The identification of the ‘Joint Geology-Botany Field Class’ photograph is based on more than the Ariel mentioning Professor Appleby took a photograph of that excursion. The field trips of the late 19th century were typically for the senior class so Josephine Tilden’s presence in the image suggests it was the class of 1895’s senior class trip. That was easily confirmed by comparing photos of class members from the 1895 Gopher yearbook with other individuals present. An autumn 1894 date is even attested to by who was not present. By 1894, Sardeson had become Hall’s go-to assistant and the only field trip that he had not accompanied Hall was the previous year when he jumped off the train on its way out of Minneapolis to retrieve Hall’s niece. However, in July of 1894 Sardeson left for a year to complete his Ph.D. at the University of Frieberg in Germany, returning the following fall. Consequently, his absence from the photograph helps corroborate its 1894 date.
But one question remained, namely where was the image taken?
Botany versus Geology
Although an 1894 Ariel article mentioned Appleby photographing the group at the station, the background outcrop in the photograph looks like a quarry wall. And since the group had visited a quarry shortly before returning to the station, it seemed uncertain where the photograph was taken. Consequently, Du Anne (my spouse) and I visited Osceola to see if we could find its locale. When we arrived, we were initially disappointed to see no rock exposures near the station and thought we might be following a false trail. However, it turned out that as a geologist I had grossly underestimated botany.
Osceola Train Station in 2008 (image from Wikipedia)
Site of 1894 Osceola Group Photo behind Train Station in 2025
Even though many of the people in the 1894 photograph clutched large bundles of flora, their depredations obviously had no lasting effect on the region’s flora. Over the intervening one hundred and thirty years, botany had triumphed over geology, burying or hiding the rock exposures beneath or behind a verdant veneer. When we crawled through, there were indeed rocks behind the trees and brush, the same height as in the photograph and with a scree slope that would allow the group to form their pyramid-shaped cluster. The Ariel had correctly identified the Osceola train stations as the site of the photograph.
Epilogue & Participants
Befitting its eclectic gathering, the 1894 excursion was covered not only by the Ariel, but in multiple short articles in The Minneapolis Journal and Minneapolis Daily Times. Those in the Ariel included tales of fish theft by professors and identified some trip participants.
Link to Newspaper and Ariel Articles on 1894 Osceola Field Trip
Considering how stylishly the group was attired, it is tempting to think they knew a photograph would be taken and dressed for the occasion. However, another photo taken at Taylor Falls a brief time later undercuts that contention and demonstrates there was a significant decline in field couture between our late 19th century St. Croix Valley field trips and those I led a century later. Hall did indeed wear a three-piece suit with watchchain into the field, which was one more way I failed to match his field trips…
Taylor Falls Field Trip - most likely in 1894 shortly after the Osceola Trip
Although often referred to as a senior class trip, younger students also attended, as there were only thirty-three seniors in the class of 1895’s scientific section. Of the four mining engineering students mentioned by name in an Ariel article, only one was a senior. Two were juniors and the last one was a sophomore. Although not named in any of the articles, junior Alexander Newton Winchell, the State Geologist’s son, kneels in the front row facing MacMillan. Other juniors from the scientific section were present, including the woman who attained the university’s highest grade up to that time. Her scholastic record would remain unbroken for years.
As things turned out, it was fortunate that many of the juniors attended the 1894 excursion, as it appears the Osceola trip did not take place the following year. Although the November 2nd, 1895, Ariel mentioned the possibility of another excursion, that trip was dependent upon the geology department securing a reduction in fare similar to the fifty-cents-round-trip-fare paid by the 1894 participants. However, that attempt apparently fell through as the only mention of an 1895 geology class trip involved Berkey taking a dozen students to Saint Paul to investigate rocks along the railway.
While the Osceola excursion returned in 1896, it was a more subdued affair with only forty students from botany, geology, mineralogy, and zoology, led by MacMillan.
Link to Ariel Articles on 1896 Field Trip
William Remsen Appleby in office (from 1897 Gopher) and in 1933 (UMN Archives)
Whos’ who
The 1894 photograph shows sixty-three people. Professor Appleby, who took the image, was present though obviously not shown, as timed exposures remained decades away. News articles state ninety to a hundred people were on the trip. If those reports were accurate, the photograph did not capture all excursion participants. However, exaggeration was a time-honored tradition of late nineteenth century newspapers, so it is equally plausible that everyone who attended was in the photograph or taking it.
Faculty & Instructors
The photograph captured a ‘who’s who’ of the university’s late 19th century natural sciences staff. Four professors are in the photograph while another was behind the lens. Hall from geology, MacMillan from botany, Lee from entomology, and Clark from English showed up, the latter primarily to fish. But it is the younger cadre of instructors and assistants, who comprise over a sixth of the crowd, that makes the image an overlooked gem. Everyone who taught botany, geology, mineralogy, and mining engineering was present. Out of Pillsbury Hall’s intellectual community, only the zoology corps was incomplete. In the coming years, one instructor present would co-lead the American Museum of Natural History’s Mongolian Expeditions that found dinosaur nests and the largest known fossil land mammal. Another became the nation’s expert on desert botany, while a third established a University of Minnesota research station on Vancouver Island. And yet another would become the inventor of puffed rice…
Students
As might be expected of an 1890s college trip, most student participants were privileged and came from wealthy families. Others though, were of modest or even hardscrabble means. While all identified students came from the science or mining engineering sections, they included athletes, authors, musicians and singers. Several would go on to teach in universities and schools, one even in China. Others worked in American and Mexican mines while one died of wounds inflicted on a French battlefield. The first death among the students shown occurred just after my grandparents were born, the last was during my sophomore year in college.
To date, twenty-eight other students from the scientific section have been identified with differing degrees of confidence. For most, the only confirming portraits came from 1895 and 1896 Gopher yearbooks, some of which were poorly reproduced. A few were also pictured in contemporary newspapers, but some identifications are tenuous. If anyone can identify individuals or confirm errors were made, do not hesitate to reach out.
Identified 1894 Osceola Field Trip Participants shown in grey, still unknown in beige.
Professors
William Remsen Appleby
Professor of Mining and Metallurgy (not pictured as he was the photographer).
