the most successful
men in the country in that field.
Mr. Mitchell was born, January 6, 1877, on an Indiana farm near the
town of La Porte in La Porte County. When he was a child his parents
moved to the Ozark region in Southwestern Missouri, near
Springfield, and he grew up on a farm there, getting his education
in country schools and later attending the normal school and the
Southwestern Business College at Springfield.
Mr. Mitchell has been an Iowa citizen since 1902. For a couple of
years he worked on a farm near Woodbine and since 1904 his home has
been in Denison. His first connection in a business way with the
city was as a liveryman. On May 1, 1907, he and William Savery
bought a small bottling plant, which had been established ten or
fifteen years earlier in a private residence. Mr. Mitchell in 1915
bought out his partner, and his own name now appears on one side of
the substantial two-story brick block which houses the
manufacturing, distributing and office branches of the Bold Bond
Products Company. After getting into this business Mr. Mitchell not
only showed his energy in widening the scope of distribution, but
made a thorough study of beverages, made constant effort to improve
the quality and the superiority of the manufacturing processes of
the Gold Bond products, and those in a position to know realize that
this business is in every real sense a reflection of the personal
character and ability of its owner. When he first entered the
business the capacity of the plant was solely limited to the
manufacture of soft drinks, about fifty cases a day. Every year
enlargement has been made of the facilities so that the plant is now
capable of turning out between 1,600 and 1,800 cases very ten hours.
A few years ago a line of fountain supplies and fixtures were added,
and in 1928 a line of hotel chinaware and silverware. In addition to
the main office at Denison the company maintains warehouses in
Onawa, Sac City, Holstein, Cherokee, Storm Lake, Carroll, Boone and
Harlan. Mr. Mitchell has advertised his business and in recent years
has increased the publicity of the business through the radio.
Another fast selling feature of the Gold Products Company's business
is the Gold Bond Breakfast Syrup, which has been a part of the
manufactures of the company for several years.
Mr. Mitchell from 1917 to 1824 was secretary of the Iowa Bottlers
Association. Largely through his leadership a short course of
instruction was instituted and has had valuable results in the
general improvement of the standards of manufacturing and
merchandising on the part of the association.
Mr. Mitchell married, on December 20, 1911, at Marshalltown, Iowa,
Ina Pearl Conkling. She was born in Illinois, but was reared in
Marshalltown, Iowa. They have a daughter, Ruth Arline, born February
10, 1914. Mr. Mitchell is a thirty-second degree Mason and Shriner,
has been a member of the Denison Chamber of Commerce since 1907, and
has served as chairman of its board of directors. He is a member of
the Kiwanis Club of Denison, is a Republican, and a member of the
Presbyterian Church.
Mr. Mitchell and wife and daughter in June, 1930 visited France,
Germany, Holland, Belgium and England. His trip to England took him
to the birthplace of his father, where the Mitchell family lived for
generations. His hobby is traveling, and his leisure time is spent
in motoring.
SYLVANUS W. MITCHELL. The Fourth Estate is ably represented at Fort
Madison, Iowa, by Sylvanus W. Mitchell, editor of the Evening
Democrat, a newspaper popular throughout Lee County, not only
because of its news stories, but also because of its strong policies
and trenchant editorials. He was born at Weldon, Iowa, January 25,
1885, a son of George E. Mitchell, a native of Knox County,
Illinois, and educated in its public schools. Ordained a minister of
the Methodist Episcopal Church, his father continued in the ministry
for twenty-five years, his charges all being in Iowa. During the war
between the states he served as a private in the Fifty-ninth
Illinois Volunteer Infantry. He married Rosette E. Westfall, of
Ohio. They had ten children born to them, of whom four are now
living: Sylvanus W.; William T., who resides at Garden Grove, Iowa;
Mrs. Josephine Keeran, who resides at Weldon, Iowa; and Mrs. Ollie
Chenoweth, who resides at Charleston, Illinois. Rev. George E.
Mitchell died April 30, 1918, and his widow, September 13, 1918.
During the many years he was engaged in pastoral work Reverend
Mitchell was held in high esteem, and was regarded as a powerful
preacher and exhorter.
Sylvanus W. Mitchell attended the common schools in Iowa, and later
the Weldon High School, from which he was graduated in 1903. While
working in the printing office of the Weldon Bulletin, he entered
Simpson College at Indianola, Iowa, and there he took the literary
course, which enabled him to begin teaching school in 1904, and from
then on until 1910 he alternated teaching with attendance at
college, and at the same time he carried on study at home. In 1908
he became principal of the school at Elwood, Iowa, and at the
expiration of his contract went with the Davenport, Iowa, office of
Bradstreet, and remained with that concern until 1911, at which time
he went to Keystone, Iowa, and in partnership with H. J. Reger,
became the publisher of the Keystone Bulletin. In 1912, however he
became principal of the West School at Vinton, Iowa, and a year
later was made superintendent of schools at Shellsburg, Iowa, where
he remained until 1914, at which time he became superintendent of
schools at Nodaway, Iowa, which position he continued to hold until
1918, when he went to Newton, Iowa, to become managing editor of the
Newton Daily News. This work absorbed him until October, 1924, when
he became editor of the Evening Democrat, Fort Madison, of which he
is a stockholder. His career shows a succession of promotions, all
of which came to him thorough hard work and a striving after more
knowledge. He has never rated content with what he has accomplished,
but seeks to improve himself day by day. He is a member of the
Masonic Order, and in it made the record of passing his examinations
in ten days; and of the Rotary Club. A Christian Scientist, he was
first reader of the society at Newton for a year, and also served a
three year term as first reader at Fort Madison.
