USA > Idaho > History of Idaho, the gem of the mountains, Volume III > Part 12
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Mr. Selby and his wife are members of the Christian church and in the social circles of the city they occupy an enviable position, having a circle of friends almost co- extensive with the circle of their acquaintance. Mr. Selby is a Master Mason and exemplifies in his life the beneficent spirit of the craft. In politics he maintains an independent course, supporting the men whom he believes best qualified for office regardless of party affiliation. He is fond of fishing and hunting, to which he turns for recreation when leisure permits. His success is due largely to his close application and indefatigahle energy, which have in the course of years brought to him a large clientage.
HERBERT G. MYERS.
Herbert G. Myers, organizer of the firm of H. G. Myers & Company, conducting a brokerage, loan and insurance business, with offices in the Overland building of Boise, is a Nebraskan hy birth. He was born upon a farm in Custer county, June 6, 1885, being one of the four sons of John E. and Amanda M. (Shedd) Myers, who now reside in Boise, to which city they removed from Nebraska about five years ago. The father is a retired farmer.
Herbert G. Myers was reared on a cattle ranch in Custer county, Nebraska, and was educated in the public schools of that state and in the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. After completing his college course he spent a year on his father's cattle ranch and later was for a year editor and lessee of a weekly newspaper at Broken Bow, Nebraska, covering the period from September, 1908, until September, 1909. He came to Boise in 1910 and here became a member of the firm of A. L. Murphy & Com- pany, conducting a real estate and insurance agency. He has since been identified with the brokerage, loan and insurance business in Boise and for many years has conducted
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his business interests under the style of H. G. Myers & Company. He organized the business in 1913 and is sole owner. During the past seven years he has maintained offices in the Overland building and has secured a large clientage as the years have passed. He acts as financial agent of large local installment houses, discounting their paper and taking over their customers' notes. This is the pioneer concern of the kind in Boise and in fact the only firm doing a business of similar character in Idaho.
Mr. Myers returned to his native state for the purpose of winning his bride. He was married on the 24th of May, 1910, at Broken Bow, Nebraska, to Miss Grace Beck, who had previously been a teacher in the public schools of Nebraska and Illinois. They have become parents of three children: Bonnie, Herbert G., Jr., and Reginald, aged respectively six, four and one years. Mr. and Mrs. Myers occupy an attractive modern bungalow which they own at 1411 North Seventeenth street, and Mr. Myers has also become the owner of a good ranch property at Glenns Ferry, Idaho.
Fraternally he is an Elk, an Odd Fellow and a Knight of Pythias and is loyal to the purposes of these organizations. His political support is given to the republican party, and while never an office seeker, his interest in the general welfare and the growth and progress of the community is shown in his connection with the Boise Chamber of Commerce. He has profited by the opportunities of the growing northwest and year by year has made steady progress in a business way until he now occupies an enviable position in the financial circles of his adopted city.
FRANK M. EBY.
Frank M. Eby, a real estate dealer who has been a resident of Ada county for the past thirty-three years and since 1901 has made his home continuously in Boise, was but ten years of age when he accompanied his parents on the removal from Montana to Idaho in 1885. He was born upon a farm in Tama county, Iowa, May 1, 1875, a son of Melancthon Fillmore and Caroline (Reinig) Eby, who are, now residing just outside the corporation limits of Boise. Both of the grandmothers of Frank M. Eby are also living and his paternal grandmother, Mrs. Sarah J. Eby, makes her home just south of Boise. She has reached the age of eighty-eight years. The maternal grand- mother is still a resident of Tama county, Iowa. Five generations of the Eby family are living.
Frank M. Eby was reared upon the home farm near Boise following the removal of the family to ldaho, and in the public schools he acquired his education, also pursuing a course in a business college. He continued to engage in farming until 1905, since which times he has concentrated his efforts and attention upon the real estate business, handling both city and country property.
