USA > Missouri > Centennial history of Missouri (the center state) one hundred years in the Union, 1820-1921, Volume V > Part 79
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Mr. Spelbrink and his family are members of St. Margaret's Catholic church. In politics he is a republican and served as assistant prosecuting attorney in 1919. He belongs to the Phi Alpha Phi and is also identified with the Knights of Columbus.
WILLIAM J. FISCHER.
William J. Fischer, general agent of the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has to his credit an achievement which on its merits entitles him to a place in this volume, namely, an agency with fifty millions of life insurance in force and a premium income of $1,600,000 per year, built up during the short period of fifteen years.
He came here fifteen years ago from Detroit, bringing with him four associates. This agency force has grown until at present it numbers fifty associates, which force produced $10,400,000 of life insurance during 1920. What makes the showing above mentioned particularly conspicuous is the fact that the Northwestern did not do business in Missouri between the years of 1884 and 1905. Having practically no business in force, it took organizing ability of the first order to educate and train the present effective organization, which any manager might well covet.
Mr. Fischer was born October 24, 1863, in Alton, Illinois. He was educated in the public schools of Alton and began his business career at the age of fourteen, sweeping out a dry goods store for three dollars per week, in which business he re- mained for six years. At the age of twenty he determined to make the life insur- ance business his life work. After spending a few months as local agent of the Northwestern at Alton he took a district agency at Galesburg, Illinois, and at the same time conducted a fire insurance agency. He, however, developed a passion for life insurance, which led to his moving to Chicago with a view to making a record which would entitle him to a general agency which he later took in Omaha. After spending eleven effective years in Omaha he moved to Detroit and became the junior member of the firm of Gage and Fischer, general agents of the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company for southern Michigan. The effect of his organizing ability upon the Detroit Agency led the company to select him to undertake the prodigious task of organizing eastern Missouri, which work had to be started from the bottom, owing to the company's absence from the state for twenty-one years.
On August 18, 1899, Mr. Fischer came back from Omaha to his birthplace in Alton and was married to a childhood friend, Miss Mary Elizabeth Keiser. They have two sons: Ira W. and Ralph W. Fischer, who were educated at Soldan high school and the Missouri State University. Both of the sons were in the air service during the late war and are now identified with their father in the life insurance work.
Mr. Fischer has not been in the best of health the last two or three years, which he attributes to an unwise disposition of time, or rather to too great concentration upon business. He has been a member of three golf clubs for years and yet has not played more than one game a year. He advises young men to begin early to divide their time intelligently between work and play and by work he means diligence in business as well as public service.
In retrospect Mr. Fischer justly gets immense satisfaction from the fact that he will live again in the lives of the children he has helped to educate, widows he will have helped to take care of in self-respecting positlons, and men and women who will have their old age made comfortable through the fifty millions of dollars of
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life insurance, as it is from time to time dispersed when policies become claims by death or maturity.
Mr. Fischer expects to "come back" in good health so that he can remain at the head of his organization and increase the fifty millions to one hundred millions before he completes what he regards as his life work.
CAPTAIN JOHN BERRY.
Captain John Berry certainly deserves a place in the history of St. Louis, for he is America's first national balloon champion and has won fame and recognition in connection with ballooning for many years. He is now aviator in charge and also is promoter of Berry's Training School, a school of instruction in automobiling, farm tractor, ballooning and airplaning. Captain Berry was born in Rochester, New York, in 1848, and has therefore passed the seventy-second milestone on life's journey. His father was Jacob Berry, a native of Switzerland, who came to the United States with his parents when quite young, the family home being established in Paterson, New Jersey. The mother bore the maiden name of Lucy (Long) Berry and was born in Connecticut, being a representative of one of the old families of that state. To Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Berry were born four daughters and seven sons.