Appleby was born in Hoboken, New Jersey on February 11, 1865. He graduated from Williams College in Massachusetts and subsequently attended the Columbia School of Mines before working as superintendent of the New York Ore Milling and Testing Works. Appleby came to the University of Minnesota in 1890 as its first professor of mining. One of Appleby’s first four students was Peter Christianson, who at the time of the Osceola photograph had become the Instructor in Assaying. As the department added staff, Appleby became the Dean of Mines and Metallurgy from 1897 until his retirement in 1935. Appleby’s most lasting contribution to the university may be that he was the first to get permission to teach Monday classes. Previously Monday classes were not allowed as they might cause students to study on Sundays. Appleby convinced the regents that lab courses would not lead students to violate the Sabbath and subsequently began the tradition of Monday classes. The 1903 School of Mines Building, home of the School of Mines and Metallurgy and later of Pharmacy and General College, was renamed Appleby Hall in 1942, a year after his death on April 8, 1941. [return to list]
3. Conway Young MacMillan
Professor of Botany and Botanist of the Geological and Natural History Survey.
MacMillan was born in Hillsdale, Michigan on August 26, 1867. He graduated from the University of Nebraska where his father taught Greek and then studied at John Hopkins University and Harvard before coming to the University of Minnesota in 1888. MacMillan was both the professor of Botany and the Botanist for the Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota, so he had close ties with the Geology Department and lived with Hall when he first came to the U. MacMillan was the mentor of Josephine Elizabeth Tilden and he later resigned from the university in protest when the university cut support for Tilden’s ‘Minnesota Seaside Station’ on Vancouver Island. MacMillan died June 5, 1929. He was 27 when the Osceola photograph was taken. [return to list]
14. Thomas George Lee
Professor of Histology, Embryology, Bacteriology and Clinical Microscopy (and Entomologist of the Geological and Natural History Survey).
Lee was born November 7, 1860, in Jacksonville, New York. He earned a bachelor’s degree in medicine from Pennsylvania in 1886 where he also served as Assistant in Histology and Embryology. He was a lecturer in the same field at Yale from 1886 to 1891. In 1892 Lee came to the University of Minnesota as Professor of Histology and Embryology and later was the Professor of Anatomy and the Director of the Institute of Anatomy until 1913. Lee also planned and oversaw the construction of Wesbrook Hall. However, Lee also collaborated closely with Henry Francis Nachtrieb, professor of biology, including work at the Gull Lake Station in 1893 with MacMillan, Tilden, and Ballard - along with Oestlund and Anderson who stand on either side of him in the Osceola photograph. Lee died on August 30, 1932, in Florida as the result of an automobile accident. [return to list]
24. Christopher Webber Hall
Professor of Geology and Mineralogy; Assistant Curator of the Museum, and Dean of the College of Engineering, Metallurgy, and the Mechanic Arts.
Hall was born in Wardsboro, Vermont on February 28, 1845. He paid his own way into Middlebury College where he specialized in botany by teaching penmanship. He graduated in 1871 and earned his master’s in 1874 from the same institution. After a year as principal of Glens Falls Academy in New York, Hall moved to Minnesota and taught in Mankato and Owatonna until 1875 when he married and moved to Leipzig, Germany to study geology. In April 1878, Hall joined the University of Minnesota as instructor in geology. His hire was intended to free Winchell from teaching so he could focus solely on the state survey. Within two years, Hall became the professor of geology, mineralogy, and biology. He continued in that position until 1890 after which he was the professor of geology and mineralogy until 1911. Hall was the Dean of the College of Mining, Metallurgy and Mechanical Arts from 1892 to 1897 and was also assistant geologist of the United States Geological Survey from 1883 onwards. In late 1908, Hall attended the Pan-American Congress in Santiago, Chile where he contracted anemia and died two years later in his home on May 11, 1911. [return to list]
57. John Sinclair Clark
Professor of the Latin Language and Literature.
Clark was born in February of 1849 in Nova Scotia and immigrated to Minnesota in 1869. In 1874, while still a student at the university, Clark became the first library assistant under the supervision of William Watts Folwell. He continued in that position until 1876 when he became the university’s Instructor in Latin. Clark became an assistant professor in 1880 and professor in 1886. Clark retired in 1913. Although it might seem unlikely a professor of Latin would participate in a senior class geology trip, Clark was a friend of Newton Horace Winchell, the university’s Professor of Geology, Curator of the General Museum and the State Geologist heading the Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota. Clark attended the wedding of Winchell’s daughter Avis and Ulysses S. Grant in 1891. Clark died in Duluth on September 5, 1913. [return to list]
Instructors and University Scholars
4. Arthur Hugo Elftman
University Scholar in Geology (1894-96).
Elftman was born on March 28, 1872, near Prescott, Wisconsin. He graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1892. Unlike almost every other Minnesota student in the Osceola photograph, Elftman was in the university’s Literary section, rather than its scientific section. However, Elftman went on to earn his masters in geology in 1893 and his Ph.D. in 1896. Elftman spent much of his career as a mining engineer working in Minnesota (in Grand Marais and Minneapolis). He moved to Alameda, California before 1922 and to Oakland in 1939, where he continued to work as a consulting engineer and mineralogist. Elftman died in Oakland on May 16, 1951. [return to list]
6. Charles Peter Berkey
Instructor in Mineralogy (1893-96).
Berkey was born on March 25, 1867, in Goshen, Indiana. He graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1892 and continued on to earn his master’s in 1893, and Ph.D. in 1897. Berkey taught at Minnesota until 1903 when he moved to Columbia University where he became a professor in 1914 and made many advances in applied petrology. For more than twenty-five years, Berkey was also a consulting geologist for the City of New York on water supply issues and worked with other large cities including Boston and Los Angeles. Berkey worked on the geological surveys of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and New York and was the chief geologist for the Central Asiatic expeditions of the American Museum of Natural History led by Roy Chapman Andrews to explore the Gobi Desert of Mongolia in 1922 and 1925. These were the expeditions that made dinosaur nests and eggs famous and found the largest known fossil land mammal. Berkey died on August 22, 1955, and was buried in Wilmington, Delaware. [return to list]
9. Josephine Elizabeth Tilden
Assistant on Botanical Survey (1893-94) and University Scholar in Botany (1895-96).
