He was born in that city December1, 1899, son of Stephen and Elizabeth (Gerencser) Nyikos. His father died in 1910 and his mother is now the wife of Vendel Hajdu, editor and publisher of City Life, a South Bend Hungarian newspaper.

Joseph W. Nyikos was the third in a family of five children, all of whom are living. During his boyhood he attended St. Stephens and St. Patrick's schools, the South Bend High School, for one year was a student in the University of Illinois and in June, 1923, graduated from the law department of Notre Dame University. He also studied and worked in the law office of Jones, Montgomery & Oberchain during 1922-23 and after his admission to the bar he practiced as an associate of the law firm of Jones & Oberchain from June, 1923, until 1927. He has a well furnished office in the new Odd Fellows Building. Mr. Nyikos was assistant prosecuting attorney under Prosecuting Attorney Sam Swartz from May, 1927, to December, 1928. He was appointed justice of the peace December 16,1929.

Mr. Nyikos is a member of the Saint Joseph County, Indiana State and American Bar Associations. He is well known in a civic and social way, being a director of the Hungarian Business Men's Association, member of the Hungarian Young Men's Club, the Knights of Columbus, B. P. O. Elks, and Saint Stephen’s Magyar Church.

He married, February 4, 1926, Miss Anna G. Lassu, who was also born at South Bend, daughter of Frank Lassu. They have one daughter, Joan Helen, born January26, 1927.

INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 3
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931

WALTER SCHOLER is an Indiana architect whose work again and again has been commended for its excellence and there are buildings in many cities of the state that exemplify his particular skill as an architect of school and hospital construction.

Mr. Scholer, whose home is at Lafayette, was born in Jay County, Indiana, May 8, 1890, son of Henry and Ann (Zutrich) Scholer. His father was a native of Berne, Switzerland, and came to Indiana in 1861, spending his active life as a farmer.

Walter Scholer completed his academic education in Columbia University of New York City, and from 1910 until 1920 was associated with the various architectural offices in Indianapolis. While there he laid the groundwork of his practical and technical training and experience.

In 1920 he moved to Lafayette and was a member of the firm Nicol, Scholer & Hoffman until 1925, since which year he has practiced under his individual name.

Several buildings on the campus of Purdue University and the development of the campus plan exemplify his skill in handling the problems of educational architecture. He has designed twelve of the recent buildings, including the Chemistry and Pharmacy buildings, and the Franklin Levering Cary Memorial Hall. He was architect for the Albert A. Wells Memorial Library, for the Jefferson Vocational and Education Buildings, the Morton School of West Lafayette, the William Ross Sanitarium, the National Fowler Bank of Lafayette, the Tippecanoe Loan & Trust Company Bank, the Arnett Crocker Clinic and the Home Hospital. Another class of his work is exemplified in the Lawrence County courthouse at Bedford, and the Federal Building at Lafayette. He was architect for the Reid Memorial Hospital in Richmond and Henry County Hospital at Newcastle.

Mr. Scholer is former president of the Indiana Society of Architects and a member of the American Institute of Architects. He is affiliate ed with the Kiwanis Club, with Tippecanoe Lodge No. 492, A. F. and A. M., the Royal Arch Chapter and Knights Templar Commandery, the Scottish Rite bodies and Murat Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Indianapolis.

He married Alice C. Caster, of Jay County. They have three children, Walter, Jr., Emerson C. and Charles Edward.

INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 3
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931

IDA MILLIKEN is librarian of the Rensselaer Public Library. She is a native of Jasper County, was reared and received her early education there and was also educated in the University of Chicago.

Miss Milliken has been engaged in some form of public service for a number of years at Rensselaer. During the World war she was secretary of the County Red Cross Chapter. Since the war she has been public librarian in charge of the attractive Carnegie Library in Rensselaer. The members of the library board are: Judson J. Hunt, president; Ora Thompson Ross, vice president; Mrs. J. H. Chapman, secretary, Mrs. A. H. Hopkins, W. F. Osborne, Gerald E. Murray, I. N. Warren, Elza Grow and Fred Arnott.

INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 3
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931

HENRY ELMER STONER is a resident of Lake Village, Newton County, senior partner in the firm of Stoner & Hess, whose store is the largest one in the county.

Mr. Stoner was born January 13, 1871, in a log cabin at Lake Village. His father, John Stoner, was a pioneer lawyer of Newton County, and prominent in Republican politics. He died in 1904, at the age of eighty years. The mother of Henry Stoner was Margarette Walker, daughter of John Walker. Henry Stoner has two sisters: Eva, wife of Chester Metcalf, of Momence, Illinois; and Ella, wife of Joseph Bunch, of Lake Village, and mother of two sons, John and Jesse.

Henry E. Stoner attended public schools at Lake Village and the high school at Momence and until he was thirty-three years of age his time and energies were taken up with farming. In 1904 he was elected sheriff of Newton County, Indiana, and in 1906 was reelected. During the two terms he was sheriff he conducted a vigorous program of law enforcement, during which he rid the county of many criminals, including horse thieves, rounded up a number of liquor traffic violators, and his activities were so pronounced as to give him a state-wide reputation and that reputation has followed him through all the years since he left office.

After his term as sheriff Mr. Stoner was a gravel road contractor for a time and for a number of years carried on business as a commercial traveler. Later he and Mr. Hess established the business of Stoner & Hess at Lake Village. They have a store well stocked with general merchandise, including dry goods, groceries, boots and shoes, glassware, chinaware and all other commodities that meet the demands of the local trade.

Mr. Stoner is a member of the Masonic fraternity, the Knights of Pythias and Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He is a public spirited citizen and has responded again and again to calls upon his support for the general welfare. This community is especially indebted to him for the gifts he made which made possible the erection of the Christian Church at Lake Village.

INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 3
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931

ZERA MERRITT BEAMAN, M. D., has been engaged in the active general practice of his profession at North Manchester, Wabash County, since 1907, save for the period of his World war service as a member of the Medical Corps of the United States army, and his ability and achievement mark him as one of the honored and representative physicians and surgeons of Wabash County.

Doctor Beaman is able to claim the old Buckeye State as the place of his nativity, as he was born in Paulding County, Ohio, January 13, 1880, one of a family of seven children. He is a son of Winfield Scott and Cora (Jackson) Beaman, both likewise natives of Ohio, the father having become a leading merchant at the village of Junction, Paulding County, where he also served as postmaster and justice of the peace.

After having duly profited by the advantages of the Ohio public schools Doctor Beaman there completed a course in a business college. In preparation for his chosen profession he first attended Fort Wayne Medical College, and he then continued his studies in the medical department of the University of Indiana, in which he was graduated as a member of the class of 1906. He had in the meanwhile, during his junior and senior years, added to his professional fortification by serving as an interne in St. Joseph's Hospital in the City of Fort Wayne. He thus gained his entire professional education in Indiana, and after receiving his degree of Doctor of Medicine he selected this state as the stage of his activities as a physician and surgeon. In 1906 he engaged in practice at Urbana, Wabash County, but in the following year he found a broader field of professional service by establishing his residence at North Manchester, where he now controls a large and representative general practice. Here he continued his ministrations with success until the nation entered the World war, when he promptly subordinated his personal interest to the call of patriotism, he having been the first physician from Wabash County to volunteer and enter service in the Medical Corps of the United States army. For this service he enlisted, June 17, 1917, and in the same he received commission as captain in the following month. He was assigned charge of the field hospital at Camp Grant, Illinois, and there he continued in service until December, 1917, when, in a railroad wreck, he received injuries that incapacitated him for further service at that time, he having been granted his honorable discharge in January, 1918, and having resumed his practice in Wabash County as soon as he had sufficiently recuperated to make this course possible. During the first six months after his return to this county Doctor Beaman maintained his residence in the City of Wabash and was there associated in practice with Doctors LaSalle, Whistle and Wilson. About fifteen months later he returned to North Manchester, which city has since continued the central point of his successful and able ministrations as a physician and surgeon, his office being at 227 East Main Street. Doctor Beaman has membership in the Wabash County Medical Society., the Seventeenth (Congressional) District Medical Society, the Indiana State Medical Society and the American Medical Association, he being president of the County Medical Society in 1930. He is affiliated actively with the American Legion, with the local Blue Lodge, Chapter, Council and Commandery of the Masonic York Rite, and with the Mizpah Temple of the Mystic Shrine, in the City of Fort Wayne. He has membership also in the Knights of Pythias. He has served as health officer of North Manchester and has otherwise given constructive evidence of his unbounded civic loyalty. The Doctor depended upon his own resources in acquiring his higher academic as well as his professional education, and even in his boyhood he had full fellowship with real work and real responsibility. In this connection it may be noted that in his boyhood he drove a team of oxen in propelling boats along the old Erie Canal. His political allegiance is given to the Republican party. In Wabash County was solemnized the marriage of Doctor Beaman to Miss Pauline Speicher, who was here born and reared, and their family circle is completed in the personality of their adopted son, Jack Kenneth, who is attending school at North Manchester.