On August 1, 1905, Mr. Mitchell was married to Miss Blanche L. Reger,
of Weldon, Iowa, and they have one child, Lillian C., who was born
in December, 1908. Mr. Mitchell is a student of the best literature,
as well as of the classics. He is a polished and forceful writer,
and his articles on timely subjects are read with great interest by
the subscribers of the Evening Democrat.
JOHN W. MOFFETT. Eldora, the fine little city that is the judicial
center of Hardin County, has effective communal service of publicity
through the medium of the Eldora Herald, of which John W. Moffett is
editor and manager.
Mr. Moffett was born at Grundy Center, county seat of Grundy County,
Iowa, October 24, 1903, and is a son of Howard E. and Eleanor
(Sturgeon) Moffett, the former of whom was born in Cincinnati, Ohio,
August 27, 1872, and the latter of whom was born near Peoria,
Illinois, August 20, 1872.
Howard E. Moffett was a youth at the time of the family removal to
Iowa, and his father, the late William Moffett, was for many years
engaged in the abstract business at Grundy Center, with standing as
one of the honored and influential citizens of Grundy County, where
he had much of leadership in the council of the Republican party,
though he had no desire for political office. He was born and reared
in Cincinnati, Ohio, and was one of the venerable citizens of Grundy
County, Iowa, at the time of his death, in 1920. Howard E. Moffett
was reared and educated in the old Buckeye State and was a young man
when he identified himself with the printing and newspaper business
at Grundy Center, Iowa. There, in the year 1900, he became editor
and publisher of the Grundy Republican, to the management of which
he continued to give his attention until 1906, when he sold the
plant and business, he having passed the ensuing year at Massillon,
Ohio, and having then returned to Iowa, where, in 1908, he purchased
the Eldora Herald. Of this influential county seat newspaper he
continued the active executive head until 1928, when he retired, the
active management of the business having since been vested in his
son John W., immediate subject of this review, who is well upholding
the prestige of the family name, both as a versatile and resourceful
newspaper citizen. The parents still maintain their home at Eldora,
and the elder of their two children is Josephine, who was born
January 24, 1902, and who is now a resident of Minneapolis,
Minnesota.
The Eldora Herald is consistently to be designated as one of the
pioneer papers of this part of the Hawkeye State, as it was founded
in the year 1873, and during the long intervening years it has been
an approved vehicle of local and general news, a staunch exponent of
the varied interests of the community, the county and the state, and
a stalwart supporter of the principles and policies of the
Republican party. This newspaper had a circulation of 1,000 copies
weekly at the time that Howard E. Moffett purchased the property
from O. J. Smith, a well known Iowa newspaper man, and in the
intervening years its circulation has been increased to 3,000
copies, issued on Thursday of each week. Howard E. Moffett continues
to be actively interested in community affairs at Eldora, and is a
citizen to whom is accorded the fullest measure of popular
confidence and esteem. Both he and his only son are members of the
Pine Lake Golf Club, the Community Club and the local Rotary Club.
Father and son are unswerving in their allegiance to the Republican
party, and both have given yeoman service in advancing its cause.
Howard E. Moffett is affiliated with the Masonic fraternity and the
Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and in the Congregational Church
of Eldora, of which he and his wife are zealous members, he is
serving as a member of the board of trustees.
John W. Moffett was graduated in the Eldora High School as a member
of the class of 1922, and during the ensuing two years he was a
student in Coe College, at Cedar Rapids, this state. He then
attended the University of Missouri two and one-half years, and in
it s famous school of journalism he was graduated as a member of the
class of 1928, his earlier knowledge of the printing and newspaper
business having been acquired under the direction of his father and
in the office of the Eldora Herald, of which he is now the editor
and manager. After being graduated at the University of Missouri Mr.
Moffett went to El Paso, Texas, but in the same year, 1928, he
returned to Eldora to assume charge of the Eldora Herald and thus
relieve his father of much of the active responsibility thus
involved. Mr. Moffett has affiliation with the Delta Tau Delta and
the Sigma Delta Chi college fraternities, and of his connection with
representative clubs in his home city mention has already been made.
The name of Mr. Moffett is still enrolled on the roster of eligible
and popular young bachelors at Eldora.
GEORGE MOGRIDGE, M. D., is an Iowan who has given the best years of
his life to one institution and one line of service. For nearly half
a century he has been connected in one capacity or another with the
Institution for Feeble Minded Children at Glenwood, and for over a
quarter of a century has been its superintendent.
Doctor Mogridge was born at Salford, near Manchester, England, June
3, 1856, a son of Edwin and Hannah (Chapman) Mogridge. His parents
were natives of England and his father died there in 1869. Dr.
George Mogridge attended school in England, and at the age of
fourteen became a clerk with a large law firm at Manchester,
remaining with them ten years and acquiring a great deal of
knowledge of the law and general business work. In 1879 he came to
the United States. His widowed mother afterwards came to this
country, and she died here in 1888. Doctor Mogridge first located in
Cass County, Iowa, where he worked at farming and for a time was in
a grain office. On coming to Glenwood he met Doctor Powell, who
induced him to come to the Institution of Feeble Minded Children and
help take care of the boys. That was the beginning of his long and
unselfish service to the wars of the state at Glenwood. Afterwards
he was made supervisor of boys, and it was through the advice and
influence of Doctor Powell that he took up the study of medicine. He
was graduated M. D. from the Omaha Medical College, and for several
years was assistant to Doctor Powell, and since 1903 has been
superintendent.
This institution is a splendid evidence of Iowa's interest in
children. When Doctor Mogridge first became connected with the home
there about four hundred children, while now the number is
approximately 1650. In the meantime the state has invested an
enormous amount of money in building and other equipment. The
grounds comprise 1250 acres, and the staff under Doctor Mogridge
comprises three doctors and one dentist and 225 employees.
