USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > A history of Cuyahoga County and the City of Cleveland, (Vol. 2) > Part 38
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Albert Kroehle was reared in the Village of Brooklyn, where he received his education, and during his school days spent his extra time in working about his father's tannery. Thus he was practically reared in the tanning business, and in 1885 became a member of his father's firm, at that time known as Adam Kroehle & Company. In 1917 he assumed the presidency of the reincorporated company, of the affairs of which he has since had charge. Under his capable and energetic direction the business has prospered gratifyingly and has assumed a place among the leading enterprises of its kind of the City of Cleveland. He also belongs to the Sleepy Hollow Golf Club and the Brecksville Country Club.
In 1897 Mr. Kroehle was united in marriage with Miss Mabel Wil- liams, who was born at San Francisco, California, and to this union there has been born one son, Edgar, who was educated at Lincoln High School and Culver Military Academy, and is now in Cornell College.
ERNEST M. SPRAGUE has gained success and prestige in his profession, that of contracting engineer, and in the City of Cleveland he maintains his offices at 1538 Hanna Building.
Ernest Marshall Sprague was born on the family homestead farm near Farmington, Oakland County, Michigan, on the 20th of October, 1865, the family having been founded in that section of Michigan in the pioneer period of its history, and the branch of the Sprague family of which the subject of this review is a scion having been founded in America in 1626, when representatives of the name came from England and set- tled in Rhode Island, where the family has been one of prominence for many generations. The family gave patriot soldiers for service in the War of the Revolution and also the War of 1812. In the second war with England Caleb Sprague served as a drummer boy with his father in a company that rendered good account of itself in the conflict of 1812-14. This youthful drummer and patriot, grandfather of him whose name initiates this sketch, established residence in the State of New York, where his son Lorenzo was born in the year 1828. In the early '30s they became the pioneer founders of the family in Oakland County, Mich- igan, where Lorenzo continued to reside until his death in 1898. His wife, whose maiden name was Laura G. Mead, was born in the State of New York in 1820, she having survived him about two years and having been eighty years of age at the time of her death in 1900. The paternal ancestors of Mrs. Sprague in America came from England to this country in 1656, settled in Connecticut, and were numbered among the founders of Greenwich, that state. Mrs. Sprague was a daughter of Amos Mead, who served as captain of a company in the War of 1812, and who was one of the pioneers of Farmington, Michigan.
Ernest M. Sprague, son of Lorenzo and Laura G. (Mead) Sprague,
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passed the period of his childhood and early youth on the old home farm which was the place of his birth, and supplemented the discipline of the district schools by a course in the high school at Ann Arbor, the seat of the great University of Michigan. In preparing for the profession of his choice he entered this university, and in the same was graduated in 1888, with the degree of Civil Engineer. Within a short time after his graduation he found employment in the engineering department of the Chicago & North Western Railroad, with which he continued his service six years. He was next 'detailed to the position of general inspector of the Milwaukee, Lake Shore & Western Railroad, a line that had been acquired by the Chicago & North Western, and in this connection he continued his service two years. He then retired from railroad engineer- ing work to accept a position in the engineering department of the Detroit Bridge & Iron Works, one of the important industrial concerns of Detroit. In 1898 he went to Denver, Colorado, in the capacity of western representative of the Gillett-Herzog Manufacturing Company of Min- neapolis, Minnesota, and in 1900 still further recognition of his ability came when he was made contracting manager for the American Bridge Company, with headquarters in Denver. There he remained in this exec- utive service until 1905, when he was transferred, in the same official capacity, to Cleveland, Ohio. In 1920 he resigned his position with the American Bridge Company to assume the post of contracting engineer with the McClintic-Marshall Company, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, together with similar functioning with a subsidiary concern, the Riter- Conley Company. In this connection he continues to maintain his head -. quarters in Cleveland, and this position he still maintains.
In 1905 Mr. Sprague established his residence in East Cleveland, and there he has been active in civic affairs as a loyal and progressive citizen. He served as a member of the city council and also as a member of the sinking fund commission. Since the adoption of the city-manager sys- tem of municipal government, he has served during the past six years as city commissioner, being vice president of that body.
