GLENN ANDERSON WILKINSON, formerly treasurer and general manager of the Spencer- Cardinal Furniture Company at Marion, is a man whose career has had many noteworthy points of interest. As a young man his ambition was to become an illustrator, his ambition being based upon the possession of some considerable talents. However, in course of time he was diverted from an artistic career and his chief business experience has been in the lumber and wood working industries. He has been responsible for organizing and promoting several very well known and successful industries in Eastern Indiana.

Mr. Wilkinson was born at the Town of Macy in Miami County, Indiana, August 28, 1882. His grandfather, Anderson Wilkinson, was born about 1813 and came to Indiana from Southern Ohio about 1840. He settled in Miami County, and the place of his settlement came to be known as Wilkinson Community. Years later the Lake Erie & Western Railway was built through that part of Miami County and the name of the railroad station was changed to Macy. He lived out his life there, passing away about 1889. Of his family of five sons and three daughters one was Azro Harvey Wilkinson, who was born at Macy. He was a man of education and more than ordinary business ability. For a time he taught school at Macy, later had it hardware store there, and in 1886 was appointed deputy county treasurer of Miami County and two years later made a successful race for the office of county treasurer. He was elected on the Democratic ticket and served two terms. At the close of his term in office he organized the Peru Basket Company, becoming its treasurer. He sold his interest in this business in 1900 and established a sawmill plant at Bunker Hill, Indiana, the business being known as the Odum- Wilkinson Lumber Company. The mill was moved in 1901 to Parma in Southeastern Missouri, where it was set up for the sawing of lumber and other machinery was added for the cutting of veneer. In 1905 he sold his interest in this plant, and, returning to Indiana, established his home at Greencastle. The following year he went back to Parma, where he was interested in the Parma Heading Company, a business that had been established by his son Glenn. This mill in 1909 was moved to Helena, Arkansas, and Azro Harvey Wilkinson was interested in the lumber industry there until his death in 1917. He was laid to rest in the Crown Hill Cemetery at Indianapolis. He was a member of the Masonic fraternity. Azro Harvey Wilkinson married in 1876 Miss Ella Lambert. She was born at Rochester, Indiana, but grew up at Macy, making her home with a family named Hatch.

Glenn Anderson Wilkinson attended grade and high schools at Peru, Indiana, and afterwards was a student of DePauw University at Greencastle. While in the university he was a Phi Kappa Psi. The subject he was most interested in was the fine arts, and later, in 1904, he attended the Chicago Art Institute for a special training. Mr. Wilkinson has the distinction of having been captain and played on the first organized baseball and football teams of the Peru High School, participating in these sports in 1897, 1898 and 1899. He was a varsity member of the football and baseball teams of DePauw University in 1901, 1902 and 1903.

Mr. Wilkinson in the fall of 1904, having returned to Indiana, worked as assistant bookkeeper for William H. Armstrong, a surgical instrument house, his salary being $12.50 a week. At the end of four months he and E. V. O'Daniels went to Parma, Missouri, where they organized the Parma Heading Company, manufacturing butter tubs and shellac barrel heads. Thus he became identified with the lumber industry, in which his father had been active for several years, and for a quarter of a century this has constituted his chief line of business. Mr. Wilkinson in 1906 went to Omaha, Nebraska, where he was employed by the H. F. Cady Lumber Company as collector and at the end of thirty days they sent him to Burk, South Dakota, to manage a retail lumber yard which has been opened in that new town shortly after the lands of the Rosebud Indian reservation were thrown open to settlement. In 1907 Mr. Wilkinson joined Karl Kinnie and W. F. Fulton in opening a retail lumber business of their own at Burke. Besides his connection with the business interests of this new town he had the distinction of being elected the first mayor when Burke was incorporated.

In the fall of .1907 he disposed of his holdings at Burk and resumed work for the H. F. Cady Company in a retail yard at Omaha. In May, 1908, he was offered a position with the Spencer-Bedell Furniture Manufacturing Company at Marion, Indiana, becoming assistant to the manager, E. L. Weesner.

Mr. Wilkinson in December, 1910, organized the Cardinal Company at Wabash, Indiana, a specialty manufacturing business, which was started with a capital of $50,000, later increased to $250,000. The company started operations with 15,000 square feet of floor space and the business rapidly expanded until 120,000 square feet were acquired. The Cardinal Company turned out a very popular line of kitchen cabinets, and later manufactured phonograph cabinets and a line of bedroom furniture. In January, 1927, the business of the Cardinal Company at Wabash was consolidated with the Spencer Manufacturing Company at Marion and the business headquarters transferred to the latter city. The reorganized business has since been known as the Spencer-Cardinal Manufacturing Corporation, of which Mr. Wilkinson is treasurer and general manager.

