USA > South Dakota > Who's who in South Dakota, Vol. I > Part 15
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Oh! Taylor! Taylor! at this trying moment, lend us your powers of imagery, your classic verbiage, and your artists' pen ! Then! and only then! can we rise above self and do you justice.
GROWTH
One of the great things that enhances the value of Taylor's sermons, particularly to a student body, is his unlimited indul- gence in literary, rather than in historical, illustration. He never lets a week go by without committing a new poem, and he never preaches a sermon without weaving in from one to three of them. He selects those that exactly fit his discourse and uses them with telling effect.
This mode of preparation keeps him growing. While other preachers' cerebral convolutions are fading away or rusting out, Taylor is wearing his deeper. A preacher of such interesting commendable studious habits, is an asset to any community, par- ticularly so to Aberdeen, wherein is located the state's large and growing industrial school.
Dr. Taylor is literary, classical, oratorical, dignified, spirit- ual; a good "mixer," an able preacher, a general favorite and a
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prince of Christian gentlemen. We hope South Dakota will never permit him to move beyond her borders.
Stay! Live! Die! and be buried among us, Taylor, -we love you !
(Later .- Since the above was first published, Dr. Taylor has been called to Hamline Church, St Paul. Regrets !- O. W. C.)
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THE BEAUMONTS
MR. and MRS. BEAUMONT
Adelbert E. Beaumont was born in Fairbault, Minnesota, January 21, 1871. In the fall of 1879, he removed with his par- ents to Spink county, Dakota Territory, and they settled on a home- stead close to the banks of the James river. Here, for eight years, far from any line of railroad, the family underwent all the hard-
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ships of pioneer lite. The Beaumonts were among the first set- tlers in that portion of the James River Valley. Bands of Indians roved the plains but showed no hostile inclinations. In a sod house, surrounded by the seemingly boundless prairie, the char- acter that forms the theme of this sketch, spent his boyhood days and became acquainted with Nature in her "grander mien" and formed an attachment for the Universal Mother that remained with him in his later years.
The family went through the "winter of the big snow" and "the starving time"-familiar terms to the early settlers in Spink county -and finally becoming weary of the hardships moved back to civilization.
VOCATIONS
As a youth Beaumont taught school in Osceola county, Iowa, and later learned the printing trade and became associated in the publication of the Sibley, (Iowa) Gazette. For a time he was also interested in the Register, published at Akron, Iowa, to which place he moved after his marriage in the summer of 1893. Later he returned to Sibley and was one of the publishers of the Gazette for a number of years. He came to Sioux Falls in January, 1902, to accept the position of city editor on the Sioux Falls Press. Three years later he took the post of telegraph and as- sistant editor with the Sioux Falls Daily Argus. Leader, remain- ing with that paper until November, 1909, when he resigned to become editor of the Sioux Falls Daily Press. This position he occupied until December, 1911, when he accepted an offer of an editorial position on the Sioux City Daily Tribune, and took up his duties there January 1, 1912.
LITERARY
Few men can write entertainingly in both prose and poetry. The latter must come from a poet's heart and move along rhyth- mically like a pacing horse. Prose is more like a trotting horse, and usually, a prose writer, when trying his hand at poetry, acts just like a trotting horse hobbled for a pacer Beaumont is chuck full of double action. He resolves himself into one of those charming literary moods, spins off some of the most be- witching poetry, and then, as if by magic and without stopping to take off his mental hobbles, he dashes off a piece of prose as vibratory and as flashy as an eruption of Vesuvius. Such is the commendable, composite, qualitative mental make-up of the man with whom we are now to deal.
i
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Having spent his boyhood on the plains in the northern part of what is now South Dakota, Beaumont received a vivid impres- sion of the charms of the prairie which remained with him as a pleasant memory in later years. He saw the beauties as well as the wonders of "the untracked plain." In a descriptive poem on "The Prairie in Autumn" he mingled with pictures of the phenomena of Nature in that new part of the world a tribute to members of his family. Of the lavish profusion of paririe fiow- ers that brightened the autumn turf, he says:
To me the potent breath of Autumn brings A fond remembrance of serener things-
A broad and noble sweep of virgin plain,
Where traces of the Red man yet remain, Its billowed bosom dotted here and there, With those fair blossoms -rarest of the rare- The prairie flowers of fall. No well-kept bed With gaudy leaves and petals blazon-ed Can show more variegated form or hue;
No woodland ferns or flowers that ever grew. More simply grace or symmetry obtain,
Than these that blossom on the untracked plain.
