USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > A history of Cuyahoga County and the City of Cleveland, (Vol. 2) > Part 4
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Mr. Schlather loved his beautiful estate at Rocky River, and there spent the last years of his life in happiness and contentment. His kindly, studious nature delighted in books, music and art and he indulged his taste freely. Here it might be well to mention that Mr. Schlather gave to the City of Cleveland the Richard Wagner monument as well as the Schiller-Goethe monument. He was also one of the founders and largest donors to the Cleveland General Hospital, now known as St. Luke's, located at Carnegie Avenue and Sixty-seventh Street.
Leonard Schlather labored intelligently and faithfully in his chosen
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field. He served well during his time on life's stage, and his memory is indelibly enshrined in the hearts of all who knew him.
STATE SENATOR MAUDE COMSTOCK WAITT, who is one of the distin- guished citizens of Cleveland and a member of the Ohio State Senate, was born in Middlebury, Addison County, Vermont, on the 11th of August, 1878, and is a daughter of Orvis and Mary Comstock. The father was a native of Vermont, and was the son of Edson and Chloe Foster, who were prominent citizens of that state. The Foster family came to the Colonies far back before the Revolutionary war, and the qualified members fought for liberty during that long and momentous struggle. It is probable that they first settled in the Old Bay State, but later, when the western exodus began, went to Vermont with the tide of pioneers. The mother of Mrs. Waitt was one of the early graduates of Williard Seminary, and was competent to rear her family with the right incentives and aspirations.
The parents of Mrs. Waitt lived a married life of sixty-two years, and were highly respected by their neighbors and acquaintances for their su- perior and superlative qualities. Her father served as selectman of his home village, and for nineteen years served with conspicuous credit as overseer of the poor of his county. He was an ardent member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and served for fifty years with notable renown as a member of the official board of his church. He lived until he reached his eighty-fourth year. ‘
Mrs. Maude C. Waitt was given an excellent education in her early years, finishing at the Middlebury High School (Vermont) and in the Normal School department of the Vermont College at Saxton's River, Windham County. After leaving the Normal School she began the business of teaching, first in Middlebury and then at St. Johnsbury, Caledonia County, and at Rockland, Massachusetts, which is now a suburb of Boston. In all of these schools she distinguished herself as a superior instructor of children.
While teaching at Rockland, Massachusetts, she met and married Wal- ter G. Waitt, who was at that time a senior at Harvard University and was one of the leaders of his class. Mr. Waitt was born in Boston, and is the son of John M. and Mary (Shaw) Waitt. His parents formerly lived in Maine, but came to Boston and there located their final residence. Soon after their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Waitt came West and located at Cleveland, where Mr. Waitt had previously secured a position with the National Carbon Company. He filled the position to . the satisfaction of the company, and was finally transferred to the Fremont, Ohio, plant of the same organization. There he was occupied for ten years, during nearly all of which time he served as manager of the plant. He was then returned to Cleveland and placed in charge as manager of several produc- tive battery plants of the same concern. He is now vice president and production manager of the Twin Dry Cell Battery Company of Cleveland.
Mr. and Mrs. Waitt have one daughter, Dora Ida, who is now aged fourteen years, and is receiving a splendid education. Mrs. Waitt has taken a zealous part in all worthy civic affairs. The results show her superiority and proficiency in economic and domestic advancement and uplift. She was the originator of the plan and became one of the directors
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of the Citizenship Classes which flourished in Lakewood for two years and is now to be extended throughout the whole state by the Federation of Women's clubs. Her masterly qualities brought her promptly to the front when she had settled down to her life task in dead earnest. She then served as a member of the Executive Board of the woman suffrage party of Ohio, and also as vice chairman of the woman suffrage party of Greater Cleveland. For one year she officiated as director of the Woman's City Club of Cleveland and also of the Woman's Civic League of Lakewood.
All of these experiences qualified her for still higher and more per- plexing duties and activities. During the World war period she officiated with high 'credit as chairman of the Lakewood women in the Fourth Liberty Bond drive and the Victory Chest movement; and about the same time she was granted absolute management and control of the Thrift Stamp and birth registration campaigns. She was selected as one of the state and county speakers for the Red Cross activities. In addition she was elected a member of the Lakewood City Council, running second in a field of thirty-one candidates, five to be elected, and she served as such with observable merit for the period of one year. She was also vice chairman of the Lakewood Republican Club, and was chairman of the Woman's Speakers Bureau of Ohio during the Harding presidential campaign.
