Biographies
"S"
JOHN L. SAVAGE
The profession of civil engineering gives opportunity for the display
of ability, judgment, foresight and practical knowledge, and has been
the means which numerous young men can thank for their success in life.
As a civil engineer connected with irrigation work, John L. Savage came
to Idaho from his Wisconsin home, and as a permanent resident here
since 1903 he has played an important part in the wonderful development
that has been made here during the past decade. Mr. Savage is now a
citizen of Boise, where he is widely known, not only in his vocation,
but in social and business circles, and takes a deep and understanding
interest in all that affects the welfare of his adopted city.
John L. Savage was born December 25, 1879. at Evansville, Wisconsin.
His father, Edwin P. Savage, was for many years a prominent and well
known farmer of Rock county, that state, but in 1910 disposed of his
interests there on account of failing health and moved to Boise, Idaho,
where he died at the home of his son, John L., in 1911. His widow still
survives and makes her home here. Three children were born to Mr. and
Mrs. Savage: Edwin F., who is a ranchman near Nampa, Idaho: May L., now
Mrs. V. E. Winston, of Boise; and John L. After graduating from the
Evansville (Wis.1) high school, John L. Savage entered the University
of Wisconsin, and in 1903 was graduated there from having taken a
thorough course in civil engineering. His first employment was with the
United States Reclamation Bureau, and this work brought him to Idaho,
being engaged on the Minidoka, Payette, Boise, and other Idaho
projects.
Mr. Savage had every opportunity to study conditions, and became so
impressed with the prospects here that he not only settled permanently
in the state himself but persuaded all the members of his family to
come here. After completing his work upon the Minidoka project, he came
to Boise and assumed the duties of designing engineer under D. W. Ross,
supervising engineer, in which position he remained for some years. In
1908 he associated himself with A. J. Wile, one of Idaho's leading
consulting engineers, and this business association has continued to
the present time, with mutual benefit and undoubted success. These
engineers have been retained on some of the largest and most important
pieces of work in the state. Civil engineering demands, perhaps, a more
thorough technical knowledge of more subjects than almost any other
line of endeavor which a man may follow, but its rewards are
commensurate with its difficulties, and Mr. Savage is devoted to his
calling, finding in it much to interest him.
He is the owner of ranch lands near Nampa, which are under a high state
of cultivation and are producing large, money-making crops. He has also
invested in business property in Nampa, and is the owner of a modern
residence in Boise. With a firm belief in the future greatness of
Idaho, he has not failed to grasp every opportunity to boost the
interests of the state. In political matters Mr. Savage is a
Republican, but politics have played only a small part in his career,
which has been principally devoted to his distinguished calling. With
the other members of his family, he is an attendant of the Unitarian
church.
Source: HISTORY OF IDAHO VOLUME II; BY HIRAM T. FRENCH, M. S.; Publ. 1914
Transcribed and submitted to Genealogy Trails by Andrea Stawski Pack
WILLIAM H. SAVIDGE
William H. Savidge, has been a leader in the political life of Boise
for some years and a prominent attorney since he first cast his lot
with Idaho in 1887. His early legal experience was received in Kearney,
Nebraska, where he spent four years in practice after his graduation,
but since that time he has been a resident of Boise, and his interests
have in a great measure been identical with those of the city of his
adoption.
Born in Clinton County, Ohio, on June 12, 1854, William H. Savidge is
the son of Rev. Charles H. and Julia (Moyers) Savidge, both of whom are
now deceased. The father was a native of New Jersey and he settled in
Ohio in 1830, and for forty years he gave himself to the ministry of
the Methodist church in that state and in Minnesota, whither he removed
in 1858. He died in 1911 at the advanced age of eighty-four years. The
mother having been called by death three weeks previous to his passing,
when she was eighty-three. They were the parents of a goodly family of
twelve children, of whom William H. was the fifth born.
As boy and youth William H. Savidge attended the public schools of the
town of Carver in Minnesota, and following his graduation from the high
school was privileged to enter the State University of Minnesota, where
he completed a six year course, received the degree of B. S. upon his
graduation in 1881. He then entered the University of Michigan at Ann
Arbor where he completed a course in the law school, and in 1883
received his LL. B. degree. His first independent experience as a
practicing lawyer was gained in Kearney, Nebraska, and he remained in
that city for four years, when he was appointed general attorney of the
Union Pacific Railway for the state of Idaho.