His appreciation of Nature's wilder phases is shown in the same poem where he describes a hailstorm on the prairies:
Upon this wild and treeless tract is seen Each mighty element in grander mien;
The rush of winds, the storm cloud's awesome crest, Struck chords responsive in a boyish breast. When burning, blighting winds had seared the plain For days, unswept tempestuous hail and rain, Driving before the timid beast and bird,
Fromn hollowed lair or grassy nest bestirred. Often the storm-fiend drove so fierce a pace, The stock to shelter ran a losing race. Staked in the hollow when the storm began,
The frightened cattle broke away and ran, Pelted and blinded madly down the wind, Dragging the twisting rope and stake behind.
One of the vivid impressions of his youth was afforded by the terrible fires which frequently laid waste the land, and which he also describes in his "Prairie in Autumn:"
When, sapped by later frosts, the upland yield Lay crisp and yellowing-a ripened field Swept o'er the plain with devastation dire,
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The awful bosom of the prairie fire. Far in the distance first appears a glow, Redder where evening clouds are hanging low, Spreading and mounting up the dome of night; Then breaks the dim horizon into light; A long, red line of flames that leap and dance Still higher with their undisturbed advance; Skyward the columns dense of smoke up-pour; Follows the crackling and the awful roar; A million hollowed stalks of grasses burst; Withers the prairie like a thing accursed; Louder the uproar and the fiery wave Rolls by, beneath its far-flung arms a cave Infernal. With a dazzling. deafening sweep, 'Tis gone-and darkness comes, and silence deep.
We reluctantly come to a close by publishing in full three of his shorter poems which reveal his originality in composition as well as in thought.
GIVING
There is in grace an ample store Of benediction, sent to bless The heart, whene'er it bows before The altar of unselfishness.
And we receive no dearer gift Of happiness, than we plan To leave our beaten path, and lift His burden from a fellow man.
The stream of bounty long hath flowed From many a living spring supplied. And every cheerful gift bestowed, Is to the giver multiplied.
What tender joy the mother knows, That well from Nature's kindly spring, When to her infant's lips there flows Her fruitful bosom's offering.
The blessings we receive from Heaven Refill the cup that we dispense: And by the largess we have given, Is measured out our recompense.
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THE PASSING OF THE FALLS
Ay, muffle with the barrier rocks, And check with mighty walls The monody of ages gone -- The music of the falls.
The song that through ten thousand years No interlude hath known, Is dead. But hark! The sudden wail That parts the lips of stone!
There once the wandering Redmen stood Upon the spray-wet shore, And heard the voice of Manitou In that unceasing roar.
How fair the artless scene appeared, In spreading cedar's shade Where classic Nature's prefect touch The misty background made.
Now vandal hand of man hath torn The canvas from the frame; The triumph of his strength the loud Discordant notes proclaim.
How like my fettered soul to thee, On, prisoned waterfall! That foamed past rock and flower and tree And found a joy in all.
But checked by sordid circumstance, The eddies sluggish grow, And crowding walls of fate enclose The once unhindered flow.
Aye, stifle it with rocky bands, And with unyielding walls- The song that older is than man - The cadence of the falls.
MEMORIAL
Staunch builders of a nation's fame, Partakers of her former woe Thy dearest bequest of peace we claim; Our tender gratitude bestow. Dread memory of a gory field;
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Wild cannon roar and shriek of shield; The furrow, where ye would not yield, And dying, fell.
Sons of those standard-bearers true, Who late in far-found islands fared, The purpose of those sires ye knew; Their lofty patriotism shared. Dense tangle of the jungle main; The noisesome marsh-the torrid sun; Mad throbbing of a heated brain; The trenches won.
Sad watchers by a cold hearthstone, Thy heavy burden mutely borne, Let bride-white blossoms, newly blown Thy cherished sepulchre adorn. Long waiting with a dreadful fear; Dull nursing of a silent care; Consoling with a bitter tear Thy lone despair.
Sire, son and mother, trinity That rears the bulwark of our home, Each floating flag is dipped for thee On steel-girt ship and statehouse dome. Wide stretch of plain and sweep of shore, Hills, falling into the ocean's swell; Our fair land's name in stress of war, Ye guarded well.