Captain Berry of this review was the third in order of birth and the eldest son. He acquired his early education in the public schools of Rochester, but was early forced to start out in the world and provide for his own support so that he is largely a self-educated, as well as self-made man. From life's experiences, however, he has learned many valuable lessons. He began working in a nursery in Rochester, New York, and was thus employed until the Civil war. Although but a youth in his early teens he ran away in order to join the army and became a drummer boy with various companies, especially in wigwams and recruiting camps. He was too young to be taken into the service as a regular soldier but he saw the battle of Bull Run and other engagements when acting as a newsboy selling papers to the soldiers. At the battle of Bull Run he caught a horse with an empty saddle. This proved to be a colonel's horse and was later taken away from him by officers in authority.
When the war was over Captain Berry returned to Rochester and became a news- boy on the New York Central Railroad, being thus employed for three or four years during which time Dean Richmond was president of the road. Later he again re- turned to Rochester and became interested in balloon ascensions and in the study of aeronautics and has made this his business since about 1864.
Captain Berry removed to St. Louis in 1892 and later opened a school for the purpose of teaching automobile driving and mechanics. In 1915 he extended the scope of the school by taking up the work of teaching aviation. He also teaches the use of the farm tractor while ballooning is still another course of instruction in his school. Captain Berry was the winner of the first national championship in a balloon race which was open to anyone in the United States, his balloon being named the University City. During the World war he organized the Ladies Joan of Arc Balloon Corps of St. Louis. He has made several hundred ascensions in one of which he had a most thrilling escape from death. He entered upon the national race for a three thou- sand dollar purse in competition with three others. His balloon was called the St. Louis Million Population Club. They started upon the race June 11, 1914, and the story is so interesting that it is given in full as recorded by Fred W. Vincent.
"Shortly after the balloons ascended they ran into a thunder-storm that had formed in the mountains. Two balloons escaped it, but the Uncle Sam and the St. Louis Million Population Club were caught in the vortex of the disturbance, which played with them like feathers. Both were struck by lightning, but luckily the Uncle Sam was near the ground; its pilot pulled the ripping-cord and the balloon speedily reached the earth. Not so, the other balloon. Although it carried almost two thousand pounds of ballast the raging gale hurled it upward to an altitude of twelve thousand feet. Then, with snow driving around it and lightning zig-zagging hither and thither, threatening instant destruction, the balloon began its wild descent which ended fifty feet from the earth in a lonely stretch of forest on the mountains, where the bag, ripped to pieces, came to rest in three dogwood trees that saved the lives of its pas- sengers. On one side was an open space, on the other, tall, straight pine trees. Had
CAPTAIN JOHN BERRY
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the balloon struck either the space or the pines, this story-which Morrison told me as we stood beside the wrecked balloon after his rescue two days later-would never have been written. Here is the tale of his experience set down practically in his own words: I had never been up in a balloon before, but after we had risen far above the cheering crowds, and the beauty of the country below me unfolded itself to our view, I felt I was going to enjoy myself thoroughly. I did! The sky above Portland was perfectly clear but away to the south and southeast I noticed that the mountains were shrouded in clouds. With the wonders of the beautiful Willamette and Columbia river valleys to gaze upon, however, I paid little attention to such things as clouds. There were two thousand four hundred pounds of ballast attached to the basket in sacks and every inch of the eighty thousand cubic feet of space in the bag was filled with gas of special make, so that I did not figure on anything but drifting peacefully over the mountains. Captain Berry, hero of more than three hundred ascents in Europe and America, was the pilot and I felt perfectly safe. We had been in the air only half an hour when the clouds began to obscure the sun. The afternoon was wearing away. At six o'clock we saw the storm in the mountains and at seven we saw the Uncle Sam three miles ahead of us, making a landing. 'Here is where we win,' cries the Captain as he throws overboard one and one-half sacks of sand. A few minutes later we. were sucked into the storm zone. The big gas-bag went up like a child's plaything until we reached an altitude of twelve thousand feet by barographic reading. 'We are nearly on top of the storm,' Berry shouted. 'We have made better than ten miles in this jump.' The balloon twisted, tossed and rocked like a living thing. Big black clouds were all we could see on every side; it seemed as if we were hurtling through space, shut off from the entire world. A cold wind was blowing, driving before it a mixture of rain and snow that settled on the bag and half filled the basket. I realized that we were in for something serious. Suddenly the lightning began to play around us and the crash of the thunder sounded like the booming of cannons. I looked at Berry. 