USA > Indiana > Indiana and Indianans : a history of aboriginal and territorial Indiana and the century of statehood, Volume V > Part 7
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In politics he was for many years one of the local leaders of the democratic party. In Masonry he was affiliated with Logan Lodge No. 575, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and Indianapolis Chapter No. 5, Royal Arch Masons, and was also a mem- ber of the Ancient Order of Druids and the Improved Order of Red Men.
In 1883 Mr. Schroeder married Mary Tebbe, daughter of Henry Tebbe of Indian- apolis. He left two children: Harry C. and Myrtle, the latter the wife of John E. Steeg.
Henry C. Schroeder, Jr., was born at In- dianapolis August 13, 1891. He grew up in this city, attended the public schools, and early in life mastered the profession of ac- conntancy. As an expert accountant he was employed in the Fountain Square State Bank and the Fidelity Trust Com- pany, and then largely for the purpose of recovering his impaired health he spent two years on his father's farm. Upon the death of his father he succeeded him as trustee of Center Township. He is one of the leading younger business men of In-
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dianapolis. For two years he was asso- ciated with Dick Miller in the investment business, and then with Mr. Miller as an associate bought the Hogan Transfer & Storage Company. Mr. Schroeder is pres- ident and manager of this business, which is a really imposing organization, one of the most substantial concerns of its kind in the state.
Mr. Schroeder is, like his father, a dem- ocrat and is a thirty-second degree Scot- tish Rite Mason, and a member of Murat Temple, Ancient Arabic Oreder Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, of Indianapolis. He is also a member of the Rotary Club, Indiana Democratie Club, and the Chamber of Commerce. September 17, 1913, he mar- ried Miss Hazel McGee, a native of Win- chester, Indiana, and the one child of this union is Elizabeth Ann.
JACOB F. HOKE, JR. It is not an exag- geration to say that Jacob F. Hoke, Jr., is one of Indianapolis' best known business men and his associations are with a wide variety of affairs not immediately con- nected with business. As a manufacturer he is secretary and treasurer of the Hol- comb and Hoke Manufacturing Company, the largest concern in the world manufac- turing corn popping and peanut roasting machinery and other high grade specialties.
Mr. Hoke is an Indiana man by adop- tion, his native state being Kentucky. He was born in Jeffersontown in Jefferson County, the ninth son of Andrew J. and Mary Snyder Hoke. There is hardly any other family of Kentucky that can claim a longer period of residence in the Blue Grass State than the Hokes. Long before the Revolutionary war Andrew Hoke, Sr., great-great-grandfather of the Indianapolis business man, together with five sons, mi- grated from Lancaster County, Pennsyl- vania, to the far western frontier, locating in Kentucky at a time when the flintlock rifle and the axe were the primary and all important implements of civilization and of personal safety and welfare. This fam- ily was one of the very first to invade that virgin forest and begin its reclamation. Many times they had to protect their home and household from the savage Indians. Here generation after generation of the Hokes lived, and many allied with the fam- ily by marriage are still found in that state.
Jacob F. Hoke, Jr., better known among his friends and business associates as Fred, grew up in his native Kentucky county, at- tended public school, worked on a farm, at railroad construction work, and also as clerk in a grocery store. Those were his important experiences until he left home about the time he reached his majority. Going to Sullivan, Indiana, at the age of twenty-one, he found employment as clerk in the hardware and implement store of Jacob F. Hoke, Sr. The senior Hoke was also president of the Sullivan State Bank.
Of Mr. Hoke's experiences in Sullivan it is not necessary to speak except for one important event which occurred in 1896, when he married Miss Katharine Cushman. Her father, Dr. Arbaces Cushman, was a prominent man and of a prominent fam- ily. In 1897 Mr. Hoke became a partner with J. Irving Holcomb in the manufac- ture of brushes and janitors supplies at Sullivan. This business at the beginning was not one of the leading industries of the state, but under the judicious care and energy of the partners it prospered, other specialties were added, and they took over an establishment at Indianapolis for man- ufacturing equipment for bowling alleys. The growth of the business was nothing less than prodigious, and prior to the great European war the products were sold to every civilized country on the face of the globe.