Mr. Sprague is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Cleveland Athletic Club, the Big Ten University Club, and the Cleve- land Chamber of Commerce. His basic Masonic affiliation is with Win- dermere Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons; his chivalric alliance is with Cœur de Leon Commandery, Knights Templar, and he is a member of Lake Erie Consistory of the Scottish Rite, besides which he is a life member of El Jebel Temple of the Mystic Shrine in the City of Denver, Colorado.
Mr. Sprague married Miss Maude L. Sill, who was born in the State of Illinois, and who is a daughter of George H. and Amanda Sill. Mr. Sill, a native of Pennsylvania, became a resident of Illinois and from the latter state removed with his family to Denver, Colorado, when his daughter Maude L. was a child. Mr. and Mrs. Sprague have two children : Robert M., aged sixteen years (1924), is a senior in the Shaw High School, and Jean K., the thirteen-year-old daughter, is a student in Laurel School.
ALFRED JOHN GERICKE, A. B., M. D., one of the younger members of the medical profession of Cleveland, was born on the South Side in
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Cleveland, October 1, 1892, son of John F. and Jennie (Warnicke) Gericke. His father was born in Germany, came to this country about forty years ago, and, locating on the South Side, was in the merchant tailor- ing business for many years, until he retired. He is now fifty-eight years of age. His wife, Jennie Warnicke, is a daughter of Henry War- nicke, a pioneer merchant tailor of the South Side.
Alfred John Gericke was reared and educated in his section of the city, graduated from the Lincoln High School in 1912, and following that spent a year and one-half in the Cleveland-Pulte Medical College and then entered Baldwin Medical College, where he was graduated Bach- elor of Arts in 1916. Doctor Gericke after his liberal general education took his medical work in Western Reserve University, graduating Doctor of Medicine in 1919. During his senior year in medical school he was an externe in the Cleveland City Hospital, and continued with that insti- tution as externe during 1919-20 and in 1921 was resident physician and since beginning private practice has continued as visiting physician to the hospital. While in his senior year of medicine Doctor Gericke enlisted in the Medical Reserve Corps.
He opened his private offices for general practice in the Wetzel Build- ing at West Twenty-fifth and Clark Avenue in 1921.
Doctor Gericke is a member of the Cleveland Academy of Medicine, the Ohio State and American Medical associations and the Phi Rho Sigma medical fraternity. He is also a member of the Masonic order. He and his parents are members of the Presbyterian Church. Doctor Gericke married, August 28, 1922, Miss Rose Stroburg, of Cambridge, Illinois, who was a trained nurse and head nurse of the City Hospital. They have one child, Alfred John, Jr.
CHARLES CHAMBERS HAHN. Fortunately it is not absolutely neces- sary that every boy starting out in life to make his own way should have much schooling, a bank account or social station, but it is a fact that he must possess within himself the elements that these represent if any sub- santial success comes to him. If he is the right kind of a boy, industrious, willing, self-respecting and honest, he can earn his own bank account, can acquire wide and varied knowledge, and through honorable personal achievements, can attain social position and public confidence. Among the men of Cleveland may be found many who had difficulties and dis- couragements to overcome in youth, and a prominent one whom may serve as an example is Charles Chambers Hahn, a contractor and builder of civic importance. Additionally, Mr. Hahn is a member of the city council, representing the largest city ward, and looks after the interests of his constituents with the vigilance and efficiency that bring him their respect, trust and esteem.
Charles Chambers Hahn was born at Brownstown, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, January 28, 1886. His parents were Horace K. and Amanda (Shirk) Hahn, both natives of Lancaster County, the father born at Hinkletown in 1856, and the mother at Ephrata in 1860. She survived until 1904, but the father died in 1899, when Charles was but thirteen years old. Up to that time he had attended the public schools more or less regularly, but the death of his father placed family responsibilities
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on his young shoulders that necessitated his leaving school and going to work, and from that time on until her death, the welfare of his mother was one of his first cares. A silk mill at Ephrata gave him his first opportunity and he remained there until he came to Cleveland in 1903. Here he served an apprenticeship of four years to the carpenter trade under his uncle, the late Elmer E. Hahn, and after becoming a skilled workman, worked for contractors at different points as a journeyman carpenter.
In the meanwhile Mr. Hahn had made some substantial investments of his own, and since 1914 has not only been superintending for con- tractors as an expert, but has been rather extensively engaged in building houses of his own and profitably disposing of them, his operations being largely confined to the West Park section of the city.