On the 25th of December, 1895, Mr. Eby was united in marriage to Miss Charlotte Lindsay, who was born in Ada county, Idaho, March 28, 1877, and passed away December 15, 1919, leaving four living children: Fred B., Charles Dexter, Melvin Charles and Andrew Harold. The eldest son is married and has a daughter ahout a year and a half old. For more than a third of a century Mr. Eby has resided in Ada county and is therefore largely familiar with the history of its development and progress, while as a real estate dealer he is contributing to its steady advancement. He has gained a large clientage in his line of business and has negotiated various important property transfers. There have been no spectacular phases in his life, his progress being due to his close application, persistency of purpose and reliability in all of his business affairs.
NOAH W. STRUNK.
Noah W. Strunk, president of the Overland Real Estate Company of Boise, has been identified with the development of the northwest for a period of thirteen years or since coming to Idaho in 1907 from Mountain Grove, Missouri. For several years he engaged in ranching before taking up his abode in Boise in 1913, since which time he has engaged in the real estate business, in which he is associated with his brother, D. C. Strunk, under the name of the Overland Real Estate Company.
Noah W. Strunk was born at Mountain Grove, Missouri, February 14, 1878, and is a son of Demcy and Prudy (Wood) Strunk. The father was a veteran of the Civil
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war, having served in the Union army with the First Kentucky Cavalry. After the close of hostilities he removed to the vicinity of Mountain Grove, Missouri, and resided upon one farm there for a period of forty-eight years, passing away in 1917. He had for almost two decades survived his wife, who died in 1899.
Noah W. Strunk is one of a family of eight sons and two daughters, all of whom are yet living. He was reared upon the home farm, early becoming familiar with the best methods of tilling the soil and caring for the crops. In early manhood he taught school for three terms and he acquired a good business education, thus becoming well qualified for life's practical and responsible duties. Ere leaving Missouri he was married on the 10th of September, 1907, to Miss Rena Thompson, who was born and reared in California. They became the parents of two children: Cleo, born April 22, 1909; and Leo, August 31, 1914.
It was in the year of his marriage that Mr. Strunk came from Mountain Grove, Missouri, to Idaho, where he has since made his home. For six years he was engaged in ranching and in the live stock business near Richfield, Lincoln county, there remain- ing from 1907 until 1913, when he came to Boise and embarked in the real estate business. He is familiar with property values here and has negotiated many important realty transfers, having now a large clientage that makes his business a profitable one. He had very little capital when he came to Boise and his success since that time is due to his close application, his thorough study of real estate conditions and his undaunted enterprise. He is now a well-to-do man, owning a fine home which includes two acres of land at Wyley Station, on which is a six-room modern bungalow with all improvements. In addition he has several other good ranch properties, from which he derives a gratifying annual income.
Mr. Strunk is fond of hunting and fishing, to which he turns for recreation. In politics he is a republican but has never been an office seeker. He belongs to the Boise Chamber of Commerce and is interested in all that has to do with the welfare and upbuilding of his city. Those who know him, and he has gained a wide acquaint- ance, regard him as a progressive business man and one who in social relations has ever commanded the confidence and goodwill of all with whom he has come in contact.
COLONEL R. D. ARNOLD.
Colonel R. D. Arnold, an auctioneer and farmer of Nampa, was born in Nashville, Tennessee, September 20, 1880, his parents being Lindsey and Betty Ann (Baker) Arnold, who are residents of Sparta, Tennessee. The father, who there successfully followed farming and merchandising, conducting a department store for more than twenty years, is now living retired in the enjoyment of well earned rest. F. W. Arnold, brother of Colonel Arnold of this review, is in the stock business in Valley county, Idaho, where he has about two hundred head of breeding cattle.