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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

JOHN HEBERT HELLER, who was introduced to the routine of a printing office when thirteen years of age, subsequently educated himself for the law, is a member of the Indiana bar, but for over thirty years his time and energies have been fully occupied with his duties as editor of the Decatur Daily Democrat. He is also president of the Democrat Publishing Company.

The record of the life and affairs of Adams County is touched at many points by the activities of members of the Heller family. In 1867 there arrived at Decatur a young lawyer from Ohio, Daniel David Heller, who for half a century remained one of the county's outstanding public and professional men. Daniel David Heller was born in Harrison County, Ohio, March 29, 1839, and died January 2, 1917. His parents, Henry B. and Mary A. (Weyandt) Heller, were born in Southwestern Pennsylvania, but spent most of their lives on a farm in Harrison County in Eastern Ohio, where Henry B. Heller died in 1881 and his wife in 1874. Daniel D. Heller attended public schools in Ohio, also an academy, studied law while teaching, and in 1863 was admitted to the Ohio bar. He practiced four years at Millersburg and then moved to Decatur, Indiana. While building up a law practice he interested himself in educational affairs, and in 1873 was elected the first county superintendent of schools. He resigned that office after a year and a half. He served as mayor of Decatur from 1885 to 1887, and in 1889 entered upon his duties as judge of the Twenty-sixth Judicial Circuit and presided over that court with admirable poise and dignity for twelve years, until 1901. Judge Heller married, July 15, 1869, Miss Annie J. Corbus, who was born February 19, 1847 in Ohio and was educated at Millersburg in Holmes County, that state. She taught school in early life there. Mrs. Heller, who is now eighty-four years of age, has for many years been president of the Board of Children’s Guardians of Adams County.

John Hebert Heller was born at Decatur May 4, 1873. He was graduated from high school in 1890, but all through his high school work he used his vacations and other leisure time in learning the printer's trade in the office of the old Decatur Journal. He kept up his work in various printing offices while a student in the Indianapolis Law School, where he was graduated in 1897. In 1898 he was made city editor of the Decatur Democrat, and eventually his connection with that paper proved his life work. The Decatur Democrat has been published under that name since 1874, and is successor of a paper founded in February, 1857, therefore being one of the oldest newspapers in Northern Indiana. Its owner for a number of years was L. G. Ellingham, former secretary of the State of Indiana and later editor of the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette. Mr. Heller acquired the Ellingham interests in 1916 and has since been president of the Democrat Publishing Company. He assisted in founding the Daily Democrat in 1903 and the weekly issue was suspended in 1908.

