USA > South Dakota > Who's who in South Dakota, Vol. III > Part 15
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When relieved from this Sector and sent to a bil- leting area in the vicinity of Wassy, it was mani- fostly for rest and replacement of men and equip- ment. Our brief stay of five days made difficult of accomplishment either of these purposes.
Leaving this area on the night of September 17-18 the exhausting forced marches, by night, which took us to the Meuse-Argonne Sector were a severe test upon the morale of each organization. Continued rains had rendered the roads heavy and difficult and the animals were weakened from previous service. On the nights of September 22-23 and 23-24, the first
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and second battalions respectively went into the line in support of the 79th Division. The morning of the 26th the greatest offensive of the war started and slackened only with the signing of the armistice. Both Battalions of the Regiment were selected as accompanying artillery for the attacking infantry Brigades and hence were the first artillery to ad- vance across "No-Man's-Land" and take up positions around Montfaucon.
During the seven weeks continuous fighting which followed, the Regiment, with the 57th F. A. Brigade, supported successively the 79th, the 3rd, the 32nd, and the 89th Divisions during their major offensive operations. The greatest and final effort was on November 1st in supporting the attack of the 89th Division which completely broke through the enemy's resistance and opened the way to Stenay.
During its long service in the Argonne the Regi- ment had lost 280 head of animals resulting in immobility, so that when the troops for occupation were selected the 57th Brigade was left behind, being unable to accompany the 32nd Division. This was a matter of keen disappointment to the artillery for the reason that there was a mutual and genuine feeling of regard between the infantry and artillery of this veteran Division.
Considering the very hazardous nature of the ser- vice rendered by our Batteries at times, and also when compared with other Field Artillery organiza- tions, our casualties have been exceedingly light. This I attribute in a measure to good fortune, but more to the good discipline and judgment of both officers and men. The missions intrusted to you by superior commanders have been ably performed, and with a spirit of cheerful and steadfast selfsacrifice and devotion to duty. You have served under con-
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ditions of extreme hardship and danger and have acquitted yourselves in a highly gratifying and sat- isfactory manner. During every long march and period of hard service the percentage of absentees and stragglers was so small as to be negligible. The pride and satisfaction which you feel, in the sense of service well performed, is your best and most lasting reward.
I fully realize that every officer and man of Bat- tery "F" have eagerly wished for an opportunity to join the Regiment at the front and share with them the dangers and hardships of battle. That they have not been able to do this has disappointed both them and the rest of the Regiment. The cessation of hostilities made impossible the realization of their wish. However they have done well the duties as- signed to them, and, in a broad sense, the faithful and efficient performance of such duties as is essen- tial to the defeat of the enemy as the actual firing of shells into his ranks.
It is my abiding wish that each one will continue to maintain for all time, the same high standard of efficiency and conduct that has characterized his service in the past.
BOYD WALES, Colonel, 147th F. A. Commanding.
PRESIDENT E. C. WOODBURN
PROMINENT EDUCATOR
"What sculpture is to the block of marble, Education is to the human soul." ·- ADDISON
One month before a sixteen-year-old boy graduated from the high school in Fowler, Indiana, while he was riding a plug-horse along the highway enroute to a nearby town
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to attend a commencement, a township trustee, standing in his barn door, called to him and said : "Do you want to teach school? If so, I will give you 'Number 4' down the road at $40 per month."
This incident started President E. C. Woodburn, of the Spearfish (S. D.) normal, on his educational career.
The lives of most of us have been shaped by acting on impulse ; Woodburn's was.
Although still one month under seventeen, he promptly shouted back: "I'm not old enough ; but if I can get a license, I'll take it."
A month later, he graduated from the Fowler high school, reached his seventeenth birthday, appeared before the county super- intendent of schools, passed a creditable ex- amination, was given a two-year license to teach and became the pedagog in "Number 4."
"There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries; And we must take the current when it serves, Or lose our venture."
- SHAKESPEARE
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And then again, this same myriad-minded Shakespeare declares :
"Some are born great; some achieve greatness, And some have greatness thrust upon them."
There was a "tide in the affairs" of this stripling, which, "taken at its flood," made an educator out of him; in other words, he had, unexpectedly, had "greatness thrust upon" him.
In the school were six grown boys - three of them older and larger than their young teacher; yet Woodburn, by tact, got along well with them, completed a seven-months' term, put $200 in the bank, and got his start in life.