The sad procession, moving by Drops bud and petal on the sod, Where in a sacred place there lie These servants of our country's God. Clouds floating in the summer sky, Green fields reclining 'neath the blue, And over all, tranquility That hallows you.
MRS. BEAUMONT
Mrs. Beaumont is one of our prominent educators. She may almost be said to be the mother of Industrial work in the South Dakota schools. She is an ideal educator. Nature endowed her with a gentle disposition, with sober thoughts, with high ideals, and with a dozen-and-one other virtues that go to make up a great teacher.
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She is director of the training department of the South Dakota State Normal School at Madison, and she is the highest paid woman educator in the state.
Mrs Beaumont graduated from Col. Francis W. Parker's famous normal school in Chicago. She first devoted her energies to primary and kindergarten work, establishing a public school kindergarten at Sibley, Iowa. where she taught for a number of years. She accepted a position as primary teacher in Sioux Falls, in 1903, and introduced kindergarten work into the Sioux Falls public schools. Mrs Beaumont was active in forwarding indus- trial and manual training work in the grades in the Sioux Falls schools and she was principal of a ward school in that city for four years. This is her fifth year in the Madison Normal. She is in such great demand as a lecturer and instructor in methods in teachers' institutes that she is not able to fill all the requisi- tions made upon her time.
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WILLIS E. JOHNSON
TEXT-BOOK AUTHOR
"I'd rather be the author of 'Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard' than to have the glory of beating the French to- morrow,'' said the mighty General Wolfe on the eve before the fatal battle of Quebec, during the French and Indian War. And, why not? Gray spent eight years writing those twenty-nine short stanzas that will stand forever upon the sacred pages of historic literature to immortalire his name. There is no higher glory extant than to become an author. It is safe to say that Theodore Roosevelt attaches far greater importance to his "Winning of the West" than he does to his "winning" at San Juan
It is with pardonable pride that South Dakota, as a young state, points to the relatively large number of authors which she has already produced. It was a South Dakotan (the lamented Kittredge) who wrote our present splendid copyright law. Sev- eral South Dakota authors were among the very first to protect their literary productions, under its wise provisions.
Among this class of people, and in a measure, standing in a class by himself, is Willis E. Johnson, Ph. B., M. A., vice pres- ident of the Northern Normal and Industrial School at Aberdeen, South Dakota.
While the state, to date, has produced in proportion to its population, an abnormally large number of authors of fiction and of history, few have as yet gained recognition in the field of science, except Dr. Wenzlaff and Prof. Johnson. The latter is, first of all, a man of well defined mental processes. He reasons in parallelisms instead of in circles. Truths only, and processes for obtaining truths, are his cynosures To him fiction is a la- mentable monstrosity. He reads and applies it sparingly. His ambition is to delve in, rather than to soar up. He makes no efforts to launch up wards into supernatural realms where legions of white-winged angels flirt with the departed spirits of old-
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time saints; oh! no-not Johnson, he's not built that way; he's a philosopher.
His maiden effort was his "Mathematical Geography," pub- lished by the American Book Company, of Chicago. All through these long years that geography has been in the common school curriculum, there has remained in every text book on the subject. and in all teaching processes of it, a loophole. Johnson's phil- osophic eye caught it. We had put into our old school readers Edgar Allen Poe's beautiful "Three Sundays in a Week." We had filled a section of our arithmetics with problems or "Longitude and Time." We had garbled into our later day geographies an inaccurate blending known as the "Inter. national Date Line." Like wise, we had filled our geom etries and trigonometries with formulas for ascertaining the heights of objects and their respective distances, and hac filled our books on physics with propositions intending to illus- trate how bodies are lightenec by centrifugal force resulting from rotation, and the corres- ponding diminution or in crease in the weight of bodies below or above the surface of the earth. Johnson said : "These things are all related ideas-all resultant from nat- WILLIS E. JOHNSON ural science-all spring from and belong to the same thing; hence, all of them can, and should, be incorporated in one book -a practical mathematical geog- raphy." He wrote it; the American Book Company published it. Nine editions have been exhausted, and still the sales go on. Why? Simply because a practical mind had treated a practical subject in a practical manner.
