USA > Wisconsin > Milwaukee County > Milwaukee > History of Milwaukee, city and county, Volume II > Part 29
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In addition to organizing and directing the Milwaukee A Capella Chorus, Mr. Boeppler, with the assistance of John H. Frank, Dr. Louis Frank, H. O. Frank and William H. Upmeyer, founded in 1899 the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music. This institution developed, mainly through his competent and efficient musical manage- ment, into the leading music school of Milwaukee and Wisconsin-in fact into one of the best known and most highly respected music schools of the country. Its faculty of over sixty artist teachers is second to none in any other large city. Its two thousand pupils, many from other states and faraway parts of the country, hespeak its splendid success. The officers are: Theodore Dammann, president; William Boeppler, vice president and musical director; and Emil H. Koepke, secre- tary and treasurer.
In 1902 Mr. Boeppler also organized and conducted the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, which then-and then only- comprised in its personnel all the leading professional musicians of the city-men like Zeitz, Jaffe, Kelbe(2), Rowland, Fink, Hugo Bach, etc. The orchestra enjoyed a season of unparalleled success which came to its end through Mr. Boeppler's removal to Chicago, where, accepting a call as musical director of the Germania Club, he entered into a larger field of activity.
In Chicago, Mr. Boeppler's work has been a repetition of his Milwaukee success, the metropolis of the west offering him a bigger field. Choruses there directed by him are: the Germania Club, the Turner Maennerchor, the Chicago Singverein (organized by him in 1910 and today one of Chicago's leading choral societies), the First National Bank Chorus and the Birchwood Musical Club. He has two studios where he teaches-one at 929 Edgecomb place and the other at 921 Kimball Hall
Maintaining his residence in Chicago, Mr. Boeppler spends the first two days of each week in Milwaukee, thus really being a man of two cities. However, he does nothing halfway but gives his best enthusiasm and devotion to every institution
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under his direction- truly a life's work which only a man of Mr. Boeppler's tre- mendous energy and unlimited capacity for work is capable of accomplishing.
The esteem in which Mr. Boeppler is held as a conductor of choruses and orchestras is indicated hy the fact that in an article on Chicago's musical conductors in the Musicians' Directory only four are mentioned: Theodore Thomas, Frederick Stock, Harrison Wild and William Boeppler. Mr. Boeppler has been equally suc- cessful as a teacher of piano and voice, especially in voice coaching, hecanse of his thoroughness and his intelligent and inspiring methods of teaching, and he has gained a large following of serious-minded and enthusiastic pupils in Milwaukee and Chicago and from all parts of the country. His success may readily he attributed to his exceptional musical knowledge, his inspiring musical idealism, his gift ot imbuing others with his own enthusiasm, his ability to organize, combined with a hroad way of looking at people and things, a fair and open mind, and finally a personality that radiates life, goodwill and good cheer. His intimate friends for many years have been calling him "Sunny Bill." Other elements of his success are his untiring energy in pursuing his aims and his broad understanding of his work. Although the greater part of Mr. Boeppler's time is devoted to his professional work, he holds membership in the Lincoln Club and the American Unity Club of Chi- cago, finding recreation in the activities of those organizations.
On the 15th of September, 1896, in Wiesbaden, Germany, occurred the mar- riage of Mr. Boeppler and Miss Ida Mathilde Brueggemann, the latter a daughter of Max Brueggemann, a retired wholesale merchant. Mrs. Boeppler is prominent in the club and social circles of Chicago and is a woman of much personal mag- netism and charm. Mr. and Mrs. Boeppler reside at 929 Edgecomb . place in Chicago.
JAMES GREELEY FLANDERS.
The name of James Greeley Flanders is associated with many important public interests which have been contributing forces to the uphuilding and development of Milwaukee and his record has therefore become an inseparable part of the history of the city. He was born in New London, New Hampshire, December 13, 1844, and is a son of Walter P. and Susan Everett (Greeley) Flanders, the former a native of New Hampshire, while the latter was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts. The grand- father in the paternal line was James Flanders, who was born in 1740 and who served in the Revolutionary war. He became a distinguished lawyer and prominent legislator of New Hampshire and thus aided largely in shaping the development of the country in days of peace as well as in times of war. Walter P. Flanders was also prominent as an attorney and political leader of the old Granite state. On removing west in 1848 he became largely interested in real estate and in various business enterprises, including railroad building, and was one of the chief promoters and developers of this section of the country. He was a director and the first treasurer of the Milwaukee & Mississippi Railroad, now a part of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul system, and his labors were a potent element in promoting general development and improvement. He was a man of strong personality and of distinguished appearance. In early manhood he had graduated from Dartmouth College and was a personal friend of Daniel Webster. They often drove together from one town to another and many times were employed on the same case as they prosecuted their work in the courts. At one time Mr. Flanders owned a whole township west of Madison and he was the founder of the town of Merrimac.