This does not complete his business record and he has had and still has other important affiliations. While he was living at Wabash he was a director of the American Security Company and the Bridges Asphalt Paving Company. In 1921 he was elected president of the Wabash Rotary Club. He has been a member of the Masonic fraternity for many years and a member of the Mecca Club at Marion. Since coming to Marion he has taken a place as director of the local Y. M. C. A., and is active in Rotary work. He is a stockholder in the Mid-West Paper Company, and the Marion Basket Company and the Johnson Furniture Company.

Mr. Wilkinson married, October 27, 1908, Miss Anna Osborn. Her father is George A. Osborn, president of the Osborn Paper Company and one of the leading and prominent citizens of Marion. Mrs. Wilkinson attended the grade and high schools of Marion, and after graduating from high school in 1901 entered DePauw University at Greencastle, where she specialized in music. She was a member of the Kappa Alpha Theta Sorority. Of the four children of Mr. and Mrs. Wilkinson the oldest is Josephine, who was born at Marion November 20, 1909. She was educated in the public schools of Wabash, graduating from high school in 1926. The following two years were spent in the preparatory school of Mary Lyons at Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, and in the fall of 1928 she entered DePauw University, where she is majoring in English literature and is a member of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority. In 1929 she was one of a party of four girls chaperoned by Miss Ruth Stone in a tour of Scotland, England, France, Switzerland, Greece, the Holy Land and Egypt.

The second child of the Wilkinson family is George Azro, born August 14, 1914, at Marion, where he attended grammar and high school and is a member of the Hi Y Club of that city and president of the Marion Amateur Plane Club. His hobby is making and flying miniature glider planes. The two younger children are Suzann, born December 18, 1918, at Marion, and Richard J., who was born at Wabash, in September, 1920. Both are in grade school at Marion.

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


FRANCIS EDWARD BOWSER at his death in 1925 left an impressive record for long continued work as a lawyer and for service through two terms as judge of the Circuit Court of Kosciusko County. Judge Bowser was well equipped mentally and in character to represent the dignity of the legal profession, and his many friends and admirers take satisfaction in the continuance of the family name and service at the Indiana bar by his two capable sons of the firm Bowser & Bowser, attorneys, at Warsaw.

Judge Francis E. Bowser was born in Kosciusko County, February 1, 1861, a son of William H. Bowser. He grew up on his father’s farm, was educated in the common school and after the age of fifteen, when his parents moved to Warsaw, attended the schools of that city. He was graduated from high school in 1881, spent two years in the University of Indiana at Bloomington and also studied law with W. S. Marshall at Warsaw. He was admitted to the bar in 1885, and had forty years before his death in which to do his work and build up his reputation in his chosen profession. While in school and for a short time after his admission to the bar he taught. For twenty-three years from the fall of 1885 he was associated in a law partnership with A. G. Wood. The partnership was dissolved when Judge Bowser was elected for his first term as Judge of the Fifty-fourth Indiana Judicial Circuit, in 1907. In 1913 he was reelected for a second term of six years. During these twelve years he came to be regarded as one of the most capable circuit judges the State of Indiana ever had. This splendid reputation brought him the nomination of his party in 1920 for judge of the Supreme Court of Indiana. He was a Democrat in politics, but his election to the bench was a tribute to his ability and personal character rather than to his partisanship. He was a Knight Templar Mason and a member of the Knights of Pythias.

Judge Bowser married, June 20, 1894, Miss Regina Bitner. She was a daughter of Daniel S. Bitner and a granddaughter of George Moon, a Kosciusko County pioneer. Judge Bowser was a prominent Methodist and he served as a lay delegate to the general conference of the church at Boston.

His two sons are Francis K. and George M. Bowser, who now comprise the firm of Bowser & Bowser at Warsaw. Francis K. Bowser was born at Warsaw August 7, 1895, attended grade and high schools there and was graduated from the University of Indiana in 1917. During the World war he served overseas as a First Lieutenant of the Corps of Engineers, and was honorably discharged on September 16, 1919. After the war he entered Harvard Law School, graduated LL. B. in 1922 and then joined his father in practice as a member of the firm of Bowser & Bowser. From April, 1923, to January, 1925, he was associate counsel for the great real estate and financial house of S. W. Straus & Company of Chicago. The death of his father in 1925 called him back to Warsaw and he then joined his brother in taking over the extensive law practice built up by their father. In 1930 he was appointed City Attorney for Warsaw.

