Jefferson County Online A part of the IAGenWeb and USGenWeb Projects The 'Madegood Family' Hubert P. Simons

"The Fairfield Daily Ledger"
Fairfield, Iowa
Wednesday, May 20, 1925
Front Page and Page 4

HUBERT PETER SIMONS

Shake hands with Hubert Peter Simons, fellows--he of the Eclipse lumber yard. That's right--nothing flabby about that mitt of his. Takes right hold of yours and gives it a hearty shake. He's a Westerner who's always lived in the big open spaces, you know, and the grip of his hand proves it.

Jolly looking chap, isn't he? And here he is engaged in his favorite pastime of explaining something. He may be giving you some information regarding the construction of the house you are contemplating building; or explaining the phenomena of cyclones; or why hot water rises through cold, or what causes the rainbow; or how an ant knows its way home from any distance. Or it may be he is telling you how he caught that big fish last summer. It's probably that, for Hubert Peter is no piker when it comes to telling a fish story and he enjoys the telling. Odd thing too, about the fish he catches--they're always caught up around Muscatine or at some other distant point. But he tells about it here at home.

But anyway, Hubert Peter was probably giving information along some line when this picture was made, because he has a fund of it to give out on all and any subject, and he gives it freely. Great fellow, is Hubert Peter. Has had what might be called checkered career, and with the dark spaces just about as numerous at the light ones.

Hugh, you see, came from lumberman ancestry, his grandfather having engaged in the trade 'way back in 1840 at Clinton. Hugh was apprenticed to a carpenter at an early age and gained some little knowledge of that work. Most of his life has been spent in the open. In the big woods of Minnesota, Alaska and Washington; in the mountains of Wyoming and the plains of South Dakota. He began managing lumber yards at fifteen and pioneered the lumber business in South Dakota in the land boomer days. Hugh was a "boomer" himself, and took up three homesteads in South Dakota on which to establish lumber yards. 'Twas in the rough and ready days of that country and a chap had to be a two-fisted fighter to get what he went after. Hugh participated in the rushes for land, staked his claim, then set about the serious business of holding it against all comers, which was often quite a bit of chore. Gang of Oklahoma roughnecks ousted him once by 'ganging" him, but he got a better location later and opened up his lumber yard.

Hubert Peter did some other pioneering in Dakota. Organized the first Indian baseball team; organized and was a member of the first school, board, and otherwise took part in community affairs. Lumber business then wasn't governed by very high ethical stanards. Rule was to sell homesteaders just as much lumber as they had money to pay for; if that meant their shacks were only half-finished, that was their look-out. No banks, no safes in those days; Hugh bored a hole in his 2x4 bedpost and hid his money there. For amusements they had music, with Hugh as organizer and slide trombone player in the first band and orchestra.

You will gather from this that Hubert Peter Simons has served more than an apprenticeship in the great School of Experience; that he has lived much of his life in the big outdoors where men look each other in the eye and play the game clean. From this fund of experience hd has gained rather a bit of information about his own business. Long ago he learned that the tactics employed with the South Dakota homesteaders was poor business, and he resolved years ago that he would engage in legitimate lumber business and give his customers what is called a "complete bill;" that is, do away with estimates of cost and give the customer a guarantee that material and labor for his house would not exceed the quoted price for the house actually completed. 'Tis rather a radical step in the building business, and 'tisn't every lumberman who has the nerve to take it. But it may be stated in passing that Hubert Peter knows his stuff--thoroughly--and is ready to take the risk of mistakes in estimates. For he is not only a lumberman, but a carpenter and builder, an architect, and he knows lumber as few men do, by reason of having made it his intimate acquaintance in the forests, in the big mills, and in the retail service.

Another enterprising step taken by this enterprising chap is a service department where your problems are worked out for you. Arthur Christiansen, architectural draftsman, is kept employed in it all the time and works out any plans you may wish while Hugh stays on the job of construction as superintendent and sees that your building is right.

Busy? Hubert Peter? Well, barring twenty minutes for lunch you'll find him on some job of construction work over town between the hours of seven in the morning and six at night any day; at night you will find him in the drafting room at the office up till eleven o'clock. Don't know how he wastes his time from then on till breakfast is ready.

But all this spare time he has left for idleness depresses him with ennui, so by way of recreation he studies a few courses by mail in the allied building trades, writes for the trade magazines and otherwise whiles away the time. Entered into a contest with 1800 others for a prize given for the best article written on retail service and finished second. Judges told him he'd won first only he exceeded the word limit. And Hugh says he didn't say half of what he could have said, at that. In between times he does a bit of investing and patenting and is now one of those plutocrats who receive monthly royalties.

Now, a chap who is a busy as Hubert Peter Simons has got to work fast if he catches many fish, so it may be there is some truth in his stories of depopulating the waters of the Mississipi bayous every time he goes out there to fish. And just because he doesn't choose to bring them home is no reason for doubting his tales. He probably has his own good reasons for that.