USA > Indiana > Marion County > Indianapolis > Memorial record of distinguished men of Indianapolis and Indiana > Part 41
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Francis P. Bailey
a daughter of the late John Ott, founder of the business now conducted by the L. W. Ott Manufacturing Company and long known as one of the sterling citizens and leading business men of Indianapolis. Mr. Ott was born in the kingdom of Bavaria, Germany, as was also his wife, whose maiden name was Julia Reproth. They came to Indianapolis more than sixty years ago and were numbered among the repre- sentative German pioneers of the city, where both passed the residue of their lives and where both commanded uniform esteem. Mr. and Mrs. Bailey became the parents of five children, all of whom are living, namely: Francis Patrick, Jr., John J., August L., Julia M., and Emma. The sons are associated in business in the manufacturing of metal and furniture polish, under the title of the Crown Manu- facturing Company, and are known as progressive and substantial business men of the younger generation in their native city. The daughters remain with their widowed mother in the attractive family home, at 2040 North Capitol avenue. Mrs. Bailey and her children are all communicants of Sts. Peter and Paul cathedral, of this Catholic diocese, and all are popular in the social life of their native city.
In conclusion is reproduced the text of an appreciative memorial tribute issued by Indianapolis Council, Knights of Columbus.
Knights of Columbus honor the memory of Francis P. Bailey,-died January 17, 1910. He is gone-our own ideal knight. We love to think of him,-kindly, generous, loyal man! It was a pleasure to know him. "Long may we seek his likeness, long in vain." Like the knights of old, he was bold in the cause of right. "His failings leaned to virtue's side." He was proud, yes, proud of birthright. A good name, a noble spirit, a graceful character, with all the traits of nature's gentleman. He began life's work a poor boy, was faithful to every duty, and attained a distinguished position in the business world. We shall miss his kind smile of approval and the stimulus of his friendly grip, but the light of his good deeds will shine on our path as we journey through life. All hail and farewell, dear friend. May the wings of peace spread over your beautiful soul, and angels and ministers of grace defend you. Adieu! We shall remember you in our prayers.
Frank F. Dietz
NATIVE son of Indianapolis and a scion of one of its well known and highly honored German families, the late Frank Frederick A Dietz well upheld the prestige of the name which he bore and which has been long and prominently identified with civic and industrial interests in Indiana's capital city. Here he himself was an influential factor in business circles, actively concerned in a manufacturing industry that had been founded by his father and in the control of which he was associated with his brother Theodore at the time of his death, which occurred on the 18th of May, 1898. From a modest incep- tion the enterprise was developed into one of substantial scope and importance and it is still continued under the original title.
In a home erected by his father at the corner of Gray and East Washington streets, Indianapolis, Frank Frederick Dietz was born, and it is interesting to record that the site of this old homestead was that on which he erected the fine residence in which he passed the closing years of his life and in which his widow still resides. Both of his parents were born in Germany. Frederick Dietz, his father, was one of the pioneer German settlers of Indianapolis and in his char- acter and services exemplified that fine type of citizenship which has made the German element one of so much prominence and influence in the Indiana metropo- lis and capital. Frederick Dietz secured a considerable tract of land on East Washington street and the same was eventually platted under the title of Dietz' addition to the city of Indianapolis. On this tract, at the corner of Gray and East Washington streets, he erected a brick house, and in this fine old homestead was born his son Frank F., to whom this memoir is dedicated. Frederick Dietz was a man of vigor, ability and most progressive spirit, and he early established a box factory on Madison avenue, where he developed a prosperous business, with which he continued to be identified during the remainder of his active career. He lived retired for a number of years prior to his death, and his widow survived him by several years, the names of both meriting enduring place on the rolls of the ster- ling German citizens who early established homes in Indianapolis.