His brother, George Moon Bowser, was educated at Warsaw, graduated from the University of Indiana in 1924 and from Harvard Law School in 1927. In 1928 he was elected prosecuting attorney for the Fifty-fourth Judicial District. This was an exceptional honor, and another tribute to the Bowser family since he was the first Democrat elected to county office in Kosciusko County since his father's second election as circuit judge in 1913. He was reelected in 1930, leading both tickets.

Francis E. Bowser and his two sons were members of Phi Kappa Psi college fraternity.

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


CLIFFORD V. KINGSLEY is the pioneer ignition expert in South Bend, a phase of electrical service that early attracted his attention and to which he has given study and experimental work as well as long years of practical service. Mr. Kingsley is proprietor of the Kingsley Electric Service & Garage at 1816 South Michigan Street in South Bend.

He was born in that city, February 14, 1886, only child of William H. and Myrtle E. (Russell) Kingsley. His father was born at Warsaw, New York, March 19, 1853, and was four years of age when, in 1857, his parents, H. J. and Lydia (Osborn) Kingsley, established their home in South Bend. William H. Kingsley was reared and educated in that city, as a young man was a stage coach driver in the western states for a few years, and on returning to South Bend in 1885 became associated with his father in the grocery business in H. J. Kingsley & Son. In 1889 William H. Kingsley and A. M. Harris organized and incorporated the South Bend Spark Arrester Company, specialty manufacturers and William H. Kingsley was president of the corporation until his death in 1905. He also for several years was a member of the City Council. His widow is still living, at the age of sixty-seven. She was born in Michigan.

Clifford V. Kingsley attended school at South Bend and was fifteen years of age when his mechanical inclinations caused him to leave school and find employment with the Quick Action Ignition Company, where he had his first practical training in the science of electrical ignition. Probably no other man in South Bend has followed up this subject so closely and none has made it a practical business for so long as Mr. Kingsley. In 1910 he established a business and service of his own, known as the South Bend Ignition Company, at 108-110 West Monroe Street. In 1924 he built a brick garage, equipping it not only for general garage service but with specialized machinery and equipment for handling every problem involved in the use of electricity in a motor car. When the new garage was completed he changed the name of his business to the Kingsley Electric Service.

Mr. Kingsley is a member of South Bend Lodge No. 45, A. F. and A. M., and the Knights of Pythias, and he and his family belong to the Grace Methodist Episcopal Church. He married at Elkhart, Indiana, November 29, 1906, Miss Frances V. North. She was born at Kokomo, Howard County, Indiana, daughter of Garry and Susanna (Mast) North. Her mother is deceased and was a native of Ohio. Her father, born in Michigan, is a retired farmer, of Howard County; Indiana.

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


WALTER V. KELL, of Lafayette, district manager of the Educational Bureau of the Chilean Nitrate of Soda Company, comes of a race of farmers, and his inclinations from boyhood kept him in contact with the scientific side of agriculture.

Mr. Kell's grandfather, Jacob Kell, came from Alsace-Lorraine with his parents about 1828, when he was ten years of age. He grew up in Allen County, Indiana, and became a well-to-do and respected farmer of that locality. George V. Kell, father of Walter V., was born in Allen County, and his career embraced a much wider scope than those of his immediate farming locality. He was active for many years in the Indiana Horticultural Association, was a director of the citizens Trust Company of Fort Wayne, secretary and president of the Allen County Mutual Fire Insurance Company, and also president of the Indiana Farmers Mutual Fire Insurance Company. He was interested in educational matters and served on his home school board for some years. During 1893-94 he was a representative from Allen County in the Indiana House of Representatives and served two terms in the Indiana State Senate, from 1895 to 1900. George V. Kell married Alice Hatch, of Allen County, and they had a family of eight children.

One of them is Walter V. Kell, who was born in Allen County, March 24, 1889. He attended the grade and high schools of his native county, grew up on a farm, was graduated with the A. B. degree from the University of Illinois in 1912, following which he remained a year as a student in the Agricultural College and Experiment Station. Subsequently he did research work in England, Scotland, France, Holland and Germany. Returning home in 1913, he was on a farm in Allen County for a year and was then appointed one of the first county agricultural agents in Indiana, being assigned duty in Pulaski County. He resumed farming and for a time was superintendent of the Indiana State Farm School at Fort Wayne. From 1920 to 1922 he was Tippecanoe County agricultural agent, this work bringing him to Lafayette, and he served as professor of agricultural extension and assistant state leader of county agricultural agents until December, 1928. Since that date he has been district manager of the Chilean Nitrate of Soda Educational Bureau, with headquarters at Lafayette. He is a member of the Indiana and National Agricultural Agents Association, and during the World war 1917-18, he was county agent at large under direct supervision of the United States Department of Agriculture.

