A history of Montana, Volume III, Part 157

Author: Sanders, Helen Fitzgerald, 1883-
Publication date: 1913
Publisher: Chicago : Lewis Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 970

USA > Montana > A history of Montana, Volume III > Part 157

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

EARL S. PORTER, M. D. The present age is essen- tially utilitarian and the life of every successful man carries a lesson which, told in contemporary narrative, is productive of much good in shaping the destiny of others. There is, therefore, a due measure of satis- faction in presenting, even in brief resume, the life and achievements of such men and in preparing the following history of the scholarly young physician whose name appears above, it is with the hope that it may prove not only interesting but also inspiring. Though young in years, he occupies the position of Moore's leading physician and surgeon and doubtless has an unusually successful and useful career ahead®

1811

HISTORY OF MONTANA

ci him. Thorough intellectual training, combined with sound professional knowledge and aptitude to apply his acquirements to the treatment of disease, have won him the confidence of a large number of patients, yet his purpose seems not so much to gain a lucrative practice as to master the profound and mysterious truths of his science.

Dr. Porter was born in Alexis, Illinois, August 7, 1883, the son of Robert L. and Emma Stevens Porter. When he was about a year old his parents removed to Beardstown, Illinois, where they resided for some eight years and then located in East Aurora, where they remained six years. They then went to Chicago, where a period of five years was passed and the general education of the subject was secured in the public schools of the three places mentioned. Dr. Porter chose the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor as his alma mater, and there attended for four years, graduating with the class of 19- and receiving the degree of A. B. Having in the meantime decided to devote his energies to the medical profession, he made preparation' in Rush Medical College of Chicago- and from that institution received the well-earned degree of M. D. Subsequently he served as interne in two hospitals-at St. Luke's in Denver and at the Kansas City General Hospital-and in September, 1910, his novitiate finished, he came to Moore. His ability and conscientious devotion to his work won him imme- diate recognition and his usefulness has been of the highest character. He is a close student and wide reader of the standard professional authorities and it is safe to say that he will spare no effort, no self- sacrifice to keep in step with the constantly advancing science with which he is identified.

Dr. Porter earned his first money at the mature age of ten years by selling newspapers in Aurora and he accumulated in this manner a capital of about thirty dollars. He has always been most enterprising and before entering college worked with a surveying party during the summer vacations and in this way earned enough money to take him through the university. He is a member of Phi Rho Sigma medical fraternity. He has a great fondness for outdoor sports, partic- ularly delighting in tennis, baseball and football. He also has a cultivated taste for music and the drama. He believes in the future of the golden west and that Montana is its very heart and he believes that the young man who casts his fortune with it is wise in his day and generation. In the matter of religious faith he is Congregationalist, which is the faith of his for- bears. Three generations of the Porter family have produced a Congregational minister and the entire fam- ily have been devout church members, who have done much for the good causes promulgated by the church. Dr. Porter does not take an active part in politics, his professional and other interests precluding this and he is independent in his convictions, believing the right man and the right measure to be far more im- portant than partisanship. He has not yet become a recruit to the ranks of the benedicts.

Dr. Porter's father, Robert L. Porter, was born in Connecticut and settled in Illinois, where he was identified with railroad interests, and he now holds the important office of auditor of the Wheeling & Lake Erie Railway. His wife was a native of Illinois. Mr. and Mrs. Porter are at the present time residents of Cleveland, Ohio. Dr. Porter is the third in order of birth in a family of four children. He is genial in manner and impresses all with whom he comes in con- tact as a man of much more than ordinary power and force. Well informed upon a great variety of sub- jects, and with most cordial and engaging manners, his society is much sought and his personal friend- ship highly valued, and an important element of his success, professional and otherwise, is the apparent fact that he has strong mental powers in reserve.

SYLVESTER McCHESNEY is the proprietor of the Em- pire Garage & Machine Company, one of the largest and most modern concerns of its nature in the entire northwest. He is now on the point of opening a school of mechanical engineering where he will offer a spe- cial course in farm engineering and power. Mr. Mc- Chesney will himself become one of the lecturers and demonstrators which will be of vast advantage to the student as he is unusually well equipped for the work by education and training as well as by natural in- clination.