After teaching for three years in the same township, - one year in Number 4 and two years in Number 7 (another school) -, he went away to school and entered Battle Creek College - a Seventh-Day Adventist school (now a defunct institution) - at Battle Creek, Michigan, for the spring term and for the following year.
EDUCATED ON INSTALLMENT PLAN
Born on a farm near Fowler, Indiana, June 26, 1875, his early education was
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acquired in a country school. Next we see him graduating from the Fowler high school with the class of 1892; then teaching three terms; then in attendance at Battle Creek. Now, he goes to Goodland, Indiana, in charge of the seventh and eighth grades in the pub- lic schools of that place. Then we find him a student in the Indiana State Normal, at Terre Haute, for a year, and we watch his growth with pleasure as we see him called back to Fowler to be assistant principal in his home high school for two years. On up! Principal of schools at Ambia, Indiana, for one year. Then principal of high school at Union City, Indiana, for two years.
During these hit-and-miss experiences, he had attended summer school for five years. At last he had saved enough money to put himself through college and we next see him graduating from Indiana University with the class of 1904. He had majored in mathematics. This technical training has been largely the basis of his success in life.
ARRIVES IN DAKOTA
Upon the receipt of his A. B. degree, he went onto the road for Atkinson, Mentzer
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and Grover, handling books and school sup- plies in the Dakotas.
When Prof. H. E. French, superintendent of the Elk Point (S. D.) city schools, was elected superintendent of the Union County schools, Woodburn took his place as head of the Elk Point schools. Two years later when Prof. C. G. Lawrence, superintendent of the Canton (S. D.) city schools, was elect- ed superintendent of the Lincoln County schools, Woodburn transferred to Canton, in charge of the public schools at that place.
Canton is the old home of Hon. G. W. Nash, now president of the state normal school at Bellingham, Washington, but who, at that time, was president of the Northern Normal and Industrial School at Aberdeen, South Dakota. After Woodburn had served four years as city superintendent at Canton, Nash called him to the Northern Normal at Aber- deen and made him principal of the training department. Four years later he placed him in charge of the Department of Education, and a year later he was elevated to the vice- presidency of the institution.
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After thus being identified with the Aber- deen Normal for nine years, where he made an enviable record for himself as an organ- izer, teacher, institute instructor, commence- ment speaker and lecturer on educational themes, the Regents of Education, in 1919,
SPEARFISH NORMAL
invited him to become president of the Spear- fish Normal, - a position he promptly ac- cepted.
As the chrysalis passes through the various stages of its metamorphosis until it becomes a charming butterfly, so the uncouth farm- boy, who had spent his early years milking cows, following the plow, harvesting, picking corn and digging tile ditches, has, through his own individual exertion and frugality, risen to the presidency of one of our strongest state normal schools.
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OTHER HONORS
For several years he has been a regular contributor to the South Dakota Educator - the only school journal published in the two Dakotas.
In 1919, he was elected president of the South Dakota Educational Association, to ar- range the program and preside over the 1920 session held at Aberdeen, - a duty he per- formed with great credit to himself and to the state.
SOCIAL RELATIONS
A young lady from Tyndall, who was a graduate of the Springfield (S. D.) Normal, taught with Professor Woodburn at Elk Point. Her name was Miss Berenice Walker. The next year she became Mrs. E. C. Wood- burn. Two girls came to bless their home. Mary Esther, at the age of three, passed into Spirit-realm, leaving Dorothy as their only comfort.
Although reared in a Seventh-Day Adven- tist home, President Woodburn, at the time of his marriage, January 1, 1907, became identified with the Congregational church,
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with which he is still affiliated, being a trus- tee of the church at Spearfish.
He is a member of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity, belongs to the M. W. A., and is a Scottish-rite Mason.
President Woodburn loves nature. While connected with the Aberdeen Normal, he homesteaded 320 acres in Harding County. Since then, he has purchased an adjoining quarter ; has improved his ranch and become a town-farmer. He loves to fish, and his recreation consists in casting for the elusive trout in Spearfish creek.
He spends his summers taking advanced work in Chicago University.
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DR. ROLLIN E. WOODWORTH
DR. R. E. WOODWORTH
SUPERINTENDENT CUSTER SANATORIUM
"As man, perhaps, the moment of his breath, Receives the lurking principle of death; The young disease that must subdue at length, Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his strength."