What next? Johnson saw that as a young state we hadn't a great deal of valuable history; that what we did have was stretched at certan points until it cracked, so as to make it fill up space for publishing houses. He saw, too, the relation of history
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and civics; how one author puts the constitution of the United States, the Declaration of Independence, the Presidential Succes- sion Law, and other correlated material into one book and calls it "History," while another writer embodies the same facts into a similar volume and calls it "Civics." Therefore, he conceived the idea of condensing the history and the civics of the state into one brief volume entitled, "South Dakota, a Republic of Friends"; and of making it concise and crowding it as full as possible of practical facts-those things that a busy public need and demand. He did it; the Capital Supply Company, of Pierre. published it. Five thousand volumes were soon sold, and within a year and a half a third edition was necessary to supply the demand.
Not all! Professor Johnson incorporated in this book a song entitled "South Dakota" -writing both the words and the music, himself -- which is now being sung throughout the state. He breathed into its treasured lines that lofty patriotism character- istic of the "Sunshine state." Here again was a new field of endeavor. We needed a state song (we shall soon have another one from the pen of J. W. Cotes of Clark). The only one we had was our old "Dakota Land," wherein the author made us all to
"Sit and look across the plains And wonder why it never rains,"
which we had long since outgrown
The spirit of Johnson's "South Dakota" song has been caught up by the foreign born citizen in our state, with the re- sult that Reverend Bens of Eureka, recently translated it into German. Still more, the descendants of our distinguished Sioux aborigines wanted it, so Rev. Dr Edward Ashley, of the Chey - enne Indian agency, has translated it into the Sioux tongue for them. This makes the first stanza read:
"South Dakota makojanjan, Wakantanka hukuya Oyate igluhapi kin, Waste unnilakapi."
BIOGRAPHICAL
Like others who have won distinction, Professor Johnson's success in life is not the result of accident, but is in direct pro- portion to his preparation to succeed. Born at Delano, Minnesota in 1869 he left home at a comparatively early age and entered the state normal school at St. Cloud, Minnesota. After completing his normal course he continued his education at Carleton College, Illinois Wesleyan and the University of Chicago.
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His teaching experience covers rural, village and city school work, a member of the faculty of the state normal at St. Cloud, and the one at Mayville, North Dakota, and for the past ten con- secutive years vice president of the Aberdeen (South Dakota) Normal and Industrial School.
Johnson is also a member of the editorial staff of "Encyclo- pedia for Ready Reference;" and the author of the "Supplement" to Frye's Advanced Geography, published by Ginn & Company. He is married and has five sons; owns two beautiful homes in the city of Aberdeen, and has settled down to make his permanent residence among us. Welcome! Thrice welcome! worthy citizen, teacher, author, philosopher, lecturer.
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TIMON J. SPANGLER
A SELF-MADE ATTORNEY
The second class that graduated from the Mitchell high school, away back in the year 1887, consisted of four girls and two boys. The young ladies were the Misses Stella Adams, Emily Rogers, Beulah Windle and Eva Keith. They are today Mrs. Stella Moyer, Mrs. Emily Tipton, Mrs. Beulah Scallin-all of Mitchell, and Mrs. Eva Mohr of Alexandria, respectively. Each one having married, they curbed their ambitions for greatness in life, except in the realm of motherhood. The two young men were Marvin Dundas and Timon J. Spangler. Unfortunately, Dundas, a lad of great promise, died shortly after graduating, leaving Spangler, alone, to achieve distinction.
TIMON J. SPANGLER
Born at Amboy, Illinois, in 1869, young Spangler's parents brought him to Dakota in the spring of 1883, and the family set- tled on a farm in Davison county. Like most of the rugged pio- neers of those days, they were poor. Timon yearned for an edu- cation. He therefore went to Mitchell where he supported himself and worked his way through high school, as a newsboy, selling the Mitchell Daily Republican. It was at that time a morning sheet. Young Spangler got up at four o'clock regularly, every morning, so as to get his papers and be the first boy on the streets, offering them for sale and making deliveries to his customers. Each night, after getting his studies for the ensuing day, he went to the composing rooms of the Daily and set tpye, so as to learn the printer's trade. This knowledge became very useful to him later on, as we shall subsequently see.
OUT IN THE WORLD
When Spangler graduated from the Mitchell high school, he was six feet tall, slender, lithe, a foot racer and an all-round athlete. (Today he weighs 250 pounds.) Fired with ambition,
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one month after graduation he struck out into a cold, cruel world, to begin a new career.
