USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > A history of Cuyahoga County and the City of Cleveland, (Vol. 2) > Part 9
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).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42
On the 28th of April, 1920, Colonel McQuigg was recommissioned Colonel of Engineers in the Ohio National Guard and on the 10th of May, 1921, was promoted to brigadier-general in the National Guard and as- signed to command the Seventy-third Infantry Brigade. In this office he still continues his service. In 1919-20 General McQuigg served as com- mander of the Ohio Commandery of the Military Order of Foreign Wars of the United States and in 1920-21 he was department commander of the American Legion of Ohio. For the past six years he has been successively chosen as a delegate to the national conventions of the American Legion. For the past four years he has been the Ohio member of the National Executive Committee of the Legion and is also a member of the National
63
THE CITY OF CLEVELAND
Finance Committee and the National Legislative Committee of the same organization.
In addition to his affiliation with these military and patriotic organiza- tions, General McQuigg holds membership also in the Spanish-American War Veterans. In the Masonic fraternity his basic affiliation is with Tyrian Lodge, No. 370, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and in the Scottish Rite his affiliation is with Scioto Consistory. He and his family are mem- bers of the First United Presbyterian Church of Cleveland. For the past thirty years General McQuigg has been a member of the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce.
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD PRENTER holds the office of general secretary- treasurer of the national organization of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, and is prominently concerned in enterprises of broad scope and importance in the City of Cleveland.
Mr. Prenter was born in the City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the 17th of May, 1855, and is a son of the late Edward and Sarah (Wallace) Prenter, who were born and reared in the north of Ireland, where their marriage was solemnized and whence they came to the United States in the year 1842. They maintained their residence in Philadelphia until 1872, when they removed to Toronto, Canada, where they passed the remainder of their lives. Mr. Prenter was American representative of a large linen- manufacturing company in Ireland, the brother of his wife having been one of the heaviest stockholders in this company.
William B. Prenter was five years old when he was sent to the old home of his parents in Ireland, and he there remained and attended school in the City of Belfast until 1872, when, at the age of seventeen years, he rejoined his parents, who in that year established their home at Toronto, Canada. In Canada, Mr. Prenter entered the service of the Grand Trunk Railway, and in 1882 he became a locomotive engineer on the Canadian Pacific Rail- way. In 1884 he was made foreman of the railroad and car shops of this system at Ottawa, Canada, and he continued in the service of the Canadian Pacific until 1896.
In 1896 Mr. Prenter was elected secretary-treasurer of the insurance department of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, and in May of that year he established his home and official headquarters at Cleveland, Ohio. He continued his effective service with the insurance department of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers until 1904, when, at the Los Angeles meeting of the general organization, he was elected general or grand secretary-treasurer of the brotherhood, an office of which he has since continued the able and valued incumbent. He is also vice president and cashier of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers Cooperative National Bank at Cleveland, and a director of the Empire Trust Company of New York City, a financial institution largely controlled by the brotherhood of which he is a prominent official. Mr. Prenter is vice president and a director of the Colonial Savings & Loan Company of Cleveland, is a director of the Security Savings & Loan Company of this city, and a director of the Fed- eral Mortgage & Financial Company and the Denman-Myers Cord Tire Company, both of Cleveland, besides which he is vice president of the Coal River Colliery Company of Huntington, West Virginia, and a director of
64
CUYAHOGA COUNTY AND
the Lake Shore Stone Products Company of Cleveland. He is general secretary-treasurer of the pension department of the Brotherhood of Loco- motive Engineers, and he is past grand regent of Ohio Grand Council of the Royal Arcanum. Mr. Prenter has proved himself a man of thought and action and has shown marked ability in the directing of interests of broad scope and importance, the while his personality is such that his circle of friends is coincident with that of his acquaintances.
As a young man Mr. Prenter wedded Miss Elizabeth Maher of Toronto, Canada, and their one living child is a daughter, Lillian, who is the wife of Eugene F. Hackman of Cleveland, their children being William, aged twelve years (1923), and Mary Josephine, aged five years.