POPE
Near the center of the aged Black Hills - six miles south of Custer, and 5300 feet above the level of the sea - where the star- spangled arches of the skies appear to rest upon the stone-capped summits of the Hills, where the rocky ledges are fringed with towering pines, where a large mountain spring emits its flow of ceaseless nectar, where Beaver Creek babbles along and steals its zigzag way between the rugged Hills to the old Cheyenne, where a profusion of wild- flowers lift their tiny blossoms above the crevices in the rocks to pay homage to their Maker, where the sweet ozone from quakenasp and birch spreads its health- giving properties among the rustling trees,
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where sunlit days in endless numbers make life a dream of joy, where Nature resolves itself into a reverie and God stands looking on, the legislature of South Dakota, in 1909, located a Sanatorium for the care of Tuber- culosis patients.
"Here are the skies all burnished brightly; Here is the spent earth all reborn; Here are the tired limbs springing lightly To face the sun and share with the morn In the chrism of dew and the cool of dawn."
For a superintendent of the institution, the board of Charities and Corrections selected a man who had already proven his worth in the Medical profession, - Dr. R. E. Wood- worth, of Sioux Falls. He was, however, preceded for a few months by Dr. J. E. James, who was taken ill, went south and died.
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"By medicine life may be prolonged, yet death Will seize the doetor too."
SHAKESPEARE
The legislature of 1909 made provision for a sanatorium for those unfortunate human beings in our state who are afflicted with that dreaded scourge - Tuberculosis. The board of Charities and Corrections selected the site previously described. Work was begun, and the institution was opened for the reception of patients in 1911. Subsequent legislatures continued appropriations for the institution until it now consists of 170 acres of pine-clad hills, six main buildings, the superintendent's residence, farmer's house, pump house, spring house, and barns, - valued, all told, at $250,000.
The following statistics, carefully com- piled, covering the life of the institution from 1911 to November 1, 1920, will prove of interest: Total number of patients admit- ted 483; number in whom the disease was apparently arrested 46; number quiescent 65; improved 195; not improved 83; died 96.
When one pauses to think that there are 3500 people in South Dakota afflicted with
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tuberculosis in some stage; that the present enrollment of the Sanatorium is only 70, but is practically the maximum capacity of the institution ; that this number is only two per cent of those afflicted, it immediately unfolds to the minds of our people the tremendous problem that is before them.
SUPERINTENDENT
Dr. Rollin E. Woodworth, the efficient superintendent around whose personality the institution has been built up, is the son of a Methodist preacher. He was born in Leon, New York, where his father was preaching, March 30, 1867. The Doctor is a blood rela- tive of Samuel Woodworth, author of that immortal song, "The Old Oaken Bucket."
When he was three years of age his father died. Then the mother moved to Randolph, New York. Here Rollin grew to advanced boyhood. He attended the public schools of Randolph, and Chamberlain Institute - a preparatory institution.
At sixteen years of age, his mother brought him to Dakota Territory and settled in Sioux Falls. Here he entered the high
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school, graduating with the Class of 1884. From there he went direct to New York Uni- versity and took his medical course, gradu- ating with the class of 1889.
Upon the completion of his education he returned to Dakota and took up the practice of his chosen profession at Valley Springs in Minnehaha County, remaining at this place for two and a half years. Then he went to Bisbee, Arizona, where he became physician for a large mining concern. This work did not especially appeal to him; and so, at the end of a year, he moved to Sioux Falls where he practiced for 18 years, until he was chosen superintendent of the Custer Sanatorium in 1911. During his practice at Sioux Falls, he was also physician for the State Penitentiary located in that city.
MRS. WOODWORTH
In 1891, Doctor Woodworth chose as his companion and helpmate for life, Miss Lucy C. Dean, of Vermont, whom he had met in Sioux Falls. They were married at Meriden, Connecticut. They are the parents of three talented children - two sons and a daughter.
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Mrs. Woodworth has been a wonderful help for the Doctor at the Sanatorium. The Army and Navy Club of Albany, New York, gave to the American Library Association, unsolicited, $50 with which to buy books for the institution. A town in Ohio sent a large box of books to them. Clubs in our own state have added to the list, until the total volumes in the Sanatorium library now number over 1100. From these Mrs. Woodworth reads occasionally to the weaker patients. Aside from this, she does many other acts of mercy. Therefore, we would say with Shakespeare:
"He is the half-part of a blessed man Left to be finished by such as she; And she a fair divided excellence, Whose fulness of perfection lies in him."
For their fine life-work and unselfish de- votion to the sick that come to their care, we would join Shakespeare in "The Tempest" and shout :
"Look down! you gods! And on this couple drop a blessed crown!"
CAPTAIN FRANCIS M. ZIEBACH
VETERAN PIONEER EDITOR
"Is it strange, do you think, that the women took fright,
That morning, and prayed; that men even turned white.
