USA > Idaho > History of Idaho, the gem of the mountains, Volume II > Part 20
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His great interest in all development work brought about his election as vice president of the National Irrigation Congress, which position he held during the years of 1896 and 1898. He was later a member of the executive committee of that organiza- tion for the years 1900 and 1904. During his connection with this organization it be- came in no small measure through his efforts, an instrumentality in securing the enactment of national reclamation laws. He was president of the Trans-Mississippi Commercial Congress, and also of the Western Development League.
Naturally Mr. Brady's great interest in all public movements brought about his participation in politics, and the great energy and executive ability which he dis- played in his business enterprises distinguished him as an organizer and leader in the republican party, and his foresight, business intelligence, personal popularity and capacity for work made him a valuable asset to that party in his state. He was elected
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a delegate to the republican national convention of 1900, 1908 and 1916, acting as chair- man of the Idaho delegation to the convention of 1908. He was a member of the delegation selected by the convention to notify President William H. Taft of his nomination by that convention. In 1904 he became chairman of the republican state central committee of Idaho and was again selected in 1906 and led his party to victory in both campaigns. He was nominated in convention by acclamation as republican candidate for governor in 1908 and was elected November 3d of that year by a mag- nificent majority. Senator Brady took with him into the governor's office, his wonder- ful experience as a builder and an intimate knowledge of the needs of his state and a profound feeling of responsibility to his constituents. His administration of this office is noted in the history of the state as a period during which its greatest develop- ment occurred along constructive lines.
After his retirement as chief executive of his state, he again turned his attention with renewed vigor to the development of the agricultural resources of his state, per- sonally investing large sums in a project near Mountain Home and rehabilitated that project, which was on the road to ruin, carrying with it the hopes and dreams of pioneer settlers. With the view of interesting the east in the wonderful opportunities afforded by the west, Mr. Brady in 1911 arranged for a special train to carry the governors of the middle west and north states across the continent, visiting all the principal cities between St. Paul and New York. This movement was known as the "Governors' Special" and it undoubtedly performed a wonderful mission for the benefit of the west. On January 24, 1913, Mr. Brady was elected by the legislature of the state of Idaho to fill the unexpired term of the late Senator Heyhurn. He was a candidate to succeed himself and was reelected by vote of his people at the general election in November, 1914, for a full six year term. On entering the senate his success in business affairs and his long experience in handling large enterprises was recognized by the leaders of that body giving him committee assignments of great importance, among which was that of a member of the military affairs committee. The advent of this country into the World war imposed a great responsibility upon this committee, and Senator Brady, although then in failing health and warned time and again by his friends and physicians of his personal danger in over-exertion, nevertheless threw his whole soul into his labor, and to this work, more than any other cause may be attributed his final break- down in health.
Senator Brady was an earnest supporter of legislation for the preparation and conduct of the war and for making the most liberal provision for the equipment and comfort of the soldiers and the care of their families. Although a strict party man, no thought of party advancement influenced him in the consideration of legislation per- taining to the conduct of the war. He was enthusiastic in his support of the govern- ment's plans to assume the large burden our republic was to bear in the world con- flict. He passed away in his home in Washington, D. C., January 13, 1918, and his dying regret was that he could not live to do his part in the solution of the problems which he saw would confront this country after the victory, which he knew would come to the arms of the Allies.
Senator Brady is survived by his widow, formerly Miss Irene Moore of Chicago, Illinois, and two sons by a former marriage, S. E. Brady and J. Robb Brady, both of whom are now residents of Pocatello, Idaho, the Senator's home town, and are actively engaged in looking after the large interests of their father's estate, taking the same wholesome and vigorous part in public questions and problems as characterized their great father.
