He was born at South Bend November 9, 1883, son of Leo and Florence Thilman. His father is deceased and his mother resides at South Bend. Zygmunt Thilman was educated in public schools. He was only fifteen years of age when he began his apprenticeship as a plumber. He learned his trade with a local company, worked as a journeyman for a number of years, and as a master plumber he is well known for his technical knowledge as well as his practical experience in every phase of plumbing and heating engineering. On April 21, 1908, he opened his plumbing and heating shop at 432 Chapin Street. The Poles are among the largest element in South Bend's population, and Mr. Thilman has the distinction of being the first Polish plumbing and heating contractor in the city. He continued the business under his own name until 1917, when he took into partnership his brother, Casimir Thilman. Since then they have continued the business as Thilman Brothers, plumbing, heating, ventilating and sewer contractors. In May, 1926, they moved to their present address at 404 Chapin Street, where they have a large shop with a fine show room for the exhibition of their standard line of plumbing and heating equipment and supplies.

Mr. Thilman has always been interested in civic matters and is a leader in his West Side district. He is also well known in Polish circles. He married Miss Rose Nawrocka, who was born in Bay City, Michigan, but grew up on a farm near Bronson in Southern Michigan. They have four children, Florence, Germaine, Eugene and Sylvia, the latter two being twins. The family reside at 501 Blaine Avenue.

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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

ADRIAN VAN TRESS is one of the popular and successful young business men of Lafayette, owner of the Van Tress Real Estate Company in the Lafayette Life Building.

He was born in Warren County, Indiana, March 12, 1898. His father, James O. Van Tress, was born in Ohio, came to Warren County in the late 1850s, followed farming as his occupation and was active in community affairs. He married Eva Brown, of Warren County, descended from an Irish family that settled there about 1840.

Adrian Van Tress was one of four children. He attended school only until he was fourteen years of age, and for eight years pursued the routine of a farm worker. On leaving the farm he traveled for three years as a salesman, all the time studying to equip himself for something better. For six months he studied therapeutics and practiced and studied in Indiana and Illinois for two years. Mr. Van Tress in 1925 came to Lafayette and spent one year with the Shook Real Estate Agency and three years with the Rhyne Agency. On January 9, 1929, he established the Van Tress Agency, doing a general real estate business, handling farm lands, city and business property and insurance.

Mr. Van Tress married Irene Snouwaert, a native of Warren County. He is a Republican in politics. Mr. Van Tress owes his successful start in life to his own energies and ambitions. Beginning work at the age of fourteen, he had no chance for education except the utilization of opportunities that fell in the intervals of hard work.

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

FRANCIS J. MURPHY is a talented and very popular young lawyer of Lafayette, honored for his sound professional abilities and for his record as a man and citizen.

He was born in Lafayette, February 29, 1896. His father, Bartholomew J. Murphy, was born at Washington, D. C., and came to Lafayette about 1880. He was a hotel operator, and after coming to Indiana became active in the Democratic party of the state, serving as a member of the state committee and was president of the Jackson Club at Lafayette. He married Hannah E. Lumley, who was born in Tippecanoe County. Her father came from County Cork, Ireland, and settled in Tippecanoe County in the early 1840s, and was a Union soldier at the time of the Civil war.

Francis J. Murphy was one of four children. He grew up at Lafayette, attended St. Anne's School, graduated from the Jefferson High School and in 1920 took his law degree from Notre Dame University. In the meantime, in 1918, he enlisted, and after being sent to Camp Taylor at Louisville, Kentucky, was made sergeant of Headquarters Company of the Eighty-fourth Division. He received his honorable discharge in March, 1919.

He married Miss Dorothy Bumbleburg, a native of Tippecanoe County. Mr. Murphy is a member of the County and State Bar Associations, being chairmen of the entertainment committee of the County Society. In 1926 he was grand knight of Lafayette Council No. 456 of the Knights of Columbus, is a member of the B. P. O. Elks, and is chairman of the State Delegation of the American Legion. He is a member of the Jackson Club, and president of the Notre Dame Alumni Association of the Wabash Valley. In 1921 he was appointed acting city judge. Mr. Murphy is a man whose career promises a high degree of distinction. He has a pleasing personality, is active in club and social affairs, and has the ambition to realize the utmost use of his talents.

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

RALPH D. RESER lost no time after the close of his school days in deciding his future career. He entered immediately the National Fowler Bank of Lafayette and his since been with that institution, with unwavering loyalty and industry, and is regarded as one of the ablest younger bankers in Western Indiana.