The early educational discipline of Frank F. Dietz was secured in an excellent German-English school on Market street, and as a youth he entered his father's box factory, in which he learned all details of the business and made himself an indispensable factor. After the retirement of his father he became associated with his brother Theodore in continuing the business, and under their regime it greatly expanded in scope and importance, the while he gained recognition as one of the staunch and progressive business men and representative citizens of his na- tive city. Diligent and conservative in business, loyal and public spirited in his civic attitude, and devoted to home and family, Mr. Dietz was a model citizen and one whose life offers both lesson and incentive. His active association with busi-
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Frank F. Dietz
ness affairs continued until his death, and his remains were laid to rest in Crown Hill cemetery.
Mr. Dietz was a man of buoyant and optimistic nature and most attractive social qualities, his circle of friends in his home city being coincident with that of his acquaintances. He was affiliated with the Knights of Pythias and the Im- proved Order of Red Men, and was active in both of these fraternities, in each of which he held official positions. In politics he was not constrained by strict parti- san dictates but gave his support to the man and measures meeting the approval of his judgment, the while he gave his co-operation in support of measures pro- jected for the general good of the community. He was a consistent communicant of the Catholic church, in which he held membership in the parish of St. Peter's church, on Ohio street. About the year 1894 Mr. Dietz completed the erection of a fine modern residence on East Washington street, in close proximity to the old homestead in which he was born, and here he passed the residue of his life. His widow still maintains the home and as the gracious chatelaine of the same she has made it a center of generous and refined hospitality.
On the 4th of October, 1885, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Dietz to Miss Louisa B. Mueler, who was born and reared in Indianapolis and who has been a popular factor in its social activities. She is a daughter of John A. and Barbara (Lichtenfeld) Mueler, who likewise were numbered among the early German settlers of this city, where the father conducted a meat market, on South Alabama street, for many years. Both he and his wife were natives of Germany and upon coming to America they located in the city of Cincinnati, Ohio, where they remained a brief period, at the expiration of which they came to Indianapolis, where they passed the remainder of their lives. Mr. and Mrs. Dietz became the parents of five children, concerning whom the following record is given: Emil A., who resides in the city of St. Paul, Minnesota, where he holds a responsible position in a rail- road office, married Miss Florence O'Donnell, who had been a successful and popu- lar teacher in the public schools of Indianapolis, and they have one child, Dorothy ; Emma is the wife of Alfred Hollingsworth of Indianapolis; Marie is the wife of Ray Tindall, of this city, and they have one child, Mary; Frank Frederick (II) is identified with business interests in his native city, where was solemnized his mar- riage to Miss Margaret Mohs; and Louisa B. is the wife of Otis Owen, of Indian- apolis, their one child being Frank.
Mrs. Dietz has long been active in social affairs in her native city, where she has a wide circle of friends. She is a valued member of the ladies' auxiliary of the Knights of Pythias, Cosmos Lodge, and is also identified with the Independent Turnverein and the ladies' adjunct of the fraternity known as the Tribe of Ben Hur. She is a zealous communicant of St. Peter's church and is liberal in support of the various departments of work. A woman of most gracious personality she is most popular in her home city and her attractive home is pervaded by an air of cordial hospitality.
Anton Schildmeier
N HIS fine old homestead farm, thirteen miles southeast of Indian- O apolis, in Hancock county, resides Anton Schildmeier, who is one of the patriarchs and honored pioneers of this section of the state, and in the gracious evening of his long and useful life he has "that which should accompany old age, as honor, love, obedience, troops of friends." Through his earnest and well directed efforts the earth has been made to bring forth her increase, and he has long stood as one of the representative agriculturists of the county which has been his home from his childhood days. Honest, sincere, kindly and generous, he has shown a high sense of stewardship and has made his life count for good in a quiet, serene and unassuming way. His memory covers the period which has compassed the development of central Indiana from a virtual wilderness into one of the most opulent and progressive sections of a great common- wealth, and he has assisted in this advancement, the while he has stood exponent of the most loyal citizenship. All these things indicate why this venerable pioneer has the confidence and esteem of the entire community in which he has lived and labored to goodly ends, and it is pleasing to be able to enter in this publication a brief review of his career.
