USA > Iowa > Black Hawk County > History of Black Hawk County, Iowa, and its people, Volume II > Part 27
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E. O. Roberts was reared and educated in this county and is indebted to its public-school system for the opportunities for mental discipline which he enjoyed. Through the periods of vacation he worked in the fields and thus had practical training in the various phases of farming. He remained with his parents until he reached the age of twenty-six years, after which he rented land which he cultivated for six years. He then bought fifty acres in Spring Creek township which he continued to farm for six years. At the end of that time he sold out and invested in one hundred and sixty acres on section 16, since which time he has added many improvements to the place and now has one of the valuable farms in the county. The buildings are substantial and the place is enclosed with well kept fences which also divide the farm into fields of convenient size. The machinery is modern and the work accomplished is substantial. Mr. Rob- erts is also a stockholder in the Farmers Produce Elevator Company and in the Farmers Telephone Company. He raises high grade stock, making a specialty of Duroc-Jersey hogs and from the sale of these he derives a gratifying annual income.
On the [Ith of December, 1895, Mr. Roberts was united in marriage to Miss Mary Fry, a daughter of George and Harriet (McDonald) Fry, pioneer settlers of this county. The father was born in Wisconsin July 30, 1849, and the mother in Illinois August 14, 1845. Mr. Fry was a stonemason, which trade he followed during the greater part of his active life. He is now living with a son in Wisconsin, while his wife passed away in 1886. Mr. and Mrs. Roberts are the parents of three children, George, Gorman and Gladon, aged fifteen, ten and two years respectively. Mr. Roberts holds membership with the Ameri- can Yeomen and he exercises his right of franchise in support of the men and measures of the democratic party. Religiously he is a Methodist and to the
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faith and teachings of the church he closely adheres. His well spent life has won him high regard and his circle of friends in this county is almost coextensive with the circle of his acquaintance.
C. L. KINGSLEY.
C. L. Kingsley is a representative of that class of capable, broad-minded business men whose efforts are an element in advancing general prosperity as. well as promoting individual success. In all of his business career his plans have been carefully formulated and he has displayed tireless energy, keen per- ception and honesty of purpose as well as a genius for devising the right thing at the right time. He is today prominently and widely known as the owner of the Irving Hotel, as vice president of the Leavitt & Johnson National Bank and as a factor in the successful control and management of numerous other important business concerns.
A native of Toledo, Ohio, Mr. Kingsley is a son of Robert M. and Julia (Fletcher) Kingsley and was about twelve years of age when brought by his parents to Waterloo, where he has since made his home. He continued his education through successive grades in the public schools until he became a high-school pupil and later he was graduated from Bryant & Stratton Business College of Chicago and also from the Chicago Athenaeum, being thus well quali- fied by thorough training for the duties and responsibilities of business life. Upon his return to Waterloo he became connected with insurance interests as a representative of life insurance and later took up fire insurance. His advance- ment was a foregone conclusion because of his laudable ambition, his unabating industry and his firm purpose. In 1886 he became general state agent and adjuster for all of the country west of Chicago to Salt Lake and from Duluth, Minnesota, to El Paso, Texas. He remained with that company for fourteen years, discharging with marked capability the onerous, difficult and ofttimes delicate duties that devolved upon him in that connection. On the ist of July, 1900, he took charge of the Irving Hotel, which his father had conducted since 1889. Under the management of C. L. Kingsley it has been enlarged until there are now one hundred and twenty-five guest rooms with store and business rooms. below. The building, one hundred and sixty by ninety feet, is three stories in height and the hotel is conducted according to modern methods in vogue in all the leading hostelries of the day. Mr. Kingsley has installed every comfort and convenience for the guests and the hotel is liberally patronized. He is also a member of the board of directors of the Farmers Loan & Trust Company and is president of the Home Park Land & Investment Company. He is richly endowed with that quality which too many lack-every day common sense -- and added to this is a resistless power which enables him to overcome all obsta- cles and difficulties in his path. He has platted and laid out Kingbard Hill addition to Waterloo, adding much thereby to the beauty of the city, and he has been prominently identified with the development and growth of Waterloo for an extended period.