JUDGE MANUEL LEVINE, of the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Dis- trict of Ohio, has attained some of the highest dignities of American citi- zenship, though he did not come into contact with the language, customs and economic conditions of this country until he was sixteen years of age.
He was born in Maresh, Russia, May 25, 1880, son of David J. and Michela Levine. Both his parents died in their native village a few years after Judge Levine had come to America. His father was a clergyman, a man of exceptional learning, though never rising above the poverty common to his countrymen. The mother of Judge Levine possessed both a strong mind and a fine character, and she cherished for years an ambition to have her son on reaching proper age come to America to realize the great oppor- tunities in store for those with good natural gifts and a willingness to work. Thus from childhood America was to Judge Levine a land of promise. At home he had the advantages of good private tutors. When he was thirteen he left his native village to go to a university town. By work in spare hours and at night he supported himself while a student. A kindly German professor and other friends taught him the meaning of freedom in other lands, and at secret meetings he heard the American Constitution read and learned to recite the Declaration of Independence by heart in three different languages, a fundamental training in American ideals such as few native Americans could boast. These influences increased his determination to come to America. At the age of sixteen he crossed the ocean, reaching Cleveland a stranger, without money or friends, but with dreams and ideals that all the experiences and struggles of his later years have never tarnished.
Soon after coming to Cleveland he was attracted to Hiram House, and there began to understand the ideas and spirit underlying American life. He borrowed a German-English dictionary, joined a social reform club, and occasionally tried to join in the debates in English. He was helped to get pupils to instruct in German, and in this way earned a scanty living. He worked all the day, attended night school, and later gave every hour to the study of law. Friends assisted him to take special work in Western Re- serve University and ultimately he was qualified to enter the law depart- ment and was graduated Bachelor of Laws in 1902.
Judge Levine was admitted to the Ohio bar in June, 1902, and at once set out to build up a practice. The following year Newton D. Baker, then mayor of Cleveland, appointed him assistant city solicitor, being guided in this selection by the desire to have a young attorney of just such qualifica- tions as those possessed by Mr. Levine to assist the law courts in cases in-
65
THE CITY OF CLEVELAND
volving the foreign born citizens. No better selection could have been made. He proved invaluable not only to the officers of the law courts, but also to the very class of people who needed assistance when they were in- volved in legal difficulties. In the twenty years since his appointment as assistant city solicitor Judge Levine has had a career of uninterrupted progress to important service and higher responsibilities. Served under Newton D. Baker four and one-half years as police prosecutor, having been assigned to that post immediately upon his appointment as assistant solicitor. In the fall of 1907 he was elected judge of the Police Court, was on that bench three years, and from January, 1912, to December 15, 1914, was judge of the Municipal Court. In November, 1914, he was elected Common Pleas judge, and served the full six-year term and in 1920 was reelected. Midway in his second term he resigned January 5, 1923, to qualify as judge of the Court of Appeals. He was appointed to the Appellate bench the previous day by Governor Davis. This brief outline of his public service inevitably suggests the impressive abilities and qualifications that have justi- fied every appointment and election to office. It is a wonderful record for a man still young, and who had obstacles and handicaps to overcome that would have discouraged anyone less persistent and ambitious. However, Judge Levine refuses to take the credit altogether to himself, and describes his advancement to his friends, an appreciative public, and in a more general way to the conditions and opportunities of American institutions.
Since the great war much has been done under the name and idea of Americanization, particularly to educate the foreign born to a proper under- standing and appreciation of American life and its fundamental principles. Judge Levine was doing that work in an individual way twenty years ago. Few men have a better understanding of the vital issues involved. He has realized what many later and more superficial converts to the plan have not, that it is as important to assist the older American stock to an under- standing of the emigrant as for the emigrant to assimilate American ideas. For many years he has continued his interest in this program on the theory of the trial balance, that the credit and debit pages, involving the relations of the emigrant to the native stock and the native American to the emigrant, must be balanced and stand side by side.