As a result or consequence of the ability and proficiency which she displayed during these various momentous activities she was requested by the Citizens Committee to enter the republican primaries in 1922 as a candidate for the Ohio State Senate. She accepted and was successful at the primaries and in November following won at the polls and thus became the first woman state senator for the Twenty-fifth Senatorial District. Since then she is entitled to be called Honorable Mrs. Waitt. As a member of the State Senate she was assigned to the chairmanship of the committees on state benevolent institutions and on state libraries. She was the first and only woman to serve on the Senate-House Conference Committee. While serving in the Senate she introduced five bills: Providing for equal guardianship, for the better training of county nurses, for the sale of eighteen acres of useless land at the Newburg Asylum, giving library treasurers power to authorize the library itself to appropriate money with- out the consent of school boards, and for the enlargement of the powers of the county library boards. All of the five bills were passed. One of the bills was vetoed by the Governor, but was passed over his veto. She also introduced the "Fifty-Fifty" bill, which sought to give women equal representation on the State Central Committee for congressional districts. She was not a side-seat member, but was brilliant in her addresses and logical in her arguments and surprisingly prominent in all senatorial work.
State Senator Waitt is a member of the Womans City Club, of the Womans Business Club, of the Lakewood Womans Club, and a director of the Citizens' League of Cleveland.
HERMAN HENRY HACKMAN is not only one of the veteran business men of his native City of Cleveland, but is also a representative of a family whose name has been worthily linked with the history of the Ohio metropolis
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for more than eighty years. Few, if any, of the business men of Cleveland today have been so long and prominently engaged in business here as the sterling citizen whose name initiates this paragraph, and whose career has reflected honor on the family name and upon the city of his birth.
Mr. Hackman was born in the old family homestead on Orange Street, near Broadway, and the date of his nativity was October 25, 1847. His father, Joseph Hackman, was born near Osnabrueck, Germany, in the year 1820, and was reared and educated in his native land, he having been a young man when, about the year 1839, he set sail for the United States, the vessel on which he took passage having required virtually two months to complete the tedious trip across the Atlantic. Joseph Hackman landed in the City of Baltimore, Maryland, and soon afterward came to Cleveland. Here he learned the trade of brick-mason, and after his apprenticeship he followed the trade as a journeyman a few years. His ability enabled him to make advancement, and eventually he became one of the representative contractors and builders of this city, where he continued his constructive activities for a period of about sixty-five years. He contributed much to the material upbuilding of Cleveland, and his activities as a contractor were by no means confined to the city itself. He built the two wings of the Ohio Insane Asylum at Newburg, and in Cleveland he erected many business blocks and high-grade residences. After his retirement from active busi- ness he here continued to reside, secure in the high regard of all who knew him, until his death, at the venerable age of eighty-two years. He was a son of Herman Hackman, who was a prosperous farmer near Osnabrueck, Germany, and who there remained until the removal of his children to the United States induced him to come to this country. It was about 1840 when Herman Hackman thus came to Ohio, and upon visiting the Cleveland district he here found much farm land available for purchase, but the sandy soil did not appeal to him, with the result that he purchased land near Fort Jennings, Putnam County, where, with a daughter and her husband, to whom he gave the farm, he passed the remainder of his life. He was about eighty years of age at the time of his death. He was the father of one son and five daughters.
Joseph Hackman married Miss Margaret Schwartz, who was born in Prussia and who was seventy-eight years of age at the time of her death. Of the four children reared to maturity Herman H., of this review, is the eldest, and the names of the three younger children are here given· in respective order of birth: Frank, Margaret and Joseph.
