USA > Wisconsin > Wisconsin, its story and biography, 1848-1913, Volumr VI > Part 31
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43
Since living in Janesville, Mr. Skavlem has taken a great interest in the public library. He was librarian for three years and for many years has served on the board of directors. He promoted and helped organize the State Library Association. He advocated and assisted in introducing needed reforms in library administration; open shelves and children's room found in him a strong supporter.
He has always been interested in the early and contemporary his- tory of his native state of Wisconsin, as well as in the prehistoric ages of this region. By nature and training a careful and critical observer, he has done valuable historic work, both for his county and state. He is a valued member of the State Historical Society. He is
1643
HISTORY OF WISCONSIN
also a leading member of the State Archeological Society and has added valuable contributions to our knowledge of this interesting study. For many years he has been a member of the Wisconsin Natural History Society. As an ornithologist and botanist, he has contributed valuable papers of original scientific research that are real additions to scientific knowledge, and as a scientist he has more than a local reputation.
Of his many popular and technical articles, it is impossible to mention even the titles, but it will show some of the quality of his literary style to quote the following paragraphs from an article appearing in "By the Wayside" as Recollections of Bird-Life in Pioneer Days .- "Some of the most lasting and vivid impressions of my boyhood-I may well say childhood days-relate to and recall pictures of bird-life in Southern Wisconsin, somewhat more than half a century ago.
"We hark back to the time of the ponderous slow moving, break- ing team, consisting of five to seven yoke of oxen, hitched to a long cable of heavy logchains, attached to a crudely but strongly built 'breaker' with a beam like a young saw-log and a mould board made of iron bars that turned over furrows two feet or more in width. Those great unwieldly breaking teams, consisting of ten to four- teen large oxen, are yet distinctly outlined on memory's page, and reminiscently, I see them crawling like some huge Brobdignagian caterpillar around and around the doomed 'land'-'land,' in break- ing parlance, being that piece of the wild selected for cultivation,- leaving a black trail behind, that, day by day, increased in width, bringing certain ruin and destruction,-absolute annihilation,-to the plant, habitants who had held undisputed possession for untold cen- turies.
"The mild-eyed, slow-moving ox teams were not only instruments in the destruction of the centuries-old flower parks of the wilder- ness, but with them came tragedies in bird-life, resultant from the inevitable changes from nature's rule of the wild, to man's artificial sway. Often in preparing or planning for the breaking of a new piece of land, the same was guarded from the prairie fires of the fall and early spring, so that it could be 'fired' at the time of breaking. This would commence the latter part of May and continue on through June and July, covering the nesting season of the numerous species of bird-life, that had for untold generations, made this beautiful park region of the Rock River Valley, their summer home."
Concerning his work as a collector of birds, a Wisconsin paper recently said editorially : "His private collection includes fine speci- mens from every family known to the Badger state records, except- ing the Carolina paroquet, which has not been seen by any reliable observer since the late '40s. The exhibits are grouped in their
1644
HISTORY OF WISCONSIN
respective families and the latter arranged in the order of evolution from the imperfectly formed diving birds which are most closely related to the reptiles from which they sprang, to the so-called 'perch- ing birds'-the larks, finches, thrushes, woodwarblers and flycatchers, -which are recognized as the most highly developed of the bird family. There are nearly 300 of the 357 species in this exhibition, including some birds now almost extinct in Wisconsin-the wild turkey of the pheasant family and the passenger pigeon."
Fraternally he is a member of the Knights of Pythias. In religious matters he is inclined to do his own thinking, being more in harmony with the Unitarian belief than any others. Mr. Skavlem wields a ready and versatile pen and his literary field ranges from the tech- nical, scientific paper to the lighter shades of magazine contributions in both prose and verse. He has a wonderful fund of all around knowl- edge. As he himself puts it, he is "one of the last of the old-time naturalists, who knew a little of most everything, and not much of any one thing." In his well chosen library-a unique collection of scientific, philosophical, literary and religious treasures-he enjoys the calm of life's evenings as he writes.
Aye, the shadow's growing longer, Yet the sky is bright and blue, And I see Nirvana yonder- For my battered old canoe, For my battered old canoe; Yes, I see Nirvana yonder- For my battered old canoe.