During the past twenty years there has been no movement for the cor- rection of justice, the wiping out of graft and extortion, with which Judge Levine has not enthusiastically identified himself and on several occasions has been the important leader in such movements. He was a powerful factor in the fight against correction and extortion in the police courts of Cleveland and also in the justice courts of the county. One of the strongest influences enlisting Judge Levine in such reforms is his funda- mental faith in the wholesomeness of American society and politics and his desire that the corrupt features shall not be allowed to poison the minds and ideals of the foreign born acquiring his first knowledge of American conditions. Judge Levine was largely responsible for the establishment of a probation system in connection with the police court, this being the first in Ohio. He had much to do with instituting the Municipal Court system in Cleveland, also the Conciliation Court of Cleveland, and the Do- mestic Relations Bureau of the Common Pleas Court.
While social settlements and other organized efforts had been doing
Vol. II-5
66
CUYAHOGA COUNTY AND
something toward solving the relations of foreigners and natives and edu- cating the former for life in this country, for a number of years before Judge Levine came to Cleveland, he put himself enthusiastically into the Americanization program within a few years, and has since been one of the ablest leaders of the movement. During the winter of 1908 he taught the first class in citizenship at Hiram House in Cleveland. This class is gen- erally conceded to have been the first of its kind in America. He was and is a worker in the Citizens Bureau, which performs an effective service in preparing foreigners for meeting the tests of naturalization. One of his last official acts while in the Common Pleas Court was to throw open the doors of the new courthouse at night for the benefit of the hundreds of applicants for citizenship, permitting them to be examined after regular hours. Of the number that applied during his term fully 98 per cent were found prepared and qualified and were accordingly admitted to citizenship.
Since his childhood America has been to Judge Levine a Utopia, and he is "still fighting against disillusion." While he has had to deal officially with many disagreeable conditions affecting the welfare of municipal and county politics, Judge Levine has lost none of his optimism and his un- alterable faith will undoubtedly make him an unwavering fighter for the right until the end. In what he has achieved of a personal success and in his work for others his guiding motto can perhaps best be expressed in his own words: "I will not build my castles upon the ruins of others, but will rise with them if I can."
Judge Levine is a member of the Cuyahoga County Bar Association, the Americanization Council, the Legal Aid Society, and is a Mason and Knight of Pythias. He married Miss Jessie Bialosky, who was born in Cleveland. She is a graduate of the Women's College of Western Re- serve University. They are the parents of three children: Robert M., born in 1911 ; Alfred D., born in 1916, and Marjorie R., born in 1922.
GEORGE W. HEENE is a Cleveland manufacturer, and the Harvard Auto- matic Machine Company, of which he is owner, has for a number of years figured largely in the industrial affairs of Cleveland, specializing in the manufacture of machinery but chiefly of Mr. Heene's own invention and is controlled by his patents.
Mr. Heene was born at the old Heene homestead on the South Side of Cleveland on March 17, 1868. He is one of the eight children of Jacob and Regina (Neemeyer) Heene. His parents came from Germany by a sail- ing boat, and from New York by canal boats and lake vessels, reaching Cleveland in 1854. His father for many years was a successful merchant, and soon after coming to Cleveland bought the property on the South Side, around which the early associations of all the children revolve. Mrs. Regina Heene died in 1875 and Jacob Heene in 1902.
George W. Heene was reared at the old family home, attended the Fre- mont public schools and the old University College on the South Side and was only thirteen when he put himself in the files of independent workers and wage earners. For about nine years he was in the employ of the Lake Shore Railroad, beginning as a clerk in the Cleveland freight office. Upon leaving the railroad service he was associated with his brother, John E., in the oil business until he sold his interest in 1895. In the meantime he
67
THE CITY OF CLEVELAND
had perfected some mechanical devices, and in 1895 the brothers engaged in machinery manufacturing, the output being special machines invented by and patented by George W. Heene. The business has been conducted for many years as the Harvard Automatic Machinery Company. John E. finally sold out his interest in this business, and since then George W. Heene has been sole proprietor. The plant is located at 7803 Madison Avenue.
While building up a successful industry Mr. Heene has taken a com- mendable interest in community affairs. He is a member of the Cleveland Chamber of Industry, is affiliated with Elsworth Lodge of Masons, and for thirty-one years has been an active member of the Brooklyn Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church. For seventeen years of that time he has been a member of the Official Board and has sung in the church choir.