He was born in Lafayette, October 27, 1888, member of a very prominent family of Tippecanoe County. His grandfather, Harvey Reser, came to Indiana from Pennsylvania, in the early 1840s. He became a large land owner and a successful farmer. His wife, Sarah Waymire, was related to the family of President Hoover.

Alva O. Reser, father of Ralph D., was for many years a notable figure in the political life of Tippecanoe County. He was educated at Purdue University, was an early member of the Sigma Chi fraternity, and in college and afterwards enjoyed a high reputation as an orator. He was a man of eminent public spirit, and for over thirty-five years was court reporter. He served four years as county recorder, and was in four sessions of the State Legislature, two as a senator and two in the House of Representatives. For thirty years he was secretary of the local school board and was a member of the school board for four years. Alva O. Reser was born in Tippecanoe County and married Elizabeth A. Smith. They had two children, twin sons, Ralph D. and Roy M., the latter a business man at Lafayette.

Ralph D. Reser was educated in the grade and high schools of Lafayette, spent three years in Purdue University and then, in 1909, at the age of twenty-one, began his career with the National Fowler Bank, as stenographer, and has performed every routine service in that institution, including many executive duties. In 1923 he was elected cashier, the office he holds today.

He married Miss Helen Whistler, who was born in Tippecanoe County and is related to the great American artist, Whistler. Her grandfather, John Stair, was an early settler of this section of Indiana, an extensive land owner, and served a term as county treasurer. Mr. and Mrs. Reser have three children, Ralph Whistler, Richard Stair and Thomas Annett. Mr. Reser is vice president of the Exchange Club. For several years he was treasurer of Tippecanoe Lodge No. 492, A. F. and A. M., is a member of the Scottish Rite bodies and Murat Temple of the Mystic Shrine. He has served as treasurer of the Central Presbyterian Church and assistant treasurer of Purdue University, and for three years during the administration of Mayor Ross he was president of the police board. During the World war he had an active part in the War Bond and Red Cross drives. Mr. Reser’s father wrote the report of the Tippecanoe Monument Association.

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

WALTER SUEDHOFF MOELLERING is a representative in the present generation of a family that has been conspicuously identified with the business and industrial life of Fort Wayne for eighty years.

He is a grandson of William and Anna Moellering. William Moellering was born in Prussia, Germany, in 1832. He and two brothers settled at Fort Wayne in 1849. They soon set up forges, brick kilns and depots of building supplies, and thus started in a line of business with which their name has been identified ever since. They were much more than builders, extending their enterprise into the field of manufacturing and contributed to the position of Fort Wayne as a great distributing center. The Moellering brothers had a part in the building of the Allen County courthouse in 1860-61.

The late Edward H. Moellering, a son of William and Anna Moellering, was a lifelong resident of Fort Wayne. He was only fifty-two years of age when he died, January 18, 1928, but his active life represented a tremendous amount of work and important business positions. Before his death he was president of the Moellering Supply Company, director of the Moellering Construction Company, was one of the founders of the Indiana Builders Supply Association of America. As a boy in Fort Wayne he attended Saint Paul’s Lutheran School and spent four years in Concordia College. For many years he and his family lived at 414 Montgomery Street and moved to their new home on Englewood Court just three months before his death. He was a member of Saint Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church.

Mr. Edward H. Moellering is survived by his widow, Mrs. Emma K. Moellering, and four children, Walter S., Mrs. Way W. Woodward, of Fort,Wayne; Paul, in the South Side High School; and Mildred, the wife of Dr. Robert P. Schultheis. There are two grandchildren, also two brothers, Henry F. And Charles E. Moellering, of Fort Wayne, and four sisters: Mrs. H. A. Gerberding, Mrs. Herman Lange and Mrs. Charles Miller, of Fort Wayne, and Mrs. G. H. Wehmeyer, of Decatur, Indiana.

Mr. Walter S. Moellering was born Wayne, July 31, 1903. He was educated in Saint Paul's Lutheran School, in Concordia College, and was a student in the University of Illinois when called home in 1923, due to the illness of his father. For several years he had been closely associated with his father’s work and was well qualified to succeed him as president and treasurer of the Moellering Supply Company, handling building supplies and manufacturers of "Wayne" brick. Mr. Walter S. Moellering is president of the Fort Wayne Association of Credit Men, is ward chairman of the Republican central committee, and was chairman of the committee that organized the Baer Field, the municipal airport at Fort Wayne. He is a member of Saint Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Chamber of Commerce, Fort Wayne Motor Club, is a past president of the Fort Wayne Exchange Club and is treasurer of the Lafayette Place Improvement Association. He was organizer and for three years was secretary of the Fort Wayne Safety Council. Walter S. Moellering owns a fine new English type home at 4321 South Calhoun Street. He is president and treasurer of the Pioneer Coal Company.