Of the many admirable characteristics possessed by the late Senator Brady per- haps his great generosity was the most conspicuous. No needy charitable enterprise was ever neglected by him. His modesty was such that his gifts to worthy causes, which really amounted to fortunes, were almost secretly accomplished. Great numbers of substantial men in Idaho today are free to acknowledge that through Senator Brady they have been strengthened and made happier and better. Many young men have been aided by him to secure an education who otherwise would have been handicapped in life's battles. He was one of the largest contributors to the Children's Home Find- ing and Aid Society of Boise, of which he served as president. He was also organizer of the Boys and Girls Club of the state of Idaho, to the support of which he contributed liberally until the general assembly made it a state institution.
Senator Brady was a wise and useful legislator, a generous and unselfish friend, an eminent and patriotic 'citizen. Reared upon a farm in Pennsylvania, with no special advantages or opportunities beyond those given to the great majority of men,
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the inherent force of his character, his laudable ambition, his recognition of life's values, duties and responsibilities, led him into most important relations with public interests and every cause or activity with which he was connected benefited by his cooperation and support. It is impossible to overestimate the value of his service or measure the breadth of his accomplishments. While he was widely recognized as a foremost factor in the development of the irrigation interests of the state and in the promotion of its agricultural activity, his labors along other lines were of an equally important and worthy character. He was a potent power in the political history, not only of the state but of the nation, and great and important as were his activities in these connections, he regarded as equally important the needs of his fellowmen toward the development of philanthropic and moral interests and was a most close and dis- criminating student of the signs of the times in relation to all those great sociological problems which constitute the foundation of the nation's welfare. Wherever he went in the east or west, his ability was recognized and his salient qualities and genial manner were such as won for him warm personal friendship among the humble and the lowly, the great and the mighty throughout the land.
A. R. HOMER.
A. R. Homer, cashier of the Idaho Falls National Bank, was born in Clarkston, Cache county, Utah, March 18, 1883 a son of R. K. and Eleanor (Atkinson) Homer, the former a native of Salt Lake City and the latter of Wellsville, Cache county, Utah. The father was a farmer, who in 1889 came to Idaho, where he has since resided. He is now operating a farm pleasantly and conveniently situated a mile and a half from Idaho Falls. The mother is also living. In their family were nine children, namely: Russell K., who follows farming in Idaho; A. R., of this review; George A. and Brigham E., who are also farmers; Norah, the wife of John G. Grover, living at Archer, Idaho; W. H., a banker of Ririe, Idaho; Edmund E., living at Idaho Falls, where he is a clerk in the Browning Garage; John a farmer; and Lyda, at home.
A. R. Homer was reared and educated at Rigby, Idaho. He supplemented his public school training by study in the Rex Academy at Rexburg, Idaho, and also in the Brigham Young College at Logan, Utah. He then entered the First National Bank of Logan, where he was employed for two years, after which he secured a position in the National Bank of the Republic at Salt Lake City, where he remained for five years. He was then sent to Switzerland on a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints, laboring in Switzerland and Germany for three years. After his return he entered the National City Bank at Salt Lake City, where he was employed for three years, and afterward became cashier of the Farmers & Merchants Bank at Logan, Utah, acting in that capacity for two years. He left that place to come to Idaho Falls, Idaho, and assist in the organization of the Idaho Falls National Bank on the 20th of Decem- ber, 1918. The bank was organized with Frank Pingree as the president and A. R. Homer as cashier. Mr. Pingree is also the cashier of the National City Bank of Salt Lake City. The other officers of the institution are Jabec Ritchie, first vice president, and A. E. Stanger, second vice president. The bank has been capitalized for one hun- dred thousand dollars and now has a surplus of twenty thousand dollars and deposits amounting to six hundred thousand dollars. The company purchased the building which they occupy, which is a modern bank building, supplied with the latest equipment. Among the directors and stockholders of the institution are many men of recognized ability and prominence in business circles. The bank has been established on a safe conservative basis, with a policy that commends itself to the public, and its business has steadily grown since its doors were first opened.
