Mrs. Ross was born in Muncie, Indiana, daughter of Thomas and Florence (Blount) Blease. Her father, a native of Cincinnati, Ohio, was educated in Richmond, Indiana, and went to Muncie when a young man. For many years he was boot and shoe merchant. For twelve years the family lived in Kansas, and while he was there he served as judge of the Police Court at Weir City. From Kansas the family went back to Muncie, where he resumed his active connections with mercantile affairs. He died in 1919 and is buried in the Beech Grove Cemetery at Muncie.
Mrs. Ross' mother, Florence Blount, was born May 2, 1877, and reared in Muncie, and was a great-grandchild of William Blount, who took up the first tract of land in Delaware County, Indiana. The mother of Mrs. Ross was reared and educated in Muncie and still lives in that city, where she takes an active interest in the work of the Methodist Church and in the Woman's Club. Mrs. Ross is the youngest of three children. Her older brother, Charles F. Blease, is a merchant at Muncie and a member of the City Council. He married Miss Pansy Guthrie and they have two children, named Cole and Sara Jane. Tom Blease, the younger brother, is associated with Charles Blease, in the mercantile business at Muncie. He married Miriam Wright.
Mrs. Ross received most of her early education in the schools of Kansas. She graduated from the Newton High School there and after the family returned to Muncie, Indiana, she completed a course of work in the Cook County Normal School at Chicago. For five years she taught in the public schools of Muncie and for three years was a reporter for the Muncie Star.
On December 25, 1903, she was married to Ralph W. Ross, who at that time was deputy prosecuting attorney of Delaware County. Mr. Ross represented an old and prominent pioneer family of the county. He had attended high school at Muncie, studied law and was admitted to the bar, and while practicing at Muncie served as president of the Chamber of Commerce. In 1909 Mr. and Mrs. Ross moved to Hammond, Indiana, where he continued the practice of law and for five years was chief deputy prosecuting attorney of Lake County. In 1915 they established their home in Gary, where Mr. Ross continued his law practice until his death in 1921. He is buried in the Beech Grove Cemetery at Muncie. Mr. Ross was a Mason, member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, B. P. O. Elks and Loyal Order of Moose. During the World war he did much work as a member of a registration committee. He was a member of the Commercial Club of Gary. During the war Mrs. Ross was county chairman of the women's organization in the war work drives.
She became interested in public affairs and politics before her husband's death and served as chairman of the woman's Republican organization of Lake County. After the death of Mr. Ross she was appointed by Mayor William Hodges as city clerk, and at the next general election was chosen to that office, leading the ticket. This gave her the distinction of being the first woman in Indiana to hold an elective office in a city government. While city clerk she was made secretary of the State Municipal League, and continued in that position until the close of her term. Mrs. Ross is a thorough business woman, and enjoys the contacts of business and political life. After leaving the office of city clerk she was secretary of a building and loan association in Gary and was manager of the boys' department in Gary's largest clothing store.
In the general election of 1928 Mrs. Ross was elected recorder of Lake County. That office has had a highly systematic and efficient management since she took control. There is probably no more popular woman in Lake County than Mrs. Ross. She is a director of a building and loan company of Gary.
Mrs. Ross is a member of the Eastern Star, is corresponding member of the Muncie Woman's Club, member of the Hammond Woman's Club, the Gary Woman's Club, the Parent-Teachers Association, the League of Women Voters, Business and Professional Women's Club, and was the organizing chairman and is now a director of the Gary Y. W. C. A. She is a Republican and a member of the Episcopal Church of Gary. Mrs. Ross has two children, Ralph Blease and Florence Elizabeth. Ralph graduated from the Emmerson High School and from the Idaho State University and is now with the United States International Ice Patrol, with base operations at Saint Johns, Newfoundland. The daughter graduated from the Emmerson High School in 1926 and received her A. B. degree with the class of 1931 in Northwestern University, where she specialized in journalism.
Click here for photo.
INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 5
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
PHILIP LUTZ, JR., is a lawyer practicing in his native community of Boonville, Warrick County, where the Lutz family has lived and given their substantial influence to business, professional and civic affairs for over fifty years. While he has achieved a commendable reputation as a lawyer Mr: Lutz is probably more widely known as a horticulturist, being owner of the Phil Lutz Peony Farm, with sixty acres devoted to the propagation and culture of peonies, said to be the largest peony farm in the United States.
