USA > Missouri > Centennial history of Missouri, vol. 1 > Part 13
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Thomas D'Reilly, M.D.
served for nearly six years. He did valuable work in these connections, his activities being at all times characterized by the same zeal and high sense of duty that marked his conduct in all the varied activities of his long, honorable and dis- tinguished career. One of his marked characteristics was his benevolence and helpfulness to those who needed assistance. His home was ever open to the poor and unhappy and they were sure of a hearty welcome, kindly advice and assistance of a most substantial character. A man of the highest scholarly attainments he never lost the common touch but was constantly seeking to do good to those less fortunate. His ability, however, brought him the friendship and close companionship of some of the brightest minds of this and foreign lands and association with him always meant expansion and elevation.
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E. R. Densel
R. HENSEL is the president and treasurer of the E. R. llensel E. Steel & Copper Company, one of the extensive commercial interests of St. Louis and an analyzation of his career indicates the fact that throughout his life laudable ambition has been supplemented by firm determination, unabating energy and industry that never flags. These qualities have brought him to a point of leadership in his chosen field of labor and the story of his progress is an interesting one. He was born at Lawn Ridge, Marshall county, Illinois, December 8, 1873, his parents being Charles A. and Mary E. (Fendrick) Hensel, both of whom are natives of Germany. The father came to America with his parents in 1856, when but nine years of age, the family home being established at Lawn Ridge, where Charles A. Hensel was reared and educated. He afterward took up the business of farming and stock raising, a pursuit that he has since successfully followed, being now one of the influential and prosperous residents of St. Louis county, Missouri, enjoying the high respeet and esteem of all who know him. His wife came to America with an uncle in 1856, when but seven years of age, both of her parents having passed away a short time before. She acquired a public school education while spending her girlhood days in Illinois and eventually gave her hand in marriage to Charles A. Hensel. To them were born three children, of whom one daughter has departed this life.
E. R. Hensel, the only son, attended the country schools at Hoopeston, Illinois, and later became a student in Greer College, where he spent four years in preparatory work, after which he studied law at Newton, Kansas, under the direct supervision of Judge J. W. Ady who was then assistant district attorney for the seventh judicial district of Kansas. His financial resources did not justify a continuance of his studies and after devoting about two years to the mastery of the principles of jurisprudence he was obliged to resort to some activity that would yield him a livelihood.
On the 5th of July, 1895, Mr. Hensel came to St. Louis and secured a position with Thomas W. Freeman as bookkeeper and stenographer. Mr. Freeman was engaged in the steel brokerage business which at that time was a very indefinite line. Five months later Walter C. Freeman became a partner with Thomas W. Freeman, the firm being then known as Freeman Brothers. In 1898 Thomas W. Freeman passed away and Mr. Hensel was admitted to a partnership by Walter C. Freeman and the business was conducted under a partnership arrangement as Freeman & Company until 1908, when Mr. Hensel purchased his partner's interest and became sole owner, continuing the business under his own name. On March 3, 1911, he incorporated his interests under the style of the E. R. Hensel Steel & Copper Company and became president and treasurer, since
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which time he had filled both offices. In the intervening period he has developed the largest and most successful business of the kind in the west. His carefully formulated plans, his enterprise and determination have brought results most gratifying and his trade connections now cover a very extensive territory.
On the 15th of October, 1919, Mr. Hensel was married to Miss Byrd E. Cross, a native of Duquoin, Illinois, and a daughter of James E. and Mary E. Cross.
In his political views Mr. Ilensel is a republican and fraternally is a Mason, belonging to Cosmos Lodge, No. 282, A. F. & A. M. and to various Masonic bodies, including the Knights Templar Commandery, the Consistory and the Mystic Shrine. He is also a member of the Sunset Hill Country Club, the River- view (lub, the Algonquin Country Club, the Missouri Athletic Association and the Chamber of Commerce. Ile belongs to the Presbyterian church, putting forth effective effort to maintain its work and extend its influence. He is one of the strong forces in St. Louis business circles-strong in his ability to plan and perform, strong in his honor and his good name. Dependent upon his own re- sources from early manhood he has steadily advanced along a road that he has carved out through industry and determination and today ranks with the prosperous citizens of St. Louis, wearing worthily the proud American title of "a self-made man."