Mr. Homer was married to Miss Delva Haycock on the 18th of December, 1918. Politically he is a republican and he retains his membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He is recognized as an earnest, capable and cultured young man, possessed of practical business ideas and actuated at all points in his career by laudable ambition. He has been gladly welcomed to the ranks of business men and citizens of Idaho Falls, where he came not as a stranger but as one well known be- cause of his well earned reputation. In various ways he has also won wide recogni- tion as a successful business man through his extensive operations in farming and stock raising in connection with his three brothers, W. H., B. E. and John Homer, who are operating two thousand acres of land nineteen miles east of Idaho Falls, on which
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they are running cattle and sheep and raising hay and grain, having four hundred acres planted to wheat and barley. His interests are thus extensive aside from banking, and his forcefulness and resourcefulness in business make him indeed a valued factor in the district which he has chosen as his place of residence.
HON. ISAAC ALBERT SMOOT.
Hon. Isaac Albert Smoot, residing in St. Anthony, Fremont county, where he has important ranching and real estate interests, has recently retired from the position of land commissioner of the state of Idaho. He was horn in Provo, Utah, November 3, 1880, and is a son of the Hon. Abraham Owen Smoot, who passed away in 1914 and who was also a native of Utah, having heen horn in Salt Lake City, September 9, 1858. He served as state senator in Utah for sixteen years and as United States commissioner for many years and was prominent in the affairs of the state for a very extended period. He was a son of Abraham Owen Smoot, Sr., who was one of the leading Mormons of Utah and one of the high officials of the Mormon church. His birth occurred in Kentucky and he brought the second colony of one hundred Mormons to Utah in 1847, acting as captain of the wagon train. Brigham Young had hrought the first one hundred earlier in the same year. Mr. Smoot became president of the Utah Stake of Zion of Utah county and was the first mayor of Salt Lake City, in which position he continued to serve for fourteen years. Later he served as mayor of Provo, Utah, for eighteen years. His second son is United States Senator Reed Smoot, of Utah, the father of Isaac A. Smoot heing the eldest son in the family.
Isaac A. Smoot was reared in Provo, Utah, where he acquired his early education, and subsequently was a student in the Brigham Young University of that place. He left the university at the age of nineteen and for four years thereafter devoted his atten- tion to mining in the Tintic district. Later he served for two and a half years as a Mormon missionary in England in obedience to a call from the church, remaining abroad from 1903 until 1906. On his return home he soon became local manager of the Bell Telephone Company at Provo and six months later was promoted to the position of district manager for the corporation, in which capacity he continued to serve for six years. In 1912 he was elected county assessor of Utah county, Utah, while ahsent from his home town and county, and he never returned home during the campaign. His election therefore indicates most clearly his personal popularity and the confidence which was reposed in him by his fellow townsmen. He was nominated on the democratic ticket during his absence without his knowledge and his brother at the convention attempted to prevent the nomination. Notwithstanding this he received three hundred more votes than any other candidate on the ticket and continued to fill the position for two years.
In the meantime, or on the 31st of March, 1909, Mr. Smoot had married an Idaho girl, the daughter of Samuel R. Parkinson, of Franklin, Idaho, who has now reached the venerable age of eighty-nine years and is one of the oldest pioneers of the state and the second settler of Franklin, Idaho, where he yet makes his home. He, too, is promi- nent in the Mormon church, in which he has served as hishop for forty years. Mrs. Smoot is one of the thirty-two children of Mr. Parkinson, of whom twenty-nine are living. The Parkinson family, including father and twelve living sons, are all promi- nent in public affairs in Idaho and Utah. The father's posterity now numbers over three hundred.
Mr. Smoot's marriage to Miss Parkinson finally led to his removal to Idaho, for on the occasion of several visits to his wife's people in this state he became greatly im- pressed with its possibilities and in 1915 he took up his abode at St. Anthony, where he became interested in both ranching and real estate. In the fall of 1916 he was made chairman of the democratic county committee of Fremont county and succeeded in electing the entire democratic ticket that fall in what is normally a strong republican county. In January. 1917, he was appointed by the Idaho state land board, without solicitation on his part, to the office of state land commissioner. He entered upon the duties of the position on the 1st of January, 1917, for a two years' term but on the 5th of August, 1918, resigned and returned to his former home in Fremont county. He does not seem to have the political ambition which has actuated his father and grand- father and which is so often an incentive for valuable public service. In 1901, however, he filled the office of clerk in the Utah state senate, occupying the position for one term.