NOTE. As a prominent and influential pioneer of Wisconsin, Lars H. Skavlem has been referred to in the various historical records both of Rock county and those of a more general scope relating to the Scandinavian settlement of the state. Unfortunately many errors as to dates and data and minor details have crept in. At our request, Mr. H. L. Skavlem has prepared this note, referring to the several publications with corrections of errors therein noted: "History of Rock County 1879," page 747, Lars H. Skavlem's arrival in Newark given as 1841, should be 1840; same page, Halvor L. Skavlem, date of birth given as 1848, should be 1846. "Portrait & Biographical Album, Rock County," 1889, page 423, subject, Lars Halversen Skev- lem, gives date of marriage 1843, correct date 1844. "History of Rock County, 1908," Vol. 2, page 906,-subject Halvor L. Skavlem, states his mother was married to Mr. Skavlem, Sr .. in 1843, should be 1844: establishment of home. in Newark given as 1843, but Mr. Skavlem's home was established in Newark in 1840, and Mrs. Skavlem joined him in that home in 1844. "De Norske Settlementers History Holland 1908," page 128, gives the date as 1841 of the arrival of Lars Skav-
1645
HISTORY OF WISCONSIN
lem. This is an error as to Lars Skavlem. The date should be 1840. "History of Norwegian Immigration to the United States," Flom. 1909-In his account of the settlements of Jefferson and Rock Prairie, Prof. Flom has much to say of the Skavlem family, mention is also made of Halvor Nilson Aaas. This should be Halvor Nilssen Aae, the father of Mrs. Groe Skavlem. The whole narrative is so badly mixed and incorrect, both as to dates, data and historical sequence, that it requires a thorough revision of the whole article to be of any historical value. Prof. Flom's work is of inestimable value as giving permanent records of Scandinavian pioneer life, and where he deals with communities where the actors in the drama of life's record were still living, his information will approach much nearer to that historical accuracy that we all strive for. When we gather historical data from second and third-hand hear-say and the informants not realizing the necessity of critical accuracy, there is no wonder that things get hopelessly mixed. A more careful verification of his data particularly as to the earliest settlements would have added much to the accuracy of his work .- H. L. Skavlem.
IDA LEONORA SCHELL, M. D. That a woman's work must be limited by no arbitrary distinction or traditional customs, but solely on the basis of fitness and ability, is rapidly becoming American prac- tice, and, perhaps, more slowly, is being accepted by the moral and logical sense of the nation. The fields of educations, art and music. have long been open to woman's activity, and more recently com- mercial lines and the distinctive domains of law and medicine have yielded their rewards to woman. Wisconsin has its quota of women in the law and in medicine, and in the latter field one of the ablest and probably the best known in Milwaukee is Dr. Schell.
Dr. Schell, who specializes in diseases of women and children, and who is prominently connected with the organized professional activities of the city and state, has a career of particular interest, not alone for her present attainments and position, but also for the experiences which led her to make the struggle of a pioneer along the advanced lines of women's vocational domains, helping to extend the frontier of women's work beyond its hitherto circum- scribed limits.
Ida Leonora Schell was born in Montezuma, Iowa, November 30, 1862. Her father, Joseph Schell, who was born and reared in Saxony, Germany, came to America in 1850, and was a furniture dealer. The mother, whose maiden name was Walpurga Fink, was reared in southern Germany and came to America in 1853. The parents were married in 1855, and reared nine children, their marriage having occurred in Burlington, Iowa, and in the fall of 1857, on a typical prairie schooner, they moved from Burlington to Mon-
1646
HISTORY OF WISCONSIN
tezuma. The father was engaged in the furniture business in that town, and that was the place where the children were reared. The father as a boy in Germany had learned the cabinet maker's trade, and during the early years of his business in Montezuma, when not all the mechanical trades and industries were represented in the community, he often made coffins. He was a well known man in his com- munity and he and his wife spent their remaining years at Monte- zuma. The father was eighty-three and the mother was sixty when death came to them. The father was a Horace Greeley Democrat, and a great admirer of that journalist and statesman. Of the two sons and seven daughters, four daughters and two sons are now living, Dr. Schell having been the fourth in order of birth. George J. Schell resides in Keokuk, Iowa, and is in the furniture business ; Viola is in the State Superintendent's Office at Des Moines, Iowa, and is secretary of the State Board of Educational Examiners; Katherine is the wife of Charles E. Hearst, a stock farmer at Cedar Falls, Iowa; Mary is a teacher at Montezuma.