There upon he located in Pocatello, Idaho, and for four years continued
in that position. At the end of that time Mr. Savidge removed to Boise
and engaged in general practice, and this city has represented the
scene of his principal legal activities since that time. He has been
prominent in the public life of the city and has borne his full share
of the civic responsibilities at all times, in every way demonstrating
his excellent standard of citizenship and his fitness for leadership in
his com, inanity. In 1890 Mr. Savidge was a member of the
constitutional convention, and has on numerous occasions been called
upon to serve in important capacities of a-public nature. At the
present time he is referee in bankruptcy for the southern division of
the Idaho district. Mr. Savidge is a Republican and has always been an
active and forceful factor in the political life of his district,
especially of his party.
Mr. Savidge is a member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity, in Theta Theta
Chapter of Ann Arbor, and is identified with the Masonic Order, being a
member of the Knights Templar, of which he is past eminent commander of
Idaho. He is a Methodist, the faith of his parents and the church in
which he was reared.
On June 27, 1883, Mr. Savidge was united in marriage in Minneapolis,
Minnesota, to Miss Emily Hough, a native of Connecticut. She is a
member of the Columbian Club and has been city clerk for the past seven
years. Two sons have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Savidge,—Paul, born in
December, 1884, and Leigh, born in March, 1886. The family residence is
at 1302 North Nineteenth street, and Mr. Savidge maintains his office
at 318-19 McCarty block.
[HISTORY OF IDAHO VOLUME
II; BY HIRAM T. FRENCH, M. S.; Publ. 1914; Transcribed and submitted to
Genealogy Trails by Andrea Stawski Pack.]
HON. BENJAMIN P. SHAWHAN
The health-giving climate of Idaho has made the state famed throughout
the country and has attracted travelers from the East for many years.
In 1896, finding his health impaired, Benjamin P. Shawhan came from New
York to Idaho, and has here found not only health, but position and
happiness. Probably no section is more widely known than Plymouth
Colony, founded by Mr. Shawhan with Dr. Edward Everett Hale and William
E. Smythe, but this is only one of the great enterprises' with which he
has been connected, while in the meantime he has risen to high places
within the gift of the people. Mr. Shawhan was born January 21, 1862,
at Sigourney, Keokuk county, Iowa, and is a son of Joseph H. and Mary
A. (Jackson) Shawhan.
His father, for many years a prominent business man of Sigourney, came
to Idaho in 1895, and here at once took rank as one of the foremost
horticulturists in the state, being the owner of the finest orchards in
the Payette valley, Canyon county, known as Hopehurst. He was a member
of the State Horticultural Society, and was its president at the time
of his death, which occurred suddenly April 26, 1911. His widow, who
was a daughter of William Jackson, an early Ohio pioneer, survives him
and makes her home at Payette. They were the parents of six children,
as follows: Benjamin P.; Rev. Henry H, pastor of a Presbyterian church
at Kansas City, Kansas; William J., who retired from business; Dr. G.
E., a leading physician of Boise; Gertrude, who became the wife of
Henry J. Sommercamp and now resides at Weiser, Idaho; and Bessie, who
married Thomas E. Jones, of Payette.
Benjamin P. Shawhan was sixteen years of age when he completed his high
school course, following which he spent one year in the Morgan Park
Military Academy. He then commenced the study of law with Woodin &
McJunkin, a well-known legal firm of Sigourney, and after one year
there entered Beloit (Wis.) College. His next location was in Clay
county, Kansas, where he was in partnership with his father in the
buggy and implement business for one year, and was one of the
organizers of the Peoples National Bank. In 1887 he went to Garden
City, Kansas, to accept the position of cashier of the Bank of Garden
City, and in 1889 bought the controlling interest in the First National
Bank of Garden City, of which he became president. He was married
during that same year and went to New York with his bride, there
becoming secretary and treasurer of the Equitable Mortgage Company.
