USA > South Dakota > Who's who in South Dakota, Vol. III > Part 9
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1,100 of them in their home county of Spink - to an average depth of 1,000 feet. The total depth of these wells, if one were placed on top of the other, would be over 10,000,000 feet - a distance of approximately 2,000 miles, or equal to a distance from Pierre to Washington.
The firm is also engaged in drilling oil and gas wells in Wyoming. In that state they have leased tracts of land and are drilling prospective wells at their own expense. They have already spent over $80,000 in this en- terprise - but not without its attending re- wards. In 1917 they sold one tract on which they had struck several "gushers" for $640,000.
IN POLITICS
Peter Norbeck's experience in practical politics began back in the early days in Charles Mix County when he was a lad not as yet old enough to vote. He attended the early county conventions and helped push his friends for office. When he moved to Spink County in 1891 he decided to have nothing more to do with politics. But a suc- cession of political events demanded his
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presence, and the help of his gifted leader- ship. He was offered the state senatorship from his home county when he was but twenty-eight years of age, but declined it.
HIS FIRST OFFICE
However, his friends kept at him to enter the political arena, which he finally did in 1908, and was elected to the state senate - three times in succession. In the senate he showed a leadership and an ability for or- ganization which commanded the attention of the whole state. His work in the senate will best be remembered by the fight he made for the Bank Guaranty Law.
ELECTED GOVERNOR
Norbeck was gaining favor with the peo- ple. After six years in the senate he was elected lieutenant-governor. Here he showed such marked ability as an executive that he was again called to party leadership in 1916, and elected governor of the state. In 1918, he was re-elected by an overwhelming majority.
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Before his regime, laws were enacted by the legislature, but they were left to the dif- ferent localities to enforce them according to the disposition of local officials, or as local conditions might demand. Governor Norbeck contended that if the state were going to enact laws it was the duty of the state to see that they were uniformly enforced. He asked for a state sheriff, with suitable depu- ties - all appointed by the state, so that no obligations were created to local communities. The legislature promptly gave him this kind of an organization, with the result that the laws of South Dakota are more rigidly en- forced.
STATE PARK
The governor was instrumental in secur- ing a state park, eight by twelve miles, in the Black Hills, near Custer. When Congress set aside a part of the Black Hills as a na- tional game preserve they took over a large number of school sections which by the laws of the state and the Enabling Act which gave it statehood, belonged to South Dakota. The state asked that an area equal to the com- bined area of all these sections be given back
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to it in one body, for a park. This was done. Then, the legislature of 1920 added 30,- 000 acres to it. In this park the state has already placed 500 elk, 75 buffaloes, a dozen antelopes, and about 300 deer. It is the intention of the commonwealth to pre- serve within it a sufficient number of all the wild animals characteristic of South Dakota to guarantee their perpetuation and to make of it one of the greatest state parks in the Union.
RURAL CREDITS
Although Peter Norbeck was directly re- sponsible for the enactment of many impor- tant reform measures, and although he pleaded from the stump for several Constitu- tional Amendments which made a number of these reforms possible, in all probability the future historian will single out the enactment of his Rural Credits law as the greatest achievement of his public career. It was an act of constructive statesmanship that elicit- ed the attention of the whole nation. A number of successful business men of large experience said it could not be done. Peter Norbeck said it could, and it was.
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Perhaps no better explanation of the work- ings and the results of this law could be made than the account of it which appeared from the Governor's own pen in the Febru- ary 14th, 1920, issue of the Country Gentle- man, wherein he stated in part :
"The state borrows the money which it lends to farmers; borrows it outside the state, from men who will lend their money to a state cheaper than they would to an individual. The state issues its bonds for the money, takes the mort- gages from the farmers and files them in a vault in the state house, collects from the farm- ers as interest and principal become due and pays the bondholder as the obligations mature.
* *
"It is all very simple and very quickly done. The board has put out loans in thirty-six hours; very often the whole transaction is completed in two or three days.
* *
"The plan has now been in operation two years. The first year 1158 loans were made, totaling $4,139,350. The second year 3026 loans were made, totaling $12.283,179. A total of 4186 loans has been made, amounting to $16,- 422,529. In other words, the business of the board has now reached the amount of about $1,000,000 a month."