James G. Flanders was hut four years of age when brought to Wisconsin by his parents. He was graduated from the city schools at the age of fifteen years and then entered the Phillips Exeter Academy of New Hampshire, in which he completed his course with the class of 1861, passing the examinations for admission to Yale and Harvard Colleges. He then spent two years in teaching and subsequently matricu- lated in Yale, being graduated with the class of 1867. He spent the succeeding two years in the office of Emmons & Van Dyke of Milwaukee, with whom he read law and later he entered the law department of Columbia. College of New York, receiving his pro- fessional degree from that institution in 1869, after which he was admitted to practice before the supreme court of New York. Returning to Milwaukee he began practice in Wisconsin and was identified with the har continuously from that time until his demise. For five years he practiced as a member of the law firm of Davis & Flanders and for eleven years as senior partner in the firm of Flanders & Bottum. In 1888 James G. Jenkins, of the firm of Jenkins, Winkler & Smith, having been appointed to the office of United States district judge, the firm then hecame Winkler, Flanders, Smith, Bottum & Vilas, succeeding to the legal husiness of the firms of Jenkins, Winkler & Smith and of Flanders & Bottum. This was considered one of the strongest legal associations in the state, or in fact in the northwest. Mr. Vilas subsequently retired and Mr. Smith
JAMES G. FLANDERS
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passed away in 1906, after which Mr. Fawsett was admitted to the partnership, the firm name becoming Winkler, Flanders, Bottum & Fawsett. Mr. Flanders retained his membership in the New York Bar Association and had many clients in that state, and among his warm admirers was Horace Greeley.
While Mr. Flanders ranked as one of the eminent representatives of the Wisconsin bar he was also prominently identified with many other interests outside the strict path of his profession which had to do with the welfare, progress and growth of city and state. He was a member of the school board of Milwaukee from 1875 until 1877 and in the latter years was elected a member of the Wisconsin general assembly. In 1896 he was made a delegate at large to the national democratic convention at Chicago and bolting the convention was made a delegate to the national convention of gold democrats in September of the same year. He was always fearless in defense of his honest conviction and no one questioned the integrity of his position. In 1899 he was chosen president of the Wisconsin Yale Alumni Association and filled that position con- tinuously until 1904. He was also prominently known as a member of the Wisconsin State Bar Association and served as president in 1909-10 of the Milwaukee Bar Asso- . ciation. In the following year he was chosen to the presidency of the Milwaukee public library. He was identified with many clubs and social organizations, being president of the University Club of Milwaukee from 1900 until 1902, a member of the Milwaukee Country, Town and Old Settlers Clubs. He also belonged to the University Club at Madison, to the New York Yale Club of New York city, to the University Club of Chicago and to the Graduates Club of New Haven, Connecticut.
On the 18th of June, 1873, Mr. Flanders was united in marriage to Miss Mary C. Haney, of Milwaukee. a daughter of Robert and Delia C. (Dickinson) Haney, who were natives of Batavia, New York, which town was the site of the Holland purchase. The Haney family were from Holland and the original spelling of the name was Hana. In 1848 Robert Haney, in company with three other men, came by boat to Milwaukee, bringing a stock of goods. They established a store here, and in 1850 Mr. Haney re- turned and brought his family to this city the same year. To Mr. and Mrs. Flanders were born five children: Robert, whose hirth occurred May 15, 1874, and who passed away on the 20th of August of the same year; Kent, who was horn December 3, 1878, and died February 4, 1907; Grace, who was horn November 27, 1880, and departed this life June 8, 1881; Roger Y., who was graduated from Yale in the class of 1906 and from the Harvard Law School in 1909; and Charlotte, the wife of Joseph W. Simpson of this city.