Mr. Hackman gained his early education in the parochial and public schools of Cleveland, and after leaving school he was for some time asso- ciated with his father's contracting and building business, in the capacity of accountant and timekeeper. Thereafter he was for four years in the employ of the Western Union Telegraph Company, and in 1871 he engaged in the leather business at 1540 West Third Street. He has continued successfully in this line of business during the long intervening period of more than half a century, and his name and reputation stand for all that is best in business ethics, with the implication of natural sequence, that his success has been on a parity with his effective endeavors in his chosen sphere of activity. His loyalty. to his native city is one of appreciative liberalitv, and he has always been ready to lend his support to measures and undertakings tending
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to advance its civic and material progress and prosperity, the while he has seen Cleveland grow from a minor city to one of thoroughly metropolitan order. He has been financially interested in the upbuilding of various important industrial and commercial enterprises. He is a director of the State Trust Company of Cleveland, and a member of its finance committee, and is a director of the Equity Savings & Loan Company. Mr. Hackman is a valued member of the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, and is a member of the City Club. With a fine sense of the personal stewardship which success imposes, Mr. Hackman has been liberal in the support of organized charity, the while his private benefactions have been many and unostentatious. He was one of the first to become a member of the com- mittee on benevolent institutions of the Chamber of Commerce, now known as the Community Chest, and has been active in the work of this splendid organization, which raises and wisely distributes to those in need millions of dollars each year.
In the year 1878 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Hackman and Miss Hannah Beckman, who likewise was born in Cleveland, and who is a daughter of the late Herman and Wilhelminia (Hartman) Beckman, her father having been a pioneer manufacturer in Cleveland and the business which he founded being still continued. Mr. and Mrs. Hackman have six children: Louisa, Henry, Eugene, Joseph, Anna and Alfred. Louisa is the wife of Harry Geurink, and they have four children : Harry, Louise, William and Virginia. Henry married Miss Gertrude Dittoe, and they have six children: Mary, Robert, Paul, Martha, Gerald and Richard. Eugene married Miss Lillian Prenter, and their two children are William and Mary J. Anna is the wife of Howard Williams, and they have three children: Robert, John and Anna. Alfred married Miss Georgiana Masterson, and they maintain their home in Cleveland.
WILLIAM S. FITZGERALD, one of the best known citizens of Cleveland on account of his public service in former years as law director and mayor, has practiced law here for nearly twenty years. Mr. FitzGerald has his offices in the Williamson Building.
He was born in the City of Washington, D. C., October 6, 1880. His father, Captain David FitzGerald, a native of London, England, was reared and educated in that city, and as a young man came to America, locating at Keokuk, Iowa. For several years he was employed by the United States Government as a civil engineer. When the Civil war broke out he enlisted in an Iowa regiment, was commissioned a lieutenant, and subsequently was promoted to captain. In the battle of Chancellorsville he was severely wounded, his hip being shattered by a shell. After being discharged he was appointed librarian of the War Department at Wash- ington, and rendered quiet and effective service in that institution until his death in 1897, at the age of fifty-three. Captain FitzGerald married Esther Sinton, who was born at Denham, Scotland. Her father, Thomas Sinton, of Scotland, brought to America his wife and two children and located at Keokuk, Iowa, where he did an extensive business as a contractor. His son, William Sinton, is still a resident of Keokuk. Mrs. David FitzGerald now lives with her son in Cleveland.
William S. FitzGerald was educated in the public schools at Wash-
Jenny Dr @teacher
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THE CITY OF CLEVELAND
ington, graduated from high school in that city and then entered George Washington University, where he took his Bachelor of Laws degree in 1903. For two years he practiced law in the capital city, and in 1905 removed to Cleveland. After establishing himself in his profession he interested himself in public affairs and politics. He was appointed an assistant to the attorney-general of Ohio, and in 1911 was elected a member of the City Council, serving four years.
In 1913 Mr. FitzGerald managed the mayoralty campaign of Governor Harry L. Davis against Mayor Newton D. Baker. During the administra- tion of Mr. Baker he served for two years as a republican minority council leader. When Mr. Davis was elected mayor in 1915 Mr. FitzGerald became his director of law. In 1920, when Harry L. Davis became repub- lican candidate for governor, Mr. FitzGerald succeeded him in the office of mayor, and was the executive head of the city government of Cleveland from May 1, 1920, until December 31, 1921. Before the close of this term he was candidate for mayor against Fred Kohler: Subsequently Mr. FitzGerald was elected by the City Council to fill a vacant seat on the Civil Service Commission.