In addition to proving himself a competent, reliable business man, in his own interest and in those of his employers, Mr. Hahn through honorable dealing has long enjoyed the confidence of his fellow residents of West Park Village, and in 1920 was elected a member of the village council, a position he was ably filling when the village charter was sur- rendered for a city charter. Under this charter he was elected councilman- at-large. On January 1, 1923, when the Village of West Park was admitted to the City of Cleveland as the Thirty-third Ward, Mr. Hahn was elected a member of the Cleveland city council from that ward, a mark of public confidence that tells its own story. The responsibilities of this position are enormous, for the Thirty-third Ward covers an area larger than many of Ohio's smaller cities. It approximately covers twenty square miles, making it more than six times the size of East Cleveland, more than three times the size of Lakewood, larger than Dayton, almost twice the area of Canton; and it contains more than one-third as many square miles as Cleveland could boast of before the annexation.
Mr. Hahn married, at Cleveland, Miss Lillian A. Moritz, a daughter of Frederick and Bertha (Klemmer) Moritz, residents of Cleveland, and they have four children : Ellsworth C. F., Evelyn, Charles A. and Harold K.
Mr. Hahn is a charter member of North Star Lodge No. 638, Free and Accepted Masons; also a charter member of West Park Chapter, Royal Arch Masons; a member of Forest City Council, Forest City Commandery, Lake Erie Consistory and Al Koran Temple, Mystic Shrine.
GUS ZIMMERMAN, a veteran of the Spanish-American war, has been a resident of Cleveland for over twenty years, and is proprietor of the well known Zimmerman Dancing Academy.
He was born at Pottsville, Pennsylvania, son of Benjamin and Susanna Zimmerman. His parents were also born in Pennsylvania, of Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry, and spent all their lives in that state.
Gus Zimmerman was educated in public schools and as a boy displayed natural talent for dancing. He perfected himself in the art of dancing by study and persevering application with the most prominent ballet masters in America and Europe. Coming to Ohio, he was living at Canton, Ohio, when the war with Spain broke out, and he entered the United States service as a member of Company L of the Eighth Ohio Infantry. He saw service in Cuba and was at Santiago when the war ended. He then returned
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to the United States, being held a time on Long Island, and received his honorable discharge at Wooster, Ohio, in 1899.
Mr. Zimmerman, in 1901, came to Cleveland, and for some years clerked in different commercial establishments, in the meantime continuing his study in the art of dancing, and in 1913 organized the Arcadia Dancing Academy Company. He has since been president and manager of this well known institution, located at 10300 Euclid Avenue. This academy has a capacity of 2,500 people and a score of employes are required to operate it. Of the Zimmerman School of Classic Dancing Mr. Zimmerman is principal and Mrs. Zimmerman, assistant principal. Mr. Zimmerman is known as one of America's foremost ballet masters, having served on the Normal School Board of the American National Association Masters of Dancing for five years, which brought him in contact with dancing teachers from all parts of the United States and his friends are the leading dancing teachers of the country.
All branches of the art of dancing are taught by Mr. Zimmerman in his school, including ballet, Grecian, oriental, character, ballroom and step dancing.
The number of students enrolled in the school are from 200 to 300 children and young ladies.
Mr. Zimmerman married, September 29, 1907, Miss Lelia Virginia May, who was born in Marietta Ohio. Mr. Zimmerman is a member of the United Spanish War Veterans, a member of the Kiwanis Club, and is president of the Cleveland Dancing Teachers' Association. He is a member of the English Lutheran Church.
HARRIET TAYLOR UPTON, when a girl at Ravenna, espoused the ideas and principles that have dominated her entire life and ever since she has been identified as a working influence with the woman's suffrage cause. She held an important administrative post in the national organiza- tions, and the history of the woman's suffrage movement in America can hardly be written without some reference and tribute to this Ohio woman.
She was born at Ravenna, daughter of Ezra B. and Harriet (Frazer) Taylor. Her father, a native of Nelson, Portage County, Ohio, became one of the leading lawyers of northwestern Ohio. He practiced at Ra- venna and in Warren, served as prosecuting attorney, common pleas judge and succeeded General Garfield as representative of the Nineteenth Ohio District in Congress. He was in Congress thirteen years. Judge Taylor died in 1912 at the age of eighty-nine. Mrs. Upton's mother was born at Ravenna, daughter of William Frazer and Anna (Campbell) Frazer. She was a woman of great intellectuality, but died at the comparatively early age of fifty-five.