Mr. Kell married Myrtle M. Snyder, of Indiana. They have three sons, all in school, Richard, Paul and Ralph. Mr Kell was a member of the Lafayette Kiwanis Club until 1929. He is affiliated with the Lodge of Masons at West Lafayette, the Royal Arch Chapter, Council degree and Knights Templar Commandery, the Scottish Rite bodies at Fort Wayne, the Acacia fraternity and the national honorary fraternity Epsilon Sigma Phi.

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


E. BURLEIGH DAVIDSON represents the third generation of a notable family of Indiana attorneys. Mr. Davidson has practiced law for twenty years at Lafayette.

He is a native of that city, born April 22, 1884. His grandfather, Robert P. Davidson, was born in Kentucky, of Virginia ancestry and of Scotch origin. Robert P. Davidson was educated in Oberlin College of Ohio, and graduated from Center College of Kentucky, and moved to Frankfort, Clinton County, Indiana, about 1841. He began his career as a teacher, but practiced law for many years and was distinguished in his profession. He married Jennie Claybaugh, daughter of a Presbyterian minister.

Their son, James T. Davidson, was born in Lafayette, Indiana, attended Wabash College for two years and in 1878 was graduated and received an A. B. degree from Bowdoin College in Maine. He studied law in his father’s office, and practiced at Lafayette. He was elected prosecuting attorney of Tippecanoe County in 1882. James T. Davidson was one of the local citizens who organized a company to give Lafayette an electric light service, one of the first cities in Indiana to make use of Thomas Edison's invention. He was one of the organizers of the Brush Electric Company there. In 1889 he moved his family to York, Maine, where in addition to his law practice he served as president of the York County National Bank. He died in Maine in 1901. His wife, Elizabeth Burleigh, was a native of Maine. Her father was elected and served as the successor to the eminent Thomas B. Reed in his seat in Congress, from the third Congressional District of the State of Maine.

E. Burleigh Davidson was one of a family of six children. He attended the grade and high schools in Maine, and in 1908 was graduated from the University of Maine, receiving an LL. B. degree. In August of the same year he entered upon his career as a practicing attorney, spending one year at South Berwick, Maine. In November, 1909, he returned to his native City of Lafayette, Indiana, was admitted to the Indiana bar, and has continuously practiced in the courts of the state. By appointment he served three years as city attorney, in 1915-17, and was United States commissioner four years under Federal Judge A. B. Anderson. He is a member of the Second District and Tippecanoe County Bar Associations, and during the World war was a member of the legal advisory board and helped in various bond drives. He is a Mason, member of the Alpha Tau Omega college fraternity, and the Sigma Beta Psi law fraternity. Mr. Davidson married Lee Friend, of Maine, October 16, 1912, and they have two children, Matele Elizabeth and Ouillma Ann.

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


CHAUNCEY M. SLOAN has been long and successfully engaged in business as a funeral director and is now executive head of one of the leading enterprises of this order in the City of Fort Wayne, where the business, with the best of modern facilities and service, is conducted under the corporate title of C. M. Sloan & Sons. The main funeral home of the concern is at 327 West Berry Street. Mr. Sloan is president of the corporation, his wife is vice president and their son Ralph is secretary. In addition to regular funeral cars of the most approved modern type the concern has in commission also a private motor ambulance, and the stock carried of metropolitan order, as are the respective funeral chapels.

Mr. Sloan was born on the parental home farm near Syracuse, Elkhart County, Indiana, June 16, 1873, and in that county likewise was born his father, Jonathan Sloan, whose father, a native of Baltimore, Maryland, became an early settler in Elkhart County. Jonathan Sloan was long numbered among the representative exponents of farm industry in Elkhart was one of the venerable native sons of that county at the time of his death, in 1909. He was a substantial and honored citizen who took loyal interest in community affairs and who commanded high place in popular esteem. His wife, whose maiden name was Sarah S. Miller, was born in Ohio but reared and educated in Indiana, and she is now seventy-one years of age. The old home farm in Elkhart County still remains in the possession of the family, and the subject of this review finds much satisfaction in giving to the same a general supervision, as the place is endeared to him by many gracious memories and associations. He further evidences his interest in the basic industry of agriculture through his ownership of a good farm near the City of Three Rivers, Michigan. His grandfather, John Sloan, was also an undertaker and casket maker, in the vicinity of his home at Syracuse, Indiana.