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On the 6th of October, 1886, Mr. Kingsley was united in marriage to Miss .Mary Hubbard, of Waterloo, and the hospitality of their home is enjoyed by a circle of friends that is only limited by the circle of their acquaintance.
While Mr. Kingsley's business activity alone would entitle him to mention as a prominent resident of Waterloo, his efforts along the line of citizenship have been of notable value. He has been a cooperant factor in many of the plans and projects of the Chamber of Commerce for the upbuilding of the city. He belongs also to the Waterloo Club and the Town Criers Club, and in fraternal circles is well known. In Masonry he has attained the degrees of the Knights Templar Commandery and of the Mystic Shrine. He belongs to the Knights of Pythias and is a member of the board of grand trustees of the Benevo- lent Protective Order of Elks and is secretary of that board, having been elected for a five years' term at the Denver meeting in July, 1913. In politics he is a republican and has taken an active interest in the affairs of state and nation. He is a junior warden of St. Mark's Episcopal church, having been thus officially connected with the church for a long period. It will thus be seen that there is no important element in the life of the city with which he is not associated in a helpful manner. Business enterprise, civic welfare and moral progress have all been promoted by him. He certainly deserves much credit for what he has accomplished along business lines, for through his persistent, earnest and indefatigable efforts he has advanced to a leading position among the citi- zens of Waterloo.
WILLIAM H. BEDFORD.
William H. Bedford is a leading factor in real-estate circles of Cedar Falls, handling his own property. He now has a good clientage and his business has reached extensive proportions. He was born in Lincoln township, this county, while his parents, Daniel and Martha (Whitely) Bedford, were natives of Pennsylvania. The father made farming his life work and in the year 1869 arrived in Iowa, at which time he took up his abode in Lincoln township, Black Hawk county. He became a landowner and with the exception of a brief period of a few months spent his remaining days in this county. He became interested in a creamery business, was engaged in stock-raising and in other business affairs, all of which contributed to his growing success. He died in May, 1898, while his wife, who still survives, is a resident of Waterloo.
William H. Bedford was the fifth in order of birth in a family of seven children. The family record is as follows: Clara is the wife of Dr. Vandervere, of Cedar Falls. Josephine is the wife of T. F. Glenny, of Waterloo. Carleton W. is a resident of Hudson, where he is cashier of the First National Bank. Lyman D. is cashier of the First State Bank of Corona, California. William H. is the next of the family. Elizabeth is the wife of Lloyd Loonan, a farmer resid- ing at Hudson, Iowa. Helen is deceased.
William H. Bedford attended school in Hudson, Iowa; and also the State Teachers College at Cedar Falls. Upon attaining his majority he accepted a position in a bank at Adrian, Minnesota, where he acted first as bookkeeper and
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afterward as assistant cashier for four years. On the expiration of that period he went to Cedar Falls and was associated with the Cedar Falls National Bank for six and one-half years in the capacity of assistant cashier. Since that time he has engaged in the real-estate business, buying and selling farms and resi- dence properties which he has improved and placed upon the market. From his activities in this field he has derived a very substantial income and he has as a partner in the undertaking George C. Frisbee, with whom he is associated in handling farm lands. Mr. Bedford is also a stockholder in the Weart-Frisbee Lumber Company.
On the 22d of August, 1908, Mr. Bedford was united in marriage to Miss Besse Simpson, who was born near Janesville, Bremer county, Iowa, a daugh- ter of John and Margaret Simpson, who were also natives of Bremer county. The father was a farmer by occupation and devoted many years to that pursuit but is now living retired in Cedar Falls, where he and his wife occupy a pleas- ant home.
Mr. Bedford is a republican in his political views but has never sought nor desired public office. His moral progress has had its root in his membership in the Presbyterian church and he has also exemplified in his life the teachings and spirit of the Masonic fraternity, which is based upon the brotherhood of man. He likewise has membership in the Elks lodge of Waterloo and he is prominent and popular in these different organizations, enjoying the warm regard, confidence and goodwill of his brethren of these fraternities.
