He belongs to the American Medical Association, Illinois State Medical Society the Interstate Post Graduate Assembly, and the Carroll County Medical Society of which he is now President and has served twice in that capacity on two previous occasions.
He was married in 1900 to Miss Grace C. Dresbach, a native girl, and has four children: Dr. Donald Glen Mershon, who has obtained a medical degree from the University of Illinois, and is now practicing in Chicago as resident physician in one of the large hospitals of that city; Dorothy Mershon, who is a graduate of the Frances Shimer School and the University of Illinoss and is now teaching in the Township High School at Fairdale, Ill.; Mildred and Jeanette both in school.
He now has associated with him Dr. R. H. Petty, and they keep an office second to none in Northern Illinois, having modern, up-to-date equipment far beyond that usually found in a town of this size.
Mr. Boerner was born in Saxony, Germany, August 27, 1857, came to America in 1869, locating at Hartford, Connecticut, where he obtained his English education by attending night school. In 1882 he came west, locating in Bellevue, Iowa, later moving to Maquoketa, and then to Savanna, where he started a cigar factory, which he continued until he was elected to the clerkship. "Va1" was his own traveling salesman, and obtained a wide acquaintanceship, and was as popular as a salesman as he is as Circuit Clerk.
Mr. and Mrs. Boerner are the parents of three children: Marie, now Mrs. Jens Hansen, of Savanna; Louise, and Fred. The latter is at home and a business man here.
Valentin Boerner is one of the most genial gentlemen who ever held a public office, and "a horse for work", always having his business well in hand and up to the minute. He is accommodating, a pleasant man to do business with, and a man of ability, a beautiful penman, a real bookkeeper and a Clerk who has never been surpassed in the office.
The judges and all court attaches like him, because of his good nature, and his always being ready with the business of the court, for he knows court business from the very ground up and is prompt and efficient in every department of the work.
He owns a fine home, is quite a gardener, is esteemed and respected by all.
He was married to Mabel M. Poffenberger, of Mt. Carroll, in 1913. They have three children, Richard, Vivian, and William, at home.
He practiced medicine at Hooppole, Illinois, for 12 years, returning to Mt. Carroll in December, 1925, and associated himself with Dr. C. E. Mershon, under the firm name of Mershon & Petty, purchasing the residence and office building from Dr. Mershon.
In his school days Ray Petty was one of the most prominent and popular of athletes, being one of the best basketball players ever in the city. He has never lost his love of athletics and likes to attend games and meets of all kinds.
He stands high in his profession for he is just as good a physician as he ever was an athlete and that means something.
He is a member of the Masons and the Knights of Pythias, being Chancellor Commander in the latter order at present.
Dr. Petty is nor only an able physician and surgeon, but one of the finest gentlemen in the world socially, always genial and of a happy disposition, at lodge, on the street, or wherever you meet him and everybody is his friend as he is a friend of everybody.
Norm is a native of this city, born in West Carroll, educated in the Mt. Carroll schools, married to Miss Ida Plasch, a daughter of Dr. Plasch, a former well known physician in Mt. Carroll. They reared two children, Charles L. and Valentin, both of whom live in Mt. Carroll.
Norm as a young man learned the tinner's trade in the day when everything in the line of tinware was made by hand. He learned in the shop of the S. J. Campbell Hardware store.
Later, Norm farmed for some years, finally coming back to Mt. Carroll, where he worked for the Squires Hardware company, and when Mr. Squires sold out it was to Charles E. Smith and Norman C. Smith, and they are the firm today, successfully conducting the largest hardware store in Carroll county.
Mr. Smith is a hustler and always has been. He is one of the original hose team which won honors for the city, and for some years was treasurer of the same.
As a business man he has the confidence of the people, is always on the job, a real salesman, a man who knows the business from tinshop to the machinery department.
Mr. and Mrs. Smith live in a beautiful home on Main street, esteemed and respected by everybody, valuable assets to the city, in this year of 1930 as they have been in the past and will coninue to be in the future.
The firm of Reedy & Emmert is one of the most widely known grocery houses in the city or county. Both grew up in the business, learned it from its rudiments, therefore they know the needs and wants of their patrons and carry a stock of goods commensurate to those needs.