Harriet Taylor Upton had a high school education at Warren, and on July 9, 1884, was married to George W. Upton. Mr. Upton, who died in Washington in April, 1923, was educated at West Point Military Academy, subsequently studied law at Washington and was admitted to the bar in Ohio, practicing in this state and Washington for many years.
Mrs. Upton became actively identified with the National Woman's Suffrage Movement in 1890. She served as president of the Ohio Woman
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Suffrage Association, but the office by which she was best known was that of treasurer of the National Woman Suffrage Association, a post of duties she held fifteen years. She acted as a patron of the National Council of Women. She had the satisfaction of assisting in bringing about the ratifi- cation of the Nineteenth Amendment.
Since then she has been a prominent worker in the republican party, and is now vice-chairman of the Executive Committee of the Republican National Committee, the late President Harding having chosen her for that place. She was elected a member of the Board of Education at Warren a year or two after the school suffrage law was passed and served fifteen years part of the time as chairman. She also served as vice president of the Warren Political Equality Club. She is a member of the Episcopal Church, the Washington City Club, the Ohio Daughters of the American Revolution, the Woman's Relief Corps and many other organizations. Mrs. Upton is the author of three books: "Our Early Presidents, Their Wives and Children," published in 1892; "The History of Trumbull County, Ohio," and a "History of the Western Reserve."
SYLVESTER V. McMAHON has been one of the well qualified attorneys of the Cleveland bar for more than twenty years. His offices are in the Ulmer Building. Mr. McMahon is a native of Cleveland, and is a member of a family whose name has been prominently identified with the candy manu- facturing business in this city for seventy years or more.
Mr. McMahon was born at the family home on Orange Street, midway between Cross and Perry streets in Cleveland. His father was Peter Mc- Mahon. The grandfather was a native of Ireland, came to America when a young man and settled in Quebec, and lost his life by drowning in the St. Lawrence River. After that event his widow and her three daughters and one son Peter, who was born at Quebec in 1826, moved to Toronto, where Peter as a youth was apprentice to a candy manufacturer, learning the trade of confectioner. Peter McMahon moved to Cleveland in 1846. For a short time he worked at his trade. Cleveland was then a small lake port, most of its present area covered with farms or timber and its business oppor- tunities outside of certain lines were limited. Peter McMahon on leaving Cleveland traveled overland to the Mississippi River and went South to New Orleans, then one of the most important cities in the country. For two years he was engaged in the confectionery business at New Orleans, but in the meantime realized that Cleveland was destined to be a great and powerful city, and accordingly he returned and established a candy manu- factory. The business of candy manufacturing has been continuously in the McMahon family ever since, and a grandson of Peter, Edward Trough- ton, now conducts the industry founded by him and today one of Cleveland's most prosperous manufacturing concerns. Peter McMahon himself had charge of the business for nearly fifty years. He then retired and three years later died at the age of eighty. Peter McMahon married Johanna Rafter, who was born at St. John, New Brunswick, Canada, and was a child when brought to Cleveland, where she grew up. She died at the age of seventy-six. Her three sons and four daughters were named Margaret, William, Mary, Belle, Thomas, Sylvester Vincent and Anna.
Sylvester Vincent McMahon as a boy attended St. Bridget's Parochial
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School, St. Ignatius College, took a post graduate course in logic and mental philosophy, and studied law one year in the law school of Western Reserve University and two years in the Cleveland Law School. He was graduated Doctor of Laws in 1900, was admitted to the bar, and has since been engaged in general law practice, one that takes him before all the courts. He was appointed police prosecutor in 1903 by Newton Baker, serving three years, and in 1906 was elected county prosecutor. Since leaving that office in 1909 he has given his whole time to his law business.
Mr. McMahon married in 1907 Mona Kelly, who was born at Kingston, Canada, a daughter of John and Mary Kelly. Her father died in Canada and her mother brought the children to Cleveland. Mr. and Mrs. McMahon have four children, named John, Mary Agnes, Monty and Sally. Mr. McMahon is a member of the Cleveland Bar Association, the City Club, and is regarded as a man of high standing both in professional and social circles.
ELROY MCKENDREE AVERY was a resident of Cleveland, forty-eight years. Among Ohio's educators and authors his name is associated with many distinctive achievements.