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When over the ridge where the college now looms We caught the first glitter of lances and plumes, And heard the dull trample of hoofs drawing nigh, Like the rumble of thunder low down in the sky?
"Such sounds wrench the nerves when there's little to see;
It seemed madness to stay, it was ruin to flee. But handsome and fearless as Anthony Wayne, Our captain, Frank Ziebach, kept hold of the rein; Like a bugle his voice made us stiffen and thrill - 'Stand steady, boys, steady! And fire to kill.'"
The foregoing lines taken from Joseph Mills Hanson's dramatic poem, entitled "The Girl of the Yankton Stockade," suggests some early Dakota history, in which Captain Francis M. Ziebach played an important role.
Contrary to the generally accepted rumor, no fight with the Indians ever occurred at the Yankton stockade. It is true that the stockade was built in anticipation of an In- dian attack ; that Mr. Ziebach was made cap- tain of a company of militia that was formed to defend it; and that the Indians did appear en masse, but gave up the attack, on the theory that it would be too costly in Indian lives to attempt to carry the place by a fron- tal attack.
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Although a trifle foreign to the career of Captain Ziebach, and yet forming an inter- esting part of it, is the account of this fa- mous old stockade, as told by the veteran editor, George W. Kingsbury, and recorded by Mr. Hanson :
"When we in Yankton received news of the Indian massacre along the frontiers of Minne- sota and the attack on Sioux Falls, there was a miniature panic and some of the citizens of Yankton and a few of the settlers in the out- lying country fled hastily to Sioux City or points farther east. But the greater part remained in Yankton. 'Zieb' and I had our office then in a little frame building on the northeast corner of Third Street and Broadway, built by Billy Bor- dineau. When the settlers began to rush in, we hastily started to put the town in a state of defense. Governor Jayne organized the militia and nearly every man was enlisted in it.
"A number of companies were organized at different times that year, of which Company A, at Yankton, was the largest, with seventy-five or eighty men. Ziebach, who possessed consid- erable military knowledge, was captain of Com- pany A, and I was the first sergeant.
"The first thing we did in the way of defense was to lay out and erect a stockade which em- braced, approximately, a quarter of each block surrounding the corner of Third Street and Broadway, the street intersection being in the center. The work was square, each face about 450 feet long, with flanking block houses at the
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northeastern and southwestern corners. The north wall, which was built first, was an ordi- nary breastwork made by excavating a ditch about six feet wide and six feet deep and throw- ing the earth up behind it. Portions of the old breastworks were visible for many years after the Sioux War, until they were gradually . obliterated by the erection of buildings and the grading of alleys and lots.
"The east and west walls were constructed of lumber, a large part of which was requisi- tioned from Picotte & Armstrong. All of the out- buildings and fences belonging to H. C. Ash around the Ash Hotel, the house of George Pike, and buildings and fences belonging to various others, were also seized under the necessities of the crisis, and the lumber used in the fortifica- tions, which were made by setting studding and dimension timbers postwise in the ground, nail- ing boards on both sides of them and filling the space between with earth. The south wall, near- est the river, which was completed last, was simply a stockade wall formed of a double row of fence posts with their tops standing about five feet above the ground. The salleyport, or gate, was in the middle of the south wall and it was defended by a bronze field gun.
"Small raiding parties of Sioux swept down on the scattered farms along the lower Jim River, firing on the settlers and running off stock, while in Yankton itself, it was regarded as certain that the enemy contemplated an at- tack on the settlement with a far larger force. Nor was the opinion unfounded. Years later I was informed by Indians who themselves had been present, that a force of 300 to 400 warriors
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were gathered at one time in the valley of the Jim for the purpose of destroying Yankton. That was just after we had completed our first earthwork. They scouted our position thorough- ly and, after many deliberations in which one faction urged an attack while another opposed it, the decision was finally reached that it would cost the lives of too many warriors to carry our · works by assault. So it was given up and the Indian army moved away elsewhere. But you can see how close we were to battle."
IN PAYMENT
Later, the territorial auditor issued Cap- tain Ziebach a warrant for $265 for his ser- vices as head of the Yankton militia, but it was never paid, because no appropriation had been specifically made for this purpose.
Many years afterwards, the U. S. Govern- ment paid each of the members of Co. A., of Yankton, and of the other territorial militia companies, at Bon Homme, Vermillion, Elk Point, and Brule Creek, one month's pay for their services to the settlers during those eventful days of '62.