I. aSmooth
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To Mr. and Mrs. Smoot have been born three children, two sons and a daughter: Ruth P., Albert P. and Richard P. The initial in each instance stands for the name Parkinson. Mr. Smoot and his family continue their membership in the Mormon church. They are well known in their part of the state and Mr. Smoot is recognized as a man of marked business ability and enterprise who carries forward to successful completion whatever he undertakes.
HON. JOHN McMURRAY.
Among those who are engaged in framing the laws of Idaho through membership in the state senate is Hon. John McMurray, who was elected to the upper house of the general assembly from Cassia county, his home being at Oakley, where he is a well known banker, farmer and sheep raiser. His connection with the financial interests of the state is that of president of the Farmers Bank at Oakley. He has lived in Idaho since 1882, arriving in this state when a lad of but eight years. He was born in Grantsville, Utah, June 12, 1873, a son of Charles K. and Mary A. (Hudson) McMurray, who were natives of Ohio and of Pennsylvania respectively. They were married in Utah and in 1882 removed to Idaho, settling on a farm in Cassia county. Both have now passed away. It is a tradition in the family that the material grandfather, William Hudson, was one of the Mormon battalion that went to California in 1849 and that when in the employ of Sutter, digging a millrace, he discovered gold, but Sutter was given the credit for the discovery.
John McMurray spent his youth upon the home ranch in Cassia county and upon reaching his majority he took up farming and stock raising on his own account, giving his attention largely to sheep. He has since been active in the business and is today one of the prominent sheepmen of his section of the state. He has become a large land- owner in his county, making judicious investments in property from time to time as his financial resources 'have increased. He has also become actively connected with financial affairs as the president of the Farmers Bank of Oakley.
Mr. McMurray gives his political allegiance to the republican party, of which he is a stalwart champion, although his father was a supporter of democratic principles. Mr. McMurray has served for one term as county commissioner and for two terms filled the office of representative in the Idaho legislature before his election to the state senate on the 5th of November, 1918. He is now a member of the upper branch of the general assembly, where he is serving as chairman of the live stock committee and a member of the committees on education and on agriculture.
When twenty-seven years of age Mr. McMurray was married to Miss Clara Louise Dahlquist, and they are the parents of five living children, four sons and a daughter: Thelma, John Odell, Raymond, Gomez and Kay. Mr. McMurray is well known in the section of the state where for thirty-eight years he has made his home. His life has been well spent and his activity and enterprise have brought to him a gratifying measure of success, while his devotion to public duty has gained him prominence and honor in connection with the affairs of the commonwealth.
ALBERT A. JESSUP, D. D. S.
Dr. Albert A. Jessup, dental surgeon of Boise and for six years a member of the Idaho state board of dental examiners, was born at Salem, Oregon, February 27, 1875, a son of Dr. Solon R. and Sophronia (Soshow) Jessup, the former of English and the latter of French descent. The mother is also descended from ancestors who served in the Revolutionary war and she has membership with the Daughters of the American Revolution, while her son, Dr. Jessup, is connected with the Sons of the American Revolution. His father, Dr. Solon R. Jessup, was a physician and surgeon who prac- ticed successfully in Salem, Oregon, for more than thirty years and there passed away October 15, 1902.
Dr. Albert A. Jessup was educated in the public schools of Oregon and in Willamette University and the University of Oregon. He then went east for further study and was graduated from the Chicago College of Dental Surgery in 1898, with the degree of D. D. S. Returning to the west, he has successfully practiced in Boise for a number
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of years and his high professional standing is indicated in the fact that for six years he served as a member of the Idaho state board of dental examiners and for five years of that time was its secretary. He was also honored with the presidency of the Idaho State Dental Society, with which he still has membership, and he served as chair- man for Idaho and honorary president of the Panama-Pacific Dental Congress. He likewise belongs to the National Dental Society and is a member of the Lamba Chap- ter of the Xi Psi Phi, a dental fraternity. He has put forth every effort to keep in touch with the latest advances made in the science of dentistry and employs the most modern methods in his practice, which has now grown to extensive proportions.