Doctor Avery was born at Erie in Monroe County, Michigan, July 14, 1844, son of Casper Hugh and Dorothy (Putnam) Avery. He is a lineal descendant of Capt. James Avery, who came from England about 1640, and also of the Mayflower pilgrims in 1620, Steven Hopkins and his daughter Constance, and Thomas Dudley, the second governor of Massa- chusetts Bay Colony.
In 1861, when seventeen years of age, Elroy McKendree Avery enlisted as a private in Company A of the Fourth Michigan Infantry and saw active service in the greater part of the war. At the end of the war he was sergeant major of the Eleventh Michigan Cavalry. Following the war he taught school, attended the University of Michigan, graduating Bachelor of Philosophy in 1871. The university conferred upon him the degrees Master of Philosophy in 1871 and he has since been awarded the honorary degrees of Doctor of Philosophy, Doctor of Laws, Doctor of Civil Law. He was elected a member of the Scholarship Honorary Fraternity Phi Beta Kappa.
Doctor Avery was at one time principal of the high school at Battle Creek, Michigan. He was also superintendent of schools at East Cleve- land and principal of the City Normal School at Cleveland. He became a resident of Cleveland in 1871. In 1879, the year he retired from the principalship of the Normal School, until 1885, he was in the service of the Brush Electric Company, Cleveland's pioneer electrical engineering organization, and in that capacity he organized forty-two electric lighting companies. He was elected and served as a member of the City Council at Cleveland in 1891 and 1892, and served in the Ohio State Senate from 1893 to 1897.
Doctor Avery's chief contribution to education was made as author of a notable series of text books, splendid work used in public schools and colleges over the country for thirty years or more. Some of these bore the following titles: "Elementary Physics," 1876; "Elementary Natural Philosophy," 1878; "Elementary Chemistry," 1881 : "Complete Chemistry,"
Orson TShan fading
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1883; "First Principles of Natural Philosophy," 1884; "School Physics," 1895; "Elementary Physics," 1897; "School Chemistry," 1904. He is author of the "Gratan Avery Clan," 1912; "A History of the United States and Its People," published in twelve volumes, and the "History of Cleve- land and Its Environs," 1918. He is a fellow of the American Association of the Advancement of Science and of many historical and economical societies.
Doctor Avery in 1919 transferred his residence from Cleveland to New Port Richey, Florida. He has taken an active part in the affairs of that southern community, being chairman of the Board of the First State Bank, founder and president of the Avery Library, Inc., and founder and presi- dent of the Cottee River Boat Club. He is an independent republican, a Knight Templar, thirty-second degree Mason and a member of the Congre- gational Church.
On July 2, 1870, at Battle Creek, Michigan, Doctor Avery married Miss Catherine Hitchcock Tilden, daughter of Hon. Junius Tilden of Monroe, Michigan. She died December 22, 1911. On June 15, 1916, at Cleveland he married, Miss Ella Wilson, 'daughter of John Wilson, Cleveland.
E. I. BALDWIN, one of Cleveland's ablest business men and citizens of the last century, was born at New Haven, Connecticut, May 13, 1829, and died January 27, 1894. He early took up merchandising, first at New Haven and then in New York City, and in 1853 came to Cleveland, where he opened a dry goods store under the name of E. I. Baldwin & Company. He triumphed over obstacles and predictions of failure, and for over forty years was a power in the commercial life of the city, being best known as founder and head of the dry goods house of E. I. Baldwin, Hatch & Com- pany. His firm made the first direct importation of foreign dry goods that ever went to a middle western city. He was a patron of books and litera- ture, art and good fellowship, was an elder and trustee in the Second Pres- byterian Church, and a liberal contributor to Oberlin College, giving to that institution Baldwin Cottage.
ORSON FENN SPAULDING, well known citizen and leading funeral director of the South Side of the city, located at 2704 Dennison Ave- nue, is a native of Michigan and is descended from pioneer settlers of that state. This branch of the Spaulding family has been in Vermont for many generations and in the State of Michigan for three. The Michigan pioneer of the family was John Allan Spaulding, grandfather of Orson F. and who was a native of Vermont, where he married Caro- line Newbre, and soon after his marriage came West and settled in Calhoun County, Michigan, of which he was a pioneer.
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