USA > Indiana > Indiana and Indianans : a history of aboriginal and territorial Indiana and the century of statehood, Volume V > Part 49
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Mr. Stephenson was married November 28, 1914, at South Bend, to Miss Alice Sum- iners, daughter of G. R. and Mercy (Long- ley) Summers. Mr. Summers, a resident of South Bend, was formerly a member of the State Senate from Saint Joseph County.
EVAN J. MARTIN, general manager of the Advance Company, manufacturers of sash operating devices and green house fittings, is one of the able, industrious young exec- utives at Richmond, and only recently re- turned from a service of a year and a half with the American military forces.
Mr. Martin was born at Centerville, In- diana, in 1895, son of L. B. and Arminda (Black) Martin. He is of Scotch-Irish an- cestry. His great-grandfather Martin came from Ireland and settled near Boston. The grandfather, James B. Martin, came to In- diana in early days and settled northwest of Centerville. L. B. Martin was the sec- ond son and spent his life at Centerville, where he died in 1910. Evan J. Martin has three brothers and one sister. He at- tended the grammar schools and high school, and in 1913, at the age of seventeen, went to work with the Advance Company at Richmond, running a drill press. Six
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months later he was made shipping clerk, six months after that, order clerk, and gradually other responsibilities were con- ferred upon him until he is now practi- cally manager of all departments. The company employs thirty-five men and its output has a wide distribution over the United States and Canada and even to some foreign countries.
Mr. Martin is unmarried. He is a re- publican in politics, and a member of the Baptist Church. On April 13, 1917, a few days after America entered the war against Germany, he enlisted and at Jefferson Bar- racks joined the infantry. He was soon sent west to the Benecia Arsenal in Cali- fornia and assigned to the ordnance de- partment on September 12, 1917. On May 8, 1918, he was transferred to Camp Hancock, Augusta, Georgia, where he re- mained from May 12th to July 19th. He was then put in the chemical warfare serv- ice in the Englewood Arsenal in Maryland, and on November 1, 1918, was commis- sioned a second lieutenant. He received his honorable discharge December 21, 1918, after having performed a real working service to the Government throughout prac- tically the entire period of the war.
WILLIAM MORELAND MCGUIRE. Since his admission to the bar in 1911 Mr. McGuire has gained the secure prestige of the able and competent attorney at Indianapolis, and all his affiliations and interests mark him out for continued distinction in the profession.
To his profession Mr. McGuire brought experience gained by a number of years of hard work and a service that made him familiar with more than one technical phase of commercial life. All of this has been exceedingly valuable to him in his profession.
Mr. McGuire was born at Indianapolis, a son of Charles E. and Rebecca O. (Craw- ford) MeGuire. His father is still living at Indianapolis, while his mother died in 1903. There were three children : Charles Edward, who died in 1914; Shirley, widow of Burton N. Daniels ; and William M.
Mr. MeGnire finished his early education in the Indianapolis High School. Just when he determined to study law is not known, but in any case the necessity of looking out for himself would have inter- fered with a regular course of study in
preparation. For about two years he worked as a railroader, for two years was cashier of the Standard Oil Company at In- dianapolis, was on the road for a time as traveling representative of the Underwood Typewriter Company, and for two years was bookkeeper with the Keyless Lock Com- pany at Indianapolis. In the meantime he had completed a course in the Vories Business College. With the means accu- mulated by his varied business experiences he finally entered the American Central Law School, now known as the Ben Harri- son Law School at Indianapolis, completed the course and received his degree in 1911. Since then he has given his best energies to the building up of a law practice, and has offices in the Occidental Building.
J. HENRY AMT. An Indianapolis busi- ness that has grown and prospered with passing years and has achieved a place of importance in the commercial affairs of the city, and which is also a reflection of the energy and ability largely of one man, is the food products house of J. Henry Amt Company at 1928-1934 Shelby Street.
This firm now enjoys a very extensive local business in food products, chiefly vinegar, pickles, kraut, mangoes, spices, extracts, etc., and in the sixteen years since it was started its growth and prosperity have been largely promoted by Mr. Amt, president and general manager of the com- pany.
Mr. Amt has spent most of his active years in Indianapolis, and is extremely loyal to his home city and to the land of his adoption. He was born in the King- dom of Hanover, Germany, June 18, 1862, son of George and Catherine Amt. His father was a contractor and builder. Both parents were members of the Reformed Church. The mother died when J. Henry was only eight years of age, and the father passed away three years later, but after a second marriage.