Mr. Shawhan remained in New York until April. 1892. His health began to
fail about this time, and he left New York and came to Idaho, settling
in Payette, where he engaged in irrigation projects, building the
system of the Payette Valley Irrigation Company, now known as the
Co-operative Irrigation Company. After seeing it upon a sound basis
sold his interests therein and turned his attention to agricultural
pursuits in the Payette valley, where he is the holder of valuable
lands. In 1895, in company with Dr. Edward Elliott Hale and Rev.
William E. Smythe, he founded Plymouth Colony on a unique plan,
specifying in the deeds sold to colonists that no intoxicants could be
sold, the land reverting to the company on failure to comply with this
specification. This has proved a very prosperous and successful
enterprise; land purchased at twenty dollars an acre afterwards sold as
high as eight hundred dollars an acre. In May, 1911, Mr. Shawhan took
charge of the Cary Act Department, and continued in this capacity until
March, 1913 when he resigned to act as receiver for the King Hill
Irrigation System.
In 1889 Mr. Shawhan was married to Miss Eva O. Pickering, daughter of
Ulysses Pickering, a pioneer of Indiana, and to this union there have
been born two children: Helen, aged thirteen years; and Frederick, who
is six years old. The family is prominent in church and social circles.
In political matters Mr. Shawhan is a Republican. In 1908 he was
elected to the state senate, and in 1910 was reelected, having the
honor of being the only man to be re-elected to that body from his
county.
[HISTORY OF IDAHO VOLUME
II; BY HIRAM T. FRENCH, M. S.; Publ. 1914; Transcribed and submitted to
Genealogy Trails by Andrea Stawski Pack.]
MARSHALL C. SIMONSON
Junior member of
the firm of Atkinson & Simonson, who control a substantial business
as manufacturers' agents, with headquarters in the city of Boise, Mr.
Simonson holds prestige as one of the representative business men of
the younger generation in the capital city, where he has secure vantage
place in popular confidence and esteem. He was born in Marion County,
Illinois, on October 17. 1882, and is a son of John M. and Bessie
(Johnston) Simonson. John M. Simonson died March 7, 1908 in that
county. Mrs. Simonson lives in Harford, California. Mr. Simonson gained
his early education in the public schools of Salem, the judicial center
of his native county, and later prosecuted higher studies in Washington
University, in the city of St. Louis, Missouri, where he completed a
course that properly fitted him for the profession of civil engineer.
He came to Boise, Idaho, in 1903, and in this state he successfully
engaged in the work of his profession, to which he continued to devote
his attention for several years. From 1908 to 1912 he held the office
of deputy city clerk of Boise, and since that time he has given his
undivided attention to the affairs of the firm of Atkinson &
Simonson of which he is the junior member, and which is upbuilding a
substantial business as representative of various leading
manufacturers, especially in the line of building material.
In 1910 Mr. Simonson was united in marriage with Miss Louise Lemp, the
daughter of the late John Lemp, a pioneer of pioneers in Idaho, and one
to whom a special memorial tribute is dedicated elsewhere in this
publication, so that further review of the family history is not
demanded at this point. To Mr. and Mrs. Simonson was born a son,
Marshall Lemp Simonson, on October 6, 1912.
[HISTORY OF IDAHO VOLUME
II; BY HIRAM T. FRENCH, M. S.; Publ. 1914; Transcribed and submitted to
Genealogy Trails by Andrea Stawski Pack.]
 SAMUEL THADDEUS N. SMITH
The life histories of Idaho's pioneer citizens read like the pages of
some thrilling work of fiction. Crowded with romance, alive with
exciting experiences, replete with the adventures which were a part of
every-day existence during the infancy of the great commonwealth, they
form a record of civilization's triumph over primitive conditions and
should be chronicled in such form that the generations to follow will
know how much they owe to the sturdy, self-sacrificing, courageous men
and women who cheerfully faced the hardships and privations of a
strange and untried country and through their labors developed one of
the most prosperous sections of the great northwest. A chapter in this
work could alone be devoted to the career of Samuel Thaddeus N. Smith,
familiarly known as "Thad" Smith, than whose rise from the humble
position of stableman to that of one of the leading business citizens
of the great city of Boise, there has been no more notable instance of
perseverance, pluck and final achievement among the men of his day.