Going to Sioux City, he worked on the "Sioux City Journal" for a few months, and then switched over to the "Sioux City Tribune," with which he was identified for nearly two years. In 1889, he struck west and landed in the then village of Hot Springs. Buying a press and a small equipment he established at Hot Springs the "Minnekahata Herald." Final proofs on Fall River county homesteads were being made thick and fast. Spang- ler got all of these notices of final proof for publication. At the end of a year he had cleared $5,000. Then he sold the plant to the "Oelrichs Times" which was moved to Hot Springs and merged with the "Minnekahata Herald" thereby giving birth to. the "Hot Springs Times- Herald," which is still published in that city by a gentleman named Harrison.
LAWYER
From his early days while standing as a newsboy in the cor- ridors of the old court house at Mitchell and listening to the elo- quent H. C. Preston pleading for justice for his clients, before the bar of man, Spangler had determined to fit himself for a law- yer. With the money earned at Hot Springs he made a bold dash. for Ann Arbor, Michigan, and entered the famous law school at that place. His funds became exhausted, but he had a trade to fall back on. Entering a print shop and working as a "devil" therein at night he earned enough to put himself through school.
After graduating at Ann Arbor with the class of 1893, he returned to Mitchell where for nineteen consecutive years, he has engaged in the practice of his chosen profession.
The "starvation period" in a lawyer's career came truthfully home to him. The first three years his annual income from his practice averaged him only $200. This scarcely paid his office rent. But Timon had bull dog tenacity-he stuck. Conditions. changed. He got a foothold; his practice began to enlarge rap- idly; and during the next few years he forged to the front so rapidly that he soon acquired the largest individual law practice in the state.
Spangler is, first of all, a successful trial lawyer. His mas- sive physique and overpowering personality, his deep bass voice, his force, logie and shrewdness -all combine to fit hin pre- eminently for practice in court. For nineteen years he has tried cases in the old court .room against the mighty Preston whose stirring eloquence at the same bar fired the ambtion of Spangler as a boy and gave rise to his success in life. Today, his practice
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is so extensive that he has to hire another good lawyer at a good salary to remain in his office and de nothing but draw up his pap- ers, and a second attorney to look after his lighter cases.
He was state's attorney in Davison county, 1905-1908, in- clusive. During this service he made a record as a public pros- ecutor never before equalled or approached by any other attorney in the state. In all, he sent about thirty men to the penitentiary -seventeen of them in one year Hobos coming to Mitchell, hav- ing heard of him, marked on the railroad ties and sign boards near that place, certain signs as a caution to their uninformed comrades to beware.
In 1902, without any solicitation on his part, General Conk- lin appointed him judge advocate-general of the South Dakota national guard, with the rank of Colonel; but, after two years, Attorney Spangler, finding that the interests of his clients were too great to be neglected, gave up his military responsibility.
PERSONAL
Today the former newsboy of Mitchell lives in one of the most magnificent homes in the state, fronting onto the court yard square in the city of Mitchell. Its stately porch colonnades, and massive Grecian appearance from without, are but surpassed by its Mosaic designs, spacious halls and classic finish within.
Two little daughters play on his lawn, sit upon his knee and enrich his home life with their attentive mother who is the sec- ond Mrs Spangler-grief having cast a distressful shadow over his life shortly after his first marriage.
His genius, his scholarship, his adaptability and application of himself to his work, his judgment and poise in his profession, lead us to surmise, that should his health not fail, he will yet win his way to the bench-the creditable ambition of every pro- gressive attorney.
(Later. - At the time of going to press Mr. Spangler has just formed a partnership with Judge Haney, one of the retiring members of our state supreme court. The two will make one of the strongest law firms in the west. O. W. C.)
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A VIGOROUS EDUCATOR
'Tis said that "Ohio is the mother of presidents." (Just now she is struggling to become a step-mother). She is, and a mother of several different kinds of presidents. President F. B. Gault, of our state university, was born at Worcester, Ohio, May 2, 1851. Dr. Gault's mother has been dead for thirty years, but his father survived until July 8, 1912. He was a pioneer in Kansas and in Iowa, but drifted back to old haunts, clustered with hallowed memories, to spend his declining years.
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