Mr. Flanders, while in the legislature, served upon the judiciary committee, where his legal training, sound judgment and thorough knowledge of the law was highly appre- ciated. At the gold democratic convention in Indianapolis he made many sound money speeches, which received wide and favorable comment. He was endowed with rare oratorical power, and his utterances always commanded attention while the logic of his opinions carried weight to his hearers. He was a man of pronounced legal ability, and his services were in demand in connection with highly important con- stitutional questions and in connection with the exposition of constitutional problems. His interpretation was sound and in this connection he frequently appeared before the United States supreme court. Some of the epoch making decisions of recent years in that court were based upon briefs which Mr. Flanders prepared. As the years passed he became a lawyer of nation-wide prominence, being known as one of the most eminent representatives of the profession in the country. He passed away January 1, 1920, hav- ing made valuable contribution to the world's work through his ability as a lawyer and through his cooperation with many interests which have contributed to local and national progress.
FREDERICK A. STRATTON, M. D.
Dr. Frederick A. Stratton, a surgeon with office in the Wells building, who in his practice is associated with Dr. L. Boorse and other prominent representatives of the profession, was born at Troy Center, Wisconsin, February 21, 1880. His father, Prescott B. Stratton, deceased, was a railroad man who acted as station agent at Troy Center and in other railroad positions for thirty years, departing this life in January, 1917, at the age of sixty-eight. He married Martha Lull, who is now living in West Allis. Their family numbered two sons, the brother of Dr. Stratton being H. M. Stratton, a prominent business man of Milwaukee, and recently president of the Chamber of Commerce.
Dr. Stratton acquired his early education largely in West Allis and is numbered among the high school graduates there of the class of 1898. Having determined upon a professional career, he matriculated in the Marquette Medical College, which conferred upon him the degree of M. D., at his graduation with the class of 1903. Subsequently he spent three years as an interne in the National Soldiers
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Home of Milwaukee, acting as assistant surgeon. He then opened an office for private general practice in this city, but for the past seven years has devoted his attention exclusively to surgery, in which branch of the profession he has won marked success, possessing a thorough knowledge of anatomy and the component parts of the human body. He is associate professor of surgery in Marquette Uni- versity and a member of the administration board, and is serving as surgeon on the staffs of St. Joseph's Hospital, Johnson Emergency Hospital and the Notre Dame Convent Infirmary. He is likewise identified with the out-patient department of the Milwaukee Children's Hospital and is a member of the executive committee of the board of editors of Hospital Progress, a monthly periodical published in Milwaukee. During the period of the World war, being rejected for active field duty owing to defective eyesight, he served on the medical advisory board. He holds membership in the Milwaukee Medical Society, the Milwaukee County Med- ical Society, the Brainard Medical Society, the Wisconsin State Medical Society, the Wisconsin Surgical Society, the Tri-State Medical Society and the American Medical Association, and is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons and of the American Medical Association.
Dr. Stratton has been married twice. In 1908 he wedded Miss Louise Berthelet, who passed away in 1914, leaving two daughters, Jane and Susan, now aged thir- teen and ten years, respectively. In 1916 the Doctor married Fannie Berthelet, sister of his first wife, and they have become parents of a daughter, Mary, who is three years of age. The religious faith of the family is that of the Roman Catholic church. Dr. Stratton belongs to the Sons of the American Revolution and is also a member of the Milwaukee Athletic Club and the Milwaukee and City Clubs. He is popular in both professional and social circles of the city, enjoying an enviable repu- tation among his colleagues and contemporaries because of his close conformity to the highest standards and ethics of the profession and also by reason of his superior skill in the field of his specialty.
HOWARD PARMELEE EELLS.