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Ray E Pickrel
Ray E. Pickrel
DAY E. PICKREL is the president of the Pickrel Walnut Com- R pany and is identified with various other important business enterprises which are an indication of his forcefulness and resourcefulness as a business man. He was born near Gales- burg, in Knox county, Illinois, July 9, 1883, but for a number of years has been a resident of St. Louis and has made steady progress in connection with the commercial and industrial development of the city.
Mr. Piekrel spent his youthful days, however, in Illinois. His parents were John U. and Anise (Strong) Piekrel, the former a native of Illinois, while the latter was born in Iowa. They were married in Knoxville, Illinois, in 1867, and became the parents of four sons and two daughters, of whom Ray E. is the youngest child. The father was engaged in farming and stock raising throughout his entire life and passed away in 1912.
Ray E. Piekrel obtained a public school education and also attended Brown's Business College of Galesburg. Illinois, after which he started out for himself when twenty years of age. He occupied various positions, each one bringing him a broader experience and wider knowledge concerning business conditions and methods, and thus step by step he advanced until in 1912 he organized the Piekrel Walnut Company of which he became president. His efforts and activi- ties have been still further extended and he is now also the president of the Piekrel Veneer Company of New Albany. Indiana. the vice president of the First Joint Stock Land Bank of Chicago, vice president of the Edgar R. Somes Furni- ture Company of Grand Rapids, Michigan, and vice president and one of the directors of the Walnut Export Sales Company of Chicago. At the plant of the Pickrel Walnut Company in St. Louis, during the war period, all kinds of rifle and machine gun stock blanks were made for the United States government. Mr. Piekrel has closely studied every phase of the various business interests with which he is connected and is a most progressive man whose initiative spirit has manifested itself in original and practical plans for the development and success- ful conduct of these enterprises.
In Burlington, Iowa. in November, 1905, Mr. Pickrel was married to Miss Mabel Bowden, a daughter of William Bowden, a large coal operator. They have become parents of two children: Lucille and Helen Rae.
In his political views Mr. Pickrel is a republican and he is identified with various organizations, ineluding the Chamber of Commerce of St. Louis, the St. Louis Art League, the National Hardwood Lumber Club, the Export Lumber Association, the Sunset Hill Country Club, the Midland Valley Country Club, the St. Louis Club and the Missouri Athletic Association. All these indicate the nature of his interests and activities outside of business. No good work
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Rap C. Picktel
ione in the name of charity or religion seeks his aid in vain, yet his benevolence is of a most unostentatious character. In fact Mr. Pickrel avoids display of every kind and it is public record rather than his own statement that shows him to be the largest exclusive walnut lumber dealer and manufacturer of accessories of this character in the world. making shipments to all points of the globe.
For Hugo Summa
hugo Summa, M.D.
MONG those whose record of good accomplished and of success A attained in the practice of medicine reflects credit and honor upon the profession in the state of Missouri was Dr. Ilugo Summa, a well known physician and surgeon of St. Louis, who won distinction as a diagnostician and educator as well as general practitioner. He was born in Oettingen, Bavaria, Germany, December 17, 1859, and passed away in St. Louis, December 15, 1917. His parents were Ulrich and Frances (Schreiber) Summa and the father was a counsellor at law of the Bavarian court. Hugo Summa became a student at Freiburg and was graduated from the Munich University, so that he won the degrees of Master of Arts and Doetor of Medicine before coming to the new world in 1885. He also saw military service in Germany and was a surgeon in the army there.
After coming to America Dr. Summa located in St. Louis, where his ability won him almost immediate recognition. In 1887 he became a professor in the College of Physicians and Surgeons and later was one of the founders of the Marion Sims College. His writings include "Pathogenesis of Gall-Stones," St. Louis Medieal Review, December S, 1900; "The Pseudo-Parasitism of Diptera in Man, or Myiosis," St. Louis Medical and Surgical Journal, April, May, June, 1889; "Ueber Degenerative Veranderungen im Ruekenmark bei Chronischer Lungenschwindsueht," Freiburg in Baden, Buchdruckerei Hch. Epstein, 1891; "The Influence of Medieine on Human Culture," Medical Mirror, January, 1890; "Typhoid Fever and the Soil," Medical Fortnightly, February 1, 1893; "On Xerostomia," The Alienist and Neurologist, April, 1890. Moreover, he was one of the best known diagnosticians in the profession and was an eminent teacher. His pronounced ability was recognized not only throughout St. Louis but through- out Missouri and other states and his opinions were largely accepted as authority by his fellow representatives of the medical profession.