Mr. Lutz was born at Boonville August 28, 1888, son of Philip and Barbara E. (Billman) Lutz. Both parents were born in Germany and came to the United States in 1865. His father for many years was in the grocery business at Boonville, where he died in May, 1924. The family household consisted of twelve children, five of died in infancy and a daughter, Katie, who died at the age of fourteen. The living children besides Philip, Jr., are Louise, born in 1885, wife of Charles Hartinger, a merchant at Cincinnati; George, born in 1887, a merchant at Boonville, married Mable Hartloff, of Chandler, Indiana; Carrie, born in 1891, is the wife of Dr. C. B. Ferguson, an osteopathic physician and and surgeon at Miami, Florida; Ernest, born in 1897, is a florist at Boonville; and Anna, born in 1903, is the wife of Perry Lowell, a farmer and merchant at Boonville.
Mr. Philip Lutz, Jr., attended grade and high schools at Boonville and completed both the academic and law courses at the University of Indiana in 1912, receiving the A. B. and LL. B. degrees in the same year. He has been in the practice of law at Boonville since July, 1912. He has had no partnership, and has had a successful volume of general law practice.
Mr. Lutz is a local leader of the Democratic party. He was elected a member of the Indiana Legislature in 1914, serving during the session of 1915. He was county attorney in 1928 and 1931, and is now Democratic District chairman for the Eighth Indiana District. Mr. Lutz married at Saint Paul, Indiana, June 16, 1914, Miss Lois Vane (Ryse), of Saint Paul, Decatur County, daughter of Gus and Lavira (Shelhorn) Ryse, both natives of Indiana. Mr. and Mrs. Lutz have one son, John Philip, born August 20, 1915, now a senior in the Boonville High School.
The family are members of Saint John’s Evangelical Church. Mr. Lutz is a Scottish Rite Mason, a member of the B. P. O. Elks, Woodmen of the World, and was president of the Kiwanis Club of Boonville in 1928 and in 1929 lieutenant governor for the Fifth Indiana District. Mr. Lutz is president of the Boonville Building & Loan Association, president of the Monarch Finance Company, vice president of the La Salle Finance Company and is a director of the First National Bank and several other business organizations.
Mr. Lutz's mother had the faculty of making flowers' and plants bloom and flourish, and her native faculty as a horticulturist has been inherited by the Boonville attorney. He has always been interested in gardening as an amateur and some years ago entered work on a commercial scale as a breeder and grower of peonies for the Chicago, New York and other markets. The Phil Lutz Peony Farms are the propagating grounds of perhaps as large a variety of the choice species of peonies anywhere found, and Mr. Lutz has searched the world over for many rare specimens, his grounds containing the descendants of many of the oldest of the best known stocks as well as some of the latest developments. Visitors come from widely different localities to the Lutz Peony Farms. His brother Ernest is also a successful man in the flower business, operating Maple Wood Gardens, of Boonville, which does a big business throughout southern Indiana. Mr. Lutz has done much to promote the development of this section of Indiana as the largest center of peony culture in the United States.
INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 5
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
LESLIE H. HENDRICKSON is one of the representative younger members of the bar of Warrick County, his residence and professional headquarters are maintained at Boonville, the county seat, and the election of November, 1928, brought him to service as prosecuting attorney of his native county.
Mr. Hendrickson was born at Folsomville, this county, March 22, 1896, and is a son of S. H. And Miranda (Scott) Hendrickson, the former of whom was born near Huntingburg, Dubois County, this state, and the latter at Stendol, Pike County, their home being now established at Folsomville, Warrick County, and Mr. Hendrickson having long been one of the substantial and representative exponents of agricultural and live stock industry in that part of the county. Leslie H. Hendrickson, of this review, was the second in a family of six children, of whom the eldest is Capt. Charles W., who is a captain in the National Guard and who holds the office of shipping inspector for the port of Seattle, Washington, in which city was solemnized his marriage to Miss Minna Eccles. J. Harold, who is still a bachelor, resides in the City of Indianapolis and is assistant state superintendent of public instruction. Harvey K., likewise a bachelor, is superintendent of the public schools of New Palestine, Hancock County, at the time of this writing, in the summer of 1929. Gladys is the wife of Loren Hesson, who is actively associated with the automobile business in the City of Evansville, and they have two children, Betty Jean and William. Hazel is the wife of Leonard Freudenberg, superintendent of the public schools of Freelandville, Knox County.