J. Henry Amt had the advantages of the German schools in his home town, but his early years were not altogether happy in the home surroundings. From school he went to work in cotton mills, and was thus. employed until he was twenty-one years old.
Seeking better opportunities in the land of America, he then came to the United States, landing at Baltimore and proceed-
John H. Sances, M.D.
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ing almost directly to Indianapolis. His uncle, Herman Amt, was living in this city, and with him the young man found em- ployment. His uncle was a gardener and truck raiser. During the next six years he worked steadily, gained rapidly a knowl- edge of the English language and Ameri- can business customs, and after this period of preparation he entered the service of W. D. Huffman & Company, well known man- ufacturers of food products. He went into this business not only to earn a living but also with his eyes open to opportunity, and he constantly studied every detail of the business in which he was employed. Equipped by experience and with a mod- est amount of capital, in January, 1901, he and his cousin, B. Amt, formed a part- nership and set themselves up in business. This partnership continued until 1908, when it was dissolved. In November of the same year the firm located where it is today. The business was incorporated in January, 1911, under the name J. Henry Amt Company.
Mr. Amt married in 1893 Miss Johanna Leupen. They have one son, George H., who was born March 31, 1894, and is now associated with his father in business. He married Miss Annabel Roempke, of Indian- apolis, and they have one child, Georgi- anna. The family are members of the Re- formed Church, and Mr. Amt is affiliated with the Modern Woodmen of America.
JOHN HAYES JAMES, M. D., D. C. The subject of this sketch was born October 17, 1851, a mile west of Yorktown, Delaware County, Indiana. His parents were Jehu W. and Mary B. (Hayes) James. The former's father was the son of Evan and Rebecca (Pickering) James, who had come to Indiana in 1824 and settled on land near Greensboro, Henry County, Indiana. Here they cleared their farm in the dense forest and raised a family of twelve children, as was the custom in those days. The young- est child of this family, Jehu W. James, was born June 24, 1829, and lived on his father's farm until after the death of his parents. He then removed to Madison County, and here became acquainted with Mary B. Hayes, whom he married January 16, 1851. Soon after their marriage they settled on a farm west of Yorktown, In- diana, and it was here on the 17th of Octo-
ber, of that year, that the subject of this sketch, John Hayes James, was born.
The James ancestors came to America from Wales soon after William Penn had established his colony in Pennsylvania. There were three brothers who came to this colony, but of these three only one re- mained there, the others locating in Vir- ginia and Eastern Tennessee. The brother who lived in Philadelphia was Evan James, and he purchased a tract of land near the city, and on a hill, which was known for many years as James' Hill, built his home. With the extension of the city's boundaries this was finally included within the City of Philadelphia. A son of this family, Samuel James, when grown settled in the western part of Pennsylvania, on a farm bordering on the Monongahela River. He had a son, Evan James, who located in what is now the northern part of West Virginia and became a miller. Here he met the Pickering families and married a daugh- ter, Rebecca Pickering. After a short time in Ohio they moved to Indiana in 1824.
The Pickering families came from En- gland. Both the Pickering and James families were identified with the Society of Friends or Quakers, some being in the Or- thodox branch and some in the Hicksite.
Mary B. Hayes, second daughter of Silas and Hannah (Vernon) Hayes and mother of John H. James, was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, and came to Indiana with her parents at the age of six years. While living on a farm in Spring Valley, east of Pendleton, which is a Hicksite lo- cality, she became acquainted with and married Jehu W. James.
The. Hayes ancestors also came from England and become prominent in the af- fairs of the colony established by William Penn, as did the Vernons likewise.
John Hayes James was brought upon a farm in the Spring Valley neighborhood east of Pendleton. He grasped every op- portunity offered to attend school in this place, and worked on the farm the rest of the time. Every book which he could procure he read. At the age of twenty- one he applied for a license to teach school, and spent the winter months in so doing. During the spring and summer he attended school, going to the Pendleton High School, the Joseph Franklin Normal at Anderson and the Indiana State Normal School at Terre Haute.