On the 1st of June, 1887, Dr. Summa married Miss Hansi Rooch, a daughter of Dr. August Rooch, a prominent physician who saw much service in the Civil war. Dr. and Mrs. Summa became the parents of two daughters, Edna Lillian and Irma. Mrs. Summa is a most loving and devoted mother and was a capable helpmate to her husband. The companionship between them was most close, their mutual love and confidence increasing as the years passed by. Mrs. Summa's interest always centered in her home and she has found her greatest happiness in providing for the welfare and comfort of her husband and children.
Dr. Summa was socialistie in his views and did not ally himself with any partieular political party. He was a thirty-second degree Mason and member of Moolah Temple of the Mystic Shrine. He loved learning and studying and was a great collector of books, having one of the largest libraries in the eity along the
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Dugo Summa, M.D.
line of his profession. A love of art and music were also among his salient char- acteristics and he developed his artistic talent to such a degree that he could illustrate his lectures with his own pencil sketches. He was also a fine cello player and an excellent linguist, speaking seven different languages and having great familiarity with Greek and Latin. This is but the brief outline of his career and for those characteristics which show the real nature of the man we turn to the memorial written by Dr. Willard Bartlett, who had been his pupil and who prepared the article for the Journal of the Missouri State Medical Association. It reads in part as follows: "The shadows of the winter afternoon were lengthening December 15, 1917, when Hugo Summa passed quietly into the sleep which is endless. Had he lived but two more days he would have com- pleted an all too short life of fifty-eight years. Born in lazy-going Bavaria, land of rugged, wholesome music and art-loving people, he never could get the Prus- sian point of view. Soon after the completion of his medical studies at Munich and Freiburg he came to America in the fall of 1885. No time was lost, a matter of moment in this present crisis, in becoming an American citizen-not a mere formality with him as is well known to all who ever heard him discuss the kaiser. Always intensely patriotic he never failed to manifest his sympathy for the kindly people with whom he had been reared in what he considered their betrayal by the bland, northern neighbor. . . Dr. Summa's widespread influence on the medical profession of this and neighboring states began in 1887, when he joined the faculty of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, thus associating himself with Louis Bauer, Augustus C. Bernays and other brilliant minds of that time. Four years later he went over with others to the Marion Sims College of Medicine, when in 1892 the writer first had the privilege of listening to the brilliant young teacher of pathology and internal medicine. I am not alone in saying that I never knew his equal as a 'schoolmaster'; he possessed that rare ability to impart what he himself knew, to make it easily understandable, and to emphasize the salient features of it in a manner not to be forgotten.
"As long ago as 1893 he extended to a few of us during vacations the priv- ileges of a perfectly appointed diagnostic laboratory. It was here that our well remembered Jesse G. Meyer began the development which made him so thought- ful and skilled a diagnostician. None of those favored ones will ever forget how Dr. Summa utterly forgot the commercial side of medicine in giving unlimited time to an interesting case, or one which baffled solution, while the crowded waiting room overflowed into adjoining halls and entryways; all of this at a time when the laboratory was a rare adjunct to private practice in the middle west.
"For several years in the nineties he served as city pathologist here with no other recompense than that which comes from a sense of having lived up to one's ideals. Those who frequented the old city hospital dead-house in those days had vividly impressed on them the true value of morbid anatomy to one who hopes for an understanding of pathology and its interpretation into terms of clinical medicine. How well remembered is his favorite aphorism at the autopsy table, 'The diagnoses fall like ripe fruit into the lap of him who is really versed in pathology and pathologie anatomy.'
"Dr. Summa remained with the St. Louis University Medical School as pro- fessor of internal medicine until 1910, by which time he found himself unable to do what he considered his duty by his teaching as well as by a consulting
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Dugo Summa, M.D.
practice which embraced all the neighboring states and some of those more remote in the west, south and southwest. No sketch of his medical life can be termed at all complete which does not touch on the peculiar fascination which he exerted over his patients. It must have been the result of the confidence which he inspired in his clinical ability, for he was seklom gentle in his manner toward them, being, I might better say, masterful at all times, even now and then approaching the tyrannical as nearly as was possible to a thoroughly kind- hearted man.
"He was a constant student, a logical thinker, a close observer and given to processes of deduction which led almost unerringly to results that were some- times startling. Hle greatly revered the diagnostic ability of von Leyden, who, he was fond of saying, seemed to look through the human body as though it were made of glass! Surely more than one of his hearers must often have thought this really distinguished compliment applicable to Summa as well."