Leslie H. Hendrickson continued his studies in the public schools of Warrick County until he was graduated in the high school at Tennyson, in 1914, and later he was graduated in the Central Normal College of Indiana, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He was a student in the law department of that institution when the nation entered the World war, in the spring of 1917, and he forthwith volunteered for service in the United States Army. He received due preliminary training and August 31, 1918, he embarked with his unit for overseas service and was later granted a commission as first lieutenant and with his command he was in active service in France at the time of the termination of hostilities by the signing of the historic armistice. June 1, 1919, he embarked for the return voyage, and at Camp Sherman, Ohio, he received his honorable discharge on the 6th of the same month. He still retains commission as first lieutenant in the Officers Reserve Corps of the United States Army, and it is to be noted that in 1928 he was district commander of the American Legion.
After the conclusion of his World war service Mr. Hendrickson resumed the study of law, and in May, 1920, he was admitted to the bar of his native state. He was actively and successfully established in the practice of his profession at Boonville at the time of his election to his present office, that of prosecuting attorney of his native county, in November, 1928, and his administration is distinctly adding to his reputation as a resourceful and vigorous trial lawyer. Mr. Hendrickson is unwavering in his allegiance to the Republican party, is a member of the Warrick County Bar Association and the Indiana State Bar Association, and both he and his wife have membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church in their home city.
June 11, 1921, recorded the marriage of Mr. Hendrickson to Miss Hazel Madden, who was born at Lynnville, Warrick County, the second of the eight children of M. L. and Eva (Holder) Madden, who still reside at Lynnville, Mr. Madden being a representative farmer in that locality. Mr. and Mrs. Hendrickson have two children: Leslie H., Jr., born June 13, 1922, and Paul Eugene, born July 29, 1924.
INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 5
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
ALDEN J. HEURING, newspaper publisher, has for over thirty-four years given Pike County one of its best newspapers, the Winslow Dispatch, of which he is proprietor and editor.
Mr. Heuring was born at Spurgeon in Pike County, Indiana, December 19, 1873. His father, Frank E. Heuring, a native of Baltimore, Maryland, came to Indiana in 1869, and his home was at Winslow from 1884 until his death in 1922. Frank E. Heuring married Eliza Richardson. The Richardsons were of old Colonial and Revolutionary stock. Her father was a pioneer minister of the Primitive Baptist Church in Pike County. Mrs. Eliza Heuring is now seventy-seven years of age. She is the mother of three children, Alden J., Margaret and Edward. Margaret is the wife of Walter Shiver, of Evansville, Indiana, and has one child, while Edward, who also lives at Evansville, Indiana, married Elizabeth Dillon, and they have a son and daughter.
Alden J. Heuring was educated in the grammar and high schools of Pike County and also attended the Indiana State Normal School. The basis of his business as a newspaperman was acquired in a printing office at Vincennes, where he learned his trade. After some years of working for others he established the Winslow Dispatch in March, 1898, and has been in the newspaper business continuously down to the present time.
Mr. Heuring married, October 15, 1899, Miss Georgia Shugert. She died March 12, 1920, and of the three children born to their marriage two died in infancy. The surviving son is Frank, who was born February 17, 1905, and is now a capable assistant and partner with his father in the newspaper business. Mr. Heuring on April 3, 1924, married Beulah Woodford. By this marriage there are two children, Patty Ann, born April 30, 1927, and Richard L., born June 30, 1928. Mr. Heuring is a staunch Democrat in politics, and at present is Democratic county chairman of Pike County. He is a York Rite Mason and Shriner, member of the Kiwanis Club, Knights of Pythias and the Winslow Chamber of Commerce.
INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 5
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
JESSE FRANK KIMMEL, proprietor of the J. F. Kimmel furniture and undertaking business at Gaston, is a native of Indiana, where his people have lived for several generations, being an old and honored family of Henry County.
He was born on a farm in that county, January 19, 1890, son of Joseph W. and Mary (Burns) Kimmel. His grandfather, Michael Kimmel, was a Pennsylvanian by birth and an early settler in Henry County, where he spent his active life as a farmer and stock raiser, owning a farm of several hundred acres. He was progressive in everything whether it concerned his own business or the community. One instance was the fact that he introduced the first threshing machine into that vicinity. He died in 1900 and he and his wife are buried in the old Lutheran Church Cemetery near Hagerstown, Indiana. Joseph W. Kimmel was born and reared in Henry County, and he and his wife still live on their farm in that part of the state. They are active members of the Christian Church. His wife, Mary Burns, was also born in Henry County and attended school there. She is a daughter of Calvin J. and Nancy (Nation) Burns, well-to-do farmers of Henry County, who are buried in the New Lisbon Cemetery. Jesse Frank Kimmel has one brother, Carl J. Kimmel, a farmer in Henry County, who married May Ridgeway and has two daughters Mary and Catherine.