Mr. McChesney's talent for machinery, for with him it amounts to little less than a talent, was per- haps, in part inherited from his father, Lewis H. Mc- Chesney who although a blacksmith by trade, became, himself, a machinist. The elder Mr. McChesney was born in Troy, New York, but had enough of the nomad in his temperament to make remaining in one place irksome. In consequence, he lived in many states working as a blacksmith, a machinist and some- times as a building contractor. While in Illinois, he married Agnes Bennett who became the mother of his six children and passed away at Thornton, Iowa, in May of 1909. She was, at the time of her death, sixty-six years of age. His sons are now making a home for their father in Lewistown, Montana, and the new state seems to satisfy the elder Mr. McChesney so completely that he has almost lost his desire to travel.

Mr. Sylvester McChesney, the subject of this sketch was the second of the six children-or perhaps one should say the third as the two older brothers are twins. He was born on St. Valentine's day of 1877, at Muskegon,. Michigan. During the second year of his life, his parents moved to Illinois where they remained for about seven years before going to Iowa. In Illi- nois, the son Sylvester began his schooling. He was graduated from the high school of Burt, Iowa, and later entered Highland Park College, a denominational school in the capital city of Iowa, Des Moines. He was graduated from this institution, receiving the degree of mechanical engineer. His mechanical training, how- ever, long antedated his college training. As a small boy, his chief delight was to play in his father's shop trying to construct engines out of wood and machines from scraps of iron. Later, with the help of his father, and in the same shop, he learned the trade of the machinist. It is interesting to note that Mr. Mc- Chesney, although his chief interest was always along mechanical lines, earned his first dollar shocking grain for a neighboring farmer in Iowa. Not one dol- lar but something more than two did he earn and this in two days time when he was only fourteen years of age. With the proceeds, he bought his first gift for the mother to whom he never ceased to be devoted.

After receiving his degree from Highland Park, he began teaching during the school year and working at his profession in the summer. By this means, a man less determined than he or with less love of his real work would have yielded to the pressure and sacri- ficed his profession for the weaker one of school teaching. As a school teacher, Mr. McChesney was so great a success that he was not infrequently offered the superintendency of some school. The salary oftened looked flattering to a young mechanic only starting out but he put it from him resolutely. He was a popular speaker at the teachers' conventions and did his ablest work but refused to make the run for county superintendent or to accept any responsible position that threatened to permanently interfere with his ambitions.

In 1905, our subject and wife moved from Iowa to Pipestone, Minnesota. Four years earlier, Mr. Mc- Chesney had brought back to the Iowa town to pre- side over his heart and home, a young lady of Pipe- stone, Miss Minnie E. Schrader, the daughter of Mr.

1812

HISTORY OF MONTANA

and Mrs. Charles C. Shrader, prominent residents of that city. Mr. and Mrs. McChesney were married on the 26th day of June, 1901. Both Mr. and Mrs. Mc- Chesney are very musical in their tastes, Mrs. McChes- ney being a pianist of no small ability while her hus- band is a violinist. They spend many pleasant even- ings with their music. In Iowa they both sang in the Methodist church choir and are still affiliated with that organization.

Mr. McChesney's removal from Burt, Iowa, to Pipe- stone, Minnesota, was largely through the influence of his wife. In the Minnesota town where they made their home for five years, he opened up a garage and machine shop. The business proved a great success but Mr. McChesney says that Montana is irresistible and will yet develop into the biggest and best in the Union. It was the call of Montana that he and his wife were unable to resist. They reached Lewistown in 1910 and have since built up the enormous business mentioned elsewhere. They have recently purchased a valuable three hundred and twenty acre ranch thirty- five miles from Lewistown and here the family make their home. No better place could be found in which to rear the three lively boys that have been born to them.

The daughter, Grace Louise McChesney, died in in- fancy, Theodore and Merwyn are attending school, and Donald is at home' with their mother and Mrs. McChesney is a mother talented and devoted to her home, with whom it is an advantage for a boy to stay.

Mr. McChesney has little or no interest in the poli- tics of the state or nation. When he votes, it is in- dependently, for the best man. His home is his lodge, his club and his haven of rest. He belongs only to the insurance order, the Woodmen of the World. As to his sports, he has never lost his love of athletics gained during his college days when he played baseball on the Highland Park nine back in Des Moines, Iowa. He still remains a fan and a rooter and sometimes feels the longing to himself enter the game.

One other of the McChesney brothers lives in Mon- tana. Casper A. McChesney is a well-known lumber man of Garniell.