Tilden was born on March 24, 1869, in Davenport, Iowa but grew up in Minneapolis. She began working with MacMillan when MacMillan dropped a stray campus cat he had found on her classroom desk. Tilden was a senior when the Osceola photograph was taken but had already completed two years of botany field experience and she had published her first botanical paper before coming to the university. In 1895, she became a University Scholar in Botany and in 1903 the first woman hired as a science professor at the University of Minnesota. Tilden, with MacMillan’s support and with her own funds, built the Minnesota Seaside Station on Vancouver Island from 1901 to 1907. In 1907, the regents became concerned about supporting a research station in a foreign country and cut their support in favor of creating the Lake Itasca Forestry and Biological Station in northern Minnesota. Although MacMillan resigned in protest, Tilden continued at the university until 1937 when she moved to Polk County, Florida, where she died on May 15, 1957. [return to list]
15. William Dodge Frost
University Scholar in Botany (1893-94).
Frost was born near Lake City, Minnesota on September 13, 1867. He graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1893 and earned his master’s in 1894. He then went on to complete his Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin where he continued on as professor. Most of his career was as a bacteriologist and after 1914 he focused on the cause and prevention of infectious diseases, particularly those caused by animal-human interactions. In his retirement, he became the president of the Wisconsin Anti-Tuberculosis Association and managed a tuberculosis sanitarium near Madison. Dodge died on January 25, 1957. [return to list]
16. Francis Ramaley
University Scholar in Botany and Pharmacognosy (1894-95) and Instructor in Botany, Department of Medicine (1895-98).
Francis Ramaley was born on November 16, 1870, in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1895 and continued on to earn his master’s degree in 1896 and Ph.D. in 1899. He then moved to the University of Colorado as a professor of biology where he spent the rest of his life. From 1900 until his retirement in 1939 Ramaley was the head of the biology department there. Although his main focus remained on plant ecology, Ramaley also taught zoology, animal histology, embryology and even a hygiene course. He was active in scientific societies, the Boulder school board, and held many administrative positions at the university. Ramaley died on June 10, 1942. [return to list]
17. Alexander Pierce Anderson
University Scholar in Botany (1893-94), Assistant on Botanical Survey (1893-94) and Assistant Professor of Botany (1898-1900)
Anderson was born on November 23, 1862, in Featherstone Township, Minnesota and grew up near to Red Wing. After high school Anderson began as a farmer but at the age of 27 joined the University of Minnesota, graduating in 1894. During his senior year, Anderson invented a ‘self-registering balance’ that was bought by Bausch & Lomb Optical Company. He earned his master’s degree in plant physiology in 1895 and then moved to Munich, Germany to complete a Ph.D. Anderson then taught at Clemson Agricultural College in South Carolina until 1898 when he returned to Minnesota as an assistant professor in biology. In 1901 Anderson became the curator of the Herbarium at Columbia University and did research at the New York Botanical Garden. It was there that his tendencies to experimentation led to the discovery of a process to produce puffed rice which he later sensationalized at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair leading to a profitable decades-long partnership with the Quaker Oats Company. In 1915, Alexander returned to the Red Wing area where he built a farm laboratory. Anderson died on May 7, 1943. [return to list]
33. Frank Melville Manson
Instructor in Animal Biology (1894-98)
Manson was born on April 10, 1871, in Pine Bend, near Hastings, Minnesota, where his father was a physician. The family moved to Shakopee until 1886 when they relocated to Minneapolis. From 1887 to 1890, Manson attended the Minneapolis Academy, a three-year preparatory school accredited with the University. One of his classmates was Avis Winchell, the sister of Alexander Newton Winchell, a fellow Osceola trip participant. Manson graduated from the university in 1894 and finished his master’s the following year before entering medical school and graduating with a doctorate in medicine in 1899. The next year, Manson married Ida Louise Husted at Shasta Retreat, California. Husted had been one of Manson’s undergraduate classmates. The couple then moved to Worthington, Minnesota, initially to help his brother-in-law deal with a smallpox epidemic but then established a practice there. The couple would have two sons, who both followed their father’s path, becoming medical practitioners. During World War I, Manson served at Camp Dodge, Iowa and received special recognition for his work during the influenza epidemic. In 1933, Manson became a fellow of the American College of Surgeons. Manson died on June 10, 1960, in Worthington and was buried next to Ida in Lakewood Cemetery, Minneapolis. [return to list]
41. Caswell Aden Ballard
University Scholar in Botany (1893-94) and Assistant on Botanical Survey (1893-94).
Ballard was born on June 10, 1867, in Zumbrota, Minnesota although he spent much of his childhood in Indiana until his family returned to Zumbrota. Ballard graduated from Zumbrota High School in 1889, taught science at Fergus Falls High School during the 1891-92 academic year, and graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1894 as a University Scholar in botany. From 1894 to 1899, Ballard was the superintendent of city schools in Fergus Falls, but in 1899 he became a science instructor at the Moorhead State Normal School and served on the Moorhead city council as well. Although primarily a botanist and biologist, Ballard was also a member of the Seismological Society of America. Ballard retired in 1937 and moved to Iowa but a Moorhead University dormitory, built in 1849, was named in his honor. Ballard Hall was the oldest dormitory on campus when it was torn down in July 2025. Ballard died on June 2, 1949, in Cedar Falls, Iowa. [return to list]
48. Edmund Perry Sheldon
Assistant on Botanical Survey (1893-96) and Instructor in Botany (1894-95).
Sheldon was born August 9, 1869, in Bowling Green, Missouri and attended Baptist College in Louisiana, Missouri. From 1883 to 1885 Sheldon was at Barnston Academy in Quebec, Canada and in 1886, he enrolled at the Northwestern College of Commerce in Minneapolis. Two years later he entered the University of Minnesota’s Agricultural College. After his first year, Sheldon switched to the scientific section and became an assistant in the botany department. He graduated from the university in 1894 and became an instructor in botany. He worked on both the botanical survey of Minnesota and in the university herbarium. In 1896 Sheldon abruptly gave up botany to pursue his father’s career of law and moved to Portland, Oregon, much to the regret of Conway MacMillian and President Northop. He did not abandon botany entirely though as in 1904 he was in charge of Portland’s forestry exhibit for the Saint Louis World’s Fair and in 1905 became the president of the Oregon State Academy of Sciences. Sheldon died sometime between 1914 and 1917, which is when his widow returned to Minneapolis. [return to list]
54. Oscar Wilhelm Oestlund
Assistant in Animal Biology (1893-96) and Entomologist on the Zoological Survey (1893-96).
