Mr. MacGregor was born at Dundee, Scotland, March 2, 1874. He was reared and educated in his native country and at the age of nineteen came to America, his first work in this country being in woolen mills. In October, 1894, he located at South Bend. For a number of years he was with the South Bend Electric Company. In 1902 he and Mr. Fred Bryan organized the Electric Service Company. In 1911 the business was moved to a modern home on Colfax Avenue. The company bought this building in 1910. In 1911 the name became MacGregor Electric Service Company, of which Mr. MacGregor is president and general manager and Walter Stickley, who has been associated with the concern for the past twenty years, is superintendent of construction. This is one of the largest industrial and commercial electric construction and power work organizations in Indiana. It employs a staff of twenty-two men, most of them electrical engineers. The company also handles a complete line of electrical equipment and supplies.
In addition to being head of this organization Mr. MacGregor is a director in the South Bend Building & Loan Association. He was on the building committee which erected the Building & Loan Tower, the tallest building in South Bend. His company did the electrical power, lighting, radio, telephone and signal system work for the Hoffmann Hotel. The company has contracted for and is now (1931) executing the electrical power, lighting and program system for the Donmoyer Public System.
Mr. MacGregor represented the electrical business of South Bend in the war drives of 1917, and later was called for electric service duty with the Y. M. C. A. War Council in France. The armistice was signed about the time he arrived in New York and he never got overseas. Mr. MacGregor is a member of the Rotary Club, is a Knight Templar and Scottish Rite Mason, member of the South Bend Country Club, Chamber of Commerce, Chicago Motor Club and Izaak Walton League.
He married Miss Harriet Lee Mayer, who was born in South Bend. Her father, John J. Mayer, was an early settler in St. Joseph County. They have one daughter, Margaret Lee MacGregor, born May 31, 1902.
INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 3
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
MORRIS SAMUEL FISHER is well known in automobile circles in Saint Joseph County, particularly as owner of Fisher's Wrecking Company, an establishment located on East Jefferson Avenue, through which thousands of automobiles are consigned every year either for the purpose of being junked or being reconditioned and put on the road again.
Mr. Fisher was born in Russian Poland, November 11, 1887. He grew up there, had a common school education and served his time in the national army. When he was twenty-two he came to the United States, and for a short time lived at Michigan City and since 1909 his home and activities have been in South Bend and Mishawaka.
Mr. Fisher from 1912 to 1925 owned and operated a grocery store. In 1925 he bought four acres of ground at 605-611 East Jefferson Avenue in Mishawaka. On this tract he established his yards, buildings and other facilities comprising the business of Fisher's Wrecking Company. There he carries on an extensive business in the buying, selling and exchanging of used cars and trucks. Automobile dealers and owners go to him when in need of parts and accessories for practically every car that has been made during the past twenty years. In 1926 Mr. Fisher put up a big garage, with 14,000 square feet of floor space, at this location. From 1928 to 1930 he was the Mishawaka dealer in the Auburn cars.
Mr. Fisher is a thoroughly home man and has never joined any social clubs. He married in 1913 Miss Mary Medow, a native of Russia. Their two children are Rosa, born May 21,1914, and Ida, born August 27,1919.
INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 3
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
CYRIL L. CLUPPER, owner of the Clupper Sales Company at Wabash, is a young business man who represents the fourth generatjon of a well known family of Indiana.
His great-grandfather, Christian Clupper, came to Indiana from Pennsylvania, and acquired land by right of homestead entry. This land was inherited by his son Lewis Clupper, also a native of Pennsylvania, who had come to Indiana with his father and who is still living. He spent his active life as a farmer and is now a retired resident of Brown County, Indiana. Lewis Clupper was the father of W. F. Clupper, for many years active in business in Wabash County.
Cyril L. Clupper was born in Wabash County, October 2, 1902. He attended school at Wabash and assisted his father for two years as a stock buyer, then was a retail clerk and in March, 1925, acquired his present business, handling the sale and distribution of Chevrolet cars for the southern half of Wabash County. The business was started as the C. Clupper Chevrolet Company and is now the Clupper Sales Company, with Mr. Clupper as the sole owner. For the sales and service of this phenomenal car he has a new building at 425 South Wabash Street, with about 17,000 square feet of floor space and with every equipment for prompt and reliable service, He employs fourteen persons and handles annually over 400 cars.