ARLO F. WARNER. One of the energetic young busi- ness men of Melstone, Montana, is Arlo F. Warner, manager and active head of the Black Mercantile Company of that place, who was reared a farmer boy but who early indicated a preference for business life. Mr. Warner was born at Spirit Lake, Iowa, Septem- ber 17, 1880, was educated in the public schools there and completed a commercial course in Highland Park College at Des Moines, Iowa. He earned his first wages as a boy cutting corn at fifty cents per day and this money he gave to his mother; then when about seventeen years of age, he began teaching school and continued to do so for several years. Upon attaining his majority he went to Minnesota, where he spent nine years and during that time was connected with the First National Bank of Clinton, Minnesota, in a cleri- cal capacity. In 1910 he came to Melstone, Montana, where he first engaged in the real estate business but in February, 1912, took up managerial duties for the Black Mercantile Company and is now giving to the management of this business the best of his energies and business ability.

Mr. Warner is a son of Samuel C. Warner, a native of Pennsylvania who settled in Iowa and spent the remainder of his life there as a farmer. The father, who was a devout Christian and an active churchi member, died in 1901 at the age of fifty-one years and was buried at Spirit Lake, Iowa. In that state he wedded Arlette Waugh, who was born in Maine and who still survives her husband, being now a resident of Grand Forks, North Dakota. Of the four children

of these parents, Arlo F. is the third in birth and is the youngest son.

At Clinton, Minnesota, on the 30th of June, 1906, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Warner and Miss Agnes Berneice Black, a daughter of John and Alice Black, who conduct a hotel in Clinton. Mr. and Mrs. Warner have one daughter, Alice Arlette. Their re- ligious tenets are those of the Methodist Episcopal denomination and fraternally Mr. Warner is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. A Re- publican in politics, he takes a live interest in the issues of the day, and is now serving as United States commissioner of Montana. In the way of recreation he enjoys hunting and fishing and a good game of base- ball, in which sport he often actively participated in younger days. He has found the climatic conditions of Montana to be ideal and is also convinced that there is unlimited opportunity in this state for young men of ability, resourcefulness and will.

HUGH S. McGINLEY, one of the rising young attorneys of Chouteau county, has been engaged in practice in Fort Benton only since July, 1911, but has already gained the attention of a large clientele. He came to this city with a well-established reputation as one of the champions of the cause of the American Federa- tion of Labor, in whose legal battles in Great Falls he had been an active participant, and has fully maintained his position as an able legist, having gained the con- fidence and professional business of some of the lead- ing concerns of his newly adopted community. Mr. McGinley was born at Davenport, Iowa, August 4, 1881, and is a son of Hugh and Susie P. (Duffin) McGinley. His paternal grandparents came from Ireland and settled in New York City, but subsequently removed to Iowa, where both died. Hugh McGinley was born in Iowa, where he was engaged in various business enterprises until 1885, and in that year went to Spokane, Washington, being there engaged in a profitable mercantile business until the financial panic of 1893. At that time he removed to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he now resides at the age of fifty- six years, being connected with the Kelly-Thompson Manufacturing Company. Mr. McGinley married Susie P. Duffin, who was born in Iowa, a member of an old and honored family of that city. Her father, a native of Scotland, came to this country at an early period, served in the Mexican war, was later an officer in the Army of the Potomac during the Civil war, and as a member of an Iowa regiment his copper plate has a prominent place on the state capitol grounds at Des Moines. He was an early settler of Davenport, where his family is well known, as is that of the Van Allens, to which his wife belonged. Mrs. McGinley still re- sides at Minneapolis, at the age of fifty-six years, as does her only daughter, Mrs. Guy Thomas.

Hugh S. McGinley was four years old when taken to Spokane by his parents, and he there attended the public schools and Gonzaga College. When he accom- panied the family to Minneapolis, he became a student in the graded schools, this attendance being subse- quently supplemented by a course in St. Thomas. Col- lege, St. Paul. Mr. McGinley then became a student at Notre Dame (Ind.) College, from the law de- partment of which he was duly graduated, and in 1904 was admitted to the Minnesota bar. Opening offices, he practiced his profession in Minneapolis until 1906, and subsequently was connected with the legal depart- ment of the Minneapolis & St. Louis Railway, but in the spring of 1910 removed to Great Falls. There he advanced rapidly in his profession, and was chosen one of the representatives of the American Federation of Labor, in its memorable controversies of 1910, con- tinning there until he had seen the vindication of the principles for which he had been fighting, and in July, I9II, came to Fort Benton. He had no reason to re-

1813

HISTORY OF MONTANA

gret this last move, as his professional business is of a very satisfactory nature, and his reputation has been thoroughly established both in his profession and among the citizens of the community. Mr. McGinley is a valued member of the Montana Bar Association, and on November 5, 1912, was elected county attorney for Chouteau county. His politics are those of the Demo- cratic party.