Samuel T. N. Smith was born November 21, 1842, at Meddybemps,
Washington county, Maine, and on attaining his majority started on a
trip overland to California, where he arrived in November, 1863. For
nearly two years he was employed in a livery stable there, but in
October, 1865, made removal to Silver City, Idaho, and was engaged in
horse herding at Pyramid Lake. On November 6th following, he secured
work at grading for the Cosmos Company, at Silver City, Idaho, for
which concern he worked until 1868, in the meantime so carefully saving
his earnings that he accumulated enough to invest in a ranch in
Pleasant Valley, now a branch of the Jordan Valley. Mr. Smith followed
ranching there until 1871, in which year he made a trip to his old
home, and in November was married there to Miss Eliza D. Edgecomb.
Shortly thereafter he returned to his ranch, but in September, 1874,
sold it to John Catlero, and again located in Silver City, where he
purchased the established drug business of Charles Leonard, an
enterprise which he conducted with gratifying success until November,
1899, when it was sold to M. Oberdorfer. Mr. Smith was appointed
postmaster of Silver City in 1888, but resigned in favor of his
successor in the drug business. In 1889 Mr. Smith turned his attention
to the hotel business, buying the Idaho Hotel of Mr. Tim Regan, and
conducting this popular hostelry until 1898. In 1892 he was nominated
and elected to fill the office of county treasurer and was reelected,
but in 1896 refused to allow his name to be considered for renomination.
The first Mrs. Smith died July 25, 1875, in Silver City, and March 21,
1877, Mr. Smith was married to Mrs. M E. Wilson, who was born in
Virginia, daughter of Horace and Elizabeth (Dobbs) Cunningham, the
former a native of Virginia and the latter of Pennsylvania. Mrs. Smith
was the only daughter in a family of six children, her five brothers
being all deceased. One of them, E. M. Cunningham, served in the Union
army throughout the Civil war, in Company D, Sixty-eighth Regiment
Illinois Volunteers, and was seriously wounded in battle. Mrs. Smith
crossed the plains in a wagon to Idaho in 1868, with her first husband.
On disposing of his interests in Silver City, Mr. Smith spent about one
and one-half years in extensive travel, and in 1900 came to Boise and
bought one of the finest residences in the city, situated at No. 605
Warm Springs avenue, where he and Mrs. Smith are spending their
declining years. He has large property interests in the city, being a
one-third owner of the Overland building, one of the largest office and
store blocks in Boise, vice-president of the Overland Company,
half-owner in the Lepley Group of gold and silver mines situated at
Delemah, Owyhee county, among the best and largest dividend payers in
Idaho, and a large stockholder in the Idaho Savings Bank, the Falk
Mercantile Company of Boise, and the Yates building, one of the
principal bank and office structures of the city. During the years 1904
and 1905, Mr. Smith served as City Councilman.
The history of Mr. Smith's life has been commensurate with that of the
state. At all times ready to prove the courage of his convictions he
has made the most of his opportunities, but his successive advancements
have at no period been a matter of chance. The quickness to discern,
the courage to grasp and the ability to perform, all combined with an
unswerving integrity—these are the qualities which in his case have
spelled success. Now, in the evening of life, surrounded by hosts of
admiring friends, he can look back over a long and useful career,
content in the knowledge that it is unmarred by stain or blemish and
that his laurels have been fairly earned.
[HISTORY OF IDAHO VOLUME
II; BY HIRAM T. FRENCH, M. S.; Publ. 1914; Transcribed and submitted to
Genealogy Trails by Andrea Stawski Pack.]
EDWARD STEIN
The life of Mr. Edward Stein, who is acknowledged one of the best
financiers of the west and who ranks high among Boise citizens for his
business honor and integrity, covers associations and incident so
replete with adventure as to read almost like a romance. Of his
distinguished Prussian family, of his adventurous immigration and of
the varied fortunes of his fifty-nine years,—sixteen of which have been
spent in Boise—we shall speak in such detail as the exigencies of this
publication permit.
The paternal grandfather of Edward Stein was none other than that
celebrated general, Baron von Stein, who, in 1812, figured so
prominently as the commander-in-chief of the Prussian army and whose
clever tactics so disconcerted Napoleon as to result in the freeing of
Prussia from the French domination.