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In the spring of 1878 he began the study of medicine in an office in Pendleton, and continued to teach and study in this way until the fall of 1879, when he entered the Physio-Medical College of Indiana at In- dianapolis. From this school he was gradu- ated February 26, 1881, and located in Carmel, Indiana. A few months later, October 4, 1881, he married Mary J. Lee- son, eldest daughter of James and Isabel (Bradbury) Leeson, and to this union were born one son and two daughters. Later they moved to Middletown, Indiana, and after a period of two years he gave up the practice of medicine and returned to teach- ing and clerical work. In 1890 he took his family to Andersou, where he has resided ever since, except for a short time that he lived in Indianapolis.
It was in Anderson that he became par- tially paralyzed and consulted Dr. F. L. Carey, a chiropractor, from whose treat- ments he gained relief from a number of ailments in addition to the paralysis. In a short time he assisted Doctor Carey in establishing his school, which was known as the Indiana School of Chiropractie, and formed a partnership in his practice as well. It was at this time that he opened their Indianapolis office and resided there. This association lasted for a number of years, but later Doctor James returned to Anderson and established his own prac- tice. He now has Dr. A. J. Spaulding associated with him and this partnership is known as Doctors James & Spaulding.
THOMAS R. LEWIS, president of the Lewis-Forbes Lumber Company of Indian- apolis, has more than a local prominence in the lumber industry. His activities have made him well known among lumbermen throughout several of the Central States, and he has been connected with the man- ufacturing and distributing end of the business in both the hard wood and the pine areas of the Southwest and the Cen- tral West.
Mr. Lewis was born in the hard wood timber districts of Wayne County, Mich- igan, March 25, 1860, and comes of a rug- ged pioneer class of people whose honesty of purpose and integrity of character were never for a moment to be questioned. His father, Rev. W. R. Lewis, was a native of Canada and of French and English ances- try. Some years before the birth of
Thomas R. Lewis the parents moved to Wayne, Michigan, and Rev. W. R. Lewis for a number of years followed farming and also the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He died on his nine- tieth birthday in 1909. He and an older son, Albert, were soldiers in a Michigan regiment during the Civil war. This son lost his life on Southern battlefields.
At the age of fourteen Thomas R. Lewis left public school and for several years supported himself as a farm hand in Michigan. He also worked on a farm in Kansas. Since the age of seventeen he has been connected with some phase or opera- tion of the lumber industry, whether oper- ating in the timber or handling lumber and building supplies as a commercial com- modity. His earlier experiences were with the woods and mills of Indian Territory, Arkansas, and Texas, and in 1884 he en- tered the employ of the G. B. Shaw Lum- ber Company at Kansas City. Later he was made manager of the lumber yard at Wellington, Kansas, for the Long-Bell Lumber Company, which is today the greatest lumber corporation in the Central West. The Long-Bell Company subse- quently made him purchasing agent at Texarkana, Arkansas. Coming to Indiana, Mr. Lewis had a lumber yard at Summit- ville and then removed to Indianapolis and in 1895 organized the firm of the Burnet- Lewis Lumber Company at Fountain Square. This corporation was dissolved in 1916, and Mr. Lewis with his present asso- ciates, under the name Lewis-Forbes Lum- ber Company, took over the old established plant of the Burnet-Lewis Lumber Com- pany and yards at Shelby Street and the Belt Line Railway, which was established in 1901. The firm established a branch yard and mill at Thirtieth Street and Ca- nal in 1908. The products of those yards and mills are general construction build- ing material and high grade finish. The firm is classed as one of the leading ones of Indianapolis. They do business both wholesale and retail.
In 1885 Mr. Lewis married Miss Mary Bays, who was born in Lake County, In- diana, daughter of Charles Bays. Mrs. Lewis died leaving one daughter, Lillian, now the wife of W. W. Fulton, special state agent of the Western Adjustment Company. In 1890 Mr. Lewis married Harriet Bays. They have four children :
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Fern, wife of W. W. Timmerman, a resi- dent of Cincinnati and sales manager for a large music house of that city; Lucian W., vice president of the Lewis-Forbes Lumber Company; Burnet B. and Doro- thy M., both at home.
Mr. Lewis has always been a republican. He and his wife are members of the Broad- way Methodist Episcopal Church, and he is on the official board of the church. Fra- ternally he is affiliated with Land Mark Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons, and Murat Temple, Ancient Arabic Order, Nobles of the. Mystic Shrine.