Other large achievements of his adminis- tration are: the State Hail Insurance law,
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the Good Roads law, the Soldiers' Land Set- tlement law, to help ex-service men secure homes; the 30-year payment plan for the sale of public lands that has made it possible for the young man to purchase land from the state upon ten per cent cash only : inci- dentally, it has brought better prices for the state lands: state encouragement for better country schools - better pay for teachers. At the last session of the Legislature there was submitted two constitutional amend- ments - one providing for Soldiers' Bonus, and one providing for the extension of state credit to aid home-builders in the towns and cities, as the state now does in the farming communities.
DOMESTIC RELATIONS
Senator Norbeck was united in marriage in 1900 to Miss Lydia Anderson, of Yankton. Her parents and the Norbecks had been old neighbors in Charles Mix County. She and the Senator had grown up together, from the time she was twelve and he was sixteen. Mrs. Norbeck has an exceptionally pleasing personality, is a great home woman, and yet,
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withaï, one who takes a keen interest in politics. They have four children, and their home life is generally regarded as one of the happiest in the state.
Trudging along the eventful journey from well-driller to the United States Senate, Peter Norbeck has, through frugality, organization and hard work, amassed a snug fortune.
As a public speaker, the Senator is very convincing, and his services in this line are in demand at public functions of all kinds.
REV. DR. G. T. NOTSON
FROM PRINTER TO PREACHER
Some men go through a hospital enroute to a monument ; Dr. G. T. Notson, of Mitchell, built a hospital for a monument.
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He is one of the best organizers in Dakota Methodism. This comes from the fact that he is a man among men ; knows men as men ; meets them as men, and is one of them.
For this reason the Dakota Conference, in 1914, made him Executive Secretary of the Methodist Hospital which they determined to build at Mitchell. That beautiful $200,000 structure stands today as a monument to his genius and untiring energy. Everybody of every denomination, or of no denomination, are welcome to enjoy the hospitality of this splendid institution, provided they are not able to pay. We think of the words of Mrs. Norton in the "Lady of La Garaye":
"They serve God well Who serve his creatures."
Shakespeare, with a full-orbed view, de- clares :
"Charity itself fulfills the law, And who can sever love from charity?"
To this we add the eternal vision of Cowper :
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"True charity, a plant divinely nurs'd, Fed by love from which it rose at first, Thrives against hope, and, in the rudest scene, Storms, but enliven its unfading green; Exuberant is the shadow it supplies,
Its fruit on earth, its growth above the skies!"
The Methodist State Hospital was located at Mitchell, S. Dak., by the Dakota Confer- ence in October, 1913. One year later it was decided to raise funds for the erection of the first unit of the proposed building, and the subject of this sketch was appointed Execu- tive Secretary. Other interests commanded attention for the major part of the ensuing year, however, preliminary steps were taken to raise sufficient funds to proceed with the building. One year later the ground was broken on the present site, which had been previously purchased by the Board of Trus- tees. The excavation and foundation were completed in the fall of 1916. The following year the building as originally planned was pushed to completion. On February 11, 1918, the Hospital was dedicated and opened for the service of suffering humanity. It is a modern, up-to-date structure of fire-proof construction, provided with the very best
METHODIST HOSPITAL, MITCHELL, S. D.
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equipment of latest design for the care of the sick, with a capacity of forty beds, and costing, including the site and a modest nurses' home, $120,000. One year later the over-crowded condition of the Hospital left no choice to the Board of Trustees, and steps were taken to enlarge it by erecting an addi. tion to each end of the main building, thus doubling its capacity for the care of patients. The property, with these additions, exceeds $200,000 in valuation.
MULTIPLEX EXPERIENCES
This inspired and inspiring man came into being on a farm near Lamoni, Iowa, Septem- ber 19, 1865. He spent his boyhood on the farm, doing customary farm work. He was educated in the common schools of Iowa and in a print shop. Dakota Wesleyan conferred his D. D. upon him in 1913.
His father was Scotch-Irish; his mother, of English descent. They settled in Iowa as pioneers in 1839. They were hard-working, frugal people, and from them Dr. Notson learned many of the practical lessons of life.