Mr. Heller has been an influence in politics without seeking the honors of public office. He has four times been a delegate from his district to the national Democrat conventions and was an alternate delegate to the convention at Baltimore in 1912, when Woodrow Wilson was nominated. Mr. Heller is a member of the Presbyterian Church, is second degree Scottish Rite Mason, member of the B. P. O. Elks, the Decatur Industrial Association, the Country Club, and his wife is an Eastern Star.

He married, November 29, 1899, Miss Martha A. Peterson, of Decatur, where she was reared and educated. Her father, Robert S. Peterson, was born in Adams County, Indiana, February 1, 1845, son of John W. and Hannah (Smith) Peterson, early settlers of the county. Robert S. Peterson was in the Union army during the last year of the Civil war, with an Indiana cavalry regiment. He was honorably discharged in November, 1865, and for the next two years taught and attended school, and in 1867 took up the study of law and was admitted to the bar in 1868. He became one of the most distinguished citizens and business men of Adams County. He was a lawyer, a banker, and helped organize and secure the construction of the Narrow Gauge Railroad through the county, now the Nickel Plate system, and was also instrumental in bringing through Decatur the old Chicago & Atlantic line, now the Erie Railway. He was once a candidate for Congress, was five years president of the Village of Decatur, and had much to do with the securing of the city charter in 1882. He was for many years cashier of the First National Bank at Decatur. Robert S. Peterson died in 1914. He married Fannie C. Kenkle who is now eighty-one years of age. Mr. and Mrs. Peterson had a family of twelve children, ten of whom are living.

Mr. Heller's daughter, Fannie E., born September 23, 1900, was educated at Decatur, subsequently attending the Western College for Women at Oxford, Ohio, and the University of Indiana. She is the wife of I. W. Macy, president and manager of the Macy Conveyors, Incorporated, manufacturing coal handling apparatus. Mr. and Mrs. Macy have two daughters, Martha A., born March 3, 1923, and Mary E., born December 21, 1925.

Mr. Heller's only son, Dick D. Heller, born September 23, 1902, was educated in the Decatur schools, graduated from the University of Indiana in 1924 as president of the senior class, and for one year after his university career was with the Indianapolis News. In 1925 he returned to,Decatur and is now assistant city editor of the Decatur Daily Democrat. Dick D. Heller married Martha D. Grant, of Rensselaer, Indiana. They have two sons, Dick D., Jr.., and John Van.

INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 3
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931

WILLIAM AUGUST KLEPPER is an Indiana business man, a native of Fort Wayne, and by his resourcefulness and enterprise has made himself one of the wealthiest citizens of Adams County.

The Klepper family for many years have been well known in the citizenship and business affairs of Fort Wayne. Mr. Klepper's father, Charles Klepper, was born July 1, 1849, and died October 29, 1898, at the age of forty-nine, being buried at Fort Wayne. He married, September 18, 1875, Mrs. Wilhelmina (Meier) Tonne. She was born October 24, 1848, and passed away January 25, 1892, at the age of forty-three, being also buried at Fort Wayne. Her first husband was Henry Tonne, to whom she was married March 14, 1869. They were the parents of three children: Henry Tonne, born December 23, 1869, who is in the creamery business at Fort Wayne; Caroline, wife of Louis Rippie of Fort Wayne; and Louise, wife of Henry Hagemann, now deceased. The father of these children died, and Mrs. Tonne was then married to Mr. Charles Klepper. The children of this union are: Charles, born June 11, 1876, a resident of New York City; Minnie, born February 18, 1878, wife of H. L. Cline, of Fort Wayne, and mother of two daughters, Wilda and Dorothy, the latter being the wife of Park Williams, a Fort Wayne newspaper man; Sophie, born January 10, 1880, is the wife of O. W. Scheumann, president of the East Creighton Avenue Bank of Fort Wayne, and has a son, Robert, born November 27, 1909; Tillie, born April 28, 1882, is the wife of Harry Tietjen and has a son, Harold; Willie, born March 13, 1884, died in infancy; William A. is the next in age; Gesina, born February 23, 1888, is the wife of James Dorsey, of Los Angeles, California; Ernest, born March 14, 1890, married Ida Hagemann, of Fort Wayne, and has three daughters, Irene, Mary Ann and Geraldine; and John Klepper, the youngest of the family, was born January 24, 1892, and died in infancy.