Oestlund was born on September 27, 1857, in West Lafayette, Indiana. He worked as a schoolteacher in Illinois and later as a clerk before coming to Minnesota as a student and an assistant to Professor Porter on the experimental farm. Oestlund graduated in 1885 and became the entomologist for the Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota. He stayed in that position until 1890. The impetus for his position originated in the grasshopper plagues of the mid-1870s. For much of his time in the survey, Oestlund and Newton Horace Winchell were the survey’s only salaried staff. In 1890, Oestlund became an instructor in Animal Biology and by 1905 was an assistant professor in Animal Biology. Oestlund would spend his career at the university until his retirement in 1926. Oestlund died on April 16, 1948, in Minneapolis. [return to list]
56. Peter Christianson
Instructor in Mining Engineering (1893-96).
Christianson was born in Denmark in 1864 and came to Minnesota with his parents at age seven. He graduated from high school in 1890 and served an apprenticeship as a land examiner. After becoming interested in the opening of iron mining in northern Minnesota, Christianson returned to the university to earn his Bachelor of Mining Engineering in 1894. Christianson was in the first four-person mining class taught by Appleby and the two would spend their forty-one-year careers together at the University of Minnesota. Christianson started as an instructor in assaying and later became professor of metallurgy. In 1900, he lived next to Newton Horace Winchell, boarding with a widow, whose home happens to have been the current location of our Earth and Environmental Sciences’ central office. Christianson and Appleby both retired at the end of the 1935 academic year. Christianson died on May 17, 1945, in Los Angeles but was buried in Minneapolis. [return to list]
58. Daniel Trembly MacDougal
Instructor in Botany (1893-95), Assistant Professor of Botany (1895-96).
MacDougal was born on March 16, 1865, in Liberty, Indiana. He graduated from De Pauw University in 1890 and earned his master’s from Purdue University in 1891. He spent his summers studying the botany of Arizona and Idaho as an assistant to the United States Department of Agriculture. In 1893, while still working on his Ph.D., MacDougal came to the University of Minnesota as an instructor in plant physiology. He became an assistant professor of botany in 1895. MacDougal took a leave of absence from 1895 to 1896 to study at Tubingen and Leipzig in Europe before returning to Minnesota. In 1897, he was finally awarded his Ph.D. from Purdue, the first doctorate issued by that institution. In 1899, MacDougal left Minnesota to become the assistant director of the New York Botanical Garden. In 1903, MacDougal became the director of the newly founded Carnegie Institution’s Plant Desert Laboratory near Tuscan, Arizona, and in 1909 he established the Coastal Laboratory at Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. MacDougal became a leading expert in desert botany and may have been one of the earliest botanists to research chlorophyll. MacDougal died on February 22, 1958, in California. [return to list]
Students
1. Arthur Meider Murfin (Class of 1895) – Educator, Publisher, & Politician
Murfin was born on February 8, 1874, in Sleepy Eye, Minnesota but his family moved to Osborne, Kansas when he was a few years old and later to Lidgerwood, North Dakota. After graduating from the university, Murfin returned to Sleepy Eye where his family was again but came to Minneapolis before 1905. Murfin taught at East High School in Minneapolis. In 1911 Murfin moved to Sunnyside, Washington, and married Blanche Adella Hawes. Four years later Murfin founded and for over twenty-five years published The Sunnyside Times. He was a state senator for Yakima County from 1935-1941. Interestingly, concerning his apparent fondness for knives in 1894, Murfin was chair of the state board of prison terms and paroles from 1941 to 1945. Murfin died on February 18, 1956, in Olympia, Washington. [return to list]
2. Alexander Newton Winchell (Class of 1896) – Geologist & Professor
Winchell was born on March 2, 1874, the fourth of six children of State Geologist Newton Horace Winchell and Charlotte Sophia Winchell. Like his older brother Horace, Alexander followed his father’s geological path. Winchell was the only man to fall in the top eleven students of the class of 1896, but he fell in fourth place, well below Elizabeth Sophia Beach, the class’s valedictorian, and fellow Osceola trip participant. Winchell earned his bachelor’s degree in 1896 and his masters in 1897 working under Charles Peter Berkey. Winchell then studied in Paris with Alfred Lacroix, receiving his doctorate in 1900. Winchell returned to the United States, initially teaching at the Montana School of Mines before moving to the University of Wisconsin in 1907, where he would spend the rest of his career. Winchell also consulted for the United States Geological Survey. Winchell died on June 7, 1958, and was buried in the Winchell plot in Lakewood Cemetery next to his parents. [return to list]
5. John Milton Davies (Class of 1896) – Real Estate
Davies was born on January 14, 1866, in Cambria, Minnesota, the third oldest of eleven children of John Samuel Davies and Mary S. Jones. His father was Welsh farmer who immigrated in 1850 and was in Blue Earth County, Minnesota, by 1860. At the University of Minnesota, Davies joined the scientific section but was active in singing quartets as a tenor and would continue to participate in public performances into his late forties. After graduating from the university, Davies married Amy Adeline Lyon in 1905, and they moved to Wayzata in 1898 where Davies worked in real estate and was vice-president of the American Real Estate Investment Loan Company. The couple had three daughters but one died at the age of fourteen. Davies died on August 17, 1942, in Wayzata, Minnesota where he was buried. [return to list]
7. Frederick (Fritz) Hamilton Curtiss (Class of 1897) – Business
Curtiss was one of the four named engineering students who attended the 1894 Osceola trip. He was the only sophomore participant identified so far. Curtiss was born in September of 1874 in Michigan, the youngest of four sons of Charles Carroll Curtiss and Maggie E. Hamilton of New York. His father established Curtiss Commercial College, a business school, in Minneapolis the same year Curtiss was born and added a Saint Paul branch in 1879. In 1880, the family lived at 255 Nicollet Avenue. After graduating from the university, Curtiss lived with his parents and worked as a reporter for R. G. Dun & Co., one of the first successful commercial credit reporting agencies in the United States. Curtiss then worked for the Twin City Telephone Company. In December 1904 Curtiss moved to Kansas City where he was employed by the Home Telephone Company. Unexpectedly, Curtiss died of appendicitis on January 29, 1905. [return to list]
8. Jessie Eliza Stevens (Class of 1896) – Activist
Stevens was born in Dallas, Texas, on September 7, 1874. She graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1896, ranked as the 25th in her class and she earned honors in pedagogy. Stevens was one of eight orators at the university’s 1896 24th commencement. Her topic was ‘Natural Science in Elementary and Secondary Schools.’ In 1902, Stevens won the Minneapolis Daily Times award for the best essay on good roads. Previously, the award had only been won by male University of Minnesota engineering students. Stevens stressed the importance of county roads in rural areas and proposed a new course in road design and construction for county schools. In 1905, Stevens married civil engineer Harvey Martin Hickok, a graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Stevens was the president of the College Women’s Club in 1916 and represented the group at their 1917 national convention in Washington D.C. In 1930, as chair of the Minnesota Federation of Women’s Clubs, Hickok pushed for $360,000 in state funding for a psychopathic hospital at the University of Minnesota. Sometime prior to 1940, the Hickok’s moved to Sierra Madre, California. Stevens died in Los Angeles, California on July 4, 1964, at age 89, and was buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. [return to list]
10. Jonina Rose Peterson (Class of 1895) and 20. Joan Thorunn Peterson (Class of 1895)
Their individual identifications might be in error as Jonina and Joan were twins born on November 18, 1873. Although Jonina’s obituary would claim she was born in Sweden, both the 1880 U. S. Census and 1885 Minnesota census list their birthplace as Iceland. The family emigrated to Minnesota in 1876 and in May of 1885 were living in Eidsvold, Minnesota. Shortly after the 1885 census, the family moved to Minneapolis and the twins attended Marcy School. Although their parents moved to Newark, South Dakota, the twins joined the University of Minnesota in 1889 as members of the university’s last sub-freshman class and graduated from its scientific section in 1895. The 1895 Gopher describes Rose as the ‘little sister’ which might refer to their birth order. The Gopher praised both sisters for their scientific acumen but noted that it is hard to tell which will win Carl Oscar Alexius Olson, another 1894 Osceola trip participant.