It was Baron von Stein's son, William von Stein, who shared his
father's patriotism in such a degree that, as a boy of twelve years, he
accompanied the general as a drummer boy in the events of the
Franco-Prussian war. William von Stein moved to Poland , in 1830—at the
time when Poland was divided. In addition to his responsibilities as
the proprietor of large landed estates, he became conspicuously active
in efforts that were being made by Carl Schurz and others to bring
about a Democratic status for Germany. The failure of the plan resulted
in the imprisonment of William von Stein and others who were similarly
conspicuous as revolutionists. Herr von Stein spent eighteen months in
a military prison at Fort Granadenz, his liberation finally being
accomplished through the assistance of the brilliant and indomitable
Carl Schurz. The death of the old king and the amnesty proclamation
issued by his successor made William von Stein again a citizen. But the
seeds of Republicanism had taken deep root in him and his title to the
German nobility had lost all charm for him. Renouncing it, he became
one of the people, with no bondage of favor from or to the reigning
house of Germany.
With such a grandfather as Baron von Stein and such a father as William
von Stein, it was only a logical result that Edward Stein should
develop characteristics both of courageous energy and of that broad
sympathy for his fellow-man which finds its truest expression in such a
land as ours. But Edward Stein was well prepared indeed for the type of
civilization which he has adopted as his own.
Born at Schubina, Poland, on January 17, 1854, to William von Stein and
his wife Caroline Buchholtz von Stein, the boy Edward was early
influenced by his father's Democratic theories. He studied the ideals
of government expounded by Mazzini. Jefferson and Paine, who continue
to be, to a marked degree, his masters of national political theory
today. In languages and mathematics the son of William von Stein was
liberally educated, even in the preparatory stages. He became a fluent
reader and speaker of no less than five languages— Polish, German,
Russian, French and Latin. His tutor—a German minister—prepared him for
entrance to the University of Bromberg, located at Bromberg, the
capital of Prussia. Here Edward Stein remained until 1871, at which
time he was graduated. This being about the time of the close of the
Franco-Prussian war, the young man's father advised him to consider his
period both of study and of European residence at an end. He knew there
must be a more congenial atmosphere in the country of which Herr Schurz
had spoken and written so much. So Edward Stein was supplied with
money, was provided with passage on the steamer Weiland from Hamburg to
New York and was soon on his way to the land where he should make a
place and a fortune for himself.
His first adventure was not long delayed. Young Stein had embarked
without the usual passport, which could hardly have been secured
because of the fact that he had reached the age at which the German
army service would have claimed him. As his father did not intend—nor
did he— that he should become one of the Imperial army, he had set sail
for America without attempting to secure the passport. It was not long,
however, before be was asked to produce the required papers. After a
dramatically effective, if farcical, search for the passports, the
young man was accused with having brought none and was informed that a
telegram from officials had conveyed such fact to the ship's
authorities. Edward Stein once more plunged his hand into a pocket. He
brought forth an envelope which he handed to the ship's officer, who
examined the contents and shouted to his superior officer, "I find the
papers of Mr. Stein all correct." They seemed to answer the purposed—in
that they spared the young immigrant further trouble. The envelope he
had handed to the officer contained nothing more nor less than the four
hundred marks his father had given him in parting.
Thanks to that officer's susceptibility to the temptations of graft,
Edward Stein's financial resources were very slight when he landed on
the shores of the United States. But, full of curiosity as well as of
energy, he determined to see something of the country before beginning
his definite career. His means were soon so diminished that when he
reached Chicago, he had reached a state in which hunger and cold were
the chief sensations of which he was conscious. Having pawned his
overcoat and having spent the previous night in a coal box, he was
somewhat surprised to be accosted, on the streets of Chicago, by a man
who thrust a revolver before his face and ordered him to throw up his
hands. Mr. Stein obligingly did so. The condition of his pockets and
his confession that he had not eaten for several days so impressed the
crook that he took the young man to a restaurant, saw him fed and
refreshed and then showed him to a place where he could obtain work as
a Polish-German interpreter. This was a brick yard at Park Ridge—now a
part of Chicago—and in the position he secured there through the
kindness of a thief, Edward Stein did his first work as an American
resident.
His first position was a brief one, interrupted by an inconvenient
attack of ague. From there he went to Stevens Point, Wisconsin, where
he worked in the railway shops and learned the car-building vocation.