Mr. Clupper is a member of the Chamber of Commerce, the Hoosier Automobile Association. He married Miss Ruth Southwick, and they have one son, Cyril Lewis, Jr., born July 23, 1929.
INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 3
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
CHARLES ADAM HELMEN, Doctor of Dental Surgery, with offices in the Pythian Building at South Bend, is one of several brothers who are prominent in the professional life of that city.
He is the fourth child in a family of seven born to Frederick T. and Emma (Lempke) Helmen, who have lived at South Bend since 1883. Both parents were born in LaPorte County, and all the earlier ancestors of the family came from Germany and were pioneers of Northern Indiana.
Frederick T. Helmen was born in LaPorte County, April 30, 1858, son of Frederick and Frederika (Werner) Helmen. In Germany the Helmen name was spelled Hellmann. Frederick Helmen was born in Germany, August 7, 1828, and was married after he settled in Laporte County, Indiana. His wife was born May 30, 1832. He worked in a flour mill and later became a farmer. Frederick Helman died January 24, 1909, and his wife on October 24, 1919.
Frederick T. Helmen married Emma Lempke, who was born in Laporte County, June 3, 1861, daughter of Charles and Dorothy Frederika (Wilhelm) Lempke, natives of Germany, where her father was born April 5, 1826, and her mother on June 24, 1840. Charles Lempke settled in Laporte County about 1849. His wife came to Indiana in 1856, at the age of sixteen, and after their marriage they settled on a farm, where they spent the rest of their days. Charles Lempke died in 1870 and his wife in 1876. All these ancestors were German Lutherans in religion.
Frederick T. Helmen was educated in public schools of Laporte County, learned the trade of carpenter and millwright, and after coming to South Bend spent forty years as foreman in the wood working department of the South Bend Chilled Plow Company. He is now conducting a grocery business near Roseland and owns a farm just outside the City of South Bend. He is a Democrat in politics, is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church and the Knights of the Maccabees.
The seven children of Frederick T. Helmen and wife are: Harry W., a successful physician at South Bend; Vernon R., a member of the South Bend bar; Effa Bertha, wife of John B. Bernhardt, of 209 Hammond Place, South Bend; Charles Adam, South Bend dentist; Frederick John, assistant cashier of the St. Joseph Bank of South Bend; Erma Paulina, connected with the National Discount Company; and Arthur Horace, manager of the Moskins Clothing Store of Whiting, Indiana.
Charles Adam Helmen was born in South Bend, August 14, 1891, graduated from high school in 1910 and subsequently, after some varied business experience, entered the Chicago College of Dentistry, from which he was graduated in 1921. He has been engaged in a successful practice for the past nine years. He is a member of the National Dental Association, is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias, the Lions Club, and the First Methodist Episcopal Church.
Doctor Helmen married October 23, 1923,
Miss Agnes Rose Hayn, of South Bend. They have two children, Joan Agnes, born April 14, 1926, and Charles Hayn, born March 19, 1929.
INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 3
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
JOHN HENRY LLOYD is owner of the Lloyd Insurance Agency with offices in the Union Trust Building at South Bend. Though one of the younger agencies of Northern Indiana, it is one of the most progressive, and few others rival it in volume of business.
Mr. Lloyd is a man of remarkable experience, widely traveled, and since early manhood has been under the spell of fascination exercised by insurance work. He was born at Liverpool, England, June 9, 1878. In 1897 he graduated from Waterloo College in England, and his first regular employment was at Belfast, Ireland, where he spent five years with Holland & Wolff, one of the great shipbuilding companies there. He left that firm to join the famous insurance organization of Lloyds of London as inspector of hulls, doing that work for about four years. He then went with the Queen's Insurance Company of London at its Liverpool branch.
The next chapter of his experience came when he volunteered with the British forces the South African war. He was in the service two years and after his discharge he traveled to many parts of the world before settling in Philadelphia in 1903. For several months he was with a construction contractor for the Pennsylvania Railroad, was engaged in construction work at Hartford, Connecticut, four years, and there entered the service of the Travelers Insurance Company, at first as inspector out of the home office and later from New York City and Chicago. After returning to Hartford he resigned from the inspection division to join the underwriting department. He was sent to Indianapolis as assistant manager of the Indiana branch for this company, remaining there until 1922.