Finally Mr. Hoke sold his interests in the brush factory and a new corporation was created by J. I. Holcomb, J. F. Hoke, Sr., and J. F. Hoke, Jr., being the present Holcomb and Hoke Manufacturing Com- pany. The purpose and motto of the men behind the business is to manufacture spe- cialties designed to earn the purchaser's money. Without a doubt it is the largest concern in the world manufacturing corn popping and peanut roasting machines.
While Mr. Hoke is essentially a business man and has had his hands full to look after his varied responsibilities, he has also found time to cultivate the social side of life. He is a Knight Templar and Scot- tish Rite Mason, a member of the Mystic Shrine and is a member of the Board of Governors of the Board of Trade, the Chamber of Commerce, the Woodstock Club, Highland Club, and the Rotary Club.
In polities he is a democrat, as a matter of principle, and has affiliated with the
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party not for the purpose of pecuniary gain or official position but for the good of the cause and as a medium for the expression of that influence which every live citizen should wield. He is an active member of the Indiana Democratic Club, and is the only man honored by election for three terms as its president. While he was presi- dent the home of the club at Vermont Street and University Park was established. He is a trustee of DePauw University, a director of the Indianapolis Young Men's Christian Association, chairman of the In- dianapolis Committee War Personnel Board for Young Men's Christian Association Overseas Work, member of the executive committee for Marion County in the Third and Fourth Liberty Loans, and succeeded J. K. Lilly as chairman of the committee for the Fifth or Victory Loan.
Mr. Hoke is also a prominent Methodist and in 1916 was sent as a lay delegate to the Quadrennial General Conference at Saratoga Springs, New York. He is also president of the Indiana Laymen's Asso- ciation. Mr. and Mrs. Hoke have three children, Cushman, Frank and Mary.
ELLA B. McSHIRLEY, D. O., is one of the highly proficient women in professional life in Indiana, and is a thoroughly trained and qualified graduate nurse, physician and os- teopath. Doctor MeShirley recently lo- cated at Newcastle, where she has offices in the Jennings Building.
She was born at Williamsburg, Indiana, a daughter of Jonathan and Emily Neal. She is of Scotch-Irish and English ances- try. She attended public schools at Win- chester and in 1897 married Dr. J. L. Me- Shirley, of Sulphur Springs, Indiana. They had one daughter, Mary Janice.
Dr. J. L. MeShirley died November 12, 1906. They had lived part of their mar- ried life at Newcastle. Mrs. MeShirley he- came interested in her husband's profes- sion, and after his death entered the State College Hospital to train for the nurse's . course and took all the work. She prac- ticed five years at Winchester, and in Sep- tember, 1913, entered the American School of Osteopathy at Kirksville, Missouri, graduating in June, 1916. She received honors in chemistry in her course. Later she took post-graduate work in genito-uri- nary diseases, gynecology and orificial sur- gery. Doctor MeShirley located and bought
a practice at Poplar Bluff, Missouri, re- maining there for two years, and on June 30, 1918, came to Newcastle.
She is a member of the Presbyterian Church, but is of Quaker ancestry. She is a member of the Delta Omega Alpha Sor- ority at Kirksville, is affiliated with the Eastern Star at Winchester, the Pythian Sisters, and the American Osteopathic As- sociation:
HERMAN LAUTER. A life that eventuated in much service, rendered in a quiet and wholesome way, to the community was that of the late Herman Lauter, one of the best known citizens of Indianapolis. In a bus- iness way he was best known as a furniture manufacturer, and founder of the business still conducted as the H. Lauter Company. He had many associations with the leading men of the city after the close of the Civil war, and among other things deserves to be remembered for his influence in the cause of education.
He was born near Berlin, Germany, of Jewish parentage. His father being a rabbi, a teacher, and scholar, afforded the youth most of his early education. While in Germany he also learned the trade of glass maker. Just before the Civil war, for the purpose of bettering his condition, he emigrated to the United States and for a number of years his home was in New York City. In 1868 he started the manu- facture of furniture on a small scale, and in a few years saw his output increasing and commanding an excellent market. Later, in order to get closer to the sources of raw material, he moved to Indianapolis, and thenceforward gave his chief attention to this business and it is one of the sub- stantial minor. industries of the city.