George L. Reedy is the senior member of the firm. He started as a clerk in the Wildey Grocery store, and worked up to head clerk and buyer for the firm. He concluded to start for himself and he and Mr. Emmert entered partnership and have been most successful all the years they have been together. They carry a large stock of always fresh goods, for their trade is enormous. Mr. Reedy and wife live on Main street in a finely appointed home. Their children are grown and have homes of their own.
Charles F. Emmert is the junior member of the firm. He, too, worked with Mr. Reedy in the Wildey store and when he and Mr. Reedy chose to start for themselves they made a full team, both experienced in the business, both enjoying the fullest confidence of the buying public and wide acquaintance with the people who make Mt. Carroll their trading point. Mr. Emmert is married, he and Mrs. Emmert living on College street in their own recently erected home, built after their own plans.
The Reedy & Emmert store is one of Mt. Carroll's most solid business industries, conducted by two of the most prominent business men in the city, both popular and highly respected in business and social circles, both ever ready to do their full share for their city and its enterprises, They are men who have been helpers in the past and will continue to be in the future. Their prices have always been the lowest which they could make, and in this way, alone they have saved the people many dollars.
She is a native of Carroll county, born, reared and having gleaned her early education here, and has made the county her home during her entire life. She received her education in the rural schools of her neighborhood, the Mt. Carroll schools, Evanston and Chicago, and after completing her education, taught in rural schools and in the Mt. Carroll schools, always giving the greatest of satisfaction.
She was elected County Superintendent of Schools eight years ago, and is now serving her second term in that office, and has, by her careful and skillful work brought Carroll county to a high grade of efficiency. So good was her work that at the April primaries of the Republican party she was renominated for the position and will be reelected in November, and under her guidance the people of Carroll county can be sure of as good schools as there are in the state.
Miss Ashby is not only a native of Carroll county, but her parents were among the pioneers of the county, and her whole being is wrapped up in the welfare of the schools of the county of her nativity.
For five years to come Carroll county can be assured of an efficient, painstaking, talented county superintendent, whose purpose ta to rtave our schools rank with those of any other county.
Mr. Hartman was born in Salem township, attended the Oakville school, one of the best rural schools in the county, worked on a farm for ten years with his father. He came to Mt. Carroll in 1922, and for three years worked for W. W. Hartman in the garage, where he learned the auto business "from the ground up".
Then he and Lyle Switzer purchased the business from W. W. Hartman. They took over the Studebaker ears. Before that time it had been a Ford garage, W. W. Hartman having built it while he had the Ford agency. Later Mr. Swirxer went to Freeport to conduct a branch of the business and in 1929 Mr. Hartman purchased the Switzer interest and is conducting the business very successfully himself.
Mr. Hartman is a fine salesman and business man in every way. He also deals in the Majestic radio and sells many of them. He employs a number of mechanics in his repair department downstairs and it is at all times a busy place. He stores many cars in the large area in the rear of his business office on the ground floor.
Everybody calls Mr. Hartman, "Coony", and he is one of the most genial of men, always pleasant with a smile, is known and respected by a very large circle of friends. "Coony" Hartman and the Studebaker Garage are "fixtures" in Mt. Carroll and are filling a valuable place in business circles.
Henry S. Wise was born h Newville, Pa. December 18, 1862. He gleaned his education in the County schools of that country. He came to Lanark January 27, 1881, and worked on a farm in Freedom township until 1883, when he went to Texas, where he remained for a year, then he returned.
He was married to Ida May Freezer March 4, 1888. They have four children: Harry, Luvia, Glen and Lloyd. Glen being in Brooklyn, N. Y., where he has lived since the war, and Lloyd is at present in California.
In 1889, Mr. Wise started to farm for himself, which occupation he followed until he was elected Sheriff in 1919, and has been in the office for twelve years, eight as sheriff and four as deputy and jailer. But he was a peace officer long before that time, having been elected constable in 1885, which position he held until he took over the sheriff's office. Sheriff Wise is one of the most attentive men to his office that Carroll county has ever had. He cares not when called to perform a duty, he does it at once and well. He is one of the most kind and sympathetic of men in the world, at that, but does not fear any man, and when asked to get a man he gets him, but after he has him he is treated as a human being.