In the latter year he located at South Bend, where he and John Chess Ellsworth established the Lloyd Insurance Agency. In 1925 Mr. Lloyd also opened an office in New York City, the business being incorporated in 1929 as the John H. Lloyd Agency. Its offices are in the Transportation Building and Mr. Lloyd is president of the agency, but still keeps his home in South Bend.
Mr. Lloyd is a fourth degree Knight of Columbus and was grand knight of the South Bend Council from October, 1928, to October, 1929. He is a director of the Robinhood Golf Club, director of the Long Beach Country Club, member of the South Bend Country Club, the Rotary Club, B. P. O. Elks, and Izaak Walton League. He married, October 29, 1904, Miss Mary Taylor, who was born at Seaforth, England, and was educated in the Seaforth House Convent of Waterloo. To their marriage were born three children: Norman Francis, who died in July, 1925, at the age of fifteen; Mary Isabel, who died in December, 1925, when fourteen years old; and John Henry, Jr., who was born April 6, 1914, in Hartford, Connecticut, and was a student in Lake Forest Academy at Lake Forest, Illinois, and is now a student at the South Bend High School. Mr.
Lloyd's hobby is associating with boys in their work and play. Among business men in South Bend he has probably seen more of the world than any of his contemporaries. He has built up a tremendously successful business and he knows insurance from every angle. His long experience in construction work is a valuable asset in this business, and while he was in construction work he was never afraid of the real hardships of toil, and he has always enjoyed association with men in the ranks.
INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 3
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
CHARLES DUDLEY CHASE is proprietor of Charles D. Chase & Company, funeral directors, located at 527 East Broadway in Logansport. Mr. Chase made a definite choice of his life work when a young man, and has been in business for himself or with others at Logansport for thirty years.
He was born in Logansport, September 27, 1881, the oldest of the four children of Dudley H. and Grace (Corey) Chase. His father was born in Logansport in 1835 and spent a long and active life in the legal profession in Cass County and for eighteen years held the office of judge of the Cass County Circuit Court.
Charles D. Chase was educated in the common and high schools of Logansport and at the age of eighteen began his apprenticeship with the Kroeger & Strain Undertaking Company, an old established concern, with which he was identified for a number of years. In 1902 he graduated from the Myers School of Embalming, and during an interval of one year worked for the Walls Undertaking Company at Danville, Illinois. He then returned to Kroeger & Strain and in 1910 established his own business, under the name of Charles D. Chase & Company, which for twenty years has given Cass County a perfect, modern service as embalmers and undertakers.
Mr. Chase is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason, a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and Knights of Pythias, and during the World war performed duties in connection with the district draft board. Outside of his profession his leading hobby has been music, and he was the originator and director of the Chase Boy Singers, an organization with a national reputation. Mr. Chase married in 1920 Miss Goldie Davis, a native of Indiana.
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INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 3
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
CHARLES AUSTIN SCHOONOVER. The measure of a man is the way he meets life's duties. The truest and noblest men are not necessarily those constantly in the limelight of fierce competition. More often the lives of the purest patriots and of those who confer the greatest good and exert the best influence upon the community are not known beyond their section of country. Their family and friends know their worth and accord them honors earned while sooner or later the general public comes to appreciate them. Such has been and is the experience of Charles A. Schoonover, of Argos, a merchant of high standing, a recognized financier, and president of the school board, a man who must have the consciousness of duty well done.
Charles A. Schoonover was born at Zanesville, Indiana, August 7, 1874, a son of William Schoonover, born in Trumble County, Ohio, August 27, 1837, a son of Daniel Schoonover, born in Pennsylvania. The family was established in this country at an early day by the great-grandfather of Charles A. Schoonover, a Hollander. William Schoonover was reared in his native county, attended its country schools, and became a farmer. He married Nancy Jane Ormsby, born in Trumble County, Ohio, but brought to Wells County, Indiana, in 1849. They were married in Union County, Indiana. Three sons were born to them: Alonzo, Burrell C. and Charles A. Schoooover. Burrell died in 1921, but the other two survive, being in the mercantile business together, and the elder brother is president of the Argos State Bank, which position he has held since March, 1929.