He also became noted among the pro- gressive men of his day in Indianapolis. He was one of the influential business men who helped to make manual training a de- partment of the high school and showed a high degree of interest in this technical feature of public school education. Mr. Lauter was a member of no religious de- nomination, he was broad-minded and be- nevolent and did much in an unostenta- tious way for charity. While of foreign birth he was intensely an American, a be- liever in the institutions of his adopted country and admired especially the free- dom of worship and of personal action ac-
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cording to the dictates of the individual conscience. His unselfish love for his fel- low men without regard to religion, race or politics he carried almost to the degree of a fault. . He was generous, and this characteristic remains as a monument to his memory rather than the accumulation of great riches. He had all the ideal vir- tues of the head of a home, and it was in his domestic circle that he found his great- est delight.
Mr. Herman Lauter died June 8, 1907. While living in New York City he married Helene Lauterbach. Mrs. Lauter is still living in Indianapolis. There were seven children : Hattie, who died in early child- hood, Alfred, Flora, Eldena, Sara, and Mrs. Fred P. Robinson, all of Indianapolis, and Mrs. O. G. Singer, of Los Angeles, California.
ELIAS J. JACOBY, lawyer and business. man of Indianapolis, is also one of the best known Masons in Indiana and is widely known in that order throughout the United States. Something concerning his career and associations is an essential part of the modern history of Indiana.
He was born on a farm near Marion, Ohio. He became a school teacher at the age of seventeen and a half, teaching three terms. Entering the Ohio Wesleyan Uni- versity at Delaware, he graduated with the B. A. degree. While in university he was a member of the Phi Gamma Delta fra- ternity, becoming Master of the Chapter in his senior year. He was one of the editors of the college paper and editor in chief of his fraternity journal. Five years later he received from the same university the degree M. A. Immediately following his university course he entered the law school of Cincinnati College, from which he was graduated with the degree LL. B. and received the prize for forensic dis- cussion.
On the day of his graduation from Ohio Wesleyan University he first met Hon. Charles W. Fairbanks, former vice presi- dent of the United States, who was then general attorney for a railway company with headquarters at Indianapolis. Mr. Fairbanks later invited him to a position in his office, which he accepted immediately following his graduation from the law school. He soon became assistant general attorney for the railway company. He
also became general attorney of the T. H. & P. Railway Company, operating 178 miles of road. For a number of years he served as one of the directors on several lines of railway, and was and is local trus- tee in some railway mortgages. During the same period he served as president of two manufacturing companies, covering a period of seven years. Mr. Jacoby was actively associated with Mr. Fairbanks for seventeen years or until after the latter became United States Senator, and has been more or less associated with him ever since.
Soon after taking service with the rail- way company Mr. Jacoby assisted in or- ganizing the Railroadmen's Building and Savings Association. In a business way this is perhaps his most notable achieve- ment. It is now generally recognized that the encouragement to thrift is fundamental to the prosperity and wholesome life not only of the individual but the nation. Railroad men as a class have been noted as "free spenders." The object of this association was to instill in the minds of railroad men the idea of saving and thereby better fitting themselves for a higher place in the ranks of citizenship. The Railroad- men's Building and Savings Association was organized in August, 1887. It has been in existence thirty years. In that time the seed contained in the original idea and purpose has borne repeated fruit, and by renewed sowing and harvesting has made the association one of the great econ- omical and industrial institutions of In- diana. While there is no means of esti- mating by words or figures the vast benefits that have accrued to the individual rail- road workingmen and others, there is sug- gestion in noting the growth of the associa- tion's financial power and resources. Five years after the association started its assets were less than $200,000. It was nearly twenty years before the assets passed the $1,000,000 mark. The greatest period of growth has been within the last ten years. In 1907 the assets aggregated approxi- mately $1,500,000. In January, 1917, the assets were little short of $9,000,000, and at the end of 1918 they were nearly $12,- 000,000. In the thirty years of its exist- ence the association has loaned over $18,- 000,000, and has declared dividends of more than $2,500,000. The principal offi- cers of the association are: W. T. Cannon,
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president ; E. J. Jacoby, vice president and attorney ; J. E. Pierce, secretary and audi- tor; and H. Cannon, treasurer. Mr. Jac- oby has served as attorney and director of the association since its organization, and has been vice president for a number of years.
In 1908 Mr. Jacoby assisted in organ- izing the Prudential Casualty Company of Indiana. Of this company he served as president until it was consolidated on De- cember 30, 1916, with the Chicago Bonding and Insurance Company of Chicago, under the name the Chicago Bonding and Insur- ance Company, with headquarters in that city. Mr. Jacoby is a director of this new corporation.