Mr. William A. Klepper was born at Fort Wayne, August 8, 1886, grew up and attended school there, and during most of his active years has been identified with the dairying and creamery business. He is now owner and manager of the Cloverleaf Creamery Company, Incorporated, at 438-444 Winchester Street, Decatur. This is a plant that affords a. market for the milk production of many localities in Adams County, and its butter and other products have a quality and standard that makes them readily acceptable into the world of commerce.

Mr. Klepper married Miss Cecelia R. Hergenroether. She was born at Fort Wayne, February 8, 1888, and attended school there. Her father, Joseph Hergenroether, was born in Adams Township, Allen County, Indiana, October 1, 1856, and became a well known contractor. He died January 2, 1929, and is buried in the Catholic cemetery at Fort Wayne. His wife was Catherine Ruppel, who was born April 15, 1861, and now lives with her children. They were married May 17, 1883. The children in the Hergenroether family were: Clements, who died in infancy; Mrs. Klepper; Viola M., born December 8, 1890, wife of A. J. Bobay, who is owner of the Bobay Shoe Store, the largest business of its kind at Fort Wayne, and they have three children, Victor, Joan and Thomas; Louise, born January 12, 1893, is the wife of Joseph Hoagland, an Allen County farmer, and has two children, Kathleen and Gerald; Joseph, born March 20, 1898, is a nurseryman and fruit grower in Florida; Edward, born September 4, 1900, at Fort Wayne, died April 29, 1914.

Mr. and Mrs. Klepper and family are members of the Catholic Church. He is affiliated with the Rotary Club and the Knights of Columbus. To their marriage were born seven children. Carol Joseph, born July 20, 1909, at Fort Wayne, was educated in Purdue University and is now manager of the Ligonier Creamery. William M., born April 19, 1911, at Fort Wayne, attended the grade and high schools of that city and is now a student in the Staunton Military Academy in Virginia. Donald John, born May 4, 1913, at Lafayette, Indiana, is also attending the Staunton Military Academy. Dolores Mary, born at Lafayette, October 27, 1914, is a student in the Decatur High School. Mary Margaret, born in Decatur, July 18, 1919, is in school at Decatur. Alta Ruth, born September 30, 1921, and Robert A., born May 14, 1925, are the youngest of the family.

INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 3
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931

THOMAS LOUIS HICKEY is a building contractor at South Bend, and in that work he carries on the traditions of a family which since early days has been identified with the construction activities of one of the largest and most important industrial centers of Northern Indiana.

Mr. Hickey was born in South Bend, January 27, 1886, and is a son of Louis A. and Sarah (Flynn) Hickey. His grandfather, also named Louis Hickey, was a native of Canada, and settled at South Bend in 1849, the year that the first railroad was put in operation through the city. He was a carpenter and builder and many of the early homes and business structures of South Bend were examples of his handiwork and skilled craft. He lived to advanced age. Louis Hickey, Sr., married Julia La Fountain, who was born at South Bend, of French Canadian ancestry, her parents, Anthony and Julia La Fountain, having come to Indiana from Canada.

Louis A. Hickey was born in South Bend May 30, 1859, and died in 1912. He learned the carpenter's trade and in 1900 engaged in contracting, carrying on the business until his death. He was a member of the Catholic Church, the B. P. O. Elks, and was a Democrat. Louis A. Hickey married, in 1883, Sarah Flynn, who was born in Niles, Michigan, April 1, 1860, and was reared in South Bend, daughter of Thomas and Julia Flynn. She passed away in 1925, the mother of nine children, of whom six are living.