Howard Parmelee Eells, the son of the Mary Howard Eells and Dau Parmelee Eells, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the 16th day of June, 1855. Few families are there in this country who can trace their genealogy through so many links of the ascending chain and find cause to congratulate themselves on being the descendants of a nobler or better ancestry than that of this true gentleman. John Eells emigrated from Barn- staple, England, between the years of 1628 and 1630. Little is actually known of this progenitor of the family in America. From what facts we have it may be fairly deduced that Eells was one of that class of stalwart Puritans to whom such men as the Rev. John White were appealing "to raise a bulwark against the Kingdom of Anti-Christ" by establishing a strong retreat in the new world in case of a disaster in the old. In any event, his arrival in America and consequent settlement in the youthful hamlet of Dorchester, Massachusetts Bay Colony, was coincident with the height of the despotism of Charles I and his return to England in 1641 to become an officer in the Cromwellian army, agrees in point of time with the commencement of the active revolt of the liberal forces which had suffered so long the unwillingness of their popular leaders to resort to violence. On his return to the Mother country, John Eells took with him his wife and infant son, Samuel, who at the age of twenty-one returned to the land of his birth to plant permanently on new soil the seeds of the family. Howard Eells was removed from this ancestor, a major in the Colonial army, by five generations through the youngest son of Samuel, the Rev. Nathaniel Eells, a graduate of Harvard College in 1699. There followed him three generations of congregational ministers, all University grad- uates and all prominent in the religious and educational life of their respective com- munities. The Rev. James Eells, the grandfather of Howard, removed with his family from New England to Westmoreland, New York state, where his influence as a Presby- terian missionary and educator was felt in the central and eastern portions of that state, then the fringe of civilization, and in the development of Hamilton College at Clinton, fifteen miles from Westmoreland. It was here that each of his five sons received their education, though the youngest, Dan Parmelee, had his preliminary schooling at Oberlin College, Ohio, after his father, conscious of the wider fields for Christian endeavor offered by the march of immigration westward, had removed to Ohio with the intention of building up another community from which would radiate the teachings of Christ and the influence of educational advantages. These designs, however, failed to mature completely. Rev. James Eells settled in Amherst, Lorian county, Ohio, from which place he pursued his missionary work and supported his family on the salary of $100.00 a year. From this fact it is clear that Dan Parmelee Eells gained his education by dint of his own hard work, which commenced when he was fourteen years of age, in 1839, and which enabled him to receive his degree from Hamilton College in 1848,
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HOWARD PARMELEE EELLS
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although the latter two years of his course were completed only by maintaining his standing in college while employed as a bookkeeper in Cleveland, Ohio. Within a period of twenty years he arose to a position of great prominence in a community which he found a town of sixteen thousand inhabitants and left in 1903 a mighty city of three hundred fifty thousand. His name will ever he associated with the development of Cleveland in all its phases.
On his mother's side Howard Parmelee Eells was scarcely less fortunate in his heritage. The original ancestor of the Howard family in America was one Thomas of Aylesford, County Kent, England, who settled in Ipswich of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1634. Another Thomas, fifth in line from the first settler, moved from Ipswich to Pomfret, Connecticut, and thence to the not far distant township of Toland. It was his grandson, Colonel George Austin Howard, who in the spring of 1833 moved to Bristol, Ohio, and subsequently to Windsor in Ashtahula county, to Settle in Orwell in 1837 as a merchant and financier. In all these places he was successful in his business. By enterprise, prudence and the judicious use of capital, he accumulated a goodly estate, which was rapidly increasing at the time of his death. In his nature he was social, genial and popular. He was sympathetic and generous to the needy, warm and true in his friendships and singularly happy in his conjugal relationships. The eldest of his five children was Mary Maria, who in 1850 became the wife of Dan Parmelee Eells. The first of their two children was Howard Parmelee Eells.
From this summary, all too short to do justice to the lives of worthy forhears, we see that this boy came of stock rich in those qualities which constitute the true nobility-virtne, intelligence and education. His life, the realization of all that is purest, noblest and best, bore upward the standards handed down to him from Major Samuel Eells through six generations of splendid Americans.