Doctor Mogridge married in 1904 Miss Lillian E. Robinson, who was
born in Livingston County, New York, attended school there and about
1874 went to Dixon, Illinois, and in 1876 to Glenwood, Iowa. For a
number of years she was matron of the institution of for the
children. She died in 1924, leaving one son, Edwin Jesde, who is
married and lives in Omaha.
Doctor Mogridge is a member of the Episcopal Church and has been
warden of his church at Glenwood for thirty-five years. He is a
Royal Arch Mason, being a past master of the lodge and a past high
priest of the Royal Arch Chapter. He is a member of the Iowa and
American Medical Associations, the American Psychiatric Association,
is member and former president of the Association for the Study of
Feeble Minded, and is a member and former secretary of the State
Conference of Social Workers. He also belongs to the Missouri Valley
Medical Association.
NEWELL J. MONTAGUE has for thirty-three consecutive years been
connected with the Keokuk postoffice. He entered the service in the
closing days of Cleveland's second administration and has been with
the office during the administrations of McKinley, Roosevelt, Taft,
Wilson, Harding, Coolidge and Hoover. For a third of his service
record he has been assistant postmaster.
Mr. Montague was born at Keokuk, October 22, 1867. The Montague
family came from England to America in 1621, and representatives of
the name were soldiers in the Revolutionary war. Mr. Montague's
father, George T. Montague, was born in Scott County, Kentucky, but
grew up and attended school in Illinois. He served as a
non-commissioned officer in the Mexican war, being wounded, and in
consequence was not able to become a soldier during the Civil war.
It was not long after his Mexican war service that he came out to
Iowa in 1849, locating at Keokuk. He was one of the pioneer
merchants of that city and lived there until his death in 1904. He
served as alderman of the city and was a member of the Independent
Order of Odd Fellows. George T. Montague married Rovilla M. Alvord,
a native of Illinois. She died in 1871, and of their eight children
only one is now living, Newell J. The son George M., a resident of
Denver, Colorado, died August 27, 1930.
Newell J. Montague grew up in Keokuk, was graduated from high school
in 1884, and all his life he has shown a capacity for work and
faithful service. After leaving high school he was a clerk in the
grocery store of Montague & Weyand, and in 1892 he bought his
father's interest and continued a member of the firm until 1895. Mr.
Montague became a mil carrier at Keokuk in 1896, and in 1899 was
given duties in the postoffice as clerk. He became superintendent of
mails on July 1, 1913, and on July 1, 1918, was promoted to
assistant postmaster. He has been the responsible man in the actual
administration of the office for many years. Mr. Montague is a
Republican in politics. He is a trustee of the Baptist Church at
Keokuk, has held chairs in the Knights of Pythias and is a member of
the National Postal Supervisors Association.
Mr. Montague married, May 2, 1889, Miss Elizabeth Limburg, of
Keokuk, daughter of Conrad L. and Catherine M. (Hilt) Limburg. To
the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Montague were born four children, and
the three now living are: George Conrad, cashier for S. F. Baker &
Company, of Keokuk; Mrs. Arlette I. Miller., of Keokuk; and Merton
Howard, connected with the Western Gas & Electric Company at Elgin,
Illinois.
EARL C. MONTGOMERY, physician and surgeon, is a member in high
standing of his profession in his native City of Atlantic. For the
past ten years Doctor Montgomery has confined his work largely to
the special line of eye, ear, nose and throat.
He was born in Atlantic March 18, 1892, and is a grandson of a
pioneer doctor of Iowa. This grandfather was Dr. George S.
Montgomery, who came to Audubon County, Iowa, in 1853. He was a
graduate of the Keokuk Medical College, and was one of the early
physicians practicing around Grove City and Atlantic in Cass County.
He owned the first drug store in Atlantic. He was always prominent
in the Methodist Church and helped organize the first church of that
denomination in Atlantic, and was also a member of the Masonic
fraternity.
Dr. Earl C. Montgomery is a son of Owen Sedgwick and Martha E.
(Anderson) Montgomery. His father was born at Grove City in Cass
County, was graduated from the Atlantic High School and the Keokuk
Business College and in early life was a bookkeeper and bank teller.
In 1893 he removed to Omaha, where he died. He was a member of the
Masonic fraternity and the Presbyterian Church. His wife was born at
Spring Hill, Iowa, where they were married in 1891, and is now
living in Omaha.
Earl C. Montgomery, only child of his parents, grew up in the City
of Omaha, graduated from high school there and took both his
literary and professional training in the University of Nebraska. He
received the Bachelor of Science degree in 1915 and the degree
Doctor of Medicine in 1917. Before engaging in private practice
Doctor Montgomery had the benefit of some unusually fine
opportunities for experience and training in the East. For eighteen
months he was an interne in the Presbyterian Hospital of New York
and for one year acted as resident surgeon of the Columbia
University Division at the Bellevue Hospital in New York. Returning
to Atlantic, he has practiced there since 1919 as an eye, ear, nose
and throat specialist. He is a member of the Cass County, Iowa State
and American Medical Associations, and accepts the opportunities for
social affiliations with the Masonic Lodge, Royal Arch Chapter, the
B. P. O. Elks and the Rotary Club.
Doctor Montgomery married, June 9, 1920, Miss Neta E. King. She is a
graduate of the Atlantic High School, the Randolph-Macon Woman's
College of Lynchburg, Virginia, and the Iowa State Teachers College
at Cedar Falls. She is a member of the Eastern Star Chapter and the
Congregational Church. Her father, Roland E. King, was an early
settler of Cass County. Doctor and Mrs. Montgomery have one son,
Earl C., Jr., born September 11, 1921.