Though the story might be briefly told, the early life of Dr. Schell furnishes very entertaining and instructive material for the biographer. As a girl she thoroughly enjoyed school studies and was especially devoted to arithmetic and algebra. She had made excellent progress in these branches, but when fifteen years of age and the boys of the class were preparing to take up the study of geom- etry, a New England school master interposed a traditional veto, and would not allow Miss Schell to acquire a knowledge of lines and plain surfaces-just because she was a girl. Education has advanced a long way in all parts of the country since the time when such a thing was possible, though no doubt at the present time exist many glaring inconsistencies which twenty-five years from now will seem as absurd as did this interdiction of the New England school master. It is not difficult to understand and to sympathize with the indig- nation of Miss Schell when thus prevented from maintaining her place in studies along with her boy associates, and it was really from this incident that dated her ardor and persistent advocacy of the cause of woman suffrage and privileges. When she was six- teen years of age she began teaching in a country school, taught one term there and then four years in the graded school at home, after which she entered the Academy at Mount Vernon, Iowa. Her attendance at college was frequently interrupted owing to lack of funds, and she secured these by resuming teaching. She taught in the high school at West Liberty, at Marshalltown, and at Fort Dodge, and also in the State Normal School at Cedar Falls. She had graduated from Cornell College at Mount Vernon with the class of 1889, at which time she received the degree of Ph. B. While engaged in teaching in the State Normal School at Cedar Falls,
1647
HISTORY OF WISCONSIN
though her proficiency had placed her in the front rank of the Normal teachers, when she requested an increase in salary the pres- ident of the school informed her that she must not expect any higher salary, as "a thousand dollars a year was a mighty lot of money for a woman," and "a woman teacher's salary is not a question of work, it's a question of economics. She can't earn more than a thousand dollars anywhere in Iowa."
Thus again Miss Schell was brought up against the dead wall of social custom and as there was no immediate prospect of her breaking down this barrier, she turned aside and devoted her studies to medicine. She studied in the State University of Iowa, and at the Northwestern of Iowa, and at the Northwestern University Women's Medical University Women's Medical School at Chicago, where she was gradu- ated and received her doctor's degree in June, 1900. The summer before graduation she spent in the German Hospital at Philadelphia, as general helper, and the year following graduation she was interne at the Mary Thompson Hospital in Chicago. Dr. Schell came to Milwaukee in No- vember, 1901, and has enjoyed a large and distinctive practice in this city. Her offices are in the Goldsmith building, and her residence is at 174 Twenty-Seventh Street. Since May, 1906, she has served as attending physician to the Wisconsin Industrial School for Girls. Dr. Schell joined the Social Economic Club in 1902, the County Medical Society in 1903, and the Milwaukee Medical Society in 1907, and is also a member of the American Medical Association. She is keenly interested in social and civic problems, and does all she can to promote the privilege of suffrage among women.
FREDERIC WILLIAM UPHAM. To the field of national business affairs and politics Wisconsin has contributed no abler or more prom- inent figure than Frederic W. Upham of Chicago. The first thirty- three years of his life were spent in Wisconsin. In that time he had reached the position of general manager of one of the large manu- facturing concerns of the state. His subsequent career has been passed in Chicago, and his name is now on the official directorate of half a dozen or more industrial and commercial organizations which are among the largest of their kind in the country, and for a number of years he has been one of the strongest factors in the Republican party in the middle west.
Frederic William Upham was born in Racine on January 29, 1861, of old pioneer stock. His parents were Calvin H. and Amanda E. (Gibbs) Upham. The earlier ancestors were soldiers in the Colonial, Revolutionary, in the war of 1812, the Mexican war, and in the Rebel- lion. His father likewise gained distinction as a soldier. William H. Upham, uncle of the Chicago business man, is well remembered as governor of Wisconsin from 1895 to 1897.