Colonel Arnold attended the common schools and Doyle College to the age of six- teen years, when he went to Nebraska and through the succeeding eight years engaged in farming. He then removed to the San Luis valley of Colorado and for two years thereafter devoted his attention to farming and to anctioneering. Once more attracted by the opportunities of the "farther west," he went to Long Valley, Idaho, where he not only gave his attention to the cultivation of the soil but also to stock raising for three years. On the expiration of that period Nampa won him as a citizen and throughout the entire period of his residence here he has concentrated his attention and activities upon stock buying and anctioneering. He occupies a fine home standing in the midst of twelve and a half acres of land near the Carnation condensery and conducts his place as a small dairy farm. He has recently built several five-room bungalows near his residence and for this property has found a ready sale. He instituted his first auction sale in Nampa on the last Saturday in October, 1914, and his business in this connection now averages one hundred thousand dollars per year, all of which is put into circulation in Nampa, and the attendance at the sales, which are conducted every two weeks at the public stock yards, is always between one thousand and thirty-five hundred people. This is a source of great benefit to the merchants of Nampa, bringing a large amount of trade to the city, and as a one-man factor he does a great deal toward attracting people and money to this district. The sales, which he has conducted for the past five years in Nampa, have been of vast worth to the community and to him is due the credit for the establishment of the stock yards here. Each sale will
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COLONEL R. D. ARNOLD
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average seventy-five head of cattle and the same number of hogs. His associate in the business is George Harvey Moore, of Nampa.
On the 14th of February, 1907, Mr. Arnold was married to Miss Edna Blanche Reece, a daughter of Kimmer Reece, of Ashland, Nebraska. They have three children: Lindsey Kimmer, eleven years of age; Clarke Reece, aged ten; and Hayes Baker, aged five. Such in brief is the history of Colonel Arnold, who is a most progressive business man, alert and energetic. While prompted by a laudable ambition to attain success for himself and family, he is at the same time ever keenly interested in the welfare of the community in which he makes his home and his cooperation can at all times be counted upon to further measures for the general good.
JOHN W. HAYS, JR.
John W. Hays, Jr., county assessor of Clark county, Idaho, and a resident of Dubois, was born in Waterloo, Iowa, in July, 1879, his parents being John W. and Emma S. (Reber) Hays, the former a native of Iowa and the latter of Illinois. The father was a locomotive engineer and farmer and carried on agricultural pursuits in Blackhawk county, Iowa, until 1887, when he removed to Council Bluffs. There he turned his attention to railroading and was transferred by the Union Pacific to the Oregon Short Line Railroad, representing which he came to Idaho in 1889. Here he followed railroad work throughout his remaining days and for twelve years was a resident of Dubois. He also lived for a time at Boise and at Glenns Ferry, Idaho, and passed away on the 18th of January, 1918, having for about twelve years survived his wife, who died in 1906.
John W. Hays, Jr., spent the period of his boyhood and youth at Waterloo, Iowa, up to the time when the family home was established in Idaho. He there pursued his early education, which he continued in the schools of Dubois, while later he hecame a student in the Utah Agricultural College at Logan. Starting out in the business world he became a salesman in a general store at Dubois and was thus engaged for fifteen years and four months-a fact indicative of his capability and the unfaltering trust reposed in him. He afterward devoted three years to the United States forest service at Mackay, Idaho, and on the expiration of that period took up land near Dubois and also purchased land. He then turned his attention to the raising of cattle and horses and has continued in the business since that time. He is now the owner of six hundred and eighty acres of improved land, which he has put in splendid shape, having cultivated the place for nine years. He makes a specialty of the raising of pure bred Percheron horses and Hereford cattle and his successfully managed live stock interests have placed him among the leading stockmen of the state. He is now divid- ing his time between his business affairs and official duties, for on the 25th of February, 1919, he was appointed by Governor Davis to the position of assessor of Clark county. Nine months prior to his appointment he had worked for the government as inspector of the six hundred and forty acre grazing land homesteads in eastern Oregon. He is a stockholder and the secretary of the Dubois Abstract Company and thus varied inter- ests are claiming his time and energies.
In March, 1902, Mr. Hays was married to Miss Olive Kendrick. He votes with the democratic party, fraternally is connected with the Modern Woodmen of America and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and his religious belief is that of the Methodist Episcopal church, of which he is a loyal and earnest supporter. There have been few leisure hours in his life. He is at all times busy with one duty or another having to do with the conduct of his business affairs, with his official service or with his obligations in citizenship. His course has ever conformed to high standards and he is accounted one of the valued residents of the newly created county of Clark.
AARON V. TALLMAN.