JOHN WEBER. Public attention to and interest in a business increase in propor- tion as its service is of vital importance to. the daily and regular needs and necessi- ties of mankind. In Indianapolis there is a phrase that means much in both a busi- ness and domestic way. This phrase is "Weber Milk," which signifies not only high standards of quality and purity but also the economy which in these days of high costs of living is especially appre- ciated. 1
The founder of this business and the man who built it up from a beginning where he supplied hardly more than half a dozen customers is Mr. John Weber, pres- ident of the Weber Milk Company. Mr. Weber was born in Germany sixty-nine years ago. He came in boyhood to Amer- ica, having no means and only an ambition to make the best of his opportunities and to learn and adapt himself to American ways and the freedom of American life. After three years spent at Rochester, New' York, he came on to Indianapolis. Here his first employment was as a cement ·worker. Later he went into the Vandalia Railroad round house and put in seven, years there.
In the meantime he had married, and while still earning his living in other em- ployments he started in 1884 a dairy busi- ness with only two cows. He found it a business of possibilities and profit and one for which his special talent made him a master of its complicated technique. Con- sequently the Weber milk business has grown and expanded, and in 1912 the Weber Milk Company was incorporated. A number of years ago Mr. Weber bought ninety acres of land at the edge of Indian- apolis as the home of his dairy, and that
land is now within the city limits. Mr. Weber is president of the company, and the other active officials are his sons, John J., vice president, George H., secretary and treasurer, and Peter J., superintendent of the plant.
The equipment of this plant leaves noth- ing to be desired in the way of the highest class and most modern and sanitary appli- ances for the perfect refrigeration and distribution of milk from the point of pro- duction to the consumer. The business represents a large investment and requires the daily service of a considerable force of men. In the way of material appli- ances in distribution there are large motor trucks used in conveying the milk from the dairy barns to the distributing sta- tions, and from there seventeen wagons take the bottles to the back doors of a large list of consumers.
The business with its present standing and facilities represents the growth of years and is the result of a remarkable de- gree of family unity and family co-opera- tion. As already noted, John Weber when he started the business had only two cows, and it was only incidental to his other work. He kept it growing, but always so that he could give every detail his closest supervision, and as his sons came of age he made a place for each of them and en- couraged them to seek their opportunities at home rather than outside.
Mr. Weber married Martinna Schwent- . zer. She was born in Germany and when a young lady of eighteen came to this country with her sister. She was living at Rochester, New York, when she and John Weber met and formed the acquaint- ance which culminated in their marriage at Indianapolis. Mrs. Weber was a splen- did housewife and mother and was greatly missed when she passed away in 1902, at the age of fifty-two. She was the mother of nine children. Three are now deceased, one in infancy. Elizabeth died after her marriage to John Schmitz, leaving two children. William died at the age of four years. A brief record of the living chil- dren is : Catherine, wife of Charles Braun, a printer living at Indianapolis; Amelia, wife of George Derleth, a grocery merchant at Indianapolis; John J., thirty-seven years old and vice president of the Weber Milk Company; George H., aged thirty- four, secretary and treasurer of the com-
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pany; Peter J., aged thirty, superintend- ent; and Anna, the youngest, at home with her father. The family are all members of St. Catherine's Catholic Church.
ANNIE FELLOWS JOHNSTON. The fol- lowing article, telling more than any for- mal biography could tell of the distin- guished author and former Indianan, was written for the Book News Monthly of No- vember, 1916, by her sister, Albion Fellows Bacon of Evansville :
"May-Dew charm and the luck of May's emerald, fairy gifts of flower and thorn, were the birth portion of my sister Annie. The love of many it has brought her, travel and fame and rich fullness of life. It has brought her heavy cares and sorrows, too, but with the power to give consolation to a great number of hearts.
"She is known to many through her, books, which are most self-revealing. Yet, much as they teach and tell, their lessons would have far more value if their readers knew that they are full of bits of the au- thor's own girl life.
"Only those who grew up with her know the fountain sources of her inspira- tion, and of the beauty that fills both her prose and poetry. We recognize the 'lilac plumes, nodding welcome at the door' -- it was Grandfather's door. The ‘fields of ripened wheat,' where the 'Bob White' whistled-those were Uncle James' fields, down by the 'lower barn.' The ferns of the homestead woodlands, the flowers of old neighbors' gardens, have been trans- planted to her pages, and through them all blows the country air of our hill-top home. The country folk we lived among, and their quaint, wholesome sayings, live, too, in her books.