However, at the age of fifteen, he left home and entered the office of the Sidney Union, a
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weekly newspaper published at Sidney, Iowa. Here he acted as printer's devil (a term that seems never to die out of the printing trade). And it seems entirely appropriate to include the fact that each week he set up the notes turned in by Charles M. Day, now editor of the Sioux Falls Daily Argus-Leader, who, at that time, was the weekly correspondent from Tabor, where he was attending Tabor College.
Young Notson proved an apt student at the printer's trade and he had it thoroughly mastered before he was eighteen. He had also lent himself vigorously to the writing end of the newspaper business, with the re- sult that he had developed himself both as a reporter and an editor.
Possessed of a most creditable determina- tion to get into business for himself, and while yet but seventeen years of age, he went to Utica, Nebraska, and established the Utica Record, which he published for several years. Having opinions of his own, and being a fearless lad, he plunged the sheet into poli- tics, opposed the state "machine," and helped
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to overthrow it. Finally, he sold out and re- turned to Iowa where he again engaged in the newspaper business for a brief time.
But the call to the Christian ministry seemed ever on his mind. And so, in 1890, he entered that vocation as a member of the Des Moines Conference of the Methodist Episcopal church. He was assigned to the pastorate at Hillsdale, Iowa, where he preached for two years - at a very meager salary. In his dramatic recital of the palsied scenes in the "Deserted Village," Goldsmith must have found trace of a man like the youthful Notson, when he wrote :
"Near yonder copse, where once the garden smil'd, And still where many a garden flow'r grows wild, Therc, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose, The village preacher's modest mansion rose. A man he was to all the country dear, And passing rich with forty pounds a year."
His next assignment was at Dow City where he served the good people of that place for a year and a half.
"In his duty prompt at every call,
He watched, and wept, and felt and prayed for all."
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But this young preacher was a practical fellow. He had a philosophy of his own, to- wit: that a preacher can advance in his call- ing more rapidly by changing Conference relations. And so, in harmony with this theory and in exemplification of it, he trans- ferred to the Dakota Conference in the fall of 1893 and accepted the pastorate at Flandreau. He was working upwards, to be sure. With Butler, in "Hudibras," he could now begin to say :
"What makes all doctrines plain and clear .. About two hundred pounds a year."
Three years at Flandreau, five at Pierre, and then two at Alexandria. At each place a promotion over his former pastorate.
"And that which was prov'd true before, Prove false again? Two hundred more."
But the end came - in this line of en- deavor. His ability as an organizer and money raiser was attracting attention of the Conference. And so, in 1908, he was made Secretary of the Conference Claimants' En- dowment fund. He then spent two year
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laying the foundation for this fund for re- tired ministers, and for their widows and orphans.
In 1910, Dr. Notson was appointed Super- intendent of the Huron District of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He served four years in this position, making a good record for himself. From the District Superintendency he went to the position he now holds as Executive Secretary of the Methodist State Hospital.
In addition to these major activities, and running along simultaneously with them, are many other positions of responsibility and influence which he has held during the past twenty years. For instance, he was elected Secretary of the Dakota Annual Conference in 1900, - serving for eleven consecutive years - the longest period any man has held the place to date. He has also been a Trustee of Dakota Wesleyan University for the past sixteen years; a Trustee of Dakota Confer- ence for many years, and a Trustee of the Methodist State Hospital since the date of its organization. Beginning with 1916, he was four years president of the Church Fed-
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eration of South Dakota; and during the World War he was a member of the State Council of Defense, serving on the Executive Committee of the same by appointment of the governor. He assisted numerous churches and various German-speaking communities to align themselves with the activities of the war. The State Senate selected him as their Chaplain in 1903. He is a life member of the State Historical Society, and he contributed to Hon. Doane Robinson's two-volume his- tory of the state the article on the "History of South Dakota Methodism."
He was elected as a delegate to the General Conference of the M. E. church in 1912; re- serve delegate in 1916, and regular delegate again in 1920. During the 1920 session, he was made a member of the Committee on Hospitals and Homes. He introduced legis- lation for the creation of a new Benevolent Board to have control of the latter institu- tions, - one of the really big constructive pieces of ecclesiastical legislation enacted by the Conference. Dr. Notson was also chair- man of the sub-committee on Conference. Claimants which formulated new legislation
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for the care of retired ministers, their widows and orphans.