Mr. Wise has had as years of it and is willing to retire and try that end has bought a nice home and a piat of ground on tHe north side of town where he will live after next December.
He was married to Myrtle Kinney who was born near Lanark, March 16, 1877. They were married April 12, 1906. Two sons were born to them; Samuel P. Jr., on July 6, 1907 and James K., October 29, 1909. Both sons are attending the University of Wisconsin, Philip being a Senior and James a Junior.
Dr. Colehour has been practicing medicine in Mt. Carroll since June 30, 1899, and is considered one of the leading physicians and surgeons in Carroll county. He is a member of the American Medical Association, The Illinois State Medical Soceity, The Chicago Medical Society and the Carroll COunty Medical Association.
When this country entered the World War in 1917, Dr. Colehour was one of the few doctors in the county who immediately offered his services to his country. He was commissioned a First Lieutenant in the Medical Corps and after a brief training at Fort Riley, Kansas, was sent to France with the Army. He was assigned to Mobile Hospital No.5, with which unit he remained until the close of the war. Dr. Colehour, while in France, was promoted to Captain and after his return to this country to Major and is at present Lieutenant Colonel in the Reserve Medical Corps of the Army.
The family is a credit and honor to Mt. Carroll.
Fred was born in York Township, Carroll County, in 1901. He secured his education in the Mt. Carroll schools as his parents moved here when he was a small boy. After his school days he took up the grocery business, as a clerk in the Bleakley Grocery store, where he learned and liked the business.
In 1924, the father, John Noble, purchased the grocery business that had previously been conducted by F. A. Eggenberger and Louis Coleman, in the Sipes building, and from the very first the business was a success.
August 21,1925, Mr. Noble was married to Miss Ruth Kingery, one of the popular school teachers of the county and the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. A. J. Kingery. They are the parents of a son, Ronald.
Fred Noble is one of the most congenial of men, everybody liking him for his pleasant ways, his courteousness and his business ability. He always has a smile for everybody, and whether child or adult, the patron gets the same attention. Fred is a natural born diplomat, and is far above the average in ability and business accurnen. The firm is one of the most popular in the city, and has just added to their grocery a finely equipped meat market, as Fred is never satisfied with "just getting by", but wants and is determined to give the very best he has.
They live in a fine home in North Carroll, where they entertain friends, and are among the most. highly esteemed citizens.
Bert Rogers started in the ministery at the age of 18 years, and has been pastor of churches for 29 years, serving the following churches as their minister: Assumption, Pleasant Valley Circuit, Hazel Dell, Mazon, and Mt. Carroll, all in Illinois. During the time he served as pastor he also taught school for 13 years.
He completed a four years' course in the Illinois Eldership of The Church of God, where he had the highest average any student ever held, it never having been equalled. He also attended Austin College at Eflingham, Ill., and was for four years instructor in Parlimentary Law in the Illinois Eldership, and was for several years teacher of Church History and Homiletics and Bible Manners and Customs, in the same institution. .
We have known Rev. Bert Rogers for a number of years and we have found him to be a man of honor, and a Christian. He belongs to a church in which the salary of the minister is not large enough to sustain a family the size he raised, but he was never afraid of work disgracing and has raised and educated his family in a manner becoming their station. He has done much work for the Mirror-Democrat the past ten years, in addition to his ministerial duties. He is a minister and a man.
He was married July 17, 1927, to Miss Mildred Schwarz, of Lanark. They live in their own well-equipped modern home in upper part of town west of the schools, where they entertain their friends frequently, and are most genial host and hostess.
Harold is ambitious, energetic and industrious and is always on the job at the store. He is pleasant and affable and everybody likes him. Although owned by home people their's is a Red & White Chain grocery, they believing that they can give better values and better goods in big buying, than in any other way.
He is a young man who has given business much thought and has thoroughly mastered the grocery business. He is studious, a young man of high character and ideals, esteemed and respected by all who know him, and nearly everybody in the city does know him. He does most of the delivering of the merchandise purchased at the store, is prompt, and is hailed in all homes with pleasant words.
Mt. Carroll needs such young men as Harold Noble.
He was born in Mt. Carroll September 16, 1887, attended the Mt. Carroll grades and high school.