Anton Schildmeier was born in Germany, October 12, 1828, and thus is eighty- three years of age at the time of this writing, in 1912. The years rest lightly upon him and he has the mental and physical vigor of a man many years his junior. He is a son of Christian Schildmeier and was seven years of age at the time of the family immigration to America. Soon after his arrival in the United States Chris- tian Schildmeier came to Indiana, in 1837, and established his home in Hancock county, where he purchased eighty acres of heavily timbered land,-the present homestead of the subject of this review. There he gave himself vigorously to the reclaiming and development of his land and his efforts, marked by diligence, energy and thrift, were attended with unequivocal success. He was one of the sterling pioneers of Hancock county and both he and his devoted wife continued to reside on the old homestead until they were summoned to the life eternal, secure in the high regard of all who knew them.
Anton Schildmeier received his rudimentary education in his Fatherland and after the family removal to Indiana he availed himself of the advantages of the pioneer schools of Hancock county. He early began to contribute an appreciable quota to the arduous work of reclaiming and otherwise improving the home farm and finally assumed virtual management of the same as his father waxed venerable in years. His parents finally gave to him the homestead and they remained with him, the objects of deep filial solicitude until their death. Consecutive industry marked the career of Anton Schildmeier during his youth and mature manhood, and he made of success not an accident but a logical result. He eventually accu- mulated a large and valuable landed estate, and his holding at the present time
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Anton Schildmeier
comprise about five hundred acres of as fine and well improved land as can be found in this favored section of the state. He has done all in his power to further those interests which have made for the general advancement and prosperity of the community and while he has never consented to permit the use of his name in connection with cadidacy for public office he is aligned as a stalwart supporter of the cause of the Democratic party and still takes a lively and intelligent interest in the questions and issues of the hour, although always voting for the man he con- sidered best suited for office.
As a young man Mr. Schildmeier was united in marriage to Miss Sophia Rich- mann, who was about one year old at the time of her parents' immigration from Germany to America, the family settling in the same section of Hancock county, Indiana, as did the Schildmeier family. The supreme loss and bereavement in the life of Mr. Schildmeier came when the loved and devoted wife of his youth and old age was called to eternal rest, her death occurring on the 30th of May, 1910. Of the nine children five died before attaining to years of maturity, and concern- ing the others the following brief record is given: Carrie, who became the wife of William H. Benedict, of Indianapolis, died on the 17th of October, 1899, and is survived by one child, Lillian May, who is a student in Tudor Hall, Indianapolis, and who is the only grandchild of him whose name initiates this review; Emma is the widow of George William Hoffman, of Indianapolis; Miss Louisa remains with her father on the old homestead; and William G., who is a representative farmer of Hancock, residing near the home place of his father, married Miss Mar- garet Hack. In conclusion of this article it is pleasing to be able to enter quota- tion from an interesting sketch which appeared in the Indianapolis News of May 20, 1911:
On the farm of Anton Schildmeier, thirteen miles southeast of the city, is a dense grove covering seventy-five acres. This woodland is the summer home of a flock of not less than fifty sandhill cranes, and these are guarded by Mr. Schild- meier with as much care as if they were children. For five years these huge birds have made their homes in the lofty boughs of the white oaks, and it is an unbreak- able rule with the owner of their tree-top homes that they must not be in any way disturbed. Mr. Schildmeier, the friend of the cranes, is an interesting patriarch. When October 12th again arrives he will have registered his eighty-third birthday, and then will have been a dweller seventy-four years in the place he now calls home. He loves every inch of the ground in his domain. He has a fondness for every tree on the land and for each bird and animal that calls his trees home. Mr. Schildmeier is wealthy, the result of long years of successful farming. Now, in his old age, he is living happily, at peace with all the world. One of his chief pleasures is his guardianship of the birds and little animals that inhabit his woods.