Jonina actually married Dr. Frank E. Moody (1870-1932) on June 26, 1897. She and Moody had met at the university where Moody was in the dental school’s class of 1896. However, less than two years after their marriage, Jonina died on May 6, 1899, after struggling with pneumonia for two weeks. She had one son and was buried in Lakewood Cemetery, Minneapolis.
At the time of Jonina’s death, Joan was principal of Redwood Falls High School. Although both sisters were members of the Y. W. C. A., Choral Union, Nachtrieb Club, and Class Day Committee while at the university, Joan was also in the Tennis Association and was the Gopher editor. In October 1903, Joan married Bjorn B. Gislason, another Icelandic immigrant who was a lawyer and real estate dealer and active in the Minnesota Democratic party. Gislason, a Spanish American War veteran, graduated from the university in 1900. In 1918, he was that party’s candidate for Minnesota Attorney General. The couple had four children and lived in Minneota, Lyon County, Minnesota. Gislason died on September 1, 1929, after which Joan and her two youngest sons lived in Minneapolis. Joan died on April 13, 1948, in New Ulm, and was buried next to her husband in Minneota. [return to list]
11. Elizabeth (Lizzie) May Fisher (Class of 1895) – Educator
Fisher was born in Brooklyn, Minnesota on October 30, 1873. Her father, William, a Civil War veteran, originally ran a steamboat between Minneapolis and Monticello but then opened a restaurant and later the Waverly Hotel on Harmon and 11th where the family lived. Fisher’s older brothers became musicians and actors. Fisher graduated from Central High School and then attended the University of Minnesota after which she worked as a teacher at the Mankato Normal School. Her geological experience at Osceola may have been prophetic though, as she married Franklin Louis Barker of Homer, New York, in June 1900 at the Waverly Hotel. The couple moved to Boulder, Colorado where Barker attended the Colorado School of Mines and later became Professor of Mining and Metallurgy at Oregon State University. In July of 1915, Fisher moved to Tianjin, China to teach at the Chinese Government Schools while her husband was the Professor of Mining at Pei Yang University. Pei Yang University is the former name of Tianjin University, founded in 1895. Fisher returned in July 1920 shortly after the death of her husband from hemorrhagic smallpox. She then lived in Los Angeles, California with her widowed mother. Fisher died on March 4, 1963, in Pasadena, California and was buried by her parents in Minneapolis’ Lakewood Cemetery. [return to list]
12. Elizabeth ‘Lizzie’ Louise Kohler (Class of 1895) – Educator
Kohler was born on January 24, 1870, in Hastings, Minnesota, the youngest of seven siblings born to Jacob and Mary, immigrants from Luxemburg Germany. Her father died shortly after her birth, so by the age of ten Kohler was living with one of her older sisters’ family. In 1885 ‘Lizzie’ was living with another sister and her family in Minneapolis which may have led to her later attending the university. Kohler graduated from Hastings High School in 1891, one of an eleven-person graduating class. After leaving the University of Minnesota in 1895, Kohler returned to Hastings but taught in Springfield, Minnesota for a few years and attended teaching conventions in Los Angeles, California. She eventually ended up teaching Normal school and German at the Hastings High School where she had been a student. In 1908, Kohler married Arthur H. Wright, a farmer, who was ten years younger, and they had one child. The family lived in Allegan, Michigan where Arthur farmed and Kohler taught in the county school. Kohler outlived her husband and died on January 16, 1951, in Allegan, Michigan. [return to list]
13. Bertha Laura MacMillan (Class of 1894) – Educator & Artist
MacMillan was born in Hillsdale, Michigan on October 6, 1870, the younger sister of Conway Young MacMillan, university professor of botany. Although she was not pictured in their Gopher yearbook, MacMillan was part of the University of Minnesota’s class of 1894 and later served as class historian. At the time of the Osceola photograph, MacMillan was no longer a student but accompanied her brother on the trip, possibly to gain experience or samples for her own career. Shortly after the 1894 Osceola trip, MacMillan left to study art in New York. With her father and brother both being college instructors, it is not surprising that MacMillan sought a career in teaching. After returning from New York, she taught art at North Side High School and East High School. Sometime after 1935 and before 1940, MacMillan moved to Florida to teach and lived next door to Josephine Tilden in Hesperides, Polk County, Florida. In 1952 MacMillan moved to Orlando, Florida where she died on March 6, 1955. [return to list]
18. Lila Wood Espy (Class of 1895)
Espy was born on June 23, 1873, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania where her father was a wealthy lawyer. Shortly before 1880, her family relocated to Saint Paul, eventually living on Summit Avenue close to the present Minnesota Historical Society. After graduating from the university in 1895, Espy lived at home. According to census records, she assisted with housekeeping, but her tasks were undoubtedly lessened by the family’s hired servants. Her family’s wealth also allowed Espy to visit the 1901 Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. On November 1, 1905, Espy married Harrison Train Yeaton of Cambridge, Massachusetts. The couple later moved to Chicago where Yeaton was a railroad freight agent and then managed a steamship line. Espy died on May 30, 1942, and was buried in Oakland Cemetery in Saint Paul by her parents. [return to list]
19. Mabel Hickman Thomas (Class of 1895) – Educator & Activist
Thomas was born on September 6, 1872, in Mankato, Minnesota. Her mother died before she was seven, but her father was a lawyer who provided an education for his daughters. After graduation, Thomas taught school at New Ulm until 1899 when she returned to the university to earn a Master of Science in 1900. Hers was the only Master of Science awarded that year. Thomas taught at Winona High School until 1903 when she transferred to Minneapolis’ East Side High School. In 1910, she transferred to West Side High School where she would remain for the rest of her teaching career. In 1920, Thomas presided over a meeting of Minneapolis’ high school teachers in which they demand an increase in salary of $500. Her political activism was not limited to teaching as she was also among the West High School teachers who in 1923 petitioned the court to consider lesser charges for a student accused of murder. In 1924, Thomas was part of the first cohort of nine teachers to receive sabbatical leaves of absence from the Minneapolis public schools for professional development. She and Helen Elizabeth Blaisdell, another 1894 field trip participant, attended Columbia University’s Teachers College in New York. Thomas died in 1962 and was buried in Mankato next to her sister who died the previous year. [return to list]