Jesse Frank Kimmel attended public schools in Henry County, including the Newcastle High School, and in 1908 was graduated in the Barnes Embalming School of Indianapolis. For two years he was associated with W. A. Fox, a Newcastle undertaker, and he also worked at his profession in Cambridge City and Goshen, Indiana. Mr. Kimmel in 1915 located at Gaston and established the J. F. Kimmel furniture and undertaking house. He is an able merchant and a splendid representative of his profession, both as to his personal character and his skill and ability. He carries a fine stock of reliable furniture and house furnishing goods. In addition, to this business he is vice president of the Gaston Banking Company, and he owns a farm in Henry County. Mr. Kimmel is a member of the Indiana State Association of Embalmers. Since early manhood he has been active in the Masonic fraternity, being affiliated with Matthews Lodge No. 640, A. F. and A. M., Muncie Royal Arch Chapter and Knight Templar Commandery, the Scottish Rite bodies at Indianapolis. He is a Republican, and for the past twelve years has served as city treasurer of Gaston. He was reared in the Christian Church, but in the absence of a church of that denomination at Gaston he joined with the Methodists in worship and is a member of the official board of the church.
Mr. Kimmel married in Henry County, Indiana, February 11, 1909, Miss Mary Lillian LaBayteaux, daughter of James and Margaret (Alger) LaBayteaux. Her father was of French ancestry. He was a farmer stock man in Henry County and is now living retired, at the age of eighty-six. Her mother died in 1920 and is buried in the Batson Cemetery near Newcastle. Mrs. Kimmel attended the schools of Henry County, graduating from the New Lisbon High School. She is a member and a past matron of the Eastern Star Chapter at Gaston, belongs to the Woman’s Club, and is a member of the Methodist Church.
INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 5
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
LOT W. OWENS, Boonville druggist, where he has been a substantial factor in the commercial affairs of that town for over thirty years, is a native of Kentucky and has spent his life largely in three states, Kentucky, Illinois and Indiana.
He was born in Kentucky September 10, 1850, son of William and Susan P. (Ringo) Owens. Both parents were born in Kentucky, where his father was a farmer. His father died in 1878. His mother was descended from a drummer boy in the American Revolution, who also rendered service as a dispatch bearer. After the war he came west and became the owner of the Belgrave Springs in Kentucky and had numerous slaves. William Owens and wife had a family of nine children. The seven now deceased were: Augustine, John, Avon, Burt, Jerry, Sally and Mollie. Mr. Lot Owens has a brother, Francis R., a retired farmer at Manchester, Ohio, who married Lynie Davis, of Kentucky, and they reared a family of seven children.
Lot W. Owens attended school in Kentucky, completed a commercial college course at Bloomington, Illinois, and then took up pharmacy as a business and profession. He was in the drug business in Grayville, Illinois, until coming to Boonville in 1897, and here he established a store that has been one of the institutions of the city for over thirty years. He owns a fine business, also has local real estate, including his home in Boonville. Mr. Owens is a Republican in politics, and is an elder in the Presbyterian Church.
He married at Albion, Illinois, January 15, 1880, Rosamond Wood, who was born in that state, of English parentage. They have three children, Mary Bertha, Elise and Neva. Bertha is the widow of Percy Ferguson, who died of the influenza in 1919, while sales manager of the Des Moines division of the Standard Oil Company, and left two children, Owen, born in 1910, who has completed a business college course; and Martha, born in 1914, a high school girl. Miss Elise Owens assists her father in his drug business. Neva, who has two children, Peggie Ann, born in 1924, and Dale, born in 1926, is the wife of Ralph Richardson, formerly of Spencer County, Indiana, now conducting a fine business as a fruit broker in the State of Washington.
INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 5
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
CLARA COMSTOCK, who now holds the chair of physical education in Earlham College in her native City of Richmond, is one of the loyal, talented and popular members of the faculty of this fine old institution, which has been from its founding maintained under the auspices of the Society of Friends.
Miss Comstock received the advantages of the public schools of Richmond, including the high school, Richmond having long numbered among its honored citizens her parents, Daniel Webster Comstock and Josephine (Albright) (Rohrer) Comstock, of whom more specific mention is made on other pages, in the personal sketch of their son Paul. Daniel W. Comstock was born at Germantown, Ohio, a representative of one of the old and sterling families of the Buckeye State. Miss Comstock has been an enthusiastic student and teacher. She has taken courses of study in the University of Chicago, in which great institution she was retained three years as instructor, and her educational advantages included also those of Earlham College and the New Haven Normal School of physical education, in the City of New Haven, Connecticut. She was for a time a teacher in the high school of Richmond, where she has held since 1916 her present professorship of physical education in Earlham College.