"I sleep well, I eat well,-what else should I desire?" is the remark that always follows when the question is put to him why he doesn't sell the timber from the forest. "I have all the money I need, and I have no wish to be a Carnegie or a Rockefeller, and to worry over how I am to spend my money. My family will have plenty, too." Not long ago a timber dealer visited Mr. Schildmeier and wished to buy the large white-oak trees that are in his forest tract. "We stood over there under those poplars," said Mr. Schildmeier, in telling of the interview with the timber man, "and he thought he would paralyze me with an offer of fifteen thousand dollars for the white oaks in my woods. And he nearly fell dead when I told him they couldn't be bought for fifteen times fifteen thousand dollars.
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Anton Schildmeier
I just told him that, wealthy as Indianapolis was, there wasn't enough money in the town to buy one of my old friends over there. You see, those trees and I have been brought up together. Oh, yes, the white oaks are some older than I am, but I've known them since I was a little boy. My father brought me here from Germany in 1837." He then pointed to a cottonwood tree a short distance down the road. "That tree was about the size of my cane when I came here, nearly three-quarters of a century ago," he said. "Look at it now." The tree is fully five feet in diameter and spreads its boughs over the highway.
"How did you come to get acquainted with the cranes" he was asked. "Well, they came here about five years ago," he answered. "They saw it was friendly territory, because the big trees had not fallen before the lumberman's axe. No, we never cut any trees down over there unless they go to decay. The big white oaks looked good to the cranes, so they built their nests there, and I certainly would make things warm for anybody who disturbed them. Those white oaks are their property, not mine. I'm only their guardian." How proudly the old man points to the graceful flight of the cranes as they circle into the clouds and then speed away on foraging expeditions! Sometimes forty or fifty may be seen in a long proces- sion, as they go round and round in upward flights, and then, striking a favorable air current, start on a journey to favorite feeding grounds.
The Schildmeier woods are filled with squirrels, rabbits and birds of every description. They are never molested. Doe creek, which runs through the forest, is filled with fish. Mr. Schildmeier goes fishing now and then, or visits with the inhabitants of the grove. But for anybody even to hint at taking a firearm into the forest would arouse him to stern opposition. He does not allow general visits, because of the fright that would come to the timorous inhabitants of his woods.
George Wlilliam Hoffman
RESIDENT of Indianapolis from childhood until the close of A his life, it was given the late George W. Hoffman to make for himself, through energy and well directed endeavor, a secure place as one of the representative business men of the capital city, to whose commercial precedence he contributed materially through his successful efforts as a manufacturer of metal pol- ishes. In this line he built up an industrial enterprise of magnificent proportions, the same having been virtually unexcelled in scope and importance by any other in the United States. In the upbuilding and prosecution of his business activities Mr. Hoffman brought to bear his splendid energies and administrative ability, and when it is stated that upon the record of his career there rests no shadow or other blemish, it becomes patent that his course was guided and governed by those high principles of integrity and honor which invari- ably beget popular confidence and esteem. His residence in Indianapolis covered a period of nearly sixty years, and in his death, which occurred on Friday, Octo- ber 22, 1909, the city lost a business man of ability and value and a citizen whose place in the esteem of the community was impregnable.
George William Hoffman was born at Hamilton, the judicial center of Butler county, Ohio, on the 7th of March, 1849, and was a son of Henry and Catherine (Lang) Hoffman, both natives of Germany. When the subject of this memoir was a child of two years his parents removed from the old Buckeye state to Indi- ana and established their home in Indianapolis, where the father engaged in the tanning business, with a well equipped tannery located on East Washington street, between East and Liberty streets. , In the same locality he erected a comfortable residence, and in this home he continued to reside until his death, which occurred in 1872. His widow survived him by more than thirty years and passed the closing years of her life in the home of her son George W., of this review, where she died in September, 1908, at a venerable age. All of the five children are now deceased.