Mr. FitzGerald is associated with the various Masonic bodies, including Webb Chapter, Royal Arch Masons; Oriental Commandery, Knights Templar; the Lake Erie Consistory of the Scottish Rite, and is a member of the Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity, the University Club and the Chamber of Commerce.
HENRY WILLIAM STECHER established a small business as a pharmacist in Cleveland forty years ago. For many years he was an active member of Stecher Brothers, druggists, but during the past quarter of a century has been best known as a banker and a live and public spirited leader in many of Cleveland's community movements, and a man who has done much good in many ways, giving his support to many causes to the betterment of the city.
Mr. Stecher was born at Huntington, Indiana, July 29, 1856, son of Antone and. Margaret Stecher. His father was a native of West Phalia, and his mother of Lower Bavaria, Germany. They came to America when young people, were married at Fort Wayne, Indiana, and subsequently removed to Sheboygan, Wisconsin. The father died in 1893 and the mother in 1921.
Henry W. Stecher was reared at Sheboygan, Wisconsin. He attended the schools of that city and in 1877 entered the University of Michigan, taking the pharmacy and chemistry courses, graduating in 1878, and during the following year remained as an assistant instructor of chemistry in the university. Following that he was a pharmacist at Minneapolis for four years.
From his parents he inherited habits of thrift, enterprise and an ambi- tion for individual achievement, and as soon as possible he left employ- ment with others to start a business of his own. Thus in 1882 he reached Cleveland and with his experience and modest capital established a pharmacy at 1066 Pearl Street, now West Twenty-fifth Street at the corner of Wade Avenue. He continued that under his own name and management success-
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fully for ten years. His brother Frederick, also a pharmacist, joined him in 1892, thus originating the firm of Stecher Brothers.
Mr. Stecher has been interested in banking since 1890. In that year he helped organize and incorporate the Pearl Street Savings and Trust Com- pany. He was chosen a director and member of the finance committee at the first meeting of the stockholders and was later elected secretary-treas- urer of the company. Mr. Stecher has proved himself abundantly qualified in many ways with the abilities necessary for successful banking. His work as secretary-treasurer was responsible in a large measure for the growth and development of the bank in its early years. Under his execu- tive management as president the progress of the institution has been continued in keeping with the growth of the city, and it is now one of Cleveland's solid financial institutions.
Outside of this bank of which he is president, Mr. Stecher is president of the National Woolen Company, a director in the National City Bank, in the American Multigraph Company, in the Pompeian Company, in the Theurer-Norton Provision Company and the Lake Erie Provision Com pany.
Mr. Stecher has expressed his public spirit by whole-hearted cooper- ation in many movements connected with the civic welfare. He is now a resident of Lakewood. Mr. Stecher is a member of the Cleveland, the Ohio and American Bankers associations, the Chamber of Commerce, the Chamber of Industry, is a vestryman in All Saints Episcopal Church of Cleveland and a member of Ellsworth Lodge and Hillman Chapter Free and Accepted Masons. Some of his social activities are represented in his membership in the Flifton, Westwood Country, Athletic, Castalia Trout and Rockwell Springs Trout clubs.
Mr. Stecher married Miss Stella Dean, daughter of Aaron Dean of Rocky River, Cuyahoga County. She died in 1894, leaving one son, Henry Dean Stecher, now assistant manager of the National Woolen Company. Henry Dean Stecher was a captain of ordinance during the World war and was assigned to duty in the reorganization of the Cuban Coast defense. In 1900 Mr. Stecher married Margaret Dixon of New Philadelphia. Ohio. By this marriage there are two daughters, Helen Louise and Martha Dixon.
MRS. BERNICE SECREST PYKE, of Lakewood, whose ability, poise and gracious personality have given her prominence and influence in the social, political and civic affairs, is one whose activities have been so directed as to prove the distinct value of women in the domain of public affairs. With the democratic party in Ohio she holds a position similar to that held in the republican party by Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton, of Warren, and as an ardent and resourceful exponent of the cause of woman suffrage her active service was initiated at an earlier date than was that of Mrs. Upton, who likewise is making a record of splendid service.