'I can't tell you anything about your business,' I said, 'but I know we have either got to go up or down quick.' 'Yes,' he replied; 'if we stay here we are in danger of being struck by lightning at any moment. But we have gone the limit and must now take a chance and hope for the best; our gas is shrinking and the wet snow is weighing down the bag-we are already descending under its weight. I dare not open the valves, because if I did the lightning might ignite the escaping gas and blow us to pieces.' Down we went and the pointer registering our altitude swept ste :dily around the dial-ten, nine, seven, six, four thousand five hun- dred point - er. there came a sudden blaze of lightning and I received an awful shock. 'That hr .. I shouted, and at that moment the big bag burst! The entire top ripped open and part of it fell around us in the basket !. 'We're struck,' yelled the Captain and with that he grabbed his knife and began slashing off the sand-bags, calling out, "Throw out everything!' I followed suit and threw some baggage and our life pre- servers-anything to reduce the weight and lessen the pace of our rush towards the ground. But somehow or other I did not seem to be scared. I knew the top was off the bag but I did not think of death. As we dropped swiftly towards the earth I got interested in trying to figure out what would happen next. Two or three times I looked over the side of the basket to see whether the ground was in sight but I could see nothing but the clouds. I also looked up at the bag-empty now, and spread out like a huge umbrella in the net-and wondered whether it would hold. At its top I could see the big slit which the lightning had caused. All around us the thunder still crashed and the vicious lightning criss-crossed the blackness. Snow mixed with rain had soaked us to the skin and we shivered as we clung to the sides of the basket. Long fingers of lightning seemed to reach out for us and the air whistled horribly in our ears.
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"The last thing I remember before we shot downward from the clouds was seeing the Captain cut the thongs that held the trailer-rope, tied in a round ball at the basket edge. Released, the big rope unwound like a snake. We talked a little, in short, sharp sentences; Berry kept saying, 'watch for the ground,' and when we were about two hundred feet above the forest, which seemed to rush up to meet us at dizzy speed, Berry shouted: 'Look out for the trees-duck and don't fall out!' I dropped into the bottom of the wicker. Then-crash, bang-I found myself hanging to the edge of the basket, which was lying on its side. Berry lay huddled up inside motionless. The basket ring, I learned later, had struck him heavily on the head. I looked downward. It was about eight o'clock and I could see fairly well in the twilight. Below me was
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the ground, some fifty feet away and the trailer-rope hung within reach of my hand. I took one look at Berry and believing he was dead swung myself on to the rope and slid to the earth. I was terror-stricken and only just able to realize that by a miracle my life had been saved. The earth never felt so fine, nor I so thankful. It was rain- ing heavily. Above, the lightning still crackled spitefully in the black clouds through which we had so lately been sailing. I was safe, but lost in the forest, standing on the side of a steep canyon. Then I got the idea that Berry might still be alive, so I climbed back into the basket, felt his pulse and was overjoyed to find it beating. With some of the snow which was piled high inside the basket I revived him, but his back was so badly wrenched that he could not climb down the rope unassisted and I was compelled to tie a line around his chest and lower him that way. While I was doing this the balloon, which had struck on the top of three dogwood trees, began to slip, and before it stopped we were within ten feet of the earth. Berry safe, I threw out everything we had in the basket, including six days' food supply and a crate containing two carrier pigeons. By this time the darkness shut off everything from view. I managed, however, to get a fire started, and then got hold of part of the ruined balloon bag and made a tent out of it, in which we spent the night. Next morning Berry was unable to stand on account of his injuries. I wrote two notes saying we had been struck by lightning, were lost and needed help and sent them to civilization by the pigeons. One bird got through to Portland with its message and search parties at once started out to look for us. Meanwhile I attempted to discover our whereabouts and late on the Friday afternoon happened to come across a wood- chopper. When he saw me carrying a hand-axe and heard me say that I had come down in a balloon, he thought I was an escaped lunatic and promptly ran away. I was desperate, however, and overtook him. Finally he understood my story and went back with me. Between us we got Berry to a cabin a few miles farther on and soon after the rescue party was notified by horsemen of our location and we were taken back to Portland in a motor car."