DOMESTIC
In 1886, while Dr. Notson was publishing his newspaper in Nebraska, he was united in marriage to Miss Rachel M. Black, of Raymond, that state. Their marriage de- veloped a home life that has proven to be one of the models western Methodism. Shakespeare might as well have put into the mouth of Dr. Notson the words he put into the mouth of one of the "Two Gentlemen from Venice :"
"She is mine own; And I as rich in having such a jewel, As twenty seas, if all their sands were pearl, The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold."
Mrs. Notson's response is beautifully set forth by Rowe in the "Fair Penitent":
"He, who (is) half my self!
One faith has ever bound us, and one reason Guided our wills."
And Pope, acting as a ventriloquist, would cause them to muse in unison :
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"Grave authors say, and witty poets sing, That honest wedlock is a glorious thing."
To their happy mating five children were born, - four daughters and one son. They are all living and have all grown to maturity.
Dr. Notson is a member of Resurgam Lodge of Free Masons at Mitchell, and a Scottish Rite Mason - a member of Oriental Consistory No. 1 of Yankton. He also be- longs to the A. O. U. W.
From Printer to Preacher ! - largely through his own exertion !
(Since this article was written, Dr. Notson has gone to Sioux City, Iowa, to assume charge of the Methodist hospital at that place.)
HELEN SOPHIA PEABODY, LITT. D.
PRINCIPAL ALL SAINTS SCHOOL
In "Caradoc and Senena," Southey aptly inquires :
"What will not woman, gentle woman, dare, When strong affection stirs her spirit up?"
"Strong affection" for education and the right training of the young stirred the spirit
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of Helen Sophia Peabody, principal of All Saints School, to give her life to the school room.
"Delightful task! to rear the tender thought, To teach the young idea how to shoot, To pour the fresh instruction o'er the mind, To breathe the enliv'ning spirit, and to fix The generous purpose in the glowing breast."
BORN WELL
Helen Sophia Peabody was born on a farm in Wagon Landing, Wisconsin, near the pres- ent site of New Richmond, November 17, 1858. Both of her parents were teachers in their earlier years, Mr. Peabody later taking orders in the Episcopal church. One of the pioneer missionaries in Wisconsin, he trav- eled by wagon, horseback, or afoot, over that part of the state lying between LaCrosse and Duluth, while the mother was father, mother, doctor, and nurse to the family on the farm. The children attended a district school, taught at times by the father or mother, - a school unique in its county for thorough- ness of work, and as such sought by the best teachers. The firm foundation of a useful, honorable career was laid by more than one
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young man and woman in that particular district school.
PREPARATION
At the age of fifteen, Helen obtained a teacher's certificate, and taught for several terms in districts near her home. In spite of meager preparation, she was exceptionally successful, and reputed to be a "born teacher."
In 1878 she entered St. Mary's Hall, Fari- bault, Minn., where she graduated in 1881 as valedictorian of her class, winner of a medal for reading, and a medal for excellence in English.
In 1915, the University of South Dakota conferred upon her the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters.
COMES TO SIOUX FALLS
After teaching Latin and mathematics for two years at St. Catherines School, St. Paul, she, with her older sister, Sarah, accepted Bishop Hare's invitation to become the work- ing heads of All Saints School. At the close of the first year, her sister returned to St. Paul, Miss Helen Peabody remaining as principal,
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- a position which she has held for thirty- five years.
When Dr. Peabody was placed in charge of the school, she taught English Grammar, Latin, and the Bible. After the school grew so large that most of her time was taken up with administrative work, she dropped the two first subjects and has since taught only the Bible.
"Most wondrous book! bright candle of the Lord! Star of Eternity! The only star By which the bark of man could navigate The sea of life, and gain the coast of bliss Securely.
POLLOCK
By nature and habit retiring, Dr. Peabody has watched with sympathetic interest the revolutionary changes in the status of woman that have taken place during the last thirty- five years. She has never wished publicity, and the recognition she has received has come unsought.