LEONARD J. MONTGOMERY is a well known Keokuk attorney, and is
identified with banking in this city. He came to Iowa after a
successful experience as a lawyer in his native State of Missouri,
where his father has been a distinguished member of the bar for many
years.
Mr. Montgomery, whose law offices are in the State Central Bank
Building at Keokuk, was born at Kahoka, Missouri, June 27, 1883. His
father, Theodore L. Montgomery, was born in Pendleton County,
Kentucky, attended school in Kentucky and Missouri, and graduated
from the law department of the University of Missouri at Columbia.
He has practiced law steadily in Kahoka since 1880, for a period of
half a century, and is a former county attorney of Clark County. He
married Miss Mary M. Jordan, of Kahoka, who died in 1908, the mother
of six children. Leonard J.; Mrs. Lenna G. Duke, of Tipton, Iowa;
Miss Olive F. and Sydney J., of Kahoka; Hiram E., of Keokuk; and
Mrs. Mary Stelle, of Wilmington, Illinois.
Leonard J. Montgomery attended public schools at Kahoka, graduating
from high school in 1903. While in high school he played football
and baseball. His law studies were pursued in his father's office
and under his father's direction, and in 1905 he was admitted and
qualified for membership in the Missouri bar. He practiced at Kahoka
with his father as a member of the firm T. L. & L. J. Montgomery,
and on February 2, 1908, moved to Memphis, Missouri, where he was
associated with Judge N. M. Pettengill in the law firm of Pettengill
& Montgomery. While at Memphis he served two years as city attorney.
Mr. Montgomery came to Keokuk November 1, 1910, and in connection
with his law practice was made attorney for the State Central Bank,
and in 1915 took the post of vice president of that institution. He
resigned November 13, 1928, in order to give his full time to his
law business, which he continued until February 1, 1930, at which
time he entered on his duties as active vice president of the Keokuk
National Bank.
Mr. Montgomery, who is unmarried, is a member of the Lee County,
Iowa State and American Bar Associations. He is a member of the
Masonic fraternity, the B. P. O. Elks, is a Democrat and a trustee
of the Baptist Church.
HON. ERNEST ROBERT MOORE. The president of the American Trust &
Savings Bank, Hon. Ernest Robert Moore has been identified with the
banking interests of Cedar Rapids since January 1, 1892. Among the
distinguished financiers of the city he holds high rank because of
his learning, industry, ability and character, while he is no less
valued in the community as a liberal-minded and enterprising
citizen, and an honorable participant in politics, fraternal circles
and civic life.
Mr. Moore was born at Anamosa, Iowa, November 1, 1868, and is a son
of Joseph and Jane (Stewart) Moore, natives of the North of Ireland,
who immigrated to the United States in 1856, settled at Anamosa,
Iowa, and finally came to Cedar Rapids, January 1, 1878, Joseph
Moore following his trade of copper here until his death. Ernest
Robert Moore acquired a public school education and since January 1,
1892, has been identified with banking at Cedar Rapids. He commenced
his career with the Cedar Rapids Savings Bank, in the capacity of
teller, from which he was advanced to assistant cashier, and acted
in this capacity until January 1, 1904, when he established the
Fidelity Trust & Savings Bank. He was active vice president of the
latter concern until January 1, 1908, when it was consolidated with
the American Trust & Savings Bank, of which he has since been
president. The present handsome ten-story home of this institution
is a monument to Mr. Moore's abilities as a banker and the bank of
which he is the head in justly accounted one of the safest and
strongest in the state and country. He likewise has other financial
and business interests and is treasurer of the Cedar Rapids Life
Insurance Company.
Mr. Moore has been active in local and state politics as a
Republican for more than thirty years. In 1902 he was a delegate to
the Republican national convention, and in 1906, 1908 and 1910 was
elected to the State Legislature, where he was a working and
constructive member in the interests of his constituents and his
state. In 1917 and again n 1919 he was honored by his
fellow-citizens by being elected lieutenant-governor of Iowa. He is
the co-author of the State Conservation Act, and was greatly
responsible for its adoption as a law. On April 26, 1898, Mr. Moore
enlisted in the United States army for service during the
Spanish-American war, and was made sergeant of Company C,
Forty-ninth Iowa Volunteer Infantry, and subsequently was promoted
to first lieutenant and regimental quartermaster, December 18, 1898.
He was mustered out at Savannah, Georgia, May 13, 1899, and later
served as post commander of the Iowa Department, United
Spanish-American War Veterans. Mr. Moore's hobby is American
history, and he is the author of a series of forty-six articles
published by the Cedar Rapids Gazette, entitled "Forgotten Incidents
of American History." He has been active in Masonry since 1901,
being a past master of Mount Herman Lodge No. 263, A. F. and A. M.;
a past high priest, Trowel Chapter No. 49, R. A. M.; was treasurer
of the Grand Lodge of Masons in 1920; grand master of Masons in
1924; a past master of Kadosh Iowa Consistory, A. A. S. R., being a
thirty-third degree Mason and a member of Rose Croix of Constantine.
He was elected a member of the Cedar Rapids School Board for the
term from 1925 to 1931, and in 1929 assumed the duties of president
of that body.
On December 25, 1901, Mr. Moore was united in marriage with Miss
Winifred Evans, and to this union there have been born four
children: June, Ruey, Beth and Robert.
JOHN MORRELL & CO. Ottumwa is the home of one of the most remarkable
business organizations in the world, a business that in 1927
celebrated the centennial anniversary of its founding, starting in
the small individual enterprise of an English merchant and which
throughout the century has had as its guiding officials members of
the Morrell and Foster families. Ottumwa has been the chief
manufacturing center of the corporation for over half a century.