Reared on the old home farm and early beginning to assist in its work, Chauncey M. Sloan profited by the advantages of the neighboring district school. In preparing for the profession and business of which he is now a representative he completed a course in the Carl Barnes & Worsham School of Undertaking, in the City of Chicago, and long after his graduation in this institution he took post-graduate work in the Askins School of Embalming, at Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1923, as he has insistently kept in touch with the advances made in connection with his chosen business.

After having been established twenty-nine years in the undertaking business at Cromwell, Noble County, Mr. Sloan, in 1924, removed to Fort Wayne and purchased one of the city's pioneer undertaking establishments, that of the Ryan-Melching Company, and since that time the business has been successfully continued under the title of C. M. Sloan & Sons. His wife likewise is a licensed embalmer and she is an active coadjutor in the business, in preparing for interment the remains of women and children.

Mr. Sloan and his wife are active members of the Congregational Church, he is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias, and the local Chamber of Commerce counts him as one of its loyal members.

The year 1895 was marked by the marriage of Mr. Sloan to Miss Sadie M. Crow, who was born and reared in the northern part of Indiana, a daughter of William Crow and a representative of a sterling pioneer family of his state. Mr. and Mrs. Sloan have six children: Russell and his wife reside in Detroit, Michigan, and they have one child; Ralph, secretary of C. M. Sloan & Sons, is married and has one son; Jonathan and his wife reside in the State of Minnesota, and their one child is a daughter; Janet is the wife of Nelson Ruby, of Fort Wayne; Chester resides in California and is married; and Richard, youngest of the children, remains at the parental home.

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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


MRS. KATE B. HAY is librarian of the Benton County Public Library at Fowler, an institution that more nearly than any other represents the center of the cultural activities of this Western Indiana community.

Mrs. Hay was born in Effingham County, Illinois, and was eight years of age when her parents, James I. and Emma Webster, moved to Indiana. Her father was a native of Virginia and her mother of Indiana. James I. Webster was a soldier in the Civil war in the Eleventh Indiana Volunteers.

Mrs. Hay was educated in public schools, attended the Indiana State Normal at Terre Haute, taught for one year, and completed her library training at Chautauqua Lake, New York. She has been librarian of the Benton County Library since 1921.

This library has 20,000 volumes and its service extends throughout the county. It is housed in a well-equipped library building at Fowler. The library board consists of Mrs. B. B. Berry, president, Miss Mary Pelton, vice president, Miss Blanche Callaway, secretary. Miss Mary Pelton, a very prominent library worker, well known over the state as president of the Indiana Library Trustees Association in 1929; Miss Harriet Van Natta, Mr. Hawkins, Leo Gunnels, Mrs. S. J. Withrow and J. F. Hull. The first president of the Benton County Public Library board was Mrs. Dinwiddie, and to her a great deal of credit is due for laying the permanent foundation of the library not only as a collection of books but as a literary service to the county. She served as president from 1904 to 1927.

Mrs. Hay was married to Rollin W. Hay, a native of Benton County and a member of a pioneer family there. He died in June, 1917, leaving four children, Arthur C., Rollin, John and Rose. Arthur is now a county agricultural agent in Weston County, Wyoming. Rollin is freight agent for the Big Four Railway Company at Shelbyville, Indiana. John is a teacher and coach at Henning, Illinois, and Miss Rose is a graduate of Butler University at Indianapolis and is now teaching at Shiocton, Wisconsin.

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


BURR S. SWEZEY, vice president of the City Trust Company of Lafayette, was educated for the law, but has given undivided attention to commercial work since coming to Lafayette in 1916.

Mr. Swezey was born at Marion, Indiana, October 30, 1891. His father, Field W. Swezey, was born in Ohio, went to Marion about 1880, was a graduate of Western Reserve College of Ohio and of Columbia University of New York. He was a well equipped and talented lawyer and practiced for many years at Marion, where he served two terms as city attorney and two terms as mayor. He married Ann B. Sweetser, of Marion.

Burr S. Swezey was the only child of his parents. He attended the grade and high schools of Marion and in 1913 graduated Bachelor of Science from Purdue University. He then entered Harvard University and in 1916 received his law degree from that institution. In the same year he came to Lafayette and was made secretary and treasurer of the O. W. Peirce Mercantile Company. He was active in this organization until January 1, 1930. In 1927 he became a director and since January, 1930, has been active vice president of the City Trust Company.

Mr. Swezey married Marian L. Peirce, a daughter of O. W. Peirce. They have two children, Burr, Jr., and Oliver Peirce. Mr. Swezey is a member of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity, the Lafayette Country Club, Town and Gown Club, the Episcopal Church, is a Republican and a member of the Tippecanoe County Historical Society.

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


Deb Murray