History of Gage County, Nebraska; a narrative of the past, with special emphasis upon the pioneer period of the county's history, its social, commercial, educational, religious, and civic development from the early days to the present time, Part 46

Author: Dobbs, Hugh Jackson, 1849-
Publication date: 1918
Publisher: Lincoln, Neb., Western Publishing and Engraving Company
Number of Pages: 1120

USA > Nebraska > Gage County > History of Gage County, Nebraska; a narrative of the past, with special emphasis upon the pioneer period of the county's history, its social, commercial, educational, religious, and civic development from the early days to the present time > Part 46

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Mr. and Mrs. Filley became the parents of six children, concerning whom the following brief data are given: Fitch died at the age of twelve years; Hiram is now a resident of the state of Arkansas ; Emma died at the age of eighteen years; Oscar Elijah died in April, 1916, aged forty-six years; Charles Elmer was four years of age at the time of his death ; Daisy C. is the wife of Murray A. Scoular, of Des Moines, Iowa.

The foregoing record, implying much to him who can read between the lines as well as ap- preciate the data of the context itself, will be read with pleasure by the many friends of Mr. and Mrs. Filley in Gage county and will prove a definite and worthy contribution to the generic history of this favored section of Ne- braska, as their names merit enduring place of honor and distinction on the pages of Gage county history.

SAMUEL RINAKER. - No history of Gage county or the state of Nebraska would be complete without the name of Samuel Rin- aker. For nearly a third of a century this able and scholarly lawyer has made his home-

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yours truly, Samuel Ruiara

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in the city of Beatrice and has engaged in the active practice of his profession in the state and federal courts. During this entire period of time he, with the several firms of which he has been a member, has enjoyed a lucrative practice at the bar of this county and state. He has been professionally connected from the beginning of his career as a lawyer here with a large portion of the important litiga- tion arising in this section of the country, and by sheer force of character, learning and abili- ties of a high order, he has embedded his name deeply and permanently in the legal his- tory of his state and country.

Mr. Rinaker was born at Carlinville, Macoupin county, Illinois, on the 14th day of September, 1860. He is the second son of the late John I. Rinaker and Clarissa Keplinger, his wife. Besides Samuel, the surviving chil- dren of these worthy parents are the eldest son, Thomas Rinaker, a prominent lawyer of Carlinville and for many years his father's partner in the practice of the law; John I. Rinaker, a well known and successful archi- tect of the city of Springfield, Illinois, and Judge Lewis Rinaker, who after several years' successful practice at the Chicago bar was elected judge of the county court of Cook county, Illinois, and held this important office four years.

Shortly after locating in Beatrice, Mr. Rina- ker married Miss Carrie Palmer Mayo, who like himself was a native of Carlinville and who was the daughter of Samuel and Eliza- beth (Palmer) Mayo. Her father was a prominent and influential citizen of Macoupin county and her mother was a sister of the late General John M. Palmer, of whom further mention will be made later on in this sketch.

Mr. and Mrs. Rinaker occupy a handsome and attractive home at the corner of Fifth and Washington streets, .Beatrice. Their mar- riage has proven to be a happy one - lapse of time serving only to cement more firmly the marital bond. To Mr. and Mrs. Rinaker two children have been born, Samuel Mayo Rinaker, a son, and Miss Carrie Rinaker, a daughter. The former after graduating at the Beatrice high school in 1905, with highest

honors, entered the Nebraska State Univer- sity in the autumn of that year and after two years spent in that institution, successfully passed a competive examination for a Rhoades scholarship in Oxford University, England, as a representative from the state of Nebras- ka. In 1910 he was graduated with honors from that historic institution and, returning to the United States, he entered the law depart- ent of Harvard University. After a three years' course at Harvard he took his degree as Bachelor of Laws in the spring of 1914 and in the fall of that year he went to Chicago, Illinois, where he is now well established in the practice of his profession The daughter, Miss Carrie Rinaker, also graduated from the high school of Beatrice, as a member of the class of 1909, and in the autumn of that year was matriculated as a student of Vassar Col- lege, Poughkeepsie, New York. She attended this institution for some time and is domiciled under the paternal roof.

While pride of ancestry is not a marked characteristic of the American citizen, it is, nevertheless, not only natural but highly com- mendable that one should feel a just pride in the fact that he has descended from ancestors who were more than ordinarily distinguished in their day and generation. With this thought in mind it is hoped that a brief ac- count of the parents of Samuel Rinaker will not be deemed inappropriate in this sketch of their son.