Charles A. Schoonover was graduated from the Argos High School, after which, during 1900 and 1901, he was in the employ of Carson, Pirie, Scott & Company of Chicago, in which connection he gained a knowledge of merchandising from a metropolitan standpoint. Returning then to Argos, he bought an interest in the general merchandise business his father had founded and was conducting, and this has occupied him ever since. As already. stated, his elder brother and he now own this business, one of the largest of its kind in Marshall County.
On June 19, 1900, Charles A. Schoonover was married to Miss Catherine Hennessey, of Chicago, a graduate of the Catholic High School, Chicago, in 1897. She was born at New York City, March 16, 1878, of Irish parentage. Two children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Schoonover: Helen Nancy, who was born November 4, 1903, was graduated from the Argos High School in 1921, and from the University of Illinois in 1925, and is now in the store with her father; and Charles A., Junior, who was born September 20, 1911, was graduated from the Argos High School and Culver Military Academy, and was a student of Gregg Business College of Chicago.
Mr. Schoonover is a Democrat, and fourteen years he has been a member of the school board, over whose destinies he now presides. He is a member of the Christian Church, and is regarded as one of its pillars. A Mason he belongs to Argos Lodge No. 399, A. F. And A. M. His brother had been advanced in the same order and belongs to Plymouth Commandery No. 26, K. T.
The family enjoys the confidence and esteem of the community, and this was evidenced at the time of the merger of the two banks of Argos. Alonzo Schoonover was asked to take the presidency of the Argos State Bank, but declined, as he did not feel like assuming the heavy responsibilities. Thereupon his fellow citizens called a mass meeting and at it made an unanimous demand that he take the position. Under such conditions he had no choice but to accept the honor, and is still serving as the chief executive of the bank.
INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 3
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
SCHLOSSER BROTHERS. Indiana agriculture associates the name Schlosser Brothers with the largest. organization in the state manufacturing and handling dairy products. It has been estimated that of the total of 64,000,000 pounds of creamery butter manufactured annually in Indiana, Schlosser Brothers make over 13,000,000 pounds, 80 percent of which is the famous Oak Grove grade, a brand which the firm has used since 1894 and has carefully and scrupulously maintained the name as a standard of the highest quality. Some one with a gift for statistics has endeavored to present a graphic picture of what the Schlosser annual butter production means. Using as a basis that one pound of butter will cover a square foot one-inch thick, there is enough Oak Grove butter from the five plants of the Schlosser Brothers made every year to pave the National Road from Richmond to Terre Haute and have enough left over to give every visitor to the Speedway race on Memorial Day enough to butter a slice of bread.
The Schlosser Brothers were all born on a farm in Marshall County, Indiana. Their father was Jacob Schlosser, who was born in Waldfischbach, Reichnbiem, Germany, April 29,1829. After coming to America he married, in New York City, about 1856, Eva Margaret Karrar, who was born in Susenhausen, Baden, Germany, October 18, 1829. Shortly after their marriage they came west and located on a farm in German Township, Marshall County, where they lived out their lives. The mother died in 1892 and the father in 1906. Their children were: Frederich, born February 23, 1858; Philip, born May 19, 1859; George, born March 26, 1861; Henry, born March 28, 1863; Jacob, born May 15, 1865; Elizabeth Dorothy, born May 25, 1867; Gustav, born December 19, 1868; William, born April 9,1871; and.Samuel, born July 10, 1874. The son Philip was drowned at North Liberty, Indiana, in January, 1901. Jacob, who had a prominent part in establishing the business of the firm at South Chicago and became one of that community's most enterprising citizens, died there February 13, 1910.
The record of marriages of the family is as follows: Frederich married, June 9, 1893, Alice Albert, and his second marriage, in 1911, was to Mellie West. Philip married, June 9, 1893, Sarah Alice Holderman, and on October 25, 1894, married Blanche Eaton. George married, October 25, 1881, Emma Martin. Henry married, April 6, 1891, Mary Duzan, and on January 7, 1894, married Emma Snyder Martin. Jacob married, October 22, 1891, Emma Seltenright. Elizabeth Dorothy was married, October 23, 1895, to Noel U. Penrod. Gustav married, June 29, 1893, Johanna C. Henning. William married, December 21, 1893, Rebecca Lauderman. Samuel married, June 20, 1900, Ada Hodges.