In 1876 he completed his experimental work in that line and left the
shops a full-fledged railway car builder. The experience had been a
valuable one in many ways, being stimulating as well as practically
educative. One of the exciting incidents of the period was an adventure
that occurred in connection with his engineering work as one of the
grading force. On a messenger trip through one of the great forests of
the region, Mr. Stein suddenly found himself surrounded by a pack of
wolves. The natural and only thing for him to do was to climb the
nearest tree. His weary wait in that uncomfortable point of safety
lasted until a member of his railroad crew approached with a gun and
frightened away the bloodthirsty wolves. Another of Mr. Stein's vivid
memories of that epoch of his life is of a long illness in which he was
so generously and graciously cared for by Gavin Campbell, the noble
Scotchman who was superintendent of the Wisconsin Central at the time.
The year that marked the conclusion of Edward Stein's initiatory
car-building, was also an important year in that he was called home to
his native country. He instantly took steps to answer in person the
cablegram saying that his father was dangerously ill and wished to see
him. He went directly to Philadelphia, from where he was to take
passage and while waiting for his boat heard the address of President
Grant with which the Centennial Exposition was opened.
By the time he had reached the parental home, Mr. Stein found that his
father, William von Stein, had only a few hours before been committed
to burial. An inheritance, not great, but quite acceptable, had been
left to Edward Stein from his father's estate. Before returning to his
adopted land he set forth on a tour of Europe, visiting the principal
cities and closely observing the conditions of agricultural property.
Returning to the United States, Mr. Stein has been led, by his
interests and abilities in many lines, to follow various successive
lines of activity, always with a degree of success, though with varying
results because of his adventurous spirit. His visits to Europe was
followed by immediate removal of vocational activities to the Black
Hills. There he engaged in both the mercantile and the hotel business,
together with mining operations. He made a fortune through his
business, but lost it gallantly in the fortunes of mining. During his
residence in that section he again gathered enough unusual experiences
to fill a book. One of the dramatic incidents of the time and place was
the death of Buffalo Bill, of whose shooting by McCall, Mr. Stein was a
witness. He was also a spectator of the hanging of McCall and
subsequently of the exhumed body of the hero of the plains and the wild
west. In regard to the latter, Mr. Stein noted the phenomenon so widely
remarked—the fact that the body was, because of the chemical .action of
elements of the soil, in a state of complete petrification.
Leaving the Black Hills, Mr. Stein again found a profitable railroad
connection, this time with the Denver and Rio Grande. The train of
events which followed this engagement led Mr. Stein to Gunnison,
Colorado, where the happiest sentimental episode of his life occurred.
For there it was that, although his financial affairs were at the time
at a low ebb, he met and wooed and married Miss Rachel Louder of
Gunnison. His courtship and his entrance upon his family life were
characterized by that same adventurous spirit which through all of Mr.
Stein's earlier life marked him as a veritable soldier of fortune. His
first home was built by his own hands for himself and his bride and no
baronial castle of his ancestors was ever lighted with more happiness
and pride than was that little cottage.
Like that of most men of brilliant ability and intrinsic character, the
uniformly steady success of Mr. Stein seemed assured after his
marriage. He was soon promoted to the foremanship of the railroad shops
at Grand Junction, Colorado. In 1884 he accepted a position requiring
his residence at Eagle Rock, now Idaho Falls, and later was made
inspector of air brakes on the Oregon Short Line, his headquarters
being at Pocatello, Idaho. From that position he passed to the
superintendency of car service, having charge of that department of the
Idaho Northern and Oregon Short Line Railways.
The young Idaho city of Pocatello thus became Mr. Stein's home for a
number of years. Mrs. Stein joined him there, after disposing of their
property at Grand Junction. The Stein family naturally became a leading
influence in the town and in 1892 Mr. Stein was honored by being made
the first mayor of Pocatello. Resigning that position, which had been
the gift of the Democratic party, Mr. Stein passed into extensive real
estate dealings in that place, continuing with ever increasing success
as long as he remained there.