1648
HISTORY OF WISCONSIN
Mr. Upham was a student at Ripon College, and is now on the Board of Trustees. On leaving school he joined his uncle subsequently Governor Upham, in the lumber business, with the Upham Manufactur- ing Company at Marshfield. He went through all the grades from lumber inspector to general manager of that concern.
In 1894, moving to Chicago, he engaged in the lumber business on his own account, organizing the Fred W. Upham Lumber Company, now the Upham & Agler Lumber Company. The scope of his busi- ness relations is indicated by his official connections with the following important companies: He is vice-president of the Chicago & Illinois Midland Railway; president of the Consumers Company; director of the Peabody Coal Company, of the Calumet Insurance Company, of the Security Life Insurance Company, of the American Surety Company, of the Single Service Corporation of America, and of the U. S. Realty Company.
The most distinctive achievement of Mr. Upham's business career has been his part in the organization of what is now probably the largest single semi-public service corporation in the world. In Feb- ruary, 1913, was announced through the press, the new incorporation of the Consumers Company, by which is effected the merger of the Knickerbocker Ice and the City Fuel Companies. Mr. Upham, for- merly president of the City Fuel Company, has been elected president of the new concern. Now under one unit of management, are con- ducted supply services which only a few years ago were scattered through a number of agencies. The City Fuel Company was in itself a great consolidation of buying and distributing forces and represented a development from a time when the service of supplying coal to consumers was conducted through two or three small yards located in different parts of the city, and with the facilities of a few wagons, and a staff of employes who, owing to the nature of the business, suffered more or less irregularity in their employment, and conse- quently in the standard of their efficiency. The same was true in the story of the Knickerbocker Ice Company, which for several years com- bined under one management several of the largest companies which had formerly competed in supplying this product to the retail trade in Chicago. In the pioneer days, the headquarters of the Knicker- bocker Company was a little office in what is now the center of the Chicago business district and the ice was cut from Lake Michigan near the site now occupied by one of the largest buildings on Michigan Avenue. At the point of its highest development as an independent service company the Knickerbocker Ice Company had ice plants in three states near Chicago, with a capacity of over two million tons, and its facilities for supplying the trade comprised a small army of employes, with over five hundred motor trucks and wagons. The
1649
HISTORY OF WISCONSIN
Knickerbocker Company had also a large business in building material, such as sand and stone, cement and other products.
Even under the conditions represented by the remarkable develop- ment of the City Fuel Company and the Knickerbocker Ice Company, there was great loss of efficiency, due to the fact that the business of the Fuel Company reached its peak during the winter season and consequently fell off in the summer while exactly the opposite was true of the ice company. The consolidation of the two services under one unit was therefore a move approved by common sense and business logic. The facilities for distributing ice, which were usually idle for about half a year, are to be fully utilized in the distribution of coal during the winter season, the surplus facilities of the ice department, on the other hand, being employed to supplement the coal service during the winter, and in this way the operating efficiency will attain the maximum of economy.
Not only does the Consumers Company represent a great advance in business management, but the new service is equally advantageous to the public. The thoroughness of the business organization, the pride of the company in its high standards and reputation for first class service, the ample facilities, the precautions taken to insure purity, correct weights, and promptness of delivery, are features which the public has already come to realize and appreciate in the new consumers company. Then, too, a great corporation like this has its practical and beneficent relations to that ever-present side of city life-charity to the poor. During the winter of 1912-13 Mr. Upham as president of the City Fuel Company, directed the service of that great corporation to supplying the poor of Chicago with many tons of coal free of charge. Early in the summer of 1913, the Consumers Company sent out to physicians and pastors and other heads of churches throughout the city, blank certificates, which when properly filled out and signed, entitled the holders among the deserving poor to the free ice distribution service inaugurated as the latest phase of charity by this great public service corporation.