The Schlosser Brothers made their first churning of butter on September 1, 1884. It consisted of thirty-eight pounds. Their first establishment was on a corner of their father's farm near Bremen. In contrast with that output just forty-five years ago their different plants have since reached a daily production of 50,000 pounds. The first year their business amounted to about $15,000, and today it runs to eight million dollars annually. The company maintains its main office at Frankfort, Indiana, and other central plants are at Plymouth, Indianapolis, Fort Wayne and South Bend, while they have stations in almost every town in the state.
The Schlosser Brothers have inaugurated many systems in their business, and their policies have been copied by similar organizations all over the country. They were the first to work out the idea and put into effect the cream gathering system. Instead of permitting individual farmers to take time from their business and bring in cream in varying conditions and at irregular intervals, the Schlosser Brothers put on the road trucks, at first drawn by horses and later motor trucks, covering definite routes, each truck collecting the cream from forty to sixty farmers. This was the first firm in Indiana to begin the manufacture of dried buttermilk. Schlosser Brothers have had a high sense of their responsibilities to the dairy farmers of Indiana, and have worked in close cooperation with their patrons, advising them and encouraging the increase of dairying, the use of better cows and better methods in general of dairy management and milk production. Representatives of the firm have been in a sense dairy experts, advising individual farmers, and they have also sent out tons of literature, in this way supplementing the valuable service of the state experiment stations. The same trucks that make the rounds daily for collections of cream also carry the farmers' eggs to market. Recently the Schlosser Brothers inaugurated a system of buying eggs which would return to the egg producer prices in proportion to the value or freshness of the eggs, this system being known as "buying eggs on a graded basis." They have worked out a system of rules for producing No. 1 eggs, and this system of grading is estimated to have increased the egg income of poultry raisers who are patrons of this system from ten to thirty per cent.
The executive officers of the Schlosser Brothers firm have been rotated almost annually. At the present time the members of the board of directors comprise Gustav Schlosser, Samuel Schlosser, Raymond O. Schlosser, W. Monroe Schlosser, Henry Schlosser, Walter K. Schlosser, H, Vern Schlosser, Chauncey C. Schlosser and John J. Schlosser. This board comprises several. of the sons of the original brothers.
The youngest of the original Schlosser Brothers is Samuel Schlosser, a resident of Plymouth. He was born at Bremen, attended school there and took the short course in dairying at Purdue University. By his marriage to Miss Ada Hodges he has three children: Samuel, Jr., born in 1903, now secretary of the Argos Foundry Company; May E., born in 1905, a graduate of the Plymouth High School and the Western College for Women at Oxford, Ohio, and is now studying medicine at Loma Linda, California; and William A., born in 1909, a graduate of the Plymouth High School and taking the engineering course at Purdue University.
Samuel Schlosser, a member of the Schlosser Brothers since 1899, has always taken a very active part in everything pertaining to the development of the dairy industry of the state. In 1902 he was made secretary of the Indiana State Dairy Association and in 1903 became its president. He has held an official position in the association ever since, either as a director or chairman of some important committee. One of the most important acts with which he was associated was that of being chairman of a joint agricultural committee of the Dairy, Live Stock, and Grain Growers that succeeded in securing from the State Legislature in 1905 an appropriation of $25,000 for the promotion of agricultural interests of the state through the experiment station at Purdue University. This act provided for an advisory committee of three to confer with the experiment stations officials concerning the use of this fund. Mr. Schlosser served on this committee for a number of years, representing the dairy interests.
Naturally the Schlosser Brothers are very prominent members of the association, of which their business is concerned. Monroe Schlosser was at one time president of the State Dairy Association, and Gustav Schlosser was president of the State Poultry & Egg Association. In 1911 the dairy manufacturers formed an organization of their own and Samuel Schlosser was made its first president, with Monroe Schlosser the first treasurer. Samuel Schlosser was later again elected president, and he was largely instrumental in securing the meeting of the National Dairy Exposition at Indianapolis at the State Fair grounds. He has been a prominent member of the American Association of Creamery Butter Manufacturers and for one year was its president, and has been a member of its executive committee since 1915. For fifteen years he has been a member of the board of directors of the National Dairy Union, with headquarters at Washington, D. C.
Mr. Samuel Schlosser has for twenty-seven years been a member of the board of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Plymouth and was chairman of the building committee when the new church was erected. For six years he was a member of the city school board. He is a Republican and for two years served as treasurer of the county committee.
INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 3
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