From Pocatello, his interests in Idaho property broadened until they
reached out to the neighborhood adjacent to Boise. He bought a section
of land near Nampa, which town he assisted in organizing. In 1897 he
came to Boise, which he has made his permanent home and where he has
ever since been successfully engaged in the real estate business. He is
the Boise pioneer in laying out subdivisions, of which he has managed a
large number with great skill and financial success. Among his
properties a conspicuous one is the Palentine Hotel on Twelfth and
Idaho streets, and his home is one of the handsomest in the city. He is
the president of the Edward Stein Company and of the Stein's Suburban
Syndicate, besides being a stock-holder in the Idaho National Bank of
Boise. Through his own ability he has attained a social prestige worthy
of his noble lineage, his popularity being attested by the numerous
fraternal organizations which have ever been eager for his membership
and which have accorded him high honors. In the Masonic order he is a
member of the York and Scottish Rite bodies, being treasurer of the
latter and in the organizations of Mason to which he belongs he has
passed the thirty second degree. He is also a member of the order of
the Woodmen of the World, of the Turn Verein and of the Boise
Commercial Club.
Edward Stein is the head of a family which does him credit. It was
founded, as mentioned above, when Miss Rachel Louder became his wife,
on July 5, 1883. Her ancestry is Scotch on the maternal side and
English on the paternal, her father, Phineas Louder, having been a
descendant of that line of the Louder family which had become a part of
the pioneer population of Iowa. The Louder-Stein marriage has been
blessed by two sons, named respectively Howard and Allen. Mr. Howard
Stein is a graduate of the University of Idaho, of the class of 1911.
He and his young wife, nee Alida Wanneck, are residents of Boise, where
Howard Stein is associated with his father in the real estate and loan
business. Allen T. Stein is a student in Leland Stanford Jr.
University, in which institution he is a member of the class of 1912.
Mr. Stein is a member of the Democratic party. He is not a man of
narrow views, having sympathy for all political organizations the
purpose of which is the broader brotherhood. He is a member of the
Unitarian church of Boise and it is said of him that a multitude of
silent charities are dispensed by his generous hand. One of Boise's
most intellectual citizens, Mr. Stein's breadth touches mind as well as
character. Now and then some hint of the imperious temperament of his
aristocratic ancestry flashes across the personality of Edward Stein.
But the American toiler and business man that he is, shows something
finer than the baron that he might have been. The untrammeled freedom
of the individual, knowing no trammels but those of worthy ideals and
of a law based upon equality of manhood —this is what he has sought and
found among us. And much more has he given than received. His
uprightness is of a practical sort, even as his affection is of what
might be called the more utilitarian type. This last quality is best
explained by quoting in full the "Creed" of Mr. Stein, with which his
friends are familiar; and those who know him best will agree that it
sounds the key-note of the exquisitely human side of his character.
This paragraph, which voices his social belief as to the expression of
love, runs as follows:
My Creed:
Do not keep the alabaster boxes of your love and tenderness sealed up
until your friends are dead. Fill their lives with sweetness. Speak
approving, cheering words while their cars can hear them, and while
their hearts can be made happier by them; the kind things you mean to
say when they are gone, say before they go. The flowers you mean to
send for their coffins, send to brighten and sweeten their homes before
they leave them. If my friends have alabaster boxes laid away, full of
fragrant perfumes of sympathy and affection which they mean to break
over my dead body, I would rather they would bring them out in my weary
and troubled hours, and open them, that I may be refreshed and cheered
by them while I need them. I would rather have a plain coffin without a
flower, a funeral without a eulogy, than life without the sweetness of
love and sympathy. Let us learn to anoint our friends beforehand for
their burial. Post-mortem kindness does not cheer the troubled spirit.
Flowers on the coffin cast no fragrance backward over his weary way.
Such faith in the value of affection and appreciation expressed does
the life of Edward Stein bear forth. His own life is deservedly crowned
with the blossoms he so values, yet his ways are followed by that
silent though no less sincere honor which is ever a large proportion of
the tribute due the man who lives nobly and well and whose finest
principles are demonstrated in his daily life. Edward Stein's friends
look to his continued useful activity through many more years of his
eventful life.
[HISTORY OF IDAHO VOLUME
II; BY HIRAM T. FRENCH, M. S.; Publ. 1914; Transcribed and submitted to
Genealogy Trails by Andrea Stawski Pack.]
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