He was married April 19, 1908, to Miss Beatrice Warren of Oregon, Illinois, and they have always made their home here. They have one daughter, Ruth Elizabeth Gifford, born April 29, 1912, who is a member of the senior class and will graduate this year. Mr. Gifford as a school boy took to athletics, became an expert baseball catcher, and in this way became known all over the county and in other counties as his services were in demand. Later he became an umpire and was known for his firmness and squareness on the diamond.
He also became an adept basketball player, one of the best we have ever had, and later a referee who was called on many times to go out of town to referee games.
Several years ago Mr. Gifford, started a taxi line and he has surely made good in this line of business, always ready, night or day, sunshine or rain to take passengers anywhere, and is one of the most careful drivers in the country, never having had an accident in all of his many thousands of miles of driving. "Barney", as he is called by his friends, the name having been given him in his baseball days and has stuck to him, is one of the best of fellows in every way, cordial, accommodating, genial to all, ever ready to do a friend a favor, he is liked, esteemed and highly respected by all who know him. He and his brother Lee make a full team in the taxi business.
Mr. Gifford is also a fine penman, and somewhat of an artist as he can draw almost anything. He is "goofy" on good cars, and his taxis are about as fine as most private cars. He takes much pride in keeping them in the best of shape for a long drive at any time. As a boy, as a baseball player, as a basketball player, as an umpire or referee, George Gifford has always been highly respected. He was a real ball player striving for victory at all times, and the same in basketball and his team always knew he was giving it the best he had. So in business he does his best at all times believing that anything worth doing at all is worth doing right. George has never lost his love for athletics and wherever there is a baseball game or a field meet he is there if possible and from his advice and coaching many a young lad has learned many things athletically. In summer he usually makes a trip or two with a party of friends in his car to Chicago to see the Cubs play ball for he is a Cubs fan. His friends look forward to these trips with a great degree of pleasure, for it is a pleasure to travel with him in his auto.
He lives on Seminary street just east of the Frances Shimer School with his family and his mother in a most comfortable home and a home where his friends always find a cordial welcome, for he and Mrs. Gifford, daughter, and his mother are most amiable host and hostesses.
Mt.Carroll has benefited by the Gifford family having lived here, for they are most respectable citizens, held in high esteem, and are always ready to help do what they can for the advancement of their home city. "Barney" Gifford is a good man for Mt. Mt. Carroll and is filling his niche as a citizen and a business man in the best possible manner.
Irvin Rush was born in Mt. Carroll, July 24, 1899, being the son of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Rush. He obtained his education in our city schools and the high school.
In 1921 he was married to Miss Wilma Robbe, a charming daughter of Mr. and Mrs. H. O. Robbe, of Savanna, they making their home in Mt. Carroll.
Irvin took to the automobile business and for three years worked in the garage of Henry Richter, then coming to what is now the Studebaker garage on Main street where he has been employed as head man on the repair work of cars of all kinds for the past ten years. If there is a car made which Irve Rush cannot fix, (if it isn't beyond the stage of repairing) it has not yet been brought to him. He is a most skillful mechanic, and one of the most popular of the younger men in Mt. Carroll. A gentleman to whom it is safe to tie, for he is honesty personified, and dependable in everything he does.
He is an active member in the Mason and K. P. lodges, and a man who has the fullest confidence and highest esteem of everybody who knows him. He is one of the most genial of men, always apparently happy. It is young men like Irve Rush who make it doubly sure that Mt. Carroll will not lag in the future, and more families like the Rush family would make Mt. Carroll still a better town.
In 1901, he started in the furniture business as clerk for Holman & Son. He took to the business like "a duck to the water", and in 1905 purchased the interest of the senior partner, Charles Holman, and the firm became Holman & Myers. He continued in the furniture and undertaking business until 1928, when he sold out, and proposed to retire. But he had been active for too many years to settle down and become inactive, so he associated himself with B. L. Peck in the Life Insurance business for the Northwestern Mutual of Milwaukee, and in this business he is succeeding, as he did in his previous work.
He was Town Clerk for 28 years, and at the April election was elected for three more years. Whatever Sherm Myers has taken up he has stuck to and made a success.
Mr. and Mrs. Myers live in a lovely modern home, on Main street, where they have everything their hearts can wish. They are highly respected, frequently entertain friends, and are among our very best people, known and highly esteemed, the city being better for their living here.