Mr. Heene married Miss Susie Saunders. She was born at Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, daughter of William Saunders. Her father was a prominent dealer and lumber manufacturer, at first operating a plant in Philadelphia, later in Northern Michigan and finally at Cleveland, where he died in 1917.
Howard A. Heene, only son of Mr. and Mrs. George W. Heene, was born at the family home on Mapledale Avenue on December 1, 1892. He attended the Brooklyn public schools, graduated from the Lincoln High School, and took the classical course in Western Reserve University, gradu- ating with the Bachelor of Arts degree in 1917. For several months after completing his college work he was employed in a lumber camp in Northern Michigan, operated by his maternal uncle. Soon after returning to Cleve- land he entered the office of the White Sewing Machine Company, and was subsequently made vice president of the Theodore Kundtz Company, hardwood and veneer manufacturers. When the Kundtz Company was taken over and made a part of the White Sewing Machine Company, Mr. Heene resigned and then organized the Hardwood Products Company, with a capital of $150,000. This is one of the prosperous business con- cerns in Cleveland, and Mr. Heene is its president and general manager. He married Kathryne Chase, daughter of William Wayne Chase, former president of the White Sewing Machine Company and one of Cleveland's most prominent capitalists. Mr. and Mrs. Howard A. Heene have three children, Chase, Janet and Nancy.
HON. GEORGE H. BENDER. The youngest man ever chosen member of the Ohio State Senate, George H. Bender began work in practical politics in his home City of Cleveland before he was of voting age and is one of the ablest leaders of the republican party in the state. His success in business affairs has been fully commensurate with his rise in politics.
He was born in Cleveland, September 27, 1896, son of Joseph and Anna Bender. He had a public school education and is a graduate of the Com- mercial and Central high schools. Even before completing his school work he had some practical training in newspaper work, and he early took up and specialized in advertising. He was in the advertising department of one of Cleveland's newspapers and subsequently became advertising man- ager for Cleveland's great department store, the Baily Company. He re- signed as publicity man for the Baily Company in 1923 to become general manager of the Bedell Company, one of Cleveland's largest woman's wear- ing apparel houses.
68
CUYAHOGA COUNTY AND
Mr. Bender as a boy, with the natural tendency of a boy for hero wor- ship, chose the late Theodore Roosevelt as the object of his admiration, and though only sixteen years of age, he was an important factor in the cam- paign of 1912, when Colonel Roosevelt was candidate of the progressive party for President. He managed the Roosevelt campaign in the Eighteenth Ward. This was the only ward in Cleveland carried by Roosevelt that year. At the popular primary and general election in 1920 Mr. Bender served as secretary of the Republican Senatorial Committee of Cuyahoga County. This committee handled the successful campaign of Frank B. Willis for the United States Senate. In the same campaign Mr. Bender was on the ticket as candidate for the State Senate to represent the Twenty-fifth Sena- torial District. He led the republican ticket and election gave him the dis- tinction of being the youngest member ever elected to the Ohio Senate, and also the youngest ever chosen to that office in any state. In 1922 he was reelected, and has proved one of the able men in the State Senate, where his leadership and his earnestness have been recognized. He intro- duced several bills. Two of them became laws: Senate Bill No. 37, to pro- hibit the obstruction of the view of the interior of poolrooms, billiard par- lors and soft drink places ; and Senate Bill No. 101, providing for the levy and distribution of taxes on the taxable property of the state for the sup- port of common schools, the adjustment of tax limitation, applicable to levies for local schools and township purposes, and to such ends amending certain actions of the general code. Senator Bender voted against the state reorganization bill, and he favored the minimum wage bill and the teachers' tenure bill.
This brief recital of his activities and honors constitutes a remarkable record for a man of his years. He is a member of the Official Board of the Woodland Avenue Presbyterian Church at Cleveland. He is president of the Roosevelt Legion of Ohio. Mr. Bender is a Mason, a member of the Knights of Pythias and Knights of Malta and the Orangemen.