His father, John I. Rinaker, was one of the best known and widely influential citizens of the great state of Illinois. He was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in the year 1830. He was bereft of his parents when a child six years of age and was taken to Illinois, where for a few years he made his home with the family of John T. Alden of Sangamon county. When ten years of age he was thrown on his own resources and found a home and occupa- tion on a farm. He acquired the rudiments of an education by attending the common schools of Illinois in the winter time. By great industry, thrift and economy, as well as by close application to his studies, he was finally enrolled as a student in the Illinois Col-

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lege at Jacksonville, where he remained for some time, and later entering McKendree Col- lege at Lebanon, Illinois, he was graduated from that institution with the class of 1851, receiving afterward from his alma mater the degree of Doctor of Laws. Animated by an ambition to give full scope to his abilities, he entered upon the study of the law in the office of John McAuley Palmer, at Carlinville, shortly after his graduation. His preceptor, in addition to being a lawyer of renown, be- came afterwards distinguished as a general in the Union army during the great Civil. war and as a politician of more than ordinary ability. His services as major general of volunteers began in 1862, and he closed his military career as a commander of an army corps under General Sherman, in 1865. He was elected United States senator from Illinois in 1869 as a Republican and again in 1891, as a Democrat, and he closed his political career as a candidate for the presidency of the United States as a sound-money Democrat, in 1896.

General Rinaker was admitted to the bar at Carlinville, in 1854, and was immediately suc- cessful in his profession. In 1862 he took an active part in organizing the One Hundred and Twenty-second Regiment of Illinois Vol- unteer Infantry, was elected and commissioned its colonel and served throughout the remain- der of the great Civil war at the head of this gallant regiment - participating in its marches, sieges, battles, victories. He was seriously wounded in the battle of Parker's Cross Roads, December 31, 1862, but as soon as he recovered he rejoined his command, and on the 13th day of March, 1865, a month before Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, he was breveted brigadier general of volun- teers, on account of "great and meritorious services". At the close of the war he returned to Carlinville and resumed the practice of his profession. He rapidly achieved success as a lawyer and great prominence as an orator and politician. He began life as a Democrat but in 1858 became affiliated with the rising. young Republican party, and to the end of his

long and useful life he remained a loyal mem- ber of that great national organization - emi- nent and influential in its counsels, honoring it and frequently honored by it, and he closed a conspicuously honorable political career as a member of the congress of the United States to which he was elected in 1894, from the Six- teenth congressional district of Illinois - a district then and now strongly Democratic. He died at Eustis, Florida, where he was spend- ing the winter with his wife, on the 15th day of January, 1915, in his eighty-fifth year, be- queathing to his posterity the example and influence of a life crowded with duties faith- fully performed and of honors modestly and worthily borne. His venerable wife, though near the bounds of life, still survives her dis- tinguished husband, the object of the tender solicitude and veneration of a host of rela- tives and friends.

Samuel Rinaker spent his childhood, youth and early manhood in the little city of Carlin- ville and acquired his elementary education in the public schools of that city. At the age of sixteen he entered Blackburn College, also located at Carlinville, from which institution he graduated in the classical course with the class of 1880. He then pursued a course of study in the business college at Jack- sonville, Illinois, and having through these agencies laid the foundation for the study of the law he entered the law depart- ment of Yale College (now University) prose- cuting his studies during the years of 1882 and 1883 in that historic institution and after- ward completing his legal studies in the law office of his father and brother at Carlinville. He was admitted to the bar of Illinois in the autumn of 1884, by the supreme court of that state. In February, 1885, he came to the city of Beatrice, then a hustling, growing, promis- ing western town of probably five thousand people. Upon his arrival here he formed a. partnership for the practice of the law with the late Nathan Kirk Griggs, under the firm naine of Griggs & Rinaker.

Both partners were splendidly endowed with all those qualities of intellect, learning and character which are indispensable to great

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success in the legal profession. Mr. Griggs was from Indiana. He came to Beatrice in June, 1867, and was therefore a pioneer lawyer of Gage county. He was a man of boundless energy and teeming industry, a care- ful practitioner of the law and a miost for- midable antagonist in the trial of causes. Be- sides being an unusually skillful and adroit trial lawyer he was an office lawyer of ex- ceptional ability. He was forty-four years of age and at the very zenith of his powers. He brought to the co-partnership a wide experi- ence as a lawyer, politician and legislator. He had served the United States six years as our consul at Chemitz, Saxony, a period which had produced the same effect on his mind and character as a college education might have done, and he was cosmopolitan in learning, taste, sympathy. He was the most variously endowed of any of the lawyers of the state with whom he was contemporary, being at once poet, singer, composer of songs and music, orator, writer, and lecturer - and ex- celling in all. As an indication of the esteem in which he was held as well as an indication of the mental equipment and attitude of its writer, on certain matters, attention is called to the following letter :