The Mt. Carroll office is doing in excess of one million dollars a year in business, and is one of the big offices of the country all of the forty towns and cities in Carroll, Jo Daviess and Ogle County being handled from here by Mr. Peck, whose agency force consists of forty men. .
In the home office are Mr. Peck, Sherm Myers, and Glenn Teeter, three busy men, men well liked and surely adapted to the business. It takes much ofMr. Peck's time driving from agency to agency looking over the business being done throughout his district.
The company is one of the best known and one of the best and most reliable life insurance companies in the United States. Their resources are unlimited, their policies are so much better than those of most companies that they are simply incomparably the best that can be written, and this, coupled with the fact that the agents are men of honor, men who are trusted, makes it easy to write insurance.
Mr. Peck has, in choosing his agents in the forty cities and towns, shown remarkable ability in reading men. He wants men who can give results and he has them in every community, and encourages them and assists them by his perfect knowledge of the company, for he needs no book, manual or textbook to tell any one just he can and cannot take, tells them what is best, and the cost thereof without referring to any figures, for he has at his tongue's end.
The company is so well known, so highly trusted and known to be of such character that nearly everybody who wants to take out insurance to protect his family, and to build up an estate, desires to carry his insurance in the Northwestern Mutual, and will have no other. There has never known to have been any trouble or delay in settling a policy when the holder passes away, and the agents are just as willing to help get the insurance money quickly as to write the policy in the first place.
Blaine Peck is a worker. He is a man who seemingly never tires in his work, and he has no stated office hours. We think he would get up at midnight to write a policy if a man desired it. He is full of pep, and has the success and interests of his company wholly at heart all the time and is a man who is tied up in his work. It is a part of him, all of his daily life, and it is this interest which has caused him to advance in the company very rapidly.
It was but a very short time after Blaine Peck came to Mt. Carroll until he took front rank in business circles and he and Ed Auman were partners in the insurance business. Mr. Peck was a hustler, and a born insurance man and it was not long before the firm was one of the best agencies the company had. Blaine was never satisfied with being a good agent, his ambition was to excel and he has gained a high round on the ladder and is regarded as one of the best and most successful insurance writers in the State, or in the United States, for the Mt. Carroll office soon stood near the head. Then Mr. Auman was transferred and this agency became the B. 1. Peck agency with Carroll, Ogle, and a part of Jo Daviess county as his territory. He has continued to advance and has medals and cups from the company showing the great work he has done. He took Glen Teeter and Sherm Myers in with him here and has taught them the business, for his time is almost entirely taken up in attending to and visiting his other agencies as he is a district agent and has agents who report to him in every town in Carroll county, many in Ogle and Jo Daviess counties. Blaine may not like this, as he does not seek much publicity of this kind, but thank goodness he is in Chicago attending an insurance convention as we write this and will not see it until in print.
Aside from his insurance business he has several large farms which he looks after, having them rented and stocked and being a partner. We don't believe he weighs more than 150 pounds, if that much, but there is more pep and vim and activity wrapped up in him than in some men who weigh a couple of hundred pounds. It is not the avoirdupois that counts, but brain matter and he has that. He is a real fellow wherever you meet him, always ready to do his part in civic matters, and a man who has many friends all over the vast territory where he has his agents, for he is a pleasant gentleman to meet anywhere and in any capacity. Mt. Carroll could use more Blaine Pecks advantageously.
Valentin Boerner - Carroll County has had a good many Circuit Clerks and Recorders, but never a more popular and efficient one than the present "Val' Boerner, who has held the office longer than any other clerk ever has.
Ray H. Petty was born near Mt. Carroll, February 18, 1888. He attended the Preston Prairie school and was graduated from that rural school in 1904. He attended Mt. Carroll high school from which he graduated in 1907. Then he attended Knox College for two years, and graduated from the University of Illinois College of Medicine in 1913.
One of the most popular business men in the city is N. C. Smith, of the Squires Hardware company.
Martha Ashby - That the women folks are not the weaker sex, physically or mentally, is being proven every day, and one of the best proofs of this fact is the successful operation of our school system under the able superintendency of Martha J. Ashby.
One of the successful men of Mt. Carroll is Conrad Hartman, proprietor of the Studebaker Garage, one of the largest garages in the county.