Among the leading characteristics of Dr. Summa were a courage and a hope- fulness that always inspired the patient and, continues his biographer, "on matter how serious the condition, nor how hopeless the eventual outcome, the patient, after he had seen Dr. Summa, never failed to take a new hold on himself and a firmer grasp on the slender thread of life. This was carried so far that those not fully informed of the situation might have thought the Doctor sometimes in error as to a prognosis. But this could have been rarely the case, in view of his highly scientifie attainments, and especially when one considers that he always laid particular stress in his medieal teaching on the value of the prognosis, saying that it alone proved, as far as the laity are concerned at least, the correctness of a man's reasoning.
"He was of a particularly sensitive disposition; in fact, one might be justified in saying that he was almost abnormal in this particular. I am sure that this led to the fact that the innate kind nature of the man did not always appear on the surface and that his goodness of heart was known and understood only by those who knew him well. In his carlier teaching years this quality of sensitive- ness led him to be unusually careful of the English language. He never delivered one of his medical lectures at this time without first having his devoted wife hear and criticize diction and delivery. All who have conversed with him will remember that a very pleasant foreign accent rather emphasized than obscured the exquisite choice of English which he usually made. It was only under stress of excitement that the idioms of his mother tongue, now and then, came to the surface. Ilis devotion to the highest possible ideals of thought and practice was an everyday matter to his intimate friends. . . His great interest in younger medieal men was a matter of common knowledge fifteen to twenty years ago. A little group of us, his disciples of that day, used to meet at his residence one eve- ning in the week and there were permitted that intimate association with him which a few men will treasure as one of the choicest and most valuable recollee- tions of their medical careers. I do not believe the men of our generation knew Dr. Summa as he was at that time, before his ill health began and when he still had some time which he could call his own. I could relate a number of his benefactions, if I thought a recital of them had even been intended for the public gaze. One of them, however, must not be omitted. A young man had just finished several years of post-graduate work in German universities and upon his
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Dugo Summa, O.D.
return to St. Louis was strongly advised by his former teacher to engage in a limited specialty. On his replying that he would certainly starve if he tried it the Doctor assured him, in no unmistakable manner, that he would not want for three meals a day as long as the Summa home remained open. There is no mistaking the impulses of a heart which is situated very near the pocketbook.
"It may surprise many of his colleagues to learn that Dr. Summa enjoyed a number of diverse non-medical interests. He was a music lover and indeed a musician of no mean ability. He played the cello extremely well for an amateur and for many years conducted a string quartet at his residence where we, his next-door neighbors, learned to know Beethoven and the other classical com- posers through the enjoyment of frequent and delightful rehearsals. He was an absolutely regular attendant with his family at the symphony concerts. As far as I knew he never missed a performance of grand opera given in St. Louis or in any other city where he happened to be at the time. His musical library formed a rather considerable part of an enormous private collection of books which he accumulated during his active years. He was a very ardent admirer of oil paintings and gathered quite an interesting although not a very large collec- tion. His interest in this direction was not for the impressionist, the cubist or the other fin-de-siecle creations of doubtful value, but he loved what was standard and of his own generation. For many years he had been a stamp enthusiast, and only a few days before his death had rearranged what I believe to be one of the largest local collections. It is too bad that he could not have given more time to a pursuit in which he delighted, viz .: rustic life on his estate at Arcadia, Mis- souri. It may be that the outdoor, carefree existence to which he had planned to retire might have prolonged his days had it been judiciously mixed with the professional cares of recent years."
His pronounced ability placed him in a position of prominence and his name is honored and his memory revered by all who were associated with him during an active and useful life.