Carlinville, Ill., August 26, 1910. Hon. N. K. Griggs, Lincoln, Nebraska. Dear Sir :---

Several days ago I had the pleasure to receive a copy of your address, entitled "Christ in America's Life," for which accept my thanks. I was pleased with the ideas which you advanced therein and with the striking and elegant manner in which you expressed them. You show that Christianity is the vital and conservative force in all moral progress, the solvent of the refractory problems that confront human society in its onward march to a higher and better destiny. You make plain that religions are the creations of men, but that Christianity is the gift of God to man, that it is a force irresistible, immaculate and immortal and that while permeated with that force, America will lead the world to the longed for Golden Age.

JOHN I. RINAKER.

The junior member of this law firm was by education, training, ambition and abilities well calculated to supplement the experience

and abilities of its senior, and he possessed necessary qualities to success which Mr. Griggs lacked to some extent. The success of the firm was immediate and lasting and each partner grew toward the intellectual stature of the other with a uniformity and certainty rarely seen in such relationships.

In 1890 Mr. Griggs accepted an appoint- ment from the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company as its attorney for the western division of this great corporation and was assigned to the state of Wyoming and other inter-mountain states. He held this po- sition until his death, which occurred while he was journeying to the northwest from his home in Lincoln, in the service of his com- pany, at Alliance, Nebraska, on Sunday morn- ing, September 4, 1910, he being found dead in his berth on the sleeping car at that time and place.

After Mr. Griggs accepted this appointment the late Robert S. Bibb was admitted to the co-partnership which thereafter for some time was known as Griggs, Rinaker & Bibb. But in 1893, on the removal of Mr. Griggs to Lincoln, his name was dropped from the firm name, which thereafter was designated as Rinaker & Bibb. Following the death of Mr. Bibb, in May, 1907, Mr. Rinaker practiced his profession alone until the year 1909, when he became associated with Mr. A. H. Kidd, of Beatrice, in the practice of the law under the firm name of Rinaker & Kidd, a title by which it is still known and under which it does busi- ness.

His natural amiability of character and great adaptability to the profession of the law, have enabled Mr. Rinaker always to take a leading place in the business of his several firms, and this by common consent stripped of every semblance of jealousy or envy. The volume of business with which he has been profes- sionally connected in the various courts of the state and country has been great and varied in character. He has numbered amongst his clients, public officials and public bodies, rail- way companies, banks and banking institu- tions, manufacturing and mercantile concerns, loan associations and agencies, general corpor-

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ations, firms and individuals. His practice has not been confined to the courts of the state of Nebraska alone, but it has embraced the courts of several other states and the great national courts of the country.

Mr. Rinaker is a trained and skillful trial lawyer ; he possesses an accurate and a usable knowledge of the rules and principles of the law and their practical application to the trial of causes. He is eminent in counsel, clear and concise in statement, whether of fact or law, discriminating and logical in argument, court- ly and dignified in address, fair, just, dispas- sionate. Though earnest and forceful in pre- senting his case to court or jury he is suave, self-possessed, deferential. He is a successful trial lawyer and as an advocate and minister of justice, no member of the legal profession in Nebraska is held in higher esteem or com- mands greater consideration from judges and courts than Samuel Rinaker.

Though eminently qualified for public life, whether in the judicial, legislative or admin- istrative branches of our government, Mr. Rinaker has, in the main, steadfastly refused to enter the political arena as a seeker of of- fice. In 1896 he was put forward by his friends as the Republican candidate for coun- ty attorney of Gage county and was triumph- antly elected. He was reëlected to the same office in 1888. With these exceptions he has never permitted his name to be brought for- ward for any political office whatsoever. He has, however, served his community most ac- ceptably as a member of the Beatrice school board, and since it was founded, twenty-five years ago, to the present moment he has been a director of the Free Public Library of Bea- trice. The fact that so far his friends have failed to induce him to look with favor upon a political career has been a source of deep regret to his many friends, both at home and abroad in the state.