When four years old the hoy was attacked by a sickness which left him crippled by depriving him of the use of his right leg. Thereafter he never walked without the aid of crutches. Easy as it is to realize what a factor this was with which he had to contend, no one could have known him as a boy or as a man and thought of his handi- cap as an infirmity, since ever it was dwarfed by the supreme, indomitahle courage which, springing up with the realization of what lay before him, developed to that degree where in strength it brooked no obstacles. It was in October of the same year. 1859, that his mother died and Howard, with his sister, Emma Paige, two years the younger, was cared for by his Aunt Lucy Howard. At the age of six he attended a private school kept hy a Mrs. Day on Erie street, now East Ninth street, hetween Euclid and Prospect avennes in Cleveland. A little later he was sent to another private school tauglit by Miss Sarah Andrews, where most of the youths who afterward hecame Cleveland's leading citizens received their first schooling. From his contemporaries we learn that even as early as this a marked tendency toward the cultivation of attainments in oratory and music was exhibited. In 1866, as a frail lad of eleven, he was sent away to the Greylock School of South Williamstown to receive the education which prepared him to enter Hamilton College in the fall of 1872. Massachusetts was in those days a long journey from Ohio, and the fortitude with which he faced the separation from his family, the discomforts of seven Berkshire winters in unheated dormitories, limited as he was in joining in the pursuits of the boys around him, was a marvel and example to the many schoolday friends whom by his charm and sincerity of manner, he easily won. In 1876, he graduated from Hamilton, where he had found studies easy for his quick mind and where he excelled in English and oratory, having been awarded the senior prize in the latter course. Already his pen had developed a facility it ever re- tained. These four years of college ripened those tastes for literature, music and art, which he cultivated throughout his life and which made him the cultured gentleman that he was.
To the A. B. degree received by Mr. Eells from Hamilton, was added a second similar degree the following year at Harvard. On June 30, 1877, he started for Europe, where a year was spent in travel and in the pursuit of favorite studies. In 1878, a young man of twenty-three, Mr. Eells returned to Cleveland to commence business life as his father's secretary.
Dan Parmelee Eells had already attained prominence in the banking and industrial circles of Cleveland and his interests were many and far reaching. It was not long before his son with keen intellect and sound judgment became an active factor in many of his father's enterprises and an organizer upon his own initiative. He became treas- urer of the Cincinnati, Newport & Covington Railroad, the American Smelting Company, the Rocky Mountain Oil Company and held official positions in numerous other corpora- tions. But soon his faculties were centered upon a concern which was to become the most important connection of Mr. Eells' career. The Bucyrus Foundry & Manufacturing Company was organized by his father and himself in 1880, at Bucyrus, Ohio, Mr. Howard Eells acting as treasurer. By means of his great foresight, an outstanding quality of his character, he hecame convinced of the future of the company and permitted it to claim an increasing share of his attention to such an extent that from an early period he played a large part in the management. In 1892, this concern, now the Bucyrus
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Steam Shovel & Dredge Company, a little later the Bucyrus Company, was transferred to South Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In 1895 he hecame its president and continued as its active head until late in 1911, when he became chairman of the board of directors of the enlarged corporation, then given the name of Bucyrus Company. During his pres- idency the company enjoyed an era of great prosperity and growth and under his wise direction successfully carried out projects such as the building of the machinery used in the excavation of the Panama Canal. There has been erected in the offices of this company at South Milwaukee, a bronze tablet, which testifies to the part which Mr. Eells played in the creation of this great corporation. The inscription thereon reads as follows:
"ERECTED IN MEMORY OF HOWARD PARMELEE EELLS
Born
Died February 11, 1919.
June 16, 1855.
Associated with his father DAN PARMELEE EELLS in the organization in 1880 and in the management of the Bucyrus Foundry and Manufacturing Company, builders of the first successful steam shovel.
Vice President and Treasurer of that company.
Vice President and Treasurer of the Bucyrus Steam Shovel & Dredge Company. Pres- ident of the Bucyrus Company from its organization in 1896 until 1911. Chairman of the Board of Directors of Bucyrus Company from its organization in 1911 until his death. ERECTED IN MEMORY OF THE MAN WHOSE SELF-SACRIFICE, UNDAUNTED COURAGE AND WISE FORESIGHT LED TO THE PRESENT SUCCESS AND PROS- PERITY OF THIS COMPANY: WHOSE STEADFAST FAITH IN ITS FUTURE, SAFELY GUIDED IT THROUGH THE BITTER STRUGGLE FOLLOWING THE PANIC OF 1893; WHOSE PROPHETIC JUDGMENT AND INTEGRITY OF CHAR- ACTER CREATED THE POLICY WHICH ULTIMATELY GAINED FOR IT THE INTERNATIONAL REPUTATION IT NOW ENJOYS: AND WHOSE BROAD SYMPA- THY AND UNFAILING KINDNESS OF HEART WON THE RESPECT, ADMIRATION, AND LOVE OF HIS ASSOCIATES AND EMPLOYEES.
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