Mrs. Pvke was born at Frankfort, Ross County, Ohio, and is a repre- sentative of one of the sterling pioneer families of the Buckeve State. Her father, the late Samuel Frederick Secrest, was born at Hartford, Guernsey County, Ohio, in 1846, and his father, John Secrest. was an infant at the time the family came to Ohio from Winchester, Virginia, and made settle-
Bernier I Pyk.
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ment in Guernsey County. The original representative of the Secrest family in America came from Germany to this country prior to the War of the Revolution, in which the family gave patriot soldiers to the Conti- nental forces. It is worthy of mention also that members of the Secrest family served as soldiers in both the Union and Confederate armies in the Civil war. In his earlier life Samuel F. Secrest was a successful teacher in the public schools of Ohio, and served as a high school superintendent. For forty years prior to his death he was engaged in the retail hardware business in the historic old Ohio City of Chillicothe, the judicial center of Ross County, and the first capitol of Ohio, but his death occurred at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Pyke, in Cleveland, where he passed away in the year 1919. Mr. Secrest was a man of sterling character and broad intellectual ken, and his was a benignant influence in connection with community affairs and the directing of public policies. He was an ardent advocate of temper- ance, and never abated his deep interest in educational affairs. He was an eloquent and forceful public speaker, and in this connection his services were much in demand. He gave a long period of effective service as a member of the Board of Education at Chillicothe, and held the office of president of the board for a number of years. His wife, whose maiden name was Mary Jane Miller, was born at Frankfort, Ross County, December 25, 1846, a daughter of Isaac Miller, who was born at Winchester, Virginia, of Holland-Dutch ancestry. Mrs. Secrest still survives her honored husband, and is now one of the venerable native daughters of Ohio.
In the public schools of Chillicothe Mrs. Pyke continued her studies until her graduation from the high school, as a member of the class of 1898, and for three years thereafter she was a student in the Ohio Wes- leyan University, at Delaware. In 1902 she was graduated from Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, from which institution she received the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Thereafter she gave effective service as teacher of mathematics in the high school at Tuscola, Illinois, and also in that of her old home City of Chillicothe. In 1906 was solemnized her marriage to Arthur B. Pyke, who was born in China, where his parents, Rev. James H. and Belle (Goodrich) Pyke, have been missionaries of the Methodist Episcopal Church continuously since shortly after their mar- riage. Arthur B. Pyke was graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University, and after leaving college he became associated with a carbon manufacturing enterprise at Kokomo, Indiana. Later he joined the organization of the National Carbon Company at Cleveland, with which he continued his alliance until 1918, since which year he has been successfully engaged in the real estate business in the Cleveland metropolitan field. Mr. and Mrs. Pyke have one son, John Secrest Pyke, who was born December 31, 1906. He graduated from Lakewood High School as valedictorian of the class of 1923. and is now a student in Ohio Weslevan University, class of '27.
Mrs. Pvke is a member of the Lakewood Board of Education, to which she was elected first in 1918. As a speaker for the National League of Woman Voters she travels extensively and is doing splendid work. She has the distinction of being the only woman from Ohio to have membership in the national democratic committee, and as a delegate to the democratic national convention of 1920 she was the first woman to be thus honored in the annals of American history, with the result that her appearance in the
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convention attracted much attention and led to the publication of her portrait and biography in many of the leading newspapers of the United States, as well as in numerous papers abroad. At the national convention to which she was thus a delegate she had charge of the woman's work in advancing the interests of Governor Cox of Ohio, who was chosen as the candidate for the presidency. Mrs. Pyke was an unsuccessful candidate for the office of mayor of Lakewood in 1921, making a brilliant campaign, as did she also for the position of democratic nominee for the Ohio State Senate in 1923. She was chairman of the literature committee of the Ohio Federated Clubs during a period of eight years, and gave four years of service as chairman of the literary department of the Cleveland Sorosis. In the World war period Mrs. Pyke was secretary of the Woman's Com- mittee of Council of National Defense, and also had charge of an Amer- icanization center during eighteen months. She was the only woman member of the executive committee on Liberty Bond campaigns. The high civic ideals of Mrs. Pyke have not been merely a matter of sentiment, but have been translated into constructive action, in which she has brought to bear the full force of her splendid and loyal personality. She has significantly honored and been honored by her native State of Ohio.
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