"Seek to be good, but aim not to be great, A woman's noblest station is retired, Her fairest virtues fly from public sight."
LORD LYTTELTON
ALL SAINTS SCHOOL, SIOUX FALLS, S. D.
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OTHER HONORS
When this country entered the Great War, and the Woman's Committee of the Council of National Defense was created, Dr. Pea- body was chosen Chairman of the State Committee.
In the spring primaries of 1920, she was duly elected a delegate to the Republican National Convention, - the first woman in South Dakota to receive such recognition.
"To every man there openeth A way, and ways, and a way. And the high Soul climbs the high way, And the low Soul gropes the low; And in between, on the misty flats, The rest drift to and fro. But to every man there openeth A high way and a low, And every man decideth The way his Soul shall go."
JOHN OXENHAM
All Saints School was opened by the cele- brated Bishop Hare in September, 1881. Those were almost primitive days in South Dakota, and Bishop Hare had in mind the needs of all those, missionaries and others, who were remote from schools of any kind. His aim from the first was to make it an
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excellent school, with rates for board and tuition so moderate that people of very limit- ed resources could afford the advantages of- fered by All Saints School. Bishop Hare was further impelled by the conviction that organized Christianity has its own peculiar contribution to make to the cause of educa- tion - a contribution whose basic principle is that Christian teaching should not be sec- tarian, but should stress those fundamental principles on which Christian people agree.
Exceptional, yet typical of the work of this school, is the case of Miss Ella Deloria, daughter of one of the Indian ministers. After graduating with excellent standing from All Saints School, Miss Deloria, for two years, attended Oberlin College; then went to Teachers College, New York, to specialize in physical education. She graduated one of ten that year to receive a teacher's certificate in that particular subject. After teaching for two years in All Saints School, she re- turned to New York for special training as a worker in the Y. W. C. A. She is now a rec- reational director for work in all the Indian schools in the United States.
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The total number of pupils registered as having attended the school is 3538. Of this number 232 have been graduated. The pres- ent enrollment of regular pupils is 140.
The beautiful site of rolling prairie, con- sisting of seven acres, now skirted with cement walks and covered with beautiful shade trees, was presented to the School by Artemus Gale. Sioux Falls donated $10,000 as an original gift to the institution. Later eastern friends of Bishop Hare contributed endowment funds to the amount of $90,000. The Dexter Memorial House, used as an in- firmary, with a $10,000 endowment, is also the gift of an eastern friend. In 1919, for- mer-Congressman Charles H. Burke, of Pierre, conducted a successful campaign for a $200,000 endowment for it; and this grow- ing religious institution is now secure.
MRS. JOHN L. PYLE
MRS. JOHN L. PYLE OUR FIRST WOMAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTOR
In taking up a study of the life of Mrs. John L. Pyle, of Huron, our first woman Presidential Elector, let us begin with the beautiful tribute to WOMAN, written by Ed- ward Bartlett a hundred years ago, - the greatest tribute to woman ever penned by the hand of man :
"Not she with trait'rous kiss her Savior stung, Not she denied Him with unholy tongue ; She, while Apostles shrank, could danger brave, - Last at His eross, earliest at His grave."
Christ gave woman her first upward lift, and yet it has taken 1900 years since then to even enfranchise her in one nation. The women of South Dakota were given the bal- lot two years before they were given it throughout the nation at large. Much of their success was due to the untiring efforts of Mrs. Pyle - for nine years their state president and co-worker.
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The woman suffrage campaign in South Dakota did not take on definite form until 1898. At that time equal suffrage was sub- mitted to the voters of the state and defeat- ed. In 1901, Mrs. Alice Pickler, of Faulkton, was made president of the state organiza- tion. Nothing definite was done by her be- yond general routine work, along the line of educating public sentiment, until 1907, when the matter was brought before the legislature by a "petition-36 yards in length." The bill passed the senate 41 to 24, but failed by ten votes in the house. The question was re- submitted by the 1909 legislature, and in June of that year Mrs. Lydia Johnson, of Ft. Pierre, was elected president. It was again defeated at the polls in October, 1910.
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