The talents and abilities which mark Mr. Rinaker for a useful and a successful public career have not been lost to his fellow-citizens but have served more fittingly to qualify their possessor for the duties and activities of pro- fessional and social life. Mr. Rinaker is a

citizen of the utmost loyalty and public spirit. He takes an active and a sympathetic inter- est in the social, intellectual and business af- fairs of his community, and by his compre- hensive way of looking at things, the accuracy of his judgment and the probity of his char- acter he is everywhere accorded a first place as a citizen of his county and state. He is a member of the Commercial Club of Beatrice, the Beatrice Club - a social organization, - and the Golf Club of his city. For many years he has been a member of the board of direc- tors of the First National Bank of Beatrice and the First Savings Bank, an adjunct insti- tution. He is a Mason, a Knight Templar and a Modern Woodman. For a man with only a moderate fortune, his charities, though discriminating, are large and varied. Without advertising the fact he always contributes to every worthy enterprise or beneficence apply- ing to him for assistance.

In politics, Mr. Rinaker has always affiliated with the Republican party and as a trusted leader in that great party he has been very influential in formulating and directing its pol- icies and activities in both the state and na- tion.

If to gain and through long years of associa- tion to be able to hold the esteem of an entire community ; if to so discharge the duties of an advocate and a lawyer as to dignify and en- noble that great and learned profession, if to command through the third of a century the 'profound respect of the bench and bar of a great state furnish sufficient evidence of worth of character, then the case for Samuel Rina- ker is complete. Time may bring additiona! honors ; it may enlarge his field of activities and usefulness, it may broaden his acquaint- ance; but it cannot augment the esteem, con- fidence and affection with which he is re- garded by those who already know him.

HARRY M. HEPPERLEN, M. D .- No member of the medical profession in Nebraska has shown a greater appreciation of the exac- tions and responsibilities of his humane call- ing or has more thoroughly equipped himself for the work of the profession than Dr. Hep-

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perlen, whose attainments are of high order and who has gained specially high reputation as a surgeon. He is distinctively one of the leading physicians and surgeons of southeast- ern Nebraska, has been established in practice at Beatrice since 1898 and his is the distinc- tion of having founded the first hospital in this city. In this connection he manifested not only his professional zeal and loyalty, but also his liberality and progressiveness as a citizen. The hospital which he established constituted the nucleus of the present admirably equipped and conducted Lutheran Hospital, and Dr. Hepperlen continues his effective and val- ued services as chief of the surgical staff of this admirable institution. The hospital is situated about one mile distant from the cen- ter of the city of Beatrice and one block dis- tant from the beautiful city park, which for- merly was the Chautauqua assembly grounds of this city. The hospital occupies a modern three-story building, and in its general equip- ment and appointments it is maintained at the most approved standard, with facilities for the care of eighty patients. In connection with the hospital is conducted a well ordered train- ing school for nurses, and the institution as a whole is a source of pride and satisfaction to the citizens of Gage county, besides standing as a monument to the initiative ability and pro- fessional zeal of its founder. As a surgeon Dr. Hepperlen controls a practice that in scope and importance is especially noteworthy, his services being demanded through a wide ter- ritory of the middle west,- particularly in Nebraska and Kansas. Many delicate surgical operations, both major and minor, stand to the credit of the Doctor, and in the field of sur- gery he is frequently called upon as an author- ity by his professional conferees. He is an en- thusiast in the work of his profession, keeps in closest touch with the advances made in medical and surgical science, has a compre- hensive and select library of standard medical works and has made valuable contributions to the periodical literature of his profession He is an active member of the American Med- ical Association and the Nebraska State Med- ical Society, as well as the American College

of Surgeons. As a public-spirited citizen he is found arrayed as a staunch advocate of the principles of the Republican party.

Dr. Harry M. Hepperlen was born in Ly- coming county, Pennsylvania, January 26, 1868, and is a son of John and Mary (Mich- ael) Hepperlen, who removed from the old Keystone state to Nebraska in 1880 and es- tablished their home in Jefferson county, where the father became a substantial and influential citizen. Dr. Hepperlen acquired his earlier education in the public schools of Jefferson county, this state, and supplemented his train- ing by attending during three winter terms the select school conducted at Beatrice by Pro- fessor Blake, an educator of exceptional abil- ity. After having formulated definite plans for his future career Dr. Hepperlen entered Keokuk Medical College, in the city of Keo- kuk, Iowa, and in this institution he was grad- uated as a member of the class of 1891, with the degree of Doctor of Medicine. It has al- ready been intimated in this context that Dr. Hepperlen has spared neither pains nor effort in fortifying himself for his profession, and in assurance of this it may be noted that a few years after receiving his degree he took effective post-graduate work in historic old Jefferson Medical College, in the city of Phila- delphia, from which institution he received in 1896 the supplemental degree of Doctor of Medicine. Thereafter, in 1897-8, he took a two years' post-graduate course in the Uni- versity of Vienna, Austria, where he special- ized in surgery, as had he also at Jefferson Medical College.