Coming with his parents to Indianapolis in 1851, George W. Hoffman was here reared to manhood under auspicious circumstances, and, with characteristic German thrift, he early learned the lessons of practical industry, the while he was duly afforded the advantages of the public schools. As a boy he found employment as a newspaper carrier, and he was thus engaged at the time of the Civil war, when every issue from the press was looked for with avidity. As a youth he also served an apprenticeship to the trade of harness-maker, though he never followed the same as a vocation. When still a boy he entered the drug store of his brother- in-law, Colonel Frank Erdelmeyer, and there he learned the details of the business and became a skilled pharmacist. After thorough training in this line he was finally enabled to engage in the retail drug business on his own responsibility. He formed a partnership with John Stiltz and they were thus associated, under the firm name of Stiltz & Hoffman, for a period of eighteen years. They main-
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George William Hoffman
tained a well appointed drug establishment in the old Vance building, at the cor- ner of Washington street and Virginia avenue, and abandoned these quarters only when the building was remodeled for the use of the Indiana Trust Company. Mr. Hoffman then disposed of his interest in the business to his partner, and in the meanwhile he had initiated in a modest way the enterprise which he was destined to develop into one of wide scope and importance. He had conducted a series of careful experiments in the effort to produce a satisfactory and improved metal polish, and many nights of study and investigation had been given to this prelimi- nary work. Upon his retirement from the drug business Mr. Hoffman began the manufacturing of his metal polish. He purchased the building now designated as 557 East Washington street, and there continued his manufacturing enterprise until his death. The superiority of his products caused the demand for the same to be cumulative and substantial wherever they were introduced, and the business rapidly expanded. With energy and progressiveness Mr. Hoffman kept pace with the demands upon his establishment, and the business now represents one of the ex- tensive and important industrial enterprises of the capital city of Indiana, with a trade that extends throughout the United States and with an export business that is large and constantly increasing. Specially noteworthy is the trade controlled in Australia and New Zealand, to which countries large annual shipments are made. The polishes manufactured are in powder, paste and liquid forms, adapted to various uses, and the title adopted and used for some time, "United States Metal Polish," was a synonym of reliability and efficiency as well as one that became fa- miliar in all sections of the Union. But the business has since been incorporated under Mr. Hoffman's name, and will thus remain for at least fifty years.
In the upbuilding of this splendid enterprise Mr. Hoffman showed marked initiative and executive ability, and his policies were of the most progressive order. He won success through normal and worthy means and his business has been a material factor in fostering the fame of Indianapolis as a manufacturing and com- mercial center. Since the death of her husband Mrs. Hoffman has continued the business, of which she maintains an active personal supervision, and she has shown much ability and circumspection as a business woman, as she has proved equal to the adjustment of every emergency and contingency and has kept the enterprise up to the high standard established by her honored husband.
Though he was loyal and liberal as a citizen, Mr. Hoffman never had any desire for public office or to take part in political affairs in an active way. He gave his allegiance to the Republican party but in local affairs, where no state or nat- ional issues were involved, he gave his support to the mean and measures meeting the approval of his judgment, irrespective of partisan lines. His interests were centralized in his home and his business and thus clubs and fraternal organizations had no attraction for him. He was genial, tolerant and generous, ever ready to do a kind act and to aid those in affliction, and while he was essentially quiet and unassuming in manners his sterling qualities of mind and heart gained to him a wide circle of loyal and valued friends in his home city. He was not formally identified with any religious organization but had a deep reverence for the spiritual verities. His close application while in the drug business precluded his attending church for many years, but he was always solicitous that his wife should avail herself of such opportunities, and she holds membership in the First German Methodist church. The old homestead of Mr. and Mrs. Hoffman was situated at 618 North Alabama street, and on this site Mrs. Hoffman has recently erected a
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George William Doffman
modern apartment building, known as the Hoffman Flats. In 1898 Mr. Hoffman erected a fine residence at 2238 North Meridian street, in one of the most attract- ive and exclusive residence sections of the city, and here his widow still maintains her home, finding marked satisfaction in extending a generous hospitality to her many friends. Mr. Hoffman's health had been impaired for about six years prior to his death, though he was confined to his home only two weeks before his life's labors were closed, his remains being laid to rest in beautiful Crown Hill cemetery.
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