He married, September 5, 1925, at Lafayette, Indiana, Miss Jean Lucille Bollman. She was born at Lagrange and finished her education in DePauw University at Greencastle, Indiana. Her mother, Mrs. John Bollman, lives at Lagrange and her father is deceased. Mr. and Mrs. Moellering have one son, John William, born June 24, 1927, and one daughter, Marcia Jean, born October 6, 1920.

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

ANTHONY BUZOLITS was born at Burgeland, Austria, and in,1907, when twelve years of age, was brought to the United States by his parents, who at that time located in South Bend, where they are still living.

In the twenty years of his American residence Anthony Buzolits has found time to complete his education, equip himself for a business career, and by his energy and capability reach the place of president and manager of the City Dairy Company, the largest milk distributing organization in South Bend.

Mr. Buzolits attended parochial school at South Bend from 1907 to 1910. During 1910- 14 he was working for the Studebaker Corporation, making a living during the day and keeping on with his studies by attending night school, where he took English and commercial courses.

Following this for six years he was with the Standard Oil Company. He left that to become a stockholder in the firm that has since become the City Dairy Company. He was secretary and treasurer until a reorganization made him president and general manager.

The City Dairy Company during his official connection with it has grown to be a organization exceeded size by very few in Northern Indiana. It operates twenty-nine retail routes in the city, distributing milk, cream and dairy products and doing a retail and wholesale business, amounting annually to three quarters of a million dollars. The company bottles two thousand gallons of milk daily. Its office and milk handling plant are located in a specially equipped building at 1223-1225 South Main Street.

Mr. Buzolits is a member of the Knights of Columbus, the South Bend Chamber of Commerce, the International Association of Milk Dealers, and is a member of the Dairymen's National Country Club, a social organization made up of leading dairymen allover the United States, who own a 1600 acre tract in Northern Wisconsin which they use as a playground during vacation season. Mr. Buzolits' personal hobby is golf and fishing.

He married, May 20, 1926, Miss Laurette Bauer, of South Bend. She was born at Columbia City, Whitley County, Indiana, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. George Bauer. They have one child, Rose Marie Buzolits, born September 26,1928.

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

LOSSON B. HUNT, who represents a family that has been in Indiana for several generations, is an undertaker and funeral director whose business is known as the Hunt Funeral Home, at 3031 Mishawaka Avenue, in South Bend.

Mr. Hunt was born at Hibbard, in Marshall County, Indiana, July 31, 1887, son of Milton Monroe and Margaret (Listenberger) Hunt and grandson of Elem Hunt. His grandfather was born at Richmond, Wayne County, Indiana. Milton Hunt was born in Wabash County, March 27, 1853, and lived for many years in Marshall County. In 1904 he located at Mishawaka. His wife was born near Warsaw in Kosciusko County, Indiana, May 11, 1853.

Losson B. Hunt was the fourth in a family of six children, two of whom are deceased. He was a child when his parents moved to Plymouth, where he attended the grade and high schools. After definitely determining what his future vocation was to be he entered the Askin School of Embalming at Indianapolis and was graduated in 1923. He immediately came to St. Joseph County and established the Hunt Funeral Home, located midway between South Bend and Mishawaka, at 3031 Mishawaka Avenue. His funeral home, when it was first built, was the only building in that vicinity, but the district has grown rapidly and is now a flourishing business section of South Bend, known as River Park. The Hunt Funeral Home in equipment and service ranks with the best institutions of its kind in the state.

Mr. Hunt is a member of the River Park Business Men's Association, is a deacon in the Church of Christ and superintendent of the Sunday School.

He married, December 24, 1913, Miss Hattie Elvah Tyler. She was born in Noble County, Indiana, and was a twin daughter and one of four children of Mr. and Mrs. John Harvey Tyler, who moved to Mishawaka in 1902. The two sons of the family are deceased, and the sister, Leah Luella, is now Mrs. John A. Morrison, of Jones, Michigan. The parents are now deceased. The Tylers were a well known and influential family of Noble County. Mrs. Hunt is herself a thoroughly well qualified funeral director and has contributed much to the success of the business. Two children were born to their marriage, Lowell Alvah, born April 13, 1918, and Elvah Leota, who was born April 27, 1920, and died May 31, 1924.