On June 15, 1908, Mr. McGinley was married to Miss Ida L. Koch, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where her father, Daniel Koch, now deceased, was for many years a leading contractor. Mr. and Mrs. McGinley have no children.

JESSE V. KELLY, secretary of the Commercial Club of Harlowton, and an extensive dealer in real estate, is one of the most progressive and prominent citizens of his part of Montana, one who has prospered in business and has earned success by his enterprise, natural sagacity and well-established reputation for integrity. Born in Sac county, Iowa, May 14, 1877, he is a son of Nicholas L. and Rose (Prentice) Kelly, the former a native of Wisconsin, who is now ex- tensively engaged in the real estate business in Okla- homa, an active church worker and a prominent Mason. He was married in Iowa, and he and his wife had three children, of whom Jesse V. is the eldest, his brother, Claude P. Kelly, being assistant cashier of the First National Bank, of Cooperstown, North Dakota.

After attending the public schools of Iowa and Louis- iana, to which latter state he had been taken by his parents when eleven years of age, Jesse V. Kelly spent three years at Baldwin Academy, at Baldwin, Louis- iana, then becoming a student at Galveston (Texas) Business University and subsequently taking a post- graduate business course at Chillicothe, Missouri, whence he had gone after taking part for two years in the Spanish-American war in Cuba. Until he was twenty-two years of age he was engaged in agricultural pursuits, and then spent three years in the rice milling business, then entering the banking business, which he followed until 1905 in Louisiana. In 1905 he re- moved to North Dakota, where he was identified with financial institutions until 1910, which year saw his advent in Harlowton, whence he came as cashier of the First National Bank. On his election to the office of secretary of the Commercial Club he gave up bank- ing to engage in the real estate business, and now has large realty holdings and deals extensively in loans and insurance. Although he has been a resident of the city for only comparatively a short period, Mr. Kelly has already gained a wide reputation in busi- ness circles, and is known as a citizen who is ready to lend his aid and influence to all progressive move- ments. He has advanced to the commandery degree in Masonry, in which fraternity he has held numerous offices, is a member of the Elks, and in the Order of the Eastern Star, of which his wife is also a member, is worthy patron. In politics he is a Democrat and takes an active interest in the success of his party, although he has no desire for public preferment. Although not a member of any religious denomina- tion, he is a regular contributor to worthy religious and charitable objects. It is his firm belief that the natural resources of Montana will eventually make this the leading state in the Union, and is accordingly doing all he can to encourage its settlement.

On December 31, 1904, Mr. Kelly was married at Lafayette, Louisiana, to Miss Mary McNaspy, daughter of James and Anna McNaspy of Lafayette. Both Mr. Kelly and his wife have numerous friends in Harlow- ton, and are general favorites in social circles.

WILLIAM L. BULLOCK is a lawyer of prominent and popular standing in Valier, where he has been located since 1910. His residence in Montana has thus been

of short duration, but he has in that time built up an extensive law practice in the great western state, and in consideration of manifest talents and abilities, it is not too much to predict a prosperous and brilliant fu- ture for him in his chosen profession.

Mr. Bullock was born in Wisconsin, in the town of Hortonville, on August 24, 1873. He is the son of L. B. Bullock, a native of New York, who moved to Wis- consin in 1855, and who was a pioneer Methodist min- ister of Wisconsin, having given thirty years of his life to his duties as a clergyman. He is now retired and is living in Waupaca, Wisconsin, and has reached the age of seventy-nine years. The Bullock family is of Eng- lish descent, the first of the name settling in Vermont prior to the Revolutionary war. The mother of Mr. Bullock of this review was Elizabeth J. (Atridge) Bul- lock, a native of Vermont, and like her husband, of English descent. She died at Manawa, Wisconsin, at the age of seventy-seven, in 1908. The house of Atridge was founded in America in early colonial days, the founder having been kidnapped in England as a boy and brought to the colonies on a British man-of-war, to serve in the Royal army. The plucky youth escaped, and determined that if he was to fight, he would at least choose which side he should serve on, entered the Continental army and served till the close of the war.