John Morrell & Co. plants are two of the world's largest meat
packing plants, and the meats bearing the Morrell brands are world
famous. At the time of the centennial celebration of the company
issued a handsome little volume of history entitled The Fruits of
100 Years. The volume is a contribution to Iowa history and it is
appropriate to use some of the material from this book, particularly
emphasizing the names and careers of the men who have been most
instrumental in building up the industry at Ottumwa.
The founder of the business, George Morrell, who was born in 1778
and whose early life was one of poverty, was a wool comber by trade.
In 1827 he lived at Bradford, England. At that time a small legacy
of about four hundred dollars came to his wife. It was decided that
the money should first be used to pay a debt contracted while the
family was living at Hull and was in extreme want. It was from the
remainder, after the debt was paid, that George Morrell took the
first step in founding the business of today. With this sum he made
a bargain for the purchase of a canal boat load of oranges. "The
oranges were quickly disposed of on the streets of Bradford, the
profits reinvested in the same way, and soon a stall was rented in
the Bradford public market. In due time George Morrell became known
as a thriving fruit merchant. A small beginning, but one which
contained the elements upon which a great business should be built:
Self-denial, thrift, enterprise, good judgment and industry." About
1830 provisions were added to the line, which now included hams,
bacon, cheese, butter, flour and meal. The curing of hams and bacon
was also engaged in, and so successfully that this rapidly grew to
be the most important part of the business. Morrell's Yorkshire Hams
and Bacon soon acquired an enviable reputation for delicacy of
flavor. In 1834 a partnership was formed under the name George
Morrell & Sons. Of the sons, John Morrell seems to have taken the
leadership in the business. After the firm passed through the
financial crisis of 1842 he became the head, his father retiring
from active connection with the company. At this time the name was
changed to John Morrell & Co. In 1877 the British company became
known as John Morrell & Co., Ltd. The division of the American and
British business was not effected until 1909, when John Morrell &
Co. was established as a co-partnership in America, which in 1915
was succeeded by the American corporation known as John Morrell &
Co. In November, 1928, John Morrell & Co. ceased to be a private
enterprise when John Morrell & Co. Inc., a Delaware corporation, was
organized and took over the entire meat and provision packing
business of John Morrell & Co. and subsidiary companies. One third
of the stock (133,333 shares) was sold to the public. Several of the
Morrells have been interested in the business at Ottumwa, but the
name most closely identified with the building up of the American
branch of the business and with the commercial and civic life of
Ottumwa is that of Foster. While George Morrell, the founder was
still active in the business a young man named William Foster, an
orphan, had become one of his employees. This young man became one
of the firm's most valued employees and in 1845 he married the
sister of John Morrell. In 1847 his son, Thomas Dove Foster, was
born to them in the City of Bradford. While he was growing up the
business was steadily expanding, becoming known as one of the
leading wholesale grocery and provision establishments in the United
Kingdom. In 1859 a branch was opened at Liverpool, and in 1860 the
Bradford house was disposed of. The firm operated two branches in
Ireland, established in 1855, for the purpose of curing bacon and
hams, collecting butter for the English market and distributing
American bacon to the Irish trade. However, the growth of the
American ham and bacon trade, on account of its cheapness,
discouraged the Irish hog-raisers to such an extent that it became
necessary to open a place in the United States. New York was chosen
as American headquarters, and September, 1864, marked the first
venture in the new world for the Morrell business. The firm closed
its Irish branches the same year, and in 1868 established its first
American packing house in London, Canada. Another was established in
Chicago in 1871. At that time Thomas Dove Foster was twenty-four
years of age. He has been well educated and served a long and
thorough apprenticeship in the Morrell business. It was he who
established the Morrell packing plants in Canada and Chicago, going
to the latter place just a short time before the great Chicago fire.
It was on the recommendation of Thomas D. Foster that in 1877 it was
decided to establish a plant at some country point near the source
of the live stock supply. Thomas D. Foster as a boy working for his
father, who had charge of the Morrell business in Ireland, with
headquarters at Kilkenny, had once unpacked a shipment of bacon from
America, the box, bearing the packer's name, Mitchell, Ladd & Co.,
Ottumwa, Iowa, U. S. A. The Indian names suggested far off lands,
romance and adventure. About 1874 Thomas D. Foster, while crossing
the Atlantic on a business trip, noticed on the passenger list the
name of a gentleman from Ottumwa, Iowa. He immediately sought him
out and thus began a pleasant acquaintance with Capt. J. G.
Hutchison of Ottumwa. Captain Hutchison spoke glowingly of his city,
and obtained a promise from Mr. Foster that he would visit this Iowa
community. While investigating the possibilities of various places
for the proposed country plant of the Morrell Company, Mr. Foster
stepped off the train at Ottumwa in June, 1877, and soon revived his
old acquaintanceship with CAptain Hutchison. That friendship was one
of the factors in selecting Ottumwa as the location for the new
plant. Mr. Foster himself said: "I chose Ottumwa because of the
railroad facilities, the abundant water supply, the proximity of the
raw products, the natural beauty of the city, and the friendliness
of the people." It was in 1877 that the old Ladd packing plant, then
standing on the north bank of the Des Moines River, was leased and
operations begun. It was from this small plant that the box of bacon
had gone to Ireland, carrying the words which inspired Thomas D.
