Jefferson County Online A part of the IAGenWeb and USGenWeb Projects Who's Who in Jefferson County, 1931 Walter E. Prouty

"The Fairfield Daily Ledger"
Tuesday, July 28, 1931
Front Page

Who's Who In Jefferson County
By Herbert F. McDougal

WALTER E. PROUTY

Walter E. Prouty of Lockridge might never have become a newspaper man if the editor's house hadn't caught fire. But the editor's house did catch fire, and Walter got a job in the printing office, at five cents a week. He was eight or nine years old at the time and the family was living in Adel. Senator A. C. Hotchkiss was the editor, and the paper was the Adel News.

After that he worked two years for nothing, learning what in those days was poetically called "the art preservative". After he had got along, he drew fifty cents a week. But he thought he was worth more, and went to another shop in Adel at five cents an hour. Pretty soon he advanced to $8, moving to still another shop for the increase.

Part of the printing trade in those days, along with the typelice and left-handed monkey-wrenches, was the wanderlust. Walter caught it, and set out on the rounds. He by this time was a journeyman printer, an adept in what Harry Leon Wilson made one of his characters call "a good loose trade". So he went to Audubon, about 1905, and worked for two years on the Advocate. Des Moines beckoned, and he worked in job shops there for a time. After that came the Webster City Freeman-Tribune and the Sac City Sun. Minneapolis and Duluth claimed him for two years, then Omaha and Chicago. Des Moines lured him again, and finally, in 1916, he came to the Ledger as a linotype operator during C. M. Junkin's regime. He worked for the Ledger four years and then bought the subscription list of the old Lockridge Herald, printed at the Fairfield Journal office, moved to Lockridge and began the publication of the Times. Little by little he built up plant and business until now he has one of the best equipped small town offices in the state, with an automatic press and other machinery to correspond. His paper is an exceptional one for a town of a popuation of 231, and he does job printing for customers over a wide territory.

Mr. Prouty was born in Windsor, Mo., February 1, 1882. The family moved to Adel when he was still an infant, and he was reared there and attended the public schools, one exception being the afternoon that the editor's house caught fire. He was too excited by the fire to go back to school, so he went to the printing office to loaf. That was the afternoon he was hired.

He married Miss Mabel Fern Russell of Fairfield, October 19, 1915, They have one daughter, Jeannette, eight years old.

Mr. Prouty is a Rotarian, a Methodist, a member of the First church Fairfield which he attends regularly. He also teaches a class in Sunday school. He is an Odd Fellow as well.

For twelve years he has been the postmaster at Lockridge, his commissions having been signed by four presidents--Wilson, Harding, Coolidge and Hoover.