D. SANDS WRIGHT. A. M.
One of the most potent factors in the success of the Iowa State Teachers College, originally the Iowa State Normal School, has been the professional work and personal influence of Professor D. Sands Wright. He was born on a farm near New London, Highland county, Ohio, on the 7th of December, 1847. His father, Joseph Wright, was a prominent and eloquent minister in the Society of Friends and his mother, Lydia (Cowgill) Wright, was a lifelong member of the same communion. True to his home training, Professor Wright has been through- out life a member and since 1886 a minister in the Quaker church. He enjoyed in youth the usual educational advantages of a farmer's son, spending the winter months in the country school and the remainder of the year at hard labor on the farm.
As he approached young manhood he was possessed of an ardent desire to acquire a thorough literary education and partly by teaching and partly upon borrowed money he was enabled in 1871 to complete a classical course of instruc- tion, receiving upon graduation the degree of A. B., and three years later the honorary degree of A. M., and in 1887 he was given the honorary degree of A. M. by Penn College. He received private undergraduate instruction from Dr: Lewis Mckibben at Hillsboro, Ohio, and he also took post-graduate work under Dr. Phillips in civil engineering at Armour Institute, Chicago.
Professor Wright began his career as a teacher in the country schools of Highland and Clinton counties, Ohio. In 1872 he was elected to the position
D. SANDS WRIGHT
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of associate president of Whittier College, located at Salem, Henry county, Iowa, and in 1874 his associate, Professor C. C. Pickett, having resigned, he was chosen president of the institution by its board of directors. Two years later the Iowa State Normal School was established by the legislature of the state and he was called by the board of trustees of the new institution to the chair of English language and literature. He has therefore been connected with the school at Cedar Falls since its origin in 1876. He was transferred in 1881 from the chair of English to that of mathematics, which position he has filled for over a third of a century. Since 1875 he has been a prominent and active member of the Iowa State Teachers Association, has served for many years as a member of its educational council and as a member of its important committees has been a power in the shaping and directing of its policies. In 1904 he served as president of the association. In educational circles in Iowa he is widely known in many capacities. He has appeared in all parts of the state as a conductor of teachers' institutes and as an institute lecturer. He is always at home with a class of teachers and his didactic talks and lectures are familiar, practical and entertaining. He treats his hearers to no fine-spun and untried theories but to conclusions and inferences largely drawn from his own experience in the different grades of public-school work, while there is a quiet vein of humor in his addresses, which take a decidedly sarcastic turn when he is exposing the shams and follies of educational quacks and pretenders.
He is also well known on the popular lecture platform. He visited Europe in the 'Sos and on his return delighted many audiences by his lecture on What I Saw in Europe. Among his other lecture titles are The Coming Woman, Ideals, Personality, Lincoln, the Man of Fortune, Complete Education and the Rights of the Child. He has also given a great number of high school commencement addresses and high school baccalaureate sermons.
Professor Wright has written much for educational magazines, his articles published in the Iowa Normal Monthly alone numbering one hundred and forty- four. His first contributions to that journal were a series of twelve ironical educational articles, entitled The Scroggs Family, and were written under the nom de plume of Thephilus Von Puff. Many of his articles for the Monthly appeared in series, under such general titles as Lessons not Taught in the Books, Words, Reading, Arithmetic and Pedagog's Progress. Of the single articles may be mentioned as notable: Frank Davis; A. Jackson Smythe; Jug Town Academy ; and As Our Pupils See Us. These Normal Monthly articles have been extensively quoted and reproduced in other educational journals and some have been collected and published in book form. He is also the author of hand- books for teachers, which have had an extensive sale. The best known of these is his Exercises in Concrete Geometry, which is published by the well known house of D. C. Heath & Company, Boston, and was prepared for them at their request. The work is made up chiefly from the author's classroom notes and embodies the results of a lifetime's experience in teaching geometry in a state teachers' college. As a text-book it is unique in that it is based on the doctrine that theory should immediately precede practice; that when a principle is once learned by a pupil exercises should be at hand for its application. Its purpose is to obviate the criticism often justly made against geometrical study, that the student in the subject may be able to state all the whys and wherefores of a Vol. II-14
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demonstration in the best logical form and yet be utterly helpless to apply the principle so acquired to the solution of simple arithmetical problems.