Foster with a desire to see the new world. In 1878 the first
building of the Ottumwa plant of the Morrell Company was erected on
the site now occupied. Packing and slaughtering operations were
centered in Ottumwa in 1888, following the closing of the Chicago
plant, which for several years had been operated under the
management of George Morrell, a grandson and namesake of the
founder. In this he had been assisted by a son, John H. Morrell,
while another son, Alfred Morrell, had been connected with the
Ottumwa organization. However, the latter returned to England with
his father and John went to Ottumwa to assist Mr. Foster there. Most
of the original Ottumwa plant was destroyed by fire in 1893, but
rebuilding was at once instituted on a larger scale and with modern
equipment. In 1909 the company leased the old "Green" plant at Sioux
Falls, South Dakota, and the new Morrell packing plant there has
been occupied since 1911. To quote again from the centennial sketch:
"The two men most actively identified with the development of the
business in America were Thomas D. Foster and John H. Morrell,
grandson and great-grandson, respectively, of the founder. Mr.
Foster became general manager of the American business in 1872 and
served in that capacity until his death in 1915. He was also the
office head of the business from 1893 until his death. Mr. Morrell
served as assistant general manager for twenty-four years an din
1915 became president, which position he held until his death in
1921.
"During the time the business was being developed in America, it was
likewise growing in England, directed by John Morrell, who devoted
his time and energy to the business as a whole from Liverpool, where
in 1881 he died. When his will was read it was found that the
control of the business was left to four nephews: George Morrell of
Chicago, Thomas D. Foster of Ottumwa, John Morrell and Thomas
Morrell of Liverpool."
The Morrell business today, though interrelated and interlocking, is
actually vested in two distinct and separate corporations, one
English and the other American. The business in England is now
managed by A. Claude Morrell, of the fifth generation of descendants
of George Morrell, the founder. The officers in charge of the
American organization are as follows: T. Henry Foster, president and
general manager; W. H. T. Foster, vice president and manager at
Sioux Falls; George M. Foster, secretary and assistant general
manager; J. C. Stentz, treasurer and director of sales; and J. M.
Foster, assistant manager at Sioux Falls.
The leading men of Ottumwa have always felt a great debt of
gratitude to members of the Foster family , not only for their part
in building up a great industry, but for the essential fineness of
their public spirit and their generous helpfulness in all worthy
matters of community enterprise. Thomas D. Foster found time to give
vitally of his strength and aid to the upbuilding of Christian
manhood, and for many years was one of the most active supporters of
the Young Men's Christian Association. His son, T. Henry Foster, now
president of the company, has also found time for a great deal of
civic work. A year or so ago he was elected a director of the
Chamber of Commerce of the United States as representative of the
district comprising Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota and the Dakotas.
HORACE HENRY MORRISON, county treasurer of Jasper County, is a World
war veteran, member of an old and prominent family of Newton, and
was born in that Iowa town August 28, 1892.
His father, Henry S. Morrison, was born in Orange County, New York,
and on coming out to Iowa first settled in Davenport and later moved
to Newton. He was a farmer, also for many years was in the hardware
business, and he served a a justice of the peace at Newton. Henry S.
Morrison married Martha B. Pickens, born in Ireland. There were four
children: Leland P. of Washington Iowa; Charles W., of Newton; James
Gordon, of Newton; and Horace Henry.
Horace Henry Morrison attended school at Newton, graduating in 1913,
and for over a year was a student in the Capital City Commercial
College at Des Moines. He remained at Des Moines with the Central
Life Insurance Society until America entered the World war.
On April 20, 1917, he enlisted, and became a part of the famous
Rainbow, Forty-second Division, made up largely of National
Guardsman. He became a sergeant in the Machine Gun Company of the
One Hundred and Sixty-eight Infantry, and after a period of training
at Camp Mills, Long Island, went overseas and was with his regiment
and division throughout the two years of its foreign service,
including some of the heaviest fighting on the western front in 1918
and later with the Army of Occupation.
Mr. Morrison received his honorable discharge at Camp Dodge May 16,
1919, and soon after his return to Newton was made deputy county
treasurer. He served three years and in 1925 was elected county
treasurer, was reelected in 1927 and in 1928 was elected on the
Republican ticket for a third term, which he is now serving.
Mr. Morrison is a member of the B. P. O. Elks, the Kiwanis Club, the
American Legion Post and is a Presbyterian. He married, August 28,
1923, Miss Vera Hatfield, of Newton.
RT. REV. THEODORE NEVIN MORRISON was a loved and gracious figure in
the life of Iowa for many years as Episcopal bishop of Iowa. His See
city was Davenport.
Bishop Morrison was born in Ottawa, Illinois, February 18, 1850, son
of Rev. Theodore Nevin and Anna Eliza (Howland) Morrison. He gave
more than half a century to the service of his church and humanity.
After graduating A. B. from the Illinois College at Jacksonville in
1870 he attended the General Theological Seminary of New York,
graduating in 1873, and in July of that year was ordained a deacon
of the Episcopal Church, serving in his first missionary charge at
Pekin, Illinois, from 1873 to 1876. He was made a priest February
19, 1876, and until raised to the Episcopal dignity his service as a
pastor was in Chicago, where he was rector of the Church of the
Epiphany from 1876 to 1899, a period of twenty-three years.
On November 30, 1898, he was elected bishop and on February 22,
1899, was consecrated bishop of Iowa and served with increasing
honor and respect in that position for nearly thirty-one years.
Bishop Morrison was made a Doctor of Divinity by Illinois College in
1895, and the Western Theological Seminary in 1905 conferred upon
him the degree of Doctor of Sacred Theology. He married, October 28,
1879, Miss Sarah Buck Swazey, daughter of Rev. Arthur Swazey, of
Chicago. He died suddenly on December 27, 1929, and was buried in
Pine Hill Cemetery, Davenport, Iowa on December 31.
J. W. MORSE. On the score of personal abilities and successful work
over a long period of years J. W. Morse is the outstanding member of
the Emmet County bar. His home is at Estherville, and he has
practiced there nearly thirty years.