22. Helen Elizabeth Blaisdell (Class of 1896) – Educator
Blaisdell was born March 18, 1876. Her father was a wounded Civil War veteran from New Hampshire who worked as a canvasser. The family had moved to Minneapolis in 1873. Blaisdell graduated from East High School in 1892 and gave a commencement address along with classmate and later Osceola trip participant Alexander Newton Winchell. After graduating from the university, Blaisdell started a life-long teaching career in Minneapolis high schools. In 1900, she lived with her widowed, retired father and two sisters. Although the family took in three teachers as boarders, they also had two servants so were not destitute. In 1914, Blaisdell’s older sister Abbie Jean, was married to a French metallurgist, Augustin Leon Jean Queneau. Abbie and her six children, including a few months-old newborn, were trapped in the siege of Liege at the outbreak of WWI. Sarah Lillian, Blaisdell’s oldest sister, was in Europe trying to reach her when the two fell out of communication. Minneapolis papers carried multiple stories of Helen’s efforts to contact her sisters. Fortunately, both sisters and Jean’s children survived but Queneau may not have. In 1901, Blaisdell taught at East High with Arthur Murfin and Bertha MacMillan, both Osceola trip participants. Later she taught at West and North High Schools and oversaw the student newspapers. Blaisdell died on October 3, 1974, at age 98, in Minneapolis and was buried in Lakewood Cemetery. Her gravestone also carries the name of her eldest sister, Lillian, who was buried in France. [return to list]
23. possibly Thomas Moffet Hughes (Class of 1896) – Mining Engineer
Hughes was the only one of the four engineering students identified as going on the trip whose photograph was not in the 1896 Gopher, so his identification was initially based on the rock hammer he held. However, his features appear similar to a childhood photograph of Hughes and a 1918 passport photo confirms his identity. Hughes was born on August 20, 1873, in Hudson, Wisconsin, the elder of two sons of Thomas Hughes and Mary Isabella Moffat. His father was born in Liverpool, England and emigrated to the United States around 1868. Hughes graduated from Wayland Academy in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin in 1892 and then attended the University of Minnesota. After graduating in 1896, he worked as a mining engineer in Ely, Minnesota. In October of 1901, Hughes registered with the consulate in Guadalajara, Mexico as a mining engineer. Fifteen years later, he was back in Mexico, this time at Tampico as a lumber merchant, having resided ‘on and off’ in Mexico since 1901, while maintaining a residence in Hudson. In January 1913 Hughes married Julia Brink of Edwardsville, Missouri, an opera singer. They were married in Corpus Christi, Texas as Hughes was living in Tampico at the time. Hughes died on July 17, 1918, in Tampico, Mexico of peritonitis and his body was returned for burial in Hudson, Wisconsin. [return to list]
27. Anna Henshaw Holbrook (Class of 1895) – Educator & Ministry
Holbrook was born on December 18, 1871, in East Greenwich, Rhode Island. She graduated from Central High School in 1891 and came to the university where she combined science section courses with performances in drama clubs and an active sorority life. After graduating from the university, Holbrook initially spent her winters on the East Coast but in 1900, she taught at South High School and at Douglas in 1901. The Holbrooks’ ties to the East Coast led to frequent visits and Holbrook and her older sister Emily would both marry East Coast clergymen. Holbrook married English-born Rev. William Grainger, a Harvard graduate. The couple married in 1906 and moved to Susquehanna, Pennsylvania. From 1909 to 1915 they served in Canton, Massachusetts and then from 1915 to 1921 in Quincy Massachusetts. Along the way Holbrook had four children. Grainger’s last twenty-year assignment was Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church in East Greenwich, which happened to be Holbrook’s church when she was young. Consequently, when Holbrook died on March 22, 1963, she was buried next to her husband in the Holbrook family plot in Saint Lukes’ Episcopal Churchyard. [return to list]
28. Victor Goodrich Pickett (Class of 1896) – Educator & Milling
Pickett was born on June 20, 1874, in Bancroft, Minnesota. His parents were farmers from New York, and his only sibling was sixteen years older than Pickett. Pickett’s parents played a significant role in the founding of Albert Lea. After graduating from the university in 1896, Pickett moved to Waseca, where he was a ‘professor of school.’ Pickett married Zada Adella McMillan in July 1898 in Albert Lea, but she died five years later. Only a month after her death, Pickett married Margaret E. Cadwell Marshall with which he had two children. Pickett worked with the Everett-Aughenbaugh Milling Company Milling Company in Waseca for ten years, starting as sales manager and eventually as mill manager. In 1930, he moved back to Minneapolis and joined the research and teaching staff of the University of Minnesota’s school of business administration until his retirement in 1942. Pickett died on April 4, 1950, in Des Moines, Iowa where he had moved several months earlier. [return to list]
30. Eleanor (Ella) Veronica Holtz (Class of 1896) – Educator
Holtz was born on September 30, 1874, the daughter of German immigrants. Her father farmed in Minnetonka but later moved to Minneapolis. Throughout her life, Holtz performed before audiences, sometimes piano recitals but primarily recitations, which was all the more remarkable as her native language was German. After graduating from the university with honors in archaeology, Holtz taught English literature, chemistry, and German at area high schools, as well as directing senior class plays and other performances. In 1904 she added fencing instructor to her accomplishments. In August of 1910, while vacationing in Hot Springs, South Dakota, Holtz met and abruptly married a widowed Minnesota classmate, Dr. Roy McMillan Wheeler, who had a son. Wheeler was a mining engineering student who assisted Winchell on the geological survey, although he was not mentioned among the four who attended the 1894 Osceola trip. Wheeler graduated from Northwestern Medical College in 1900 and practiced in Chicago before moving to Hot Springs after his wife’s death. Considering her history of breaking barriers, it is interesting that in 1916 Holtz became local vice president for the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage. The couple moved to Sycamore, Illinois in 1924 where Wheeler, in ill health for a long time, committed suicide by automobile carbon monoxide poisoning on May 19, 1935. Although Holtz continued to live in Illinois, she remained close to her Minneapolis sisters and returned there after 1950. Holtz died on April 28, 1965, in Minneapolis and was buried in Holtz family plot in Lakewood Cemetery, Minneapolis. [return to list]