Thomas L. Hickey was the second among his parents' children. He was educated in the parochial and high schools of South Bend and for nine years worked at the printer & trade. He then joined his father’s contracting business, starting at the age of twenty- two, and since his father's death has carried on the work alone. He is a general contractor, and has done a great deal of important work in and around South Bend. He was a contractor for the Saint Joseph Catholic School, the Saint Edwards Hall and Sophomore Hall at Notre Dame University, the La Salle State Bank, Holy Cross Church and School and other buildings too numerous to mention. Mr. Hickey is a director of the La Salle State Bank and is president of the East Side Business Men's Association. He has membership in the National Association of General Contractors. Mr. Hickey is a member of the South Bend Chamber of Commerce, the Coquillard Golf Club, the Knights of Columbus and B. P. O. Elks, and he and his family are communicants of Saint Joseph's Catholic Church.

He married, October 18, 1911, Miss Kathryn B. Hiss, who was born at Plymouth, Marshall County, Indiana, but was reared in South Bend. Her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Hiss, are deceased.

The children of Mr. and Mrs. Hickey are Thomas Louis, Jr., Louis, Donald, Kathleen, Gerald, John, Patricia and Joseph. Mr. Hickey's business address is 121 North Hill Street and his home is at 1004 East Saint Vincent Street.

INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 3
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931

WALTER ALVAH STICKLER is a native of Indiana, for many years has had his home and legal residence in Mishawaka, but his chief activities are up in the north woods country of Minnesota, where he has developed and owns one of the most complete resort camps in the noted Arrow Head country, close up to the Canadian boundary line.

Mr. Stickler was born on a farm in Richland Township, Whitley County, Indiana, December 16, 1887. His parents were Henry I. and Elizabeth Ellen (Huff) Stickler. His father was born in Kosciusko County, Indiana, July 16, 1852, and was a son of Andrew and Mary Stickler, who came to Indiana from Pennsylvania and were pioneers in Kosciusko County. Henry I. Stickler spent his active career as a farmer, and in 1901 moved to Mishawaka, in which city he lived until his death on February 24,1910. His wife, Elizabeth Ellen Huff, was born in Michigan, July 31, 1861, daughter of Samuel Huff who was a soldier in a Michigan regiment during the Civil war and after the war closed moved his family to Indiana. Mrs. Elizabeth Ellen Stickler is now the wife of Mr. M. E Yocum and they live on a farm in Kosciusko County, Indiana. By her first marriage she was the mother of five children, Walter A. Being the third.

Walter A. Stickler finished his early education in a school in Kosciusko County, attended business college at South Bend, and for two years he worked in the real estate and law office of H.W. Jones at Mishawaka.

Mr. Stickler has always been a lover of outdoor life, and his fondness for travel has taken him over most of the United States. During a trip to Northern Minnesota he conceived the possibilities of making a business by developing special facilities and service in the wonderful lake country and in 1912 instituted the improvements and developments that have since created the wonderful camp, Idlewild, located near Marcell in Itasca County, Minnesota, twenty-nine miles north of Grand Rapids, Minnesota, and 115 miles northwest of Duluth. In the development of Camp Idlewild Mr. Stickler has proceeded upon the theory that a great many professional people and business men in coming to the north woods want a combination of freedom from the conventions without the inconveniences of a bare camp, and his many years of experience have enabled him to perfect a service that offers at once a minimum of civilization and a maximum of comforts and enjoyment.

From October 1 to May 15 Mr. Stickler resides in Mishawaka. He has a new home on Riveria Drive, one of the most attractive places in the city. Mr. Stickler is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner and has been active in the Izaak Walton league.

He married, November 2, 1909, Miss Rose B. Nikart. She was born at Fremont, Newago County, Michigan, October 30, 1888, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Nikart. Her parents came to Mishawaka in 1900. Both are now deceased. Mr. and Mrs. Stickler have one daughter, Ellen Evangeline, born April 5, 1913.

INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 3
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931