Charles M Hurst
Charles Al. Durst
HARLES M. HURST, president and founder of the Hurst Auto- C matie Switch & Signal Company of St. Louis, has through the development of this business made valuable contribution to the world's work. The story of his life is an interesting one. He was born near Rockport, Atchison county, Missouri, March 16, 1869, and is a son of Elliott S. Hurst, a native of Ohio and a descendant of one of the old families of that state. The grandfather, James Hurst, was a veteran of the War of 1812 and also of the Mexican war. He established his home at St. Joseph, Missouri, in pioneer times and there became a successful farmer. He was a bricklayer by trade and erected the first two brick dwellings in St. Joseph for a Dr. Leech. He later removed to Atchison county, Missouri, prior to the admission of the state into the Union and settled near the river, but his property was afterward carried away by a change in the river course. He then removed to a place further in the interior of the county and at the last named maintained his residence until called to his final rest at the advanced age of eighty-eight years. The mother of Charles M. Hurst bore the maiden name of America Needles. She was a native of Ohio and a representative of one of the old families of that state of English descent. Her parents removed to Missouri, settling in Atchison county, and her father and a companion were the first two white men to locate in that district. The daughter, Mrs. Hurst, was reared on the frontier and during her childhood days had no play- mates save the Indians. She learned to speak the Indian language fluently and later became an interpreter at Washington, D. C., for the United States government, making the trips to the capital with her mother by boat and stage and while there she taught government officials the Indian language. The death of Mrs. Elliott S. Hurst occurred in 1901, while Mr. Hurst passed away in 1909 at the age of seventy-four years. He had been a successful stock raiser and farmer and he was also a Civil war veteran. To Mr. and Mrs. Elliott S. Hurst there were born seven children, three sons and four daughters, six of whom are living.
Charles M. Hurst was the fourth child of the family and was educated in the country schools of Atchison county and also attended a graded school at Rock- port, Missouri. He afterward pursued a course through the International Correspondence School of Seranton, Pennsylvania, thus studying engineering, and he subsequently took a special engineering course in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at Boston. In early life he learned the machinist's trade, working in the shops of various railroads and for the past thirty-two years he has been connected with various railroads throughout the United States. He was associated with the late E. H. Harriman, president of the Union Pacific, with which road Mr. Hurst is still connected as a consulting civil engineer, and
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Charles &. Durst
is also called by many other roads in consultation. He has served as chief of construction and has laid out much of the reconstruction of the Union Pacific and its feeder lines. He rebuilt the line and made all the new surveys from: Omaha, Nebraska, to Ogden, Utah, and by his carefully made plans saved to the company over two million eight hundred thousand dollars and obviated the necessity of building a million-dollar bridge.
On the 24th of November, 1901, Mr. Hurst was married in Chicago, Illinois, to Miss Lula Bearden, a native of Piedmont, Wayne county, Missouri, and a daughter of James and Mary E. (Bradley) Bearden, who were representatives of pioneer families of Wayne county. Mr. and Mrs. Hurst have become the parents of two children, but one has passed away. The son, Furman Hurst, was born in St. Louis, September 22, 1910.
Politically Mr. Hurst is an earnest republican, thoroughly informed concern- ing the vital questions and issues of the day. As a Mason he belongs to Mount Moriah Lodge No. 40, A. F. & A. M., and to Bellefontaine Chapter No. 25, R. A. M., and he is also identified with the Elks Lodge No. 609 at Rawlins, Wyoming. He is a member of the American Railway Engineers and of the St. Louis Railroad Men's Club. He has been the promoter of the Hurst system whereby all railroads are protected by an automatic mechanical device that preeludes the possibility of open, misplaced or defective railroad switches, which are operated by the weight of the train as it passes over the trips and are adapted for use on all steam and electric railroads, thus promoting absolute safety for the traveling publie. His long experience as a railroad builder and consulting engineer led to the recognition of the need in this direction and his mechanical ingenuity was set to work to meet this need. The result of his study and in- vestigation was the development of the Hurst system of mechanical automatic switches and signals, train controls and train stops. The engineer can operate all railroad switches from his moving train, crossing from one main line to another. Ile can open the switch to enter all side tracks and does not have to stop his train and wait for the brakeman to open and close the switches. When trains are using any switch the switch cannot be changed under traffic, as it is positively interlocked. Moreover, the system prevents running through railroad switches and destruction of switch points. No train leaving a side track can leave a switch open, as all trains automatically set the switch for the main line before using. Anyone operating a switch in front of a high speed train could not cause a disaster, as this mechanical system would automatically adjust the switch back to the main line and the train would meet with no accident. At the convention of the Order of Railroad Conductors held at St. Louis during May, 1919, the entire delegation signed a petition addressed to Walker Hines, Director General of Railroads, endorsing the Hurst system and requested that they be ordered installed on all railroads under his direction and a photographic copy of the petition was forwarded to congressmen of each district of the United States of America and Dominion of Canada with the request that a law be passed compel- ling all roads to install this system. The value of the device which Mr. Hurst has perfeeted cannot be overestimated and in this connection there is being built up an industry of large proportions.
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