Mr. Morse was born in Mitchell County, Iowa, October 21, 1877, son
of Isaac H. and Olive (Throwbridge) Morse. At an early age he began
working out the pattern of his life, caring it through not without
struggle and difficulty. In 1898 he entered the University of Iowa,
where he pursued both the liberal arts and law courses. In 1900 he
was admitted to the bar and in the following year located at
Estherville. During 1904-07 he was located at Emmetsburg, with the
firm of Soper, Morse & Soper, but without exception has practiced in
Estherville all through the years. At different times he has had
partners in the law, including C. W. Crim, F. J. Kennedy and N. J.
Lee, but is now conducting an independent business.
Mr. Morse married, August 5, 1903, Miss Winifred Williams, daughter
of John and Olive Williams, of Mitchell County Iowa. They have two
children, Olive, wife of W. A. Boice, an interne at Charity Hospital
at New Orleans, and John H., a student in Harvard University, having
graduated in 1930 from Iowa State University with the A. B. degree.
He is taking pot-graduate work in the School of Business
Administration at Harvard.
Mr. Morse has been a Republican in political affiliations, but
holding office has never been in the line of his ambitions.
Nevertheless he has rendered valuable service to the community in
many ways, usually in positions carrying no remuneration. In the
early years of his practice he was city attorney and for four years
was county attorney of Emmet County. The service from which he has
derived the greatest measure of satisfaction was the years he spent
on the local school board, of which he was president, and he has
been a member of the Estherville library board practically since its
inception. Mr. Morse is a Knight Templar and thirty-second degree
Scottish Rite Mason, member of the Modern Woodmen of America and the
B. P. O. Elks.
ROBERT S. MOTH, physician and surgeon, has practiced at Council
Bluffs since 1910, coming to Iowa after several years of successful
experience in his profession in Chicago, where his father was long
an honored representative of the medical profession.
Doctor Moth was born in the Chicago suburban community of Winnetka,
December 26, 1881, son of Dr. Morris J. and Lora (Shibley) Moth. His
father was born on a Wisconsin farm and his mother in the City of
Albany, New York. Dr. Morris J. Moth was a graduate of Hahnemann
Medical College of Chicago and for several years a member of its
faculty. He practiced his profession in Chicago for a quarter of a
century. He was a Republican in politics, a member of the Masonic
fraternity and the Congregational Church. There were three children:
Harriett, wife of Willis S. Hilpert, a doctor of philosophy and a
chemical engineer living at Winnetka, Illinois; Dr. Robert S.; and
Margery, wife of Dr. James P. McCormick, a physician at Edmonton,
Canada.
Robert S. Moth attended school in Chicago, for two years was a
student in the University of Chicago, and in 1905 graduated M. D.
from the Hahnemann Medical College. He was engaged in practice in
that city, and from 1906 to 1910 practiced at New Orleans. In the
latter year he came to Council Bluffs, where he has built up a fine
reputation as a man of ability in the field of general practice. He
is a member of the Pottawattamie County, Iowa State and American
Medical Associations.
Doctor Moth married in 1912 Miss Myrtle A. Moore, who was born in
Iowa and educated in the State University. Her father, Harry G.
Moore is an Iowa banker. Doctor and Mrs. Moth have one son, Robert
S. Jr., born in 1920. Mrs. Moth is a member of the Episcopal Church,
while he belongs to the Congregational Church and is a York and
Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner, both being members of the Eastern
Star, and he also belongs to Lodge No. 531, B. P. O. Elks.
MILO W. MOULTON as a physician and surgeon has practiced in Bellevue
for over thirty years. He has a reputation as a skilled surgeon and
was responsible for the founding of a modern hospital at Bellevue,
known as the Moulton Hospital, which has been a great convenience to
the people and the members of the medical profession in Jackson
County.
Doctor Moulton was born on a farm in South Fork Township, Jackson
County, near Maquketa, February 8, 1874, son of Eli D. and Margaret
(Wolfe) Moulton. His father, who was born at Buffalo, New York, in
1829, came to Iowa Territory in 1845. He settled on a farm eight
miles from Maquoketa, and went through all the stages of pioneering
in the early days. After retiring from the farm he moved to
Maquoketa, where he died December 5, 1910, in his eighty-second
year. His wife was a native of Kentucky and was brought to Iowa by
her parents. She died April 27, 1928, aged eighty-seven years. Of
their four children Dr. Milo W. is the youngest. James R. is a
merchant, Nettie is the wife of Isaac Coleman, a retired farmer
living at Esterville, Iowa, and the other daughter, Luella, now
deceased, was the wife of B. F. Nichols.
Milo W. Moulton during his boyhood on the farm attended the nearby
district school and was graduated from the Maquoketa High School in
1893. He taught for two terms, and had the benefit of experience
clerking in a drug store at Maquoketa, which gave him some knowledge
valuable to him in his future career. Doctor Moulton was graduated
from the medical department of the University of Iowa, March 28,
1898, and on the thirteenth of April of the same year opened his
office at Bellevue. For thirty years he has enjoyed an extensive
practice, and it was to provide a larger scope for his service that
in the fall of 1918 he undertook the erection of a private hospital.
The Moulton Hospital is a twenty-bed standard hospital, and Doctor
Moulton has given it the benefit of his wide experience and has a
staff of attending physicians and nurses. He is a member of the
Jackson County, Iowa State and American Medical Associations, is
affiliated with Bellevue Lodge No. 51, A. F. and A. M., the Knights
Templar Commandery at Maquoketa, Kaaba Temple of the Mystic Shrine
at Davenport, No. 320. He is a Presbyterian and a Republican.
He married, December 27, 1899, Miss Anna Marie Young, a native of
Bellevue. Her father the late George Young, was a prominent hardware
merchant of Bellevue.