It now remains to note his honors and associations with Masonry. He is a thirty- second degree Scottish Rite Mason and a Knight Templar. He was High Priest of Keystone Chapter No. 6, Royal Arch Ma- sons, in 1905, was Thrice Illustrious Mas- ter of Indianapolis Council No. 2, Royal and Select Masters in 1907, and in the same year was Eminent Commander of Raper Commandery No. 1, Knights Tem- plar of Indianapolis, and also Illustrious Potentate of Murat Temple, Ancient Ara- bic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. He was one of the charter members (being charter viceroy or second officer) of St. James Conclave No. 16, Knights of the Red Cross of Constantine, and served in that office four and one half years, following which period he served as sovereign or chief officer of that Conclave for four years or until December, 1917. He now holds one of the offices, being Grand Almoner, in the Grand Imperial Council of the Order of the Red Cross of Constantine, which is the national or governing body of the Order. He was Grand High Priest of the Grand Chapter Royal Arch Masons of Indiana in 1910 and 1911. In Murat Temple, Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, he served in office ten years, having been Assistant Rabban three years, Chief Rab- ban one year and Illustrious Potentate six years. He was elected as Imperial Outer Guard of the Imperial Council of the Order of the Mystic Shrine for North America in June, 1909. This organization is the gov- erning body of the Mystic Shrine for the entire jurisdiction of North America, hav- ing Temples in the principal cities of Pan- ama, Mexico, United States, and Canada.
He has served the various offices of promo- tion in that body covering a period of ten years, and is now (1918 and 1919) the Imperial Potentate of the Order. He was instrumental in organizing and incorpor- ating the Indianapolis Masonic Temple As- sociation, composed of eleven Masonic bod- ies. He drafted the law which was passed by the legislature authorizing the incor- poration of such an association. He served as chairman of the Building Committee of said association which, with the Grand Lodge of Indiana, erected the new York Rite Masonic Temple in Indianapolis at a cost of over $600,000. He represented the association at the laying of the corner stone and officially as the president of the association at the dedication of the Temple on May 24, 1909. At the business session of Murat Temple held in February, 1908, without previously consulting anyone, he proposed the erection of a Temple of the Mystic Shrine as the home of Murat Tem- ple. The proposal met with enthusiastic approval. He then organized the Murat Temple Association, the corporation own- ing the building which was erected at a cost of considerably more than $500,000 and which was dedicated in May, 1910. He has served as director and president of that association consecutively for nearly eleven years. He retired as Imperial Po- tentate of the Order of the Mystic Shrine at the Forty-Fifth Session of the Impe- rial Council held in the City of Indianap- olis, Indiana, on June 10, 11, and 12, 1919.
FLAY SAMUEL LACY is proprietor of a large wholesale and retail bakery establish- ment at Newcastle. Mr. Lacy, who is now in prosperous circumstances, one of the in- fluential citizens of Newcastle, has had an unusually interesting experience and career of achievement, involving many changes and new beginnings, and all compressed within a period of twenty years.
Mr. Lacy was born at Carthage, Indiana, August 27, 1881, a son of Henry and La- vinia (Galloway) Lacy. He is of Scotch- Irish and German ancestry. His people have been in America for generations and most of them were farmers or mechanics. Mr. Lacy attended the public schools at Carthage, and at the age of ten years he began bnying his own clothing. He made the money for that purpose by selling newspapers on the streets of Carthage.
Play Lacy
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Every night he had to go to Knightstown, five miles away, in order to get his papers. Another means he found of making money was raising hogs. He got feed for them from the waste material thrown out hy the restaurants of the town. In this way he was making his own living for several years.