32. Carl Oscar Alexius Olson (Class of 1895) – Lawyer & Politician
Olson was born in Sweden on April 5, 1872, and came to American with his widowed mother in 1874. Initially they settled on a farm near Waconia, Minnesota. His mother remarried another Swedish immigrant, John Swanson and the family moved to Minneapolis in 1880. In 1891, Olson graduated from North High School as part of its first four-year senior class. He won the prize for oration, which boded well for his eventual career as a lawyer. However, Olson joined the scientific section when he attended the university and was also the first lieutenant of its cadet corps. After getting his B. A. in 1896, Olson continued on at the university, earning a master’s and LL. D in 1897. Olson then completed post-graduate study in political science and economics. From 1899 to 1901, he served in the state legislature and was a member of the Minneapolis Charter Commission from 1903 to 1907. In his law practice, he mostly worked in real estate law and probate court practice, for many years with David P. Jones & Co. but advertised on his own in the city’s Swedish newspapers. Olson lived with his mother until her deaths and never married. Olson died on April 6, 1929, and was buried next to his mother in Minneapolis’ Crystal Lake Cemetery. [return to list]
40. Maynard Cyrus Perkins (Class of 1896) – Real Estate
Perkins was born on July 31, 1874, in Winona, Minnesota, one of six children of Cyrus Maynard Perkins, a railroad clerk, and Anne Paine Fairfield. Within a few years of his birth the family moved to Redwing and after his father’s death in 1891 to Minneapolis. Perkins graduated from Central High School in 1892 and earned a bachelor’s in science from the university in 1896 and was a lifelong member of Phi Delta Theta fraternity. Following graduation, Perkins moved to New York, attended New York Law School, and then worked as a real estate accountant in Hempstead, Long Island, and Manhattan. In 1901 Perkins was one of the founding members of the university’s Eastern Section Alumni Association. In 1911, Perkins married Laura Virginia Brooks. In 1936, the Perkins retired to Salmon Falls, Maine. Perkins died on February 13, 1970, in Biddeford, Maine. [return to list]
43. Robert Stanley Northway (Class of 1895) – Lumber & Military
Northway was born on October 12, 1871, in Minneapolis, the oldest of Winslow Page Northway’s and Mary Jane Woodworth’s four children. His parents came from New York and his father initially worked in Minneapolis as a bookkeeper before founding Wilford and Northway Manufacturing to build flour milling and other types of machinery. Northway graduated from Central High School in 1891 and entered the University of Minnesota’s mechanical engineering section before transferring to the science section and graduating in 1895. While at the university Northway was on the baseball team at the university and in 1914 was one of 118 football and baseball athletes belatedly was awarded the “M” for their athletic achievements. Northway’s only sister died in 1886 at age 12, and a brother in 1905 at age 20. Northway’s father died in 1912 and his mother in 1914. In 1910, Northway worked as a salesperson for a lumber company and on August 12, 1917, The Minneapolis Journal reported that Northway, then a local real estate agent, was among those called to service. Eager to see action, Captain Northway resigned from the Ordnance Reserve in San Antonio in March 1918 and became a corporal rifleman in Company D, 18th Battalion, Rifle Brigade of the Canadian Expeditionary Forces. He spent 16 weeks training at East Church, Isle of Sheppey, in Kent, England and on September 22, 1918, left Falkestone for France. Less than two months later, on November 12, 1918, Northway died in London’s Bethnel Green Military Hospital, from wounds received in France. He was awarded the British War and Victory medals, and his effects were given to his sole surviving brother. Northway was buried in Brookwood Military Cemetery in Surrey, England, but has a memorial cenotaph on Victory Memorial Drive at the intersection with North Upton Avenue in Minneapolis. [return to list]
44. John Stewart Dalrymple (Class of 1896) – Farmer & Grain Trader
Dalrymple was born on July 18, 1873, in Saint Paul, Minnesota, the youngest of two sons of Oliver Dalrymple and Mary E. Stewart. His father was an attorney and farmer with large acreage in Washington County who was wealthy enough his family always had at least one servant. Two years after Dalrymple’s birth, his father invested heavily in large farm tracts near Casselton, North Dakota, west of Fargo. At the university, Dalrymple was on the football team for three years. After graduation, he managed the family holdings after his father’s death in 1908. In 1913, Dalrymple married Martha Bernice Barber, a Smith College graduate, and the first of their three children was born nine months later. After World War I, Dalrymple sold much of his land and moved to Minneapolis as a grain trader, living in a stately home on Pillsbury Avenue. However, in the 1930s Dalrymple and his son bought additional land near Casselton which his son operated while Dalrymple remained in Minneapolis. Dalrymple died on April 25, 1958, in Crystal Bay, Hennepin County, then the location of many farms owned by wealthy Minneapolis citizens. [return to list]
46. Elizabeth (Bessie) Sophia Beach (Class of 1896) – Educator
Beach was born on August 26, 1873, in Faribault, Minnesota. The class of 1896 was dominated by women who captured ten of the eleven highest ranks and Beach led the pack. She was class valedictorian and earned honors in history. Beach not only achieved the highest score in the university’s history but set an academic record of 96.69% for her four years that, despite the university’s rapid growth, lasted until 1902. She was excellent in rhetoric and played a prominent role in Minnesota’s debate victory over Wisconsin in 1895. After graduation, Beach worked as an assistant at the university in history and later as an instructor until 1901. In 1901, Beach married Willis Mason West, who was sixteen years older. West was the head of the department of history at the university. The couple would eventually have eight children. Beach died on September 19, 1948, and was buried by her parents in Faribault. [return to list]