On June 20, 1920, he married Miss Edna B. Eckhardt, daughter of Adam B. and Barbara Eckhardt of Cleveland.
JOHN JOSEPH BABKA during the sixteen years he has actively prac- ticed as an attorney at the 'Cleveland bar has achieved more than ordinary renown as a leader in the democratic party in Cuyahoga County, has per- formed many official services, and represented the Twenty-first Ohio Dis- trict in Congress for one term.
Mr. Babka was born in Cleveland, March 16, 1884, son of Frank and Mary (Kozelka) Babka. His parents were natives of Czecho-Slovakia, were married there, and in the early '70s came to America and established their home in Cleveland, where both of them still reside, now in their eightieth year.
John J. Babka was educated in parochial and public schools in Cleveland, also studied under private tutors, and earned part of the money needed for his higher education by working in a shop as a core maker. He studied law, attending the Cleveland Law School of Baldwin-Wallace University, and was graduated Bachelor of Laws in 1908. Admitted to the bar the same year, he engaged in general practice and for a number of years has
Map Goodman
69
THE CITY OF CLEVELAND
been one of the very busy attorneys of the Cleveland bar. His offices are in the Engineers Building.
Mr. Babka served as special counsel for the attorney-general of Ohio, in 1911-12. From 1912 to 1916 he was third assistant prosecuting attorney of Cuyahoga County, and from 1916 to 1919 was first assistant prosecuting attorney. In 1918 he was nominated by the democratic party of the Twenty- first Ohio Congressional District as candidate for Congress, and was elected by a majority of over five thousand votes in a normally democratic district. He took his seat in the Sixty-sixth Congress in March, 1919, and rendered some effective service in the first Congress elected after the World war. He was again a candidate in 1920, but was defeated in the great republican landslide of that year.
Since leaving Congress he has looked after his extensive private law practice. He is a member of the Democratic Executive Committee of Cuyahoga County. He was one of the organizers and incorporators of the Oul Building and Loan Association of the South End, and is serving as its counsel.
Mr. Babka is a member of the Cleveland Bar Association, is affiliated with the Knights of Columbus, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and Moose. He and his family are members of Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church. On January 8, 1907, Mr. Babka married Mary H. Kubu, who was born in Cleveland, daughter of James and Catherine (Penc) Kubu. They have two daughters and one son, Virginia A., Hortense M., and John J., Jr.
MAX P. GOODMAN has by his personality and ability gained vantage- place as one of the successful members of the bar of his native city, and is established in active general practice in Cleveland. He controls a sub- stantial and representative law business of important order.
Mr. Goodman was born in Cleveland, on the 28th of August, 1872, and is a son of the late Jacob and Rosa (Hershkowitz) Goodman, the former of whom was born in Austria-Hungary and the latter in Polish Austria. Their marriage was solemnized in 1864, and their ambition was soon afterward manifested by their coming to the United States, where they felt assured of better opportunities for the winning of independence and a measure of prosperity. The young couple established their home at Alliance, Ohio, and there Jacob Goodman found employment as car re- pairer in the shops of the Pennsylvania Railroad. The Civil war was then in progress, and Mr. Goodman tendered his services in support of the Union. He was enlisted as a mechanic, and thereafter continued in the railway department of the Government service until the close of the war. It may incidentally be stated in this connection that this same fine spirit of loyalty and appreciation characterized him in all the relations of his life as an American citizen. It was soon after the close of the war that Jacob Goodman established the family home in Cleveland, and here he for a time conducted a restaurant and hotel, on a modest scale. He later met with financial disaster while conducting a furnishing-goods store, and after thus losing all that he had accumulated he refused to be dis- mayed and took advantage of the first opportunity that presented, with no false pride and with determination to make good his losses. For a
70
CUYAHOGA COUNTY AND
time he operated a peanut stand, and as his resources increased he finally engaged in the retail grocery business. In this line of enterprise he con- tinued successfully until his retirement from active business, and he was one of the sterling and honored citizens of Cleveland at the time of his death, June 26, 1912, when seventy years of age, his wife having passed away April 4, 1897.
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.