Aaron V. Tallman, water master of the Boise river and special deputy to the commissioner of reclamation of Idaho for the Arrowrock reservoir, has filled these positions for the past six years, giving most efficient and valuable service. He resides on a good ten-acre ranch adjoining the town of Meridian on the north, and throughout
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the period of his residence in Idaho he has been closely studying irrigation projects and problems in connection with the development of the state and the utilization of its natural resources. Mr. Tallman was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, June 12, 1887, and is a son of James G. and Jennie B. (De Water) Tallman. A brother of A. V. Tallman is Dr. Maurice H. Tallman, also a resident of the capital city.
Aaron V. Tallman accompanied his parents to Boise in 1904 and in the acquire- ment of his education was graduated from the high school of that city with the class of 1906. Later he took up the study of civil engineering in the State University of Iowa at Iowa City, where he studied for two years, and afterward continued his course in civil engineering in the University of Idaho. While a high school pupil he played on the football team and again on the State University team. He left the University of Idaho in the spring of 1909 and spent two years on canal construction work in his state, being for three and a half years with the United States department of agriculture on irrigation investigations in southern Idaho. He has held his present position since 1914, or for about six years, and as water master of the Boise river he has done most important work. The season of 1919 was a particularly hard one. For years there has not been such a drought as through the past summer. It was a time when crop failures were largely threatened unless water should be secured and this had to be done by getting some people to release their priority of claim in favor of others who were more in need of water. The Idaho Sunday Statesman in this connection said: "To A. V. Tallman, water master of the Boise river, has been delegated the seemingly impossible task of satisfying everybody that he was getting his just proportion of water. Tallman, as a result of his unusual judgment in handling such matters the past season, has gained a reputation for fairness that makes him the idol of practically every farmer in the valley today. Most persons who have heard of Tallman's rise would imagine that it is due to his having done well his regular official duties. But not only has Tallman done exceptionally well with his official duties, he also has taken on his shoulders by common consent duties which are not prescribed in his official regula- tions. He's the peacemaker for twenty-five hundred farmers! His fairness in dividing the waters between the various irrigation units at the forty-five headgates quickly made him popular with the farmers, and they extended his jurisdiction past the head- gates and right down to their individual farms. Tallman is called out of bed some- times at midnight to go down into some field and decide whether one farmer should have more water than the other. He is an expert on water duty. He has rare judicial temperament. When he makes a decision in a case it sticks. Sometimes one of the parties will have a sore spot in his heart a day or two for Tallman, but invariably he comes later to see the justice of the decision. Money is not everything but it is the gauge of your employer's appreciation. There is, therefore, significance in the fact that the water users recently increased Tallman's salary from twenty-seven hundred and fifty dollars per year to five thousand dollars! Through Tallman's settling of distribution difficulties, sometimes between individuals and sometimes between the whole units of the irrigation section, not a canal in Boise valley suffered crop losses during the present critical season."
The above shows how satisfactory has been the work of Mr. Tallman throughout the period of his service as water master of the Boise river. Another paper has said: "Mr. Tallman has made a remarkable record on the Boise project. It seems almost incredible that any man, no matter how earnest and efficient he might be, could satisfy everyone. Particularly is Mr. Tallman's success this year almost in the nature of a miracle. This has been a year of greatest water shortage that Idaho has ever known. Any inefficiency on the part of the water master miglit easily have brought about disastrous conditions in any one of several districts. As it is, the perils have all been met, the irrigation season is practically at its close and bountiful crops will be harvested everywhere in the valley by farmers who feel that they have been fairly and justly dealt with in the matter of irrigation matters. The record made by Mr. Tallman this year, as well as in the past years, is unique. Members of the Boise- Payette Water Users' Association have done well to express their appreciation and con- fidence for services so exceptional."
On the 4th of September, 1910, Mr. Tallman was married at Weiser, Idaho, to Miss Grace Elizabeth Brenner, who was born near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and came to this state with her parents when seventeen years of age. She has become the mother of a son and a daughter: Richard Grant, born September 23, 1912; and Betty Louise, born August 25, 1914.