While Captain Berry is now conducting his training school in St. Louis he is also working on the theory of rarefied air as a treatment for and prevention of tuberculosis and has received much encouragement in this connection by men of scientific research and others well qualified to speak with authority on the subject.
Captain Berry was married three times. He has one son by his first wife who died soon after the child's birth. His second wife was Mary Davis, and she passed away at Creve Coeur, Missouri, in December, 1906. On the 3d of care. 1907, Captain Berry was married to Miss Clara Daharb of Creve Coeur, Missouri. -7 1920 they adopted a baby boy, whose father and mother, Martin and Matilda Gier, L :1 within an hour of each other on December 6, 1918, leaving four children, the oldest six years of age. Mrs. Gier was a sister of Mrs. Berry.
Captain Berry is a member of the Aero Club of America and is widely known to balloon men throughout the country. In politics he is a democrat and his religious faith is that of the Episcopal church. His reminiscences of his experiences as a bal- loonist are most interesting and there are none who do not enjoy a few hours spent in the company of America's first national balloon champion.
CHARLES ALBERT CHENEY.
Charles Albert Cheney, secretary to the city water commissioner of St. Louis comes to the middle west from New England, his birth having occurred in Brandon, Vermont, August 8, 1872. He is a son of Wilbur Brown and Nellie (Stevens) Cheney. The father was born in Brandon, Vermont, August 13, 1849, and is still living in that place at the age of seventy-one years. There he wedded Nellie Stevens, who was born in St. Louis, November 30, 1850, and who was visiting relatives in New England when on the 1st of May, 1871, she became his wife. She has now passed away.
Charles A. Cheney is indebted to the graded and high school systems of his native city for the early educational advantages which he enjoyed and after he had com- pleted his course there he attended the Burlington (Vt.) Business College and also the Barnes Shorthand College of St. Louis. He initiated his business career as a clerk in the marble mills at Proctor, Vermont, being in the employ of Senator Proctor who was secretary of war under the administration of President Benjamin Harrison.
CHARLES A. CHENEY
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After a brief period there passed Mr. Cheney came to St. Louis in 1890 at the request of his uncle, A. J. Barnes of the Barnes Business College, and pursued a course in stenography. He afterward went to the Missouri Edison Electric Company as a clerk with S. B. Pike and was later promoted to the position of secretary in the employ of Mr. Pike, there remaining for eight years or until the business of the company was closed out, having been absorbed by the Union Electric Company. At a subsequent date Mr. Cheney became secretary to the general passenger and ticket agent of the Missouri Pacific Railway Company and was next secretary to Arthur N. Sager, circuit attorney, continuing to act as secretary to Mr. Sager's successor, Seebert M. Jones. During a change of political administration he was transferred, becoming assistant secretary to F. H. Kriesmann, mayor of St. Louis. Toward the latter part of Mr. Kriesmann's term E. E. Wall was appointed water commissioner of St. Louis and Mr. Cheney was then transferred to that department as secretary to the commissioner and when his present term expires in April, 1921, he will have filled the position altogether for eight years, giving most excellent satisfaction through the prompt, capable and efficient manner in which he has discharged his duties.
In St. Louis, on the 14th of September, 1899, Mr. Cheney wedded Miss Josephine H. Rosebrough, a daughter of James W. and Margaret Rosebrough, the former presi- dent of the Rosebrough Monument Company, one of the oldest firms of this kind in St. Louis, the business having been established in 1843. To Mr. and Mrs. Cheney were born two children: Charles H., whose birth occurred April 14, 1903; and Wilbur, who was born January 25, 1906. The wife and mother passed away January 30, 1915, and on the 31st of December, 1917, Mr. Cheney was again married, his second union being with Miss Florence B. Bates.
In his political views Mr. Cheney has always been a republican since age con- ferred upon him the right of franchise. He belongs to the Westminster Presbyterian church which is situated at the corner of Union and Delmar streets and in which he is serving as deacon and as secretary of the board of deacons. He is also a member of the board of directors of the Sunshine Mission which is supported by all churches. In a word he is deeply interested in those forces which make for moral progress and the uplift of his fellowmen and he is giving much of his time and attention to efforts for the public good along these lines.