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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

WARNER A. ROSS, Lafayette attorney, with offices in the Lafayette Life Building, has practiced here since the close of the World war. He had an interesting military experience overseas, and before the war he was a young lawyer whose experience connected him with several large corporations as a member of their legal staff.

Mr. Ross was born at Oxford in Benton County, Indiana, May 10, 1879. His grandfather, John Patton Ross, was a native of Cincinnati, Ohio, and came to Indiana in 1855. He was a furniture dealer and also a building contractor. Dr. Charles G. Ross, father of Warner, was a dentist. He was born at Cincinnati and was a boy when the family moved to Indiana. He married Elizabeth Furnas, a native of Xenia, Ohio, both now residents of Lafayette.

Warner A.. Ross was the only child of his parents. He attended school at' Riverside, California, at Lafayette, Indiana, and in 1897 was graduated from the Peekskill Military Academy in New York. He took his law degree at the Indiana University School of Law in 1900. His first active experience was in the law office of George E. Curry at Boston, Massachusetts, and he was admitted to the Massachusetts bar. In 1904 he was transferred to Indianapolis, in 1908 to Detroit, and in 1913 to Chicago. In these different cities he handled legal work for some large business organizations and industrial corporations.

Mr. Ross in April, 1917, volunteered and entered the First Officers Training Camp at Fort Sheridan, Illinois. He was commissioned a captain and in August, 1917, was ordered to Camp Grant, Rockford, Illinois, and put in the Three Hundred Forty-first Infantry. From that he was transferred to the Three Hundred Sixty-fifth Infantry, Ninety-second Division, with which he went overseas. During the ten months he was in France be was made regimental intelligence officer and attached to the First Division on the front line trenches, was with the Fifth Division for five weeks, and was then commissioned major in command of a battalion of the Three Hundred Sixty-fifth Infantry, with which he served until the end of the war. The Second Battalion, commanded by him, captured the Frehaut Woods near Metz. During this drive on Metz, on November 10, 1918, in the last days of the war, Major Ross was wounded in action and was incapacitated for further active duty until after the armistice. He received his honorable discharge, with the rank of major, March 21,1919.

Major Ross then located at Lafayette, where he has since given his attention to a general law practice. He is a man of fine personality, has the dignified appearance of a diplomat, and at the same time is thoroughly public spirited and genial, being very popular in social and civic circles. Major Ross was cited for bravery in action, being given a silver star citation in General Order No. 32 from the commanding officer of the Ninety-second Division. He holds the rank of major retired emergency officer in the United States army. He is a member of the Tippecanoe County Bar Association, and for three terms was commander of Lafayette Post No. 11 of the American Legion. He is affiliated with Lafayette Lodge No. 492, A. F. And A. M., is a .member of the Scottish Rite bodies and the Lafayette Grotto of Masons.

Major Ross married Anna L.. Reagan, who left one child, Mary Madeline, who is the wife of Donald Alderman, of Asheville, North Carolina. Major Ross later married Jane E. Stalder, of Chicago, and by this union there are two children, Mildred Jane and Charles Gerard II, both attending school at Lafayette.

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

FRANK KIMMEL, who represents one of the oldest families of Lafayette, is an a able lawyer, long ago made his mark in his profession, and has also shown a high quality of public spirited leadership in his community.

He was born in Lafayette, May 25, 1876, son of John Kimmel and grandson of Louis Kimmel, who settled in Lafayette in the early 1840s. Louis Kimmel was a man of mark in his generation. Several times he was honored with the office of mayor of Lafayette. During the Civil war he was captain of an Indiana regiment and after the war was sent to Alaska as a United States commissioner. The later years of his life were spent in Washington, D. C., as an employee of the treasury department. Frank Kimmel's father, John Kimmel, was four years of age when the family came from Germany. For half a century he was a merchant in Lafayette and served on the City Council. He married Tinnie Newman, a native of Lafayette, and Frank Kimmel was one of their three children.

Mr. Kimmel attended the grade and high schools of Lafayette, spent three years in Purdue University and in 1901 was graduated LL. B. from the law department of the University of Michigan, being admitted to the bar the same year. He began practice in 1902 and for twenty-eight years has carried his share of the burdens of a successful professional man. He was elected and served two terms as prosecuting attorney of Tippecanoe County and was a representative of the county in the House of Representatives in 1917-19. For two terms he was United States commissioner, serving from 1905 to 1912. In 1929 he was president of the Tippecanoe County Bar Association and is also a member of the Tenth Congressional District Bar Association.