WILLIAM FOSTER MUSE has been a newspaper man since 1883, and for
thirty years has been chiefly responsible for the destiny of the
Mason City Globe- Gazette, of which, of which he is vice president
and editor. Mr. Muse is one of the two Mason City residents who have
the distinction of representation in the Who's Who in America.
He was born at Milan, Illinois, July 14, 1860, son of John Watters
and Elizabeth (Milikin) Muse. He attended school at Milan, but came
to Iowa to attend Cornell College at Mount Vernon, where he was
graduated Bachelor of Science in 1883. He subsequently did work in
Illinois Wesleyan University at Bloomington, from which he received
the A. B. degree in 1883. He was a reporter on the Rock Island Union
as early as 1883, and had a varied experience with other newspapers.
As a young man he was also interested in music, and from 1896 to
1899 was manager and basso in teh Ottumwa Male Quartette, a very
noted organization.
He became editor of the Globe-Gazette at Mason City in 1899, and
since that time has devoted his efforts to the building up of this
newspaper, and the Globe-Gazette today, as one of the leading
newspapers of Iowa, represents his life work.
The Globe-Gazette is now published from as modern a plant as can be
found in the state. It has a large editorial staff, and Lee P.
Loomis is business manage and W. Earl Hall, managing editor. The
Mason City Globe-Gazette is a Lee Syndicate newspaper. It was
originally the Cerro Gordo County Republican, established in 1861.
Since then other newspapers have been absorbed into its history,
including the Mason City Times, established in 1870, the Weekly
Globe, established in 1882, and the Daily Globe, established in
1890. The Globe-Gazette is the standard daily paper read all over
this part of Iowa. Mr. Muse has been steadily incorporating into it
the best lessons of his own experience and the features of
outstanding newspapers of the country. In March, 1929, the
Globe-Gazette came out with a new type face, known as the Ideal Nes
Face type, now used by many of the foremost newspapers of the
country as the best and clearest type for news print work.
Mr. Muse individually and through his newspaper has constantly been
an advocate of a better city and is an ardent Republican. From 1910
to 1915 he was postmaster of Mason City. He is a trustee of his alma
mater, Cornell College, is a member of the Sons of Veterans, the Phi
Delta Theta college fraternity, is a Knight Templar Mason, member of
the Knights of Pythias, B. P. O. Elks, the Rotary Club, Mason City
Country Club, Clear Lake Country Club, and is a Methodist.
Mr. Muse married, July 16, 1890, Lillian Duncan, of Cedar Rapids.
She is survived by one daughter, Elizabeth, who married Ralph H.
Norris, December 15, 1927, and resides in Orange, New Jersey.
In the summer of 1930 Mr. Muse was adopted by the Winnebago Indian
tribe and made a chief, his Indian name being "In-Spawa Dumba."
meaning the "Observing Eye." He has traveled extensively. In 1926 he
made a trip around the world, and in 1928 traveled through South
America. He has written two books on his travels entitled The
Travelog of a Muse and these two volumes he had privately published
and distributed among his friends.
DORRANCE DIXON MYERS, SR. One of the earliest American families to
establish a home in Dubuque was that of Myers. Representatives of
this name have had an honored and honorable part in the life of
Dubuque for nearly a century.
The pioneer of the family was William Myers, a native of Missouri
and of Pennsylvania ancestry. In his early years he was a trader
with Indians and buyer of furs, operating along the Upper Missouri
River and for a time had his headquarters on ground now covered by
the City of Kansas City. In 1832 he located at Dubuque, which was
the same year that the Blackhawk Indian war was fought. He took a
prominent part in protecting this section of the frontier from
Indian attack and won the rank of major in the volunteer forces.
Major Myers was a merchant in Dubuque for six years, and the rest of
his life was spent on a farm near that city. His wife, Susan L.
Myers, was a relative of Gen. George W. Jones, and it was at the
solicitation of General Jones that the Myers family came to Dubuque.
The late Dorrance Dixon Myers, Sr., was the son of William and Susan
L. Myers and was born at Dubuque November 3, 1841. He grew up on a
farm, and had only the advantages of the local schools and the
result of private study, but he developed into a man of great
strength and character and ability and became one of Dubuque's best
known citizens. At the age of nineteen he became clerk in the office
of William G. Stewart, county treasurer and county recorder, with
whom he remained two years. He was clerk in the office of the master
mechanic of the old Dubuque & Sioux City Railroad, now part of the
Illinois Central.
Dorrance D. Myers, Sr., in 1867 organized the Dubuque Tobacco Works,
starting a small shop on the second floor of a building on Main
Street, between Third and Fourth. This is a business in which the
Myers family have actively participated for over sixty years and
which under the direction of D. D. Myers became one of the largest
tobacco factories in the Mississippi Valley and also carried on a
general wholesale and jobbing business in tobacco. Dorrance D. Myers
was also well known in financial circles, being president of the
Dubuque National Bank, vice president of the German State Bank of
Dyersville and a director of the Cascade State Bank. He was director
and chairman of the board of managers of the Dubuque Bridge Company,
and was a director of the Julian House Hotel Company. He was a
Catholic and served for some time as chairman of the Democratic
county central committee.
Dorrance D. Myers married, May 17, 1865, Matilda Pratte. The ten
children born to their marriage were Mary, George W., Emily I.,
Dorrance D., William B., Joseph, Hathalie, Louise, Charles and
Josephine.
The son George W. Myers is now the active representative of the
family in the commercial life of Dubuque, where he was born and
reared and educated. He is vice president of the Consolidated
National Bank of Dubuque, the National Reserve Insurance Company and
the Key City Gas Company. |