On the 24th of July, 1880, Professor Wright was married to Miss Eliza Rawstern, on the day of her graduation from the Iowa State Normal School. To the union four children were born, a son and three daughters. The son, Joseph, distinguished himself as a student and on the athletic field, winning in the last year of his course in the Teachers College a place on the all-Iowa foot- ball eleven. Later he pursued a course of training in the Young Men's Christian Association Training School at Springfield, Massachusetts, and upon graduating from this institution was placed in charge of the athletic department of the Francis Parker Training School, Chicago, which position he has continued to fill for many years. Of the daughters, Luella is teaching Latin in the high school of North Yakima, Washington. May Wright Ratcliffe is the wife of William Ratcliffe, a prominent lawyer of Red Oak, Iowa. Ruth, the youngest, is pro- fessor of voice and physical training in Yankton College, Yankton, South Dakota. The children are all alumni of the Iowa State Teachers College and the two elder daughters are also graduates of the State University of Iowa.
At the 1912 commencement of the Teachers College, Professor Wright was recognized by a banquet given in his honor by the alumni. Two of the leading speakers on this occasion were Hon. E. D. Chassell, of Le Mars, and Hon. Rollo Patterson, of New York city. The quotation below is from the address of Mr. Chassell:
"Graduates go forth at each commencement, all owing a debt they can never repay to Professor D. Sands Wright; a debt which makes them better and kindlier and stronger men and women. It is the misfortune of many men to appear upon the world's stage at the wrong time, but here is a man who was staged at the right time. His achievements and his talents have done their good work at a fortunate epoch. It has not been his to paint a picture. It has not been his to build a railroad. It has not been his to discover a planet. We honor him for greater things. In this the world's greatest period of achievement he has been the inspiration animating unknown hundreds in every field of human activity. His work has increased forty times forty fold. He has been a builder of character. He has been a builder of men and women. No captain of industry and no general of military armies is so great a master and none other merits so great a reward. Neither war, famine nor pestilence can destroy his treasures, and commercial disasters cannot impair his securities."
W. H. HANNA.
W. H. Hanna, president of the Western Farmers Land Company, with offices in the Marsh-Place building in Waterloo, is a prominent figure in real- estate circles, his intelligently directed activity and enterprise placing him among the leaders in this line. His life record had its beginning in Benton county on the Ioth of May, 1859, his parents being A. H. and Rose Anna Hanna, who came to Iowa in 1857 from Stark county, Ohio, which was their birthplace. They took up their abode in Benton county and the father there owned and operated
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a farm. He purchased his first land from the government and as time passed added to his original holdings until he became the owner of a valuable farm. For many years he carefully and systematically tilled his fields and when he had acquired a handsome competence he retired and took up his abode in Benton, where he lived for twenty-two years prior to his death. In politics he was an active republican, giving earnest and intelligent support to the party and its principles, believing that its platform contained the best elements of good gov- ernment. In his family were five children: Belle; John, who owns, occupies and cultivates the old homestead farm formerly the property of his father ; W. H., of this review; James; and Howard.
The youthful experiences of W. H. Hanna were those which usually fall to the lot of the farm lad. He was reared in Benton county and acquired his education in the common schools. From an early age he displayed notable business ability and keen discernment and when he was but twenty-six years of age he had charge of a farm of seven hundred acres, which he operated in con- nection with the conduct of an extensive live-stock business. He handled stock in such numbers that he fed all of the grain which he raised and also purchased fifteen thousand bushels annually to add to that which he had raised.