Mr. Kimmel is regarded as a fine type of the older school of lawyers. One of his cardinal principles is helpfulness to others, not only in his profession but to all members of his community. In every public capacity he has rendered efficient service. He was a member of the legal advisory board during the World war and his brother served as a first lieutenant in the Engineer Corps, and while in France took part in four major engagements, Chateau Thierry, Belleau Wood, Saint Mihiel and the Argonne.

Mr. Frank Kimmel is affiliated with Lafayette Lodge No. 123, A. F. and A. M., Royal Arch Chapter, the Council degree and Knights Templar Commandery, and is a Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner. He married Altah M. Toohey, of Tippecanoe County. Their two daughters, both attending school, are Altah Mary and Frances Louise.

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

JOHN BENNETT LYONS, prominent banker and pioneer of Brook, was born February 23, 1845, on the old Lyons homestead, which is now located just outside the limits of the village of Brook. Both the early and later history of Newton County has occasion to mention the activities of the Lyons family, who were among the first to establish homes and institute settled and ordered agriculture in this locality. John Bennett Lyons has had a very long and useful life, and is one of the few surviving veterans of the Civil war, and, unlike most of his surviving army comrades, he was in the war practically from its beginning.

His parents, Samuel and Margaret (Smith) Lyons, came to Newton County, Indiana, about 1840, their former home having been near Chillicothe, Ohio. The great-grandfather of Mr. Lyons came to America in Colonial times from Holland. Margaret Smith, who was also of Holland Dutch ancestry, was born at Hoboken, New Jersey, and was a small girl when her parents, Joseph and Mary (Earl) Smith, moved west to Indiana, first locating near Crawfordsville and about 1833 moving to Iroquois Township, Newton County, being among the first permanent settlers of the county. Samuel Lyons lived to be ninety-two years of age, passing away June 5, 1905. He had voted the Whig ticket in his early years, was active in the abolition cause, and later became a Republican.

John Bennett Lyons was sixteen years old, When on November 5,1861, he was mustered into Company B of the Fifty-first Indiana Infantry. Up to that time he had experienced the quiet routine of an Indiana farm, had attended country schools, but his interest was aroused in the struggle between the North and the South, and only a few months after the first volunteers left Newton County he took the action put him into the ranks of those fighting for the preservation of the in Union. He was in service more than four years, and was acting as a hospital steward of the Fifty-first Regiment at San Antonio, Texas, when he was honorably discharged December 13, 1865. Mr. Lyons became one of the early members of the Grand Army of the Republic when the post was organized at Brook. When the Carnegie Library was erected at Brook he had placed, at his own expense, a bronz tablet giving the names of the original volunteers of Company B, Fifty- first Indiana Volunteer Infantry, the first company enrolled in Newton County for service in the war.

After the war Mr. Lyons returned to Newton County and took up farming, raised stock and also dealt in live stock, shipping many carloads to the markets from Brook. On October 1, 1892, he established a private bank, which has since become the State Bank of Brook. For over thirty-five years he has managed this institution and is its majority stockholder.

Mr. Lyons was elected a member of the Indiana Legislature in 1892. He has been prominent in the Republican party organization, serving as county chairman from 1896 to 1900; and has been township trustee and a county commissioner.

He married in May, 1868, Miss Mary C. Hess, daughter of Andrew and Sarah Hess. Her father was from Holland. Mr. and Mrs. Lyons have a family of nine children and numerous grandchildren. Their oldest son, Lawrence E., a resident of Brook, married Catherine Robertson and has a son, Lawrence E., Jr. Oliver M., also of Brook, married Lilly Sterner, and their children are William S., Dorothy and Lucille. Fred Lyons, of Brook, married Laura B. Esson and has five children, Pauline, Gladys, William, Fielder and Fred. Elsie Lyons is the wife of B. B. Gragg, of Brook, and they have three children, named Bernard B., Gaylord and Phyllis. James G. Lyons, a resident of Jackson Township, married Miss Frances Hays. Lou is the wife of Fred B. Snyder, of Brook. John B., Jr., now assistant cashier of the State Bank of Brook, married Sue C. Esson. Charles Lyons lives at Sheldon, Illinois. Verna is Mrs. A. A. Bishop, of Kentland, Indiana, and they have a son, named after his grandfather, Mr. Lyons.

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