William Bullock was the youngest of the three sons born to his parents. He received a general education. preparing for college in Lawrence Academy, graduat- ing from Lawrence University in 1899 with the degree of B. S. and last, in 1908, being graduated from the Uni- versity of Wisconsin with the degree of B. L. Between his university courses, however, the young man entered the teaching profession and was at one time principal of the Amherst high school at Amherst, Wisconsin, and later was principal of the Shell Lake high school for four years. He read law for a time in the law offices of Cate, Dahl & Nelson at Stevens Point, Wis- consin, which was followed up by a course in the Uni- versity of Wisconsin Law School and his subsequent graduation therefrom in 1908. In June of that year the young lawyer was admitted to practice in the state, and he carried on a general practice in Madison in com- pany with J. F. Baker, under the firm name of Bullock & Baker, but in 1910 he came to Montana, locating in February in Valier, where he has since continued, ac- tively engaged in the practice of his profession. When he first located in Valier the town had a population of not more than six hundred persons. He was the first city attorney the place elected and also has been chair- man of the school board.

Mr. Bullock is an active Republican and enthusiastic in the interests of the party. He is a worker; while carrying on his studies at the university finding other employment as index clerk in the state legislature. In addition to his legal business of a local nature, Mr. Bullock is the Montana representative of the Valier Land Company of Madison, Wisconsin.

Mr. Bullock is a member of the Masonic fraternity, Valier Lodge No. 76, A. F. & A. M., and Valier Chap- ter No. 21, R. A. M., and is a member also of the In- dependent Order of Odd Fellows. He is a member of the Sons of Veterans, and holds membership in the Ryan Chapter of the Phi Alpha Delta Law Fraternity. He has been admitted to practice in the circuit and district courts of the United States for the western district of Wisconsin, in the federal district court of the state of Montana, and in the supreme courts of Wis- consin and Montana.

On November 30, 1899, Mr. Bullock was married at Stevens Point, Wisconsin, to Miss Nellie E. Nelson, the daughter of A. M. Nelson, a native of Norway. They have one daughter, born to them on January 7, 1901, at Shell Lake, Wisconsin, Marjorie E. Bullock.

1814

HISTORY OF MONTANA

STENER T. WIPRUD is a prosperous merchant of Valier, Montana, who has achieved distinctive success through his own efforts, unaided by the advantages of superior education or financial backing, but solely through the application of those qualities of native thrift, energy and business acumen which come so naturally to the Scandinavian. He was born in Nor- way on April 10, 1871, and is the son of T. A. and Anna (Mork) Wiprud, both native born Norwegians. The father came to America in 1888 with his family and settled in Fillmore county, Minnesota, where he engaged in farming for a number of years. He later retired from active agricultural life and has been a resident of Clay county, Minnesota, for some time. The wife and mother died in Fillmore county in 1890, aged fifty-eight years.

Of the five children born to Mr. and Mrs. Wiprud, Stener T. was the youngest. He attended the schools of his native town as a boy and had the privilege of attending Luther Academy at Albert Lea, Minnesota, from which he graduated. He then went to work as a clerk in a general merchandise store and in that capacity and as a book-keeper he was five years em- ployed by P. L. Quarve at Fessenden, North Dakota. He followed that season of experience by entering business on his own responsibility in 1901, at Wiprud, McLean county, North Dakota, and after three years in that place sold his interests there and moved to Hettinger, in the same state, where he engaged in a similar enterprise. He widened his interests here somewhat by entering the banking business, organizing the Bank of Hettinger, of which he is still the vice- president. In the spring of 1910 Mr. Wiprud came to Montana, and he soon formed a partnership with Carl- son Brothers. and together they established a large general merchandise store, the firm being known as the Wiprud-Carlson Company. The partnership en- dured until February, 1912, when Mr. Wiprud pur- chased the interests of his partners, and is now the exclusive owner of the store and building. It is one of the largest stores in this section of the state, carry- ing a stock in excess of $50,000 and doing an annual business of $150,000. Mr. Wiprud still retains his interest in the store in Hettinger, North Dakota, and in his real estate holdings as well. He is also asso- ciated with Montana State Bank, capital $20,000, of which he is the vice-president. On the whole, he is one of the prosperous men of the county, and is re- garded as a valuable citizen and a capable business man. He is an Independent in politics, and a mem- ber of the Lutheran church. He is in a fraternal way connected with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, being a member of the Valier lodge.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

A history of Montana, Volume III, Part 157

Author: Sanders, Helen Fitzgerald, 1883- Publication date: 1913 Publisher: Chicago : Lewis Publishing Co. Number of Pages: 970

Author: Sanders, Helen Fitzgerald, 1883-
Publication date: 1913
Publisher: Chicago : Lewis Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 970