Mr. Hanna continued his active connection with farming interests until IQII. On the Ist of January of that year the Western Farmers Land Company was organized and capitalized for five million five hundred thousand dollars, with W. H. Hanna as president; J. Y. Campbell, vice president ; C. F. Robe, secretary ; and R. W. Gibson, treasurer. In the company are more than five hundred stockholders, living in various sections of the United States and Canada, and they are principally farmers. The business has been placed upon a profitable basis. They conduct a general land business, buying and selling and trafficking in lands in this country and across the border in Canada. This is known as the strongest, the largest and the most reliable real-estate firm in Iowa. The policy instituted is largely the result of the enterprise, insight and splendid busi- ness methods of Mr. Hanna, who recognized the opportunities along this line and has so directed his efforts that he has not only derived personal benefit but has also made the company a profitable concern. His worth is widely acknowl- edged and his power conceded by all with whom he has been brought in contact. He is both forceful and resourceful and aside from his connection with the Western Farmers Land Company he has many business interests, being a director of the Peoples Savings Bank of Vinton; of the Farmers Savings Bank of Gar- rison ; a director of the Greeley State Bank at Golsey, Nebraska; a director in the Benton County Agricultural Society; a stockholder in the Garrison Grain & Lumber Company of Garrison, Iowa; president of the Farmers Mercantile Store of Garrison, Iowa ; and an equal owner with E. D. Bergen in the Oakridge Stock Farm, which comprises seven hundred acres.
Mr. Hanna is a man of marked determination and carries forward to suc- cessful completion whatever he undertakes. His judgment is sound, his dis- crimination keen and his energy is unfaltering. He seems to readily recognize the full possibilities of any business situation and he is able to coordinate appar- ently diverse elements into a unified and harmonious whole.
In 1883 Mr. Hanna was united in marriage to Miss Rachel Bergen, a native of Benton county, Iowa, and a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Bergen, who
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were pioneers of that county. They came from Indiana and the father followed farming in this state until his retirement from active business life. They had a family of five children, Joseph, Mrs. Hanna, Martha, Dunning and Guy. To our subject and wife have been born three children: Harry, deceased : Roberta ; and Belle.
Mr. and Mrs. Hanna are members of the Presbyterian church. Mr. Hanna's grandfather was a preacher of the Presbyterian church and three of his nine sons became preachers, while all nine have served as elders in the church. Mr. Hanna is likewise connected with the church in the same capacity and has done effective and earnest work to further its interests and welfare. His political allegiance is given to the republican party, which elected him to represent the district in the thirty-second general assembly. He studies political questions with the same thoroughness and accuracy which he displayed in mastering busi- ness problems and at all times manifests a public-spirited devotion to the gen- eral good. His business career is a notably successful one and at every point thoroughly commendable. He has at all times been actuated by a spirit of advancement, yet he has never been known to take advantage of the necessities of his fellowmen in any business transaction. He has ever realized that honesty is the best policy and he has employed constructive methods in the conduct of his interests.
MARK T. HUMPHREY.
Mark T. Humphrey is conducting a growing and profitable business as a dealer in electrical supplies, motors, lamps and fixtures and he also takes con- tracts for installing electric light systems in farm houses and in small towns. An analyzation of his life record shows that industry, close application, persever- ance and a commendable ambition have been the chief elements in his growing success. He is one of Black Hawk county's native sons, his birth having occurred in Eagle Center, Eagie township, December 22, 1886. His parents were Thomas J. and Olive ( Roberts ) Humphrey.
The father was born in the state of New York and devoted his life to farm- ing. He came to lowa in the spring of 1864, settling near Eagle Center, where he purchased land, paying three dollars per acre for his first eighty acre tract. He added to this from time to time as his financial resources increased and brought his place to a high state of cultivation. His methods of farming were at all times practical and progressive and he won a substantial measure of suc- cess. He continued to reside upon the farm until the fall of 1901, when he . moved to Waterloo and retired from active business, spending his remaining days in the enjoyment of well earned rest. He was secretary of the Eagle Center Dairy Association and his influence was always on the side of progress and improvement as related to the various phases of agricultural life. He was a stockholder and the treasurer of the Black Hawk County Farmers Mutual Fire and Lightning Insurance Association. He was always interested in public affairs and several times was called to office. He served as a trustee of his. township and was a member of the board of supervisors when the Fourth Street
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