Mr. Upham's record in business has its counterpart in public life. Soon after locating in Chicago he became active in politics, and in 1898 was elected alderman from the Twenty-second ward. As a member of the city council he sought for a clean administration and used his salary in employing assistants in his work. He had been an alderman but a short time when he was elected a member of the Board of Review, the duties of which he took up on January 1, 1899, and has held the position for fourteen years. Probably no official in the city govern- ment comes into more direct relations with the city's taxpayers than the head of the Board of Review, and in this position Mr. Upham has done much for the people in equalizing taxation. During his residence in Wisconsin, Mr. Upham served as a delegate to the Republican
1650
HISTORY OF WISCONSIN
National Convention at Minneapolis, in 1892, and was again a delegate to the Republican Convention of 1912. He was vice-chairman of the committee on arrangements for the Republican National Convention of 1904, and was chairman of the same committee in the conventions of 1908 and 1912. In 1908 he was assistant treasurer in the west for the Taft Campaign.
At the present time Mr. Upham is president of the Wisconsin Society of Chicago. He was president in 1908-09 of the Illinois Manufacturers Associations ; since 1906 has been chairman of the executive committee of the National Business League of America; is a member of the Society, of Colonial Wars, of the Sons of American Revolution, of the New England Society, and of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion. Mr. Upham's membership is in the following clubs: Chicago Club, Union League Club, Commercial Club, Chicago Athletic Association, Hamilton Club, Mid-day Club, City Club, Press Club, Chicago Automobile Club, South Shore Country Club, Glen View Golf Club, Chicago Golf Club, and the Union League and the Automobile Club of America in New York City, also the Metropolitan Club of Washington, D. C. Mr. Upham married Miss Helen Hall of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
FRANK R. CRUMPTON. Since 1890 few citizens have been more closely or earnestly devoted to the interests of Superior than has Frank R. Crumpton. A business man, with varied enterprises of importance on his hands, when he was called upon to discharge the duties of citizen- ship as an incumbent of high public office he uncomplainingly laid aside his private ventures, brought his eminent abilities to bear in behalf of better civic government, and gave his fellow-citizens a clean and conscientious service that gave him an indisputable claim to a position among those men who have devoted their energies to making the city of Superior the peer of those at the head of the Lakes.
Ex-mayor Frank R. Crumpton was born December 2, 1864, in La Salle county, Illinois, and is a son of Warren W. and Sarah B. (Remick) Crumpton, natives of Kennebec county, Maine. His father came to La Salle county, Illinois, as early as 1848, becoming a pioneer farmer and stock raiser, and rose to a high position in the esteem of his fellow-towns- men, who elected him to represent them as justice of the peace, member of the school board, and various other township offices, and at all times he gave evidence of the possession of the sterling characteristics of his New England forefathers. He supported Republican principles and policies, and was for a number of years a member of the Masonic fra- ternity, and at his death, in 1883, when he was fifty-six years of age, his community lost one of its best citizens. His wife passed away in 1878, when forty-six years of age, having been the mother of three children, of whom two are now living: Frank R .; and William H., of Superior, a member of the Grain and Warehouse Commission.
1651
HISTORY OF WISCONSIN
After attending the public schools of La Salle county, Illinois, Frank R. Crumpton entered the Northwestern Normal School, at Gene- seo, Illinois, where he was graduated with the class of 1885, in the meantime having taken charge of the home farm at the time of his father's death. He served as commissioner in La Salle county for three terms, but in 1890 disposed of his interests in Illinois and came to Wisconsin, opening offices in Superior on April 2d of that year. He has since been interested in the real estate, insurance and grain commission business, and has built up a large and representative clientele, being known as one of the most able and shrewd men in his line in the city. He maintains well appointed offices in the United States National Bank Building. Mr. Crumpton entered the political field in Superior in 1903, when he became the candidate of the Repub- lican party for the office of alderman of the Second Ward. He was elected to this office, and re-elected twice, and in 1908 was sent to the mayoralty chair, and his excellent administration caused his reelection in 1910. His services in the chief executive's office were such as to be of a beneficial nature to his adopted city, numerous municipal improve- ments, long needed, being made during the four years in which he administered the affairs of the city. His record served to demonstrate that a business man of ability could be safely trusted with the reins of office and that one who had made a success of his own affairs was likely to possess the ability to handle those of the community. Socially, Mr. Crumpton is connected with the Commercial and Curling Clubs, and his fraternal affiliations are with Superior Lodge and Chapter of the Masonic order and Superior Lodge of Elks.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.