MARTIN C. WOODRUFF, M. D.
Dr. Martin C. Woodruff, a physician and surgeon of ability and. the chief diagnos- tician of the St. Louis health department, was born January 6, 1866, in the city which is still his home, and his life record stands in contradistinction to the old adage that a prophet is not without honor save in his own country, for in St. Louis, where his entire life has been passed, he has won prominence and success. His father, the late Charles Hampton Woodruff, was a native of New Jersey and of Scotch-Irish descent. His education was acquired in his native state and in 1856 he came to St. Louis, where he resided until his death, which occurred in August, 1866, he being ยท one of the victims of the cholera epidemic. He had been engaged in the live stock business and was quite successful in his undertakings. In politics he was an earnest and active republican and when death called him was serving as a member of the city council of St. Louis. He had wedded Mary Olivia Baumgartner, who was born in Bridgeton, St. Louis county, a daughter of William and Mary (Moore) Baumgart- ner, representatives of an old family of Bridgeton and of Dutch descent, who settled in America about 1735. Mrs. Woodruff passed away in St. Louis in July, 1914, at the age of seventy-eight years. She had become the mother of three children: Matilda, the wife of Jesse W. Smith, a resident of Brooklyn, New York; Eleanore, the wife of John J. Baumgartner, living in Baltimore, Maryland; and Martin C. of this review.
In the public schools of St. Louis Dr. Woodruff pursued his early education. and afterward attended the Jones Commercial College. He later entered the Beaumont Medical Hospital, now a branch of the St. Louis University, from which he was gradu- ated in May, 1891, with the M. D. degree. Following his graduation he served as an interne for six months in the Quarantine Hospital and in 1891 was appointed by Mayor Cyrus P. Walbridge as superintendent of the Quarantine Hospital, in which official capacity he continued until 1903. He then entered the health department of
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the city of St. Louis and has been the first and only chief diagnostician of the city. serving since the department was created. He is a member of the American Public Health Association and is keenly interested in all of the problems and questions which come before the organization and which have to do with the maintenance of public health, the establishment of sanitary conditions and the safeguarding of the interests of the community at large.
Dr. Woodruff has been married twice. In St. Louis, in 1894, he wedded Ida Daut, a native of this city and a daughter of Jacob Daut. She here passed away in 1900 and in 1901, in St. Louis, Dr. Woodruff was married to Miss Jeannette S. Craig, a native of Scotland and a daughter of Robert Craig. They have one son, Martin C., who was born November 7, 1901, and is now a student in the Kemper Military School at Boonville, Missouri.
During the war with Germany Dr. Woodruff was in the Red Cross service in Italy, remaining abroad for six months and serving with the rank of captain. His political endorsement is given to the republican party and he has been an active worker in its ranks and equally earnest in his support of all those projects and meas- ures which have to do with city progress and improvement. He belongs to Occidental Lodge, No. 163, A. F. & A. M .; to St. Louis Chapter. No. 8, R. A. M .; and to St. Aldemar Commandery, K. T. His life has been guided by high ideals and his interests have ever sought the general welfare, his labors at all times being far-reaching and beneficial.
EDWIN FREDERIC GUTH.
Edwin Frederic Guth, president of the St. Louis Brass Manufacturing Company, belongs to that class of men whose efforts are proving a dynamic force in the indus- trial development and commercial upbuilding of the city. He has made steady prog- ress since starting out in the business world and his determination and force of character enable him to carry forward to successful completion whatever he under- takes. He was born in St. Charles, Missouri, August 17, 1875, his father being Fred- eric Guth, whose birth occurred in St. Charles, Missouri, and who passed away December 6, 1916. His grandfather was born in Germany and in his childhood days became a resident of St. Charles, as did his wife, whom he met and married in St. Charles. He was very active in the Civil war and his son Frederic was a member of the Home Guard, although only eighteen years of age. The latter married Louise Schaffer, who was born in St. Charles and is now living in St. Louis.
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