Mr. Tallman is a member of the American Association of Engineers. He belongs also to the Beta Theta Pi, a college fraternity, and is connected with its Gamma Gamma
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Chapter at Moscow. He is likewise identified with the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks and is a thirty-second degree Mason and a member of El Korah Temple of Boise. Men who know him-and he has a very wide acquaintance-esteem him most highly for his sterling personal worth, his justice in the administration of his duties and his marked devotion to the best interests and welfare of Idaho.
LEE JENKINS.
Lee Jenkins is one of the proprietors of the Aberdeen Times, being in partner- ship with his wife, Charlotte E. Jenkins, in the publication of that journal. In early life he followed various occupations in different parts of this country, and finally, as has been the case with so many others who have learned the art of printing, he has become a publisher and newspaper editor.
Mr. Jenkins was born in San Francisco, California, February 8, 1886, and is a son of Frank and May (Martini) Jenkins, the former a native of Nebraska and the latter of San Francisco. The father, who is a saddler by trade, went to California in the '80s and there was married and worked at his trade until 1890. In that year he removed to Austin, Texas, and after a short stay in that city went on to Dallas, Texas, where he still resides. His wife died in 1900.
Lee Jenkins was reared and educated at Austin, Texas, and later learned harness- making in his father's workshop, continuing at that business for fifteen years. At the end of that period he turned his attention to the trade of printer, in Montana, and while learning it he was also homesteading in that state and at the same time was operating a newspaper at Enid, Montana, his various activities keeping him fully occu- pied. Some time later he went to western North Dakota and continued in the news- paper business, afterward selling his plant and paper to the Non-Partisan League. He then went to Chicago and in 1918 he enlisted and was in the salvage service for ten months in France. On receiving his discharge from the service August 9, 1919, Mr. Jenkins went to Hardin, Montana, and later to Weiser, Idaho, where he resumed work at the printing trade. On October 10, 1919, he removed to Aberdeen, Bingham county, and bought the Aberdeen Times, which he has since been publishing in conjunction with his wife. They operate the linotype machine used in the production of the paper and also do job printing. The paper, which was established in February, 1911, is popu- lar with the people of Aberdeen.
On May 8, 1914, Mr. Jenkins was united in marriage to Charlotte E. Henderson, a daughter of William and Harriett (Paul) Henderson, the former a native of Ireland and the latter of Ontario, Canada. Mr. Henderson emigrated to Canada at the age of thirteen years and in that country he became a rancher. About 1887 he removed across the border and settled in Wisconsin, where he engaged in farming for a few years. He then went to Montana and took a homestead near Glendive, being engaged in the cattle business for the remainder of his life. He died June 6, 1919, but his widow is still living.
Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins became the parents of one child, Gertrude May, who was born June 21, 1916, and died October 31, 1916. Mrs. Jenkins is a member of the Episco- pal church and active in all its good works. Mr. Jenkins is a member of the Ancient Order of United Workmen, in North Dakota, and he and his wife are members of the Yeoman lodge. He gives his political support to the republican party but has never been a seeker after political office. This, however, does not deter him from giving of his time and ability to all matters calculated to advance the welfare of his adopted town.
ROBERT LAFAYETTE CLEVELAND.
Robert Lafayette Cleveland, a retired merchant now residing on Orchard avenue on the Boise bench, came to Idaho in 1900 from Rogers, Arkansas. He and his family, consisting of five sons and a daughter, located in the town of May, in Lemhi county, where Mr. Cleveland followed mercantile pursuits for twenty years, establishing the first store in the town and building the first house there. Thus he contributed to the pioneer
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development of the place and through the capable conduct of his business affairs he won a measure of success that now enables him to live retired.
Mr. Cleveland was born December 15, 1849, a son of Jesse F. and Caroline (Spriggs) Cleveland, who were natives of Tennessee, and the birth of their son occurred in Bradley county, that state. The town of Cleveland, Tennessee, was named for a great-great- uncle of Mr. Cleveland of this review, who bore the name of Colonel Ben Cleveland and was a Revolutionary war officer, killed in the battle of King's Mountain.
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