In 1891, soon after his graduation, Dr. Hep- perlen engaged in the practice of his profes- sion in the village of Harbine, Jefferson coun- ty, and there he continued his residence and professional headquarters until he went abroad for further study. Upon his return to the United States, in 1899, Dr. Hepperlen established his residence in Beatrice, where he has since maintained his home and been a val- ued and honored figure in the community life. Here he founded soon after his arrival a small hospital, the same having but six beds as total accommodation for patients, and within the

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nine years that the hospital was conducted by the Doctor he brought about its splendid de- velopment and increased its accommodations to thirty-six beds. In 1912 the institution was acquired by the Brethren church, under the auspices of which it was conducted until 1914, with Dr. Hepperlen as head of its surgical staff and a valued factor in the general ad- ministration of its affairs. In 1914 the hos- pital, by sale, passed to the control of the Lutheran church, under the auspices of which it has since been conducted.

August 8, 1899, recorded the marriage of Dr. Hepperlen to Miss Rosa B. Warner, and they have four children, namely: Mary Ber- netta, Joseph Price, Fanstella May, and Harry Michael, Jr. Mrs. Hepperlen is a member of the Presbyterian church.

REV. FRANZ ALBRECHT. - In a double sense is this honored citizen a faithful and prolific worker in the harvest, for not only is he serving with consecrated zeal as a clergyman of the Mennonite church but he is also actively and successfully identified with the basic industries of agriculture and stock- growing, as the owner of a well improved farm of one hundred and sixty acres, the northeast quarter of Section 19, Blakely town- ship.

Mr. Albrecht was born at Lindenau, in Si- lesia, Prussia, and the date of his nativity was January 10, 1876. He is a son of Henry and Helena (Penner) Albrecht, of whose five children he was the second in order of birth; Henry, the eldest son, is a prosperour farmer of Jefferson county, this state; Helena is the wife of David Jansen, of that county ; Abra- ham is a resident of Inman, Norton county, Kansas ; and Jacob died when an infant. The father was born August 20, 1845, and contin- ued his residence in his native land until 1884, when he immigrated with his family to the United States. On the 12th of September of that year he established the family home near Beatrice, and for five years thereafter he was employed as a farm workman. The succeed- ing nine years found him engaged in farming on rented land and he then purchased a farm

near Hoag, in Blakely township. He acquired this property in 1897, made excellent improve- ments ou the same and at the time of his death, in 1909, he was the owner of a valuable landed estate of three hundred and twenty acres. He was a son of Jacob Albrecht, who passed his entire life in Prussia and who was a farmer by vocation. His widow later re- moved to Russia, and there her death oc- curred. The mother of Rev. Franz Albrecht was born in Prussia on the 7th of April, 1847, and since the death of her husband she has resided with her son Franz on the old home- stead farm. Her parents, Cornelius and Adelgunda (Dan) Penner, passed their entire lives in Germany and her father was a cloth and linen weaver. He whose name introduces this article was a lad of eight years at the time when the family came to America and estab- lished a home in Gage county. Here he was reared to adult age under the benignant influ- ences of the farm, the while he made good use of the advantage afforded in both the German and English schools of the locality. In 1902 he entered Bethel College, at Newton, Kansas, and in this institution he was graduated as a member of the class of 1905, after the com- pletion of a Bible course and other work of a preparatory order for ordination to the min- istry. He became a clergyman of the Men- nonite church in 1905, and has since been the able and zealous pastor of the church of this denomination in his home neighborhood, be- sides which he gives ministerial service to other Mennonite church organizations in the county - a man of strong intellectuality, of much ability as a pulpit speaker, and of ut- most zeal in all departments of his service.

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History of Gage County, Nebraska; a narrative of the past, with special emphasis upon the pioneer period of the county's history, its social, commercial, educational, religious, and civic development from the early days to the present time, Part 46

Author: Dobbs, Hugh Jackson, 1849- Publication date: 1918 Publisher: Lincoln, Neb., Western Publishing and Engraving Company Number of Pages: 1120

Author: Dobbs, Hugh Jackson, 1849-
Publication date: 1918
Publisher: Lincoln, Neb., Western Publishing and Engraving Company
Number of Pages: 1120