"It was a bit of Arcady, a real Golden Age, that childhood of ours. The glamour of those idyllic years gives a charm to all of her story scenes, and it was in them that she gathered up sunshine and rain- bows that in after years have not only transformed her own troubles, but have taught scores of her readers the same sweet alchemy.
"Here among the hills of southern In- diana we lived, three sisters, with a wi- dowed mother. Lura, the eldest, was with us only on college vacations. Annie and I played together, dreamed, sang, wrote. verses, and 'made up' fairy tales together.
We shared the household tasks, making them lighter, but longer, by chanting verses, or acting dramatic parts, with tea- towel or broom suspended. We tripped down the road to the country school to- gether, breaking the tinkling ice in the ruts, or pulling clovers, as the months va- ried. The brown lunch basket we carried between us-I can smell it yet-sometimes held turn-overs or cookies of Annie's making.
"She was a favorite at school, with her blithesome manner and quick Irish repar- tee, and known as the 'Prettiest Little Girl in the County-O.' While she did excellent class work, she was most noted for her reading. In fact, one class poet on 'Exhibition Day,' declared: 'To hear An- nie read I would walk half a mile, Her voice is so clear and so natural her style.'
"Naturalness, normalness and simple unaffectedness were part of her charm then, as they have always been. The great- ness of the humble appealed to her, even in childhood, and she was the darling of the old country settlers, whose cabins she visited, whose lore she learned, and whose old fables and proverbs she collected.
"A large store of these she drank in from our grandfather, John Erskine, from County Antrim, Ireland, as she followed him about his great garden and orchard. His quaint saws and sayings are sown thickly in her books.
"But if we take to tracing back the sources of her inspiration we must stop at our mother, 'The MacGregor' of our fam- ily. She was a rare spirit, Spartan, Puri- tan, yet full of idealism, romance and fire -and had the most common sense of any. one I ever knew. How much we owe to the up-buildings and down-settings of her. firm but loving hand we shall never be able to tell. She revered an idea, and when Annie had an inspiration-as she often had --- I can hear mother say 'Drop everything now, fly upstairs and . write. I'll finish your work.' As callow as Annie's early genius was, it was precious and sacred in Mother's sight, and she fanned the flame of inspiration with tireless zeal. She held up before us the ideals of our New Eng- land minister-father, and what ideals she gave us of her own! Her aspirations- wings that she had not been able to soar with-she fastened to our little shoulders and bade us speed skyward and sing. She
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held us to reading until we could not be driven from books, and were fain to dig into the dry sands of our father's theolog- ical library for wells to refresh us. Dry digging, indeed, and scanty the store of fiction that ever came our way! But the stately poets were ours, and fairy tales, re- cited to us by simple folk who half be- lieved them, and ghost stories, told by 'help' who candidly shivered at them, so we got our share of mental salad along with the dry roots and savory herbs. Songs we gathered, out of the air-it was full of them, and we breathed them in- old ballads, war songs, hymns-they be- came a part of our souls. But with crea- tive magic Annie wove romance into all the everyday life of school and farm, writing; it out in verses or stories that thrilled us to hear.
"'Aren't you proud of her ?' friends asked us, after she had become famous. " 'No more than we always were,' we answered. 'We knew it was in her.'
"Children ask me about her wherever I go. 'What is she like?' And they touch with childish awe my hands that have held hers. If they could only have known her and played with her as a child, I think, and I try to paint portraits of her, as she was then and is now.
"One picture shows her as a child, with round face, dark bobbed hair, brown eyes full of laughter, red lips and pearly teeth -romping, racing, teasing, ready for any adventure-the best of 'good scouts,' yet always loving to be neat and dainty. In fact, dress was her one weakness, and I can see her big round tears splashing down when she was not allowed to wear her pale- green shoes or her party dress to the little country church. I can see her, daring and wilful, climbing the cherry trees, sliding down the hay, swinging on the 'big gate.' Again, in gentle, helpful mood, she is pick- ing strawberries for Grandfather, helping Aunt Sallie to set the table for the thresh- ers, or taking care of the baby for Aunt Lou.
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