Henry Wise - Carroll County has had many sheriffs and peace officers, but has never had one who has outranked our present Sheriff for efficiency.
Samuel Colehour, the subject of this sketch was born November 27, 1876, on a farm two miles west of Mt. Carroll. His early education was gleaned in the Colehour rural school and the Mt. Carroll high school.
Among the young business men of Mt. Carroll there is no more popular a one than Fred Noble, of the firm of John Noble & Sons.
The subject of this sketch, B.H. Rogers, a widely known Mt. Carroll citizen, was born at Martinsville, Illinois, November 17, 1877 He was married April 24, 1897, to Lucy Jane Mundy. To this union were born ten children, six boys and four girls.
Harold Noble - Here is another of the sons of John Noble of John Noble & Sons, Grocers. Harold Noble is one of the finest young men we know. He was born November 15, I903. He came to Mt. Carroll with his parents and attended the Mt. Carroll schools, and like most presidents and big men, carried papers after school when a small boy, for the Daily Democrat. Harold graduated from the Mt. Carroll high school in 1923, and in 1924, started in the grocery business as partner with his father and brother.
The subject of this sketch, George Gifford, is one of the best known men in Mt. Carroll and probably as well known throughout the county as any other man.
Irvin Rush - In this day and age of automobiles, there are men who take to them naturally, and the subject of this sketch is one of them, a young man who knows autos as most people know their A. B. C's.
The subject of this sketch, Sherman Myers, was born in Woodland township and attended the rural school of that township, and as he says, not much of that. But he learned from experience what he did not learn in school. He was married to Lizetta Kromer in 1900. To this union two sons were born: Norval of Long Beach, California, and Cleo of Springfield, both of whom hold responsible positions.
Blaine Peck - One of the largest business enterprises of Mt. Carroll and Carroll county is that of the agency of the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, of Milwaukee, Wis., of which Blaine L. Peck is the manager. This company is approximately seventy-five years old and has done business in Carroll county for all that time. Mt. Carroll has furnished men who have been and are great factors in the company. William H. Irvine, of Chippewa Falls, Wis., who was born and raised in Mt. Carroll and who became a millionaire lumberman of Wisconsin, was a trustee of the company. Elmer S. E1lmert, Robert G. Emmert, who, like Mr. Irvine, were born in Mt. Carroll; but moved to Oklahoma, and Ed F. Auman, who made Mt. Carroll his home for a number of years, now in Fargo, N. D., were three of its ninety-one general agents in the United States, Elmer Emmert and Mr. Auman still holding these positions. Robert Emmert died while such agent.
Congressman William R. Johnson is serving his third term as a Member of the National House of Representatives. His home is at Freeport. He was educated in the Freeport public schools and the Freeport College of Commerce; elected to the Sixty-ninth Congress, receiving 49,717 votes. Re-elected to the Seventieth Congress by a majority of over three to one, and to the Seventy-first Congress by the largest vote ever cast in the district. His district is perhaps one of the best known districts in Illinois, because it is the home of the great Commander, U. S. Grant. It is one of the greatest agricultural districts in the State; its people are thrifty and aggresisve; its people take great interest in public affairs and public questions. Congressman Johnson has the confidence of these people. "Bill" Johnson, as he is best known throughout his district, and by his colleagues in the House of Representatives, deeply appreciates this loyalty and confidence. He has worked hard for his people. Every letter receives an answer and every possible request is granted. Minor matters receive as much consideration as important matters. Mr. Johnson has devoted a large part of his time to pension matters. He had more than fifty private pension bills signed by the President. Through his personal efforts Congress has passed appropriations of over half million dollars for public improvements in his district. One of his great achievements is the bill which went through Congress for the construction of a bridge across the Mississippi river at Savanna, which completes the great gateway between the East and the West, and which achievement is deeply appreciated, not only by the people of Illinois, but by all tourists traveling East and West over the great highway of Northern Illinois.
Guy Bradbury - Every town and county has its largest leading dry goods store, and in Mt. Carroll and Carroll county the Martin store is a leader. It was established in Mt. Carroll in 1890 by McAllister & Martin and for a number of years was managed by O. H. Martin, who finally established another store in Dixon, Ill., and moved there to manage it.