At the age of seventeen he became asso- ciated with his brother Fred Joseph under the name of Lacy Brothers. They estab- lished a bakery at Carthage, and he re- mained there a couple of years learning the business. On selling out his interest Mr. Lacy went to Greentown in Howard County, Indiana, and opened a bakery be- hind a residence, which he continued on a wholesale scale for a year. He next spent a year working for a bakery establishment at Marion, Indiana. The one year follow- ing was spent in the same business at Con- verse, Indiana. He first came to Newcastle in 1898, and for a year was in the employ of Will Peed, a well known Newcastle baker. Mr. Lacy then took an entirely different kind of employment, doing buck and wing dancing on the stage with a trav- eling troupe known as the Knight & Decker Minstrels. Then, returning to Newcastle, he soon went to Rushville, Indiana, and worked in a bakery. He had his left hand caught in a machine and so disabled that it was necessary for him to remain out of work for a year and a half. For one year he was a news dealer at. Newcastle, worked a year in a bakery at Connersville, Indiana, also at Selma for a time and for two and a half years he conducted a very successful business as a wholesale and retail baker at Laurel, Indiana. Then for a year and a half he was again located at Rushville, and on selling his property there moved to Newcastle in 1909 and in February of that year bought a lot and built his own bake shop at his first location on South Eight- eenth Street. He started with a very small shop, retailing all his goods. His first im- provement was introducing a push cart de- livery, later employing an old pony and wagon, and Mr. Lacy's business has since grown and prospered until he now employs four automobile delivery trucks for the town and surrounding country, and also two city routes. He has made about a dozen additions to his plant, all reflecting the growth and prosperity of his business. He has three large ovens, a complete ma-
chine shop, and fourteen employes in the plant. Mr. Lacy is also interested in the oil and automobile business.
June 14, 1917, he married Arla Begeman, daughter of Noble and Lottie (Robbins) Begeman. Mr. Lacy hy his previous mar- riage has two children, Irene Louise, born in 1906, and Marion Stevens, born in 1908. Mr. Lacy is a republican, a member of the Quaker Church and affiliated with the Knights of Pythias and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of Newcastle, Indiana.
WILL CUMBACK placed his name high on the roll of Indiana's lawyers, and he was honored with the lieutenant governorship of the state. For many years he was a member of the Decatur County bar.
Mr. Cumback was born in Franklin County, Indiana, March 24, 1829, and was educated at Miami University and the Cin- cinnati Law School. He steadily rose to prominence in the practice of his pro- fession, and was chosen from the law- yers of Indiana to serve in the high official office of lieutenant governor. He was a scholar of wide reputation and a leader in republican ranks.
DANIEL H. MCABEE. One of Indiana's most patriotic and interesting citizens is Daniel H. McAbee, who has an office on the fifth floor of the Traction Terminal Building at Indianapolis, being a member of the Ragan-Mc Ahee Coal Company. Mr. Mc Abee is entitled to that peculiar respect and honor due the survivors of the great Union army of the Civil war, in which he served as a boy in years, though with man- hood's patriotic devotion and fidelity. He has been a resident of Indiana upwards of half a century and has been well known in business and civic affairs.
He was born in Bolivar, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, October 14, 1845, a son of Joseph and Mary Ann (Courson) McAbee. The McAbees are of Irish de- scent. The paternal grandfather, John McAhee, was an early day settler in West- moreland County, Pennsylvania. He was a scholar and thinker, and gave practically his entire lifetime to teaching. He also excelled as a penman. Those who have examined examples of his penmanship are impressed by its copperplate evenness and beauty of line work such as few writers of
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the present time would attempt to rival. He reared a family of three sons and one daughter, and one of the sons was a Meth- odist minister.
Joseph McAbee, father of Daniel H., died when the latter was only eighteen months old. He left a family of three sons and two daughters, who were reared dur- ing their tender years by the widowed mother.
Daniel H. MeAbee was only fifteen years old when the Civil war broke out. He did not long delay enrollment with the Union forces, and when he was given his honor- able discharge in July, 1865, he had com- pleted a service of forty-six months' dura- tion. He was a member of Company G of the Seventy-Sixth Pennsylvania Infantry. During 1861, 1862, and 1863 he was with the Department of the South. He was present at the reduction of Fort Pulaski in the spring of 1862, the first fort retaken from the Confederate forces; was present at James Island in 1862 during the fighting there; was present at the capture of the upper end of Morris Island July 10th, and was in both charges on Fort Wagner, July 11th and 18th, 1863. He assisted in the construction of the foundation for the "Swamp Angel" and was with Butler at the Dutch Gap Canal and later was with Grant at Cold Harbor and Petersburg. He was wounded August 16, 1864, by a minie ball in the right arm. The bandage used to wrap the arm was a piece of shel- ter tent, that being the only available ma- terial that could be found. He was with Butler and Terry at Fort Fisher, joined Sherman's army in North Carolina and helped corral Johnson's army, which ended the war.
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