49. Harry Winslow Allen (Class of 1895) – Physician
Allen was born on July 10, 1872, in Bath, Maine, the second of three children of Dr. Galen Allen and Lucy Ann Gage. His family moved to Red Wing while Allen was a child. Allen graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1895 and continued on to earn his master’s in 1897 with fellow Osceola trip participant, Alexander Newton Winchell. Allen then graduated from the university’s medical college in 1900 and began his medical practice in Minneapolis a few years later. In 1909, Allen married Maude Mohler of Minneapolis, the daughter of a steamboat owner and the couple lived on Emerson Avenue. Maude died in 1925 and in 1930, Allen married Enid G. Brown. Allen died on December 28, 1946, in a Minneapolis hospital after a lengthy illness. He was buried in his family’s plot in Red Wing, Minnesota. [return to list]
50. Harry Morrill Guilford (Class of 1895) – Physician & Health Officer
Guilford was born on March 25, 1872, in Minneapolis, the oldest of three children of Asa Guilford and Mary Adams. Guilford graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1895 but then continued on to graduate from its medical school in 1898. Guilford married Irene Agnes Garrett on May 19, 1920, in Minneapolis and they had one son in 1923. While in Minneapolis, Allen was a physician and member of the Board of Health until 1915 when he became Minneapolis’ Commissioner of Health. He continued in that capacity until 1921 when Allen moved to Madison, Wisconsin to become Wisconsin’s State Epidemiologist until his retirement in 1948. Guilford died on December 26, 1963, in Madison, Wisconsin. His body was returned to Minneapolis and was buried in Lakewood Cemetery. [return to list]
51. Wesley Sherman Foster (Class of 1896) – Lawyer & Real Estate
Foster was born on March 3, 1872, in Elmira, Minnesota, the oldest of four children of Alonzo Foster and Sophia West. His father was a farmer who also took in boarders. After graduating from the university, Foster initially lived in Minneapolis but in 1899, he married Mary Halesia Sperry in Wasioja, Minnesota. The couple would have two daughters, although one died as a child. They lived in Milaca, Mille Lacs, Minnesota where Foster worked as a self-employed landman. During the 1920s and early 1930s, Foster and Sperry lived in Minneapolis with Foster’s widowed mother who died in 1832. During their stay in Minneapolis, Foster was a realtor and an attorney in private practice. After his mother’s death, Foster and Sperry moved back to Milaca, where he continued to work as an attorney and in real estate. Upon his retirement in 1946, Foster and his family moved to Livingston, Merced County, California, where he died on July 24, 1949. Foster was buried in Onamia, Mille Lacs County, Minnesota in the Eleanor Foster Cemetery, land Foster donated upon the death of his five-year-old daughter in 1913. [return to list]
55. Wallace North Tanner (Class of 1896) – Mining Engineer
Tanner was born on August 17, 1873, in Minneapolis. His father was a house painter who also took in boarders, so Tanner came from a family of modest means. After graduating from the university with a degree in mining engineering, he joined the drafting department of the Boston & Montana Company at Great Falls, Montana, before being transferred a year later to Butte, Montana and then in April 1897 to Anaconda. Tanner returned to Minneapolis before 1900 when he married Lilly Luty Bohland of Saint Paul, Minnesota. The couple would have four children. Tanner worked as a consulting engineer and manager of B. S. T. Concrete Block Company in Saint Paul, Minnesota but by 1902 Tanner was back as chief draftsman of the Anaconda reduction works. In 1905 he moved to Chicago and joined the engineering department of the Allis-Chalmers Company before moving again to Salt Lake City as a consulting engineer engaged in concrete manufacturing. By 1909, Tanner was back in Montana as the superintendent of Anaconda Copper Mining Company’s Foundry Department, later chief engineer of their reduction departments, and finally the company’s chief engineer. Because of failing health, Tanner was granted a leave of absence and moved to California in 1926, where he died of a stroke on Thanksgiving Day, 1927. He was buried in Glendale, Los Angeles County, California [return to list]
59. Charles Dean Wilkerson (Class of 1895) – Mining Engineer
Wilkerson was one of the four mining students specifically named as being on the Osceola trip. He was born in Detroit, Michigan on July 19, 1873, the son of Charles M. Wilkerson and Charlotte Griswold. His father was a lawyer. In 1880, he and his parents were living with Wilkerson’s uncle in Detroit. After graduating from the University of Minnesota in 1895, Wilkerson and his father moved to Montana, where in 1900 they were living in Township 8 of Jefferson County, where Wilkerson worked as a mining civil engineer. By 1910, Wilkerson was living in Goldfield, Esmeralda County, Nevada and worked as the superintendent of a gold mine. He had married Bertha B. Wilkerson but never had children. In 1918, the couple were living in Detroit, but Wilkerson was soon living with boarders in Tonopah City, Nye County, Nevada, working as a consulting engineer for the silver mines there. Bertha joined him there for a while, but by 1950, Wilkerson was living alone in Searchlight, Clark County, Nevada as a retired prospector. Wilkerson died in Las Vegas, Nevada on August 22, 1955. His death record indicates he was divorced and had been ill for some time. [return to list]
60. Hiram Earl Ross (Class of 1896) – Lumber
Ross was born on October 8, 1872, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the younger of two sons of Hiram William and Sara Ann Ross. In 1880, his family was boarding in Canton, Dakota Territory while his father worked as a lumber dealer. In 1900, Ross lived in Minneapolis, and with his brother worked in their father’s lumbering business. On April 16, 1901, Ross married Chloe Eugenia Palmer in Manhattan, New York. They would have three sons, but Palmer died in September of 1909 giving birth to their last child. By 1910, Ross was the president of the lumber company and lived with a nurse for his eight-month-old son and three servants at 2408 Humboldt Avenue South. On June 14, 1913, Ross married Lucy H. Hart, but she died eight years later. On August 2, 1921. Ross was the vice-president and treasurer of the H. W. Ross Lumber Company in 1930. Ross died on March 12, 1936, at his James Avenue home in Minneapolis and was buried in the Ross family plot in Lakewood Cemetery. [return to list]