Dr. Jessup is a member of the Boise Commercial Club, also the Boise Rotary Club, the Boise Country Club and the Boise Golf Club. He is a Mason of high rank, having taken the various degrees of the York and Scottish Rites save the honorary thirty- third degree, and he is also a member of the Mystic Shrine. He is a past master of the lodge; past high priest of the chapter and past grand high priest of the Grand Chapter. He is past thrice illustrious master of the council and a past commander and past grand commander of the Knights Templar; past venerable master of Albert Pike Lodge of Perfection, fourteenth degree; past wise master of Pelican Chapter of Rose Croix, eighteenth degree, past commander of Boise Council of Kadosh, thirtieth de- gree; past master of Kadosh of Boise Consistory, thirty-second degree; and past grand sovereign of the Grand Imperial Council of the Red Cross of Constantine of the United States. He has for the past eleven years been elected representative of El Korah Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S., to the Imperial Council of the order for North America. He is widely known as one of the prominent Masons of the state, a loyal exemplar of the teachings of the craft, and is likewise identified with the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks.
HENRY H. SCHILDMAN.
Henry H. Schildman is a typical business man of the west, alert to every oppor- tunity presented, of which his enterprise prompts him to take advantage. He is now the president of the Farmers & Merchants Bank at Filer, Idaho, and is also well known as a real estate dealer and stockman. Illinois claims him as a native son, his birth having occurred at Warsaw, that state, on the 20th of November, 1871, his parents being John H. and Josephine Schildman. His boyhood days were there passed and he pursued his education in the schools of that place and in the Western Normal College at Bush- nell, Illinois. He was a youth of seventeen years when in 1888 he made his way west to Spokane, Washington. He engaged in clerking for a time and then removed to North Yakima, where he was employed by the merchandising house of Coffin Brothers. He went to Lewiston, Idaho, when that firm established business there in 1895, opening an extensive mercantile institution which was conducted for twelve years. They also established branch stores at Fort Lapwal, Kamiah, Nezperce, Ilo and Forest.
Mr. Schildman remained an active factor in the management and conduct of those stores until 1907, when he came to the Twin Falls country, purchasing the land where the town of Filer now stands. He plotted the land and organized the townsite com- pany in the fall of the same year. He then opened a general merchandise store, which he conducted successfully for six years, enjoying a large trade as the country de- veloped. In the spring of 1908 he became one of the organizers of the Filer State Bank and was elected its vice president and also a member of its board of directors. He was connected with the institution until 1912, when he disposed of his stock to Messrs. Shearer and Haag. In 1913 he sold his mercantile business to C. A. Love, who is still conducting the store. Mr. Schildman then devoted his attention to looking after his landed interests which he had purchased in the early years of the development of the tract. He also invested in live stock, both as a dealer and breeder of registered shorthorn cattle, Hampshire sheep and Poland China hogs. His live stock interests have developed to large proportions and at the present time he has one of the best herds of shorthorn cattle to be found in the state, numbering fifty head, and he finds a ready sale for all of the stock which he places upon the market. In the fall of 1917 he be- came associated with Messrs. Madland and Shear in organizing the Farmers & Mer- chants Bank of Filer, which is capitalized at twenty-five thousand dollars and now has a surplus of twenty-five hundred dollars, enjoying a prosperous business.
In 1904 Mr. Schildman was married to Miss Kathleen Tarbox, and with their one son, James, they occupy a very pleasant home at Filer, enjoying all of the comforts
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and many of the luxuries of life. Mr. Schildman has made steady progress since starting out in business as a clerk in the northwest, advancing step by step, and in the utilization of the opportunities which have come to him he has gained a most creditable name and place.
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