Miss Comstock gives to the Republican party her political allegiance and in her home city is a zealous member of the First Presbyterian Church. She is affiliated with the Altrusan Club and the local Woman's Club as well as with other civic, educational and social organizations in Richmond, and is a member of the American Physical Education Association, the United States Field Hockey Association, the American Posture League, and the Association of Directors of Physical Education for Women of Colleges and Universities.
INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 5
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
LEWIS S. BOWMAN, former state auditor of Indiana has lived all his life in Wayne County and has an interesting record of service in business as well as in public affairs.
He was born near Hagerstown, July 31, 1867, son of Solomon and Christina (Schultz) Bowman, natives of Henry County, and grandson of Benjamin and Mary (Bell) Bowman who were also born in Henry County, Benjamin Bowman being a son of Benjamin, Sr., a native Virginian, who came north to Ohio and then to Indiana. The maternal grandparents were Martin and Christina (Klapper) Schultz.
Lewis S. Bowman worked on his father’s farm in Jefferson Township, attended country schools, the Hagerstown High School, spent two terms in normal school instruction, and from the time he was twenty-one years of age his abilities were directed to teaching for fifteen years, from 1888 to 1903. From 1904 to 1911 he spent seven years in the boot and shoe business at Hagerstown.
Mr. Bowman has always manifested a strong interest in community affairs. For seven years, from 1901 to 1908, he was town clerk of Hagerstown and served four years as township trustee of Jefferson Township, 1905-09. In 1910 he was elected auditor of Wayne County, holding this office for seven years, until 1918. He was county chairman of the Republican committee eight years, 1908-09 and 1914-19. For one year he was president of the Richmond Chamber of Commerce and was on the board of directors for six years, 1912-17. During the World war he was a member of the County Council for Defense.
Mr. Bowman resigned as county auditor to become deputy state auditor on December 1, 1918, and served through the years 1919-20. In the spring of 1920 he was defeated for the nomination for state auditor. From 1921 to 1924 he was treasurer of the American Trust & Savings Bank of Richmond. Mr. Bowman was elected auditor of the State of Indiana in 1924, for a term of two years, and in 1926 was reelected. He held the office until December 1, 1928, and left the State House at Indianapolis to return to Hagerstown, where he is now secretary and auditor of the Perfect Circle Company, an old established industry that has been manufacturing products of national and international distribution for many years.
INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 5
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
NOBLESVILLE PUBLIC LIBRARY is one of the very interesting institutions of its kind in Indiana, serving not only merely the immediate locality of the City of Noblesville, but all of Noblesville Township. It was formerly a county library, and it was much to the regret of the people of intelligence and culture throughout the county when, through the efforts of a few dissatisfied tax payers, the county wide system was abolished.
The library contains a collection of about 15,000 volumes and also numerous current magazines. Under the county system before it was abolished an automobile was used to carry books from the library to the patrons over the county. This automobile was named "Parnassus." It made daily trips over the roads taking and returning books to the homes of farmers and other residents who were patrons. In this way the facilities of a high class library were made available to many small communities as well as individual homes. “Parnassuus” still visits the homes of the farmers in Noblesville Township and the township schools.
The board of directors of the library at the present time is made up as follows: Paul Michaels, president; H. H. Thompson, secretary; Fred Starr, superintendent of the Noblesville schools; G. E. Jones, Mrs. Earl S. Baker, Mrs. R. O. Morris, Mrs. A. W. Truitt and Mrs. Raymond Horney.
The annual library budget is approximately $6,000. Since the organization of the library it has been under the efficient management of Miss Lulu M. Miesse, librarian, and her interests, enthusiasm and earnest efforts have been largely responsible for the splendid service rendered, which in proportion to the amount of money available and the number of volumes is probably not excelled by any similar institution in the state. Miss Miesse has interested herself in the desires and the needs of the children as well as the adult patrons of the service, and her efforts have gone a long way toward educating the people of the county to appreciate the value of this cultural factor in their midst.
Miss Miesse is a member of the Indiana State Library Association and for one year was secretary. She was born in Noblesville, attended school there and completed her professional training in the Library School at Chautauqua, New York. Under her direction the library compiled the records of Hamilton County in the World war, these records comprising four volumes of clippings, illustrating every essential feature of local activities during the war period.
INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 5
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