REMARKABLE PRESERVATION
At the time of the publication of this sketch, Captain Ziebach is still actively en-
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gaged in business, although in his ninety-first year.
He was born November 23, 1830, on a farm six miles from Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, while Andrew Jackson, hero of the War of 1812, was president of the United States. He has since lived to see twenty-two other men become presidents. During his lifetime, the Mexican, the Civil, the Spanish-American, and the World wars were all fought - and won! He could scarcely have lived in a more eventful period of the world's history.
His only education consisted of a few win- ter terms in a rural school, during his boy- hood years on the farm.
PRINTER AND ADVENTURER
During his latter 'teens, he left the farm and went to New Berlin, not far away, to learn the printers' trade. He worked on the Good Samaritan, a religio-temperance sheet. Then he worked for two years on the Lewis- burg Chronicle.
However, in 1853, at the age of twenty- three, he got the western fever, and so he went to Madison, Wisconsin, where he worked for two years on the Madison Argus.
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But in the spring of 1855, he returned to Pennsylvania and established the Lewisburg Argus.
After two years at this venture he decided that the West held more possibilities for a young man than the East; and so, in the spring of 1857, he packed up his printer's outfit and started for new fields. The trip lay by boat down the Ohio river and then up the Mississippi as far as St. Louis. Here the young man who was accompanying the outfit was killed by some thugs, and Mr. Ziebach, who had gone ahead to look up a suitable lo- cation, had to return to get his equipment and bring it on. He shipped it by freight to Independence, Missouri, and then by boat to Sergeant Bluffs, Iowa, where he established the Independent.
The financial panic of 1857 was at its height. Things did not go well with the young printer in his western newspaper ven- ture; and so, in 1858, he moved the outfit to Sioux City and started the Register.
In 1861, he sold the Register to William Freeney, who later discontinued it. Ziebach then bought the Sioux City Eagle, and after
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running it for a few months in that place, packed up the plant and moved it to the then territorial capital of Dakota - the city of Yankton.
"GOVERNOR" ZIEBACH
The title of "Governor" became attached to Mr. Ziebach, and many people to this day think he was one of the territorial governors of Dakota. This is untrue. Just how this title got attached to him is pleasantly told in an article by Kingsbury. In it, he says : "He got his title of 'governor' up here in this way : Immediately after the close of a legislature, the members always had a session of what was called 'the third house,' when everybody broke loose and had a high old time, with horse-play and humorous speeches and mock legislation. In these sessions it became the custom for 'Zieb' to take the part of the gov- ernor, and he was called 'the squatter gov- ernor,' as his position was similar to that of squatters on government land which did not belong to them. Hence the title."
APPOINTIVE POSITIONS
In 1886, President Cleveland appointed Captain Ziebach, Receiver of the U. S. Land
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Office at Yankton. He served four years. Then, in 1896, he was appointed U. S. Land Commissioner, and he looked after the home- stead entries in Eastern Gregory County. His headquarters were at Bonesteel. In 1904, he was re-appointed and transferred to Gregory. Then he was again re-appointed, by Judge Carland, in 1908 and located at Lamro to look after the homestead entries in Tripp County. On September 1, 1910, he was transferred to Winner where he still resides and continues to serve, - having twice been re-appointed by Federal Judge Elliott.
DOMESTIC RELATIONS
Mr. Ziebach was united in marriage, No- vember 6, 1855, to Miss Elizabeth Fisher, of Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Their wedding oc- curred six months after he had established the Lewisburg Argus, and when the success of his independent business venture seemed assured. Five single children and one pair of twins came to bless their home. One of the twins died in infancy, leaving the other six children - all of whom grew to maturity, and five of whom are still living (1920).
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Their happy wedded career lasted sixty- one years, nine months and eighteen days, until Mrs. Ziebach, on August 24, 1917, slipped quietly out of her clay encasement which was deposited in a tomb at Yankton, and left her aged husband to say with Byron :
"The light of love, the purity of grace, The mind, the music breathing from her face, The heart whose softness harmonized the whole - And, Oh! that eye was in itself a soul!"
He joined the Free Masons in 1855, while in Pennsylvania; and, after coming to Dako- ta, he became a charter member of St. John's Lodge No. 1 - the oldest Blue Lodge in the territory. He was also a charter member of the first chaper of Royal Arch Masons in the state. The records show him at this time to be the second oldest living Free Mason in South Dakota (first place going to a Mr. Mills, of Sioux Falls, who, although five months younger than Ziebach, joined the Masons five months ahead of him) .
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