ALBERT EDWARD PELTZ is the executive head of one of the oldest and most important wholesales corporations of the City of South Bend, where he is president of the Peltz-Kaufer Company, the business of which had its inception fully forty-five years ago. This well-ordered corporation, with operations based on ample capital and the most effective of progressive business policies, had its beginning in 1885, when J. N. Jacobson and F. A. Peterson formed a partnership and engaged solely in the manufacturing of brooms. Under these conditions the enterprise was continued until 1894, when Albert E. Peltz was admitted to the firm, whose net financial valuation at that time was $357. The new partner, Mr. Peltz, assumed the position of manager of the business, and it is to be noted significantly that at this time was laid the foundation for the large and prosperous business now conducted by the Peltz-Kaufer Company, the consistent trademark of which is "Progress." Mr. Peltz about this time formulated his vision of the local demand for a wholesale concern dealing in paper, twine, notions and sundries, and his counsel led his firm to direct its activities along these lines. The splendid success that has since attended the concern stands in evidence of his excellent prevision and mature judgment. In 1904 the partnership was dissolved and J. A. Kaufer became associated with the business, which was then incorporated under the Indiana laws and with a capital stock of $20,000. At this juncture was adopted the corporate title of Jacobson-Peterson Company, and in the same year the concern erected its large warehouse on Linden Avenue, to meet the demands of the rapidly expanding business, while a special side track was installed in connection with the present Michigan Central Railroad, to afford the requisite facilities for transportation in a direct way. In that same year likewise Mr. Peltz was elected president of the company, an office which he has since retained and in which his well ordered executive policies have been potent in expanding the business to one of major importance as touching the standing of South Bend as a wholesale distributing center. At the time Mr. Peltz was chosen president of the corporation J. N. Jacobson was chosen secretary and treasurer, which dual office he retained until shortly before his death, which occurred in 1925. Mr. Kaufer was elected vice president. With the continued growth of the business it was found expedient in 1912 to increase the capital stock to $200,000 and to reincorporate the concern, the title of Jacobson, Peterson, Peltz & Kaufer having been adopted as the new corporate title. In that same year the company gave further evidence of its progressiveness and financial stability by erecting its present fine office and warehouse building, at 209 North College Street. In November, 1928, the capital stock was increased to $350,000 and the title of the corporation was changed to its present form, the Peltz-Kaufer Company. The personal of the executive corps at the present time is as here noted: Albert E. Peltz, president; Isaac T. Peltz, vice president; and J. A. Horning, secretary and treasurer.

Mr. Peltz is able to claim the great metropolis of the West as the place of his nativity, his birth having occurred in the City of Chicago, June 26, 1863. He is a son of the late August and Augusta (Fleischer) Peltz, both of whom were born in Germany. August Peltz was reared and educated in his native land and there learned the trade of brickmaker, under the direction of his father, who had long followed that vocation in Germany. After establishing his residence in Chicago August Peltz there continued for some time his activities as a brickmaker. Just one week before the great Chicago fire of 1871 he removed with his family to Cleveland, Ohio, two years later having marked the family removal to Elliston, that state, where occurred the death of the loved wife and mother, who was survived by four children, of whom the subject of this review was the eldest. Mrs. Peltz, a woman of gentle and noble character, was a daughter of Rev. William Fleischer, who was a cabinetmaker by trade and also a clergyman of the Baptist Church. Concerning his maternal grandfather Albert E. Peltz has written as follows: "In the present time it seems somewhat strange that a cabinetmaker should be also a clergyman, but in the period of fifty or sixty years ago people frequently found it impossible to pay to ministers sufficient salaries to make proper provision for the needs of the families of these faithful workers, the result being that my grandfather worked at his trade more than seventy-five years, during a great part of which period he was foreman in a cabinet factory, the while he continued to render earnest service as a minister of the Gospel."

Albert E. Peltz gained his rudimentary education in the schools of Chicago, was a lad of eight years at the time of the family removal to Cleveland, Ohio, where he attended the Mayflower School about two years. He then accompanied his parents to Elliston, that state, and after the death of his mother he and his next older brother were placed under adoption, while the other two children, a son and a daughter, were put into an orphans home in Toledo, Ohio. The father was not so fortified financially as to be able to keep his family together and make proper provision for the children, and it was under these conditions that Albert E. Peltz was adopted by and taken into the family of John B. McKinney, of Martin, Ohio. Mr. McKinney was an Irishman and his somewhat obstreperous wife was a Yankee of termagant propensities, she having had one daughter by a previous marriage and no child by her second union. The McKinneys wanted a boy in their family circle and Mr. Peltz chanced to be the unfortunate boy selected. He at once found a job in a local stave factory, where he worked ten hours a day for a diurnal salary of fifty cents. A boy thus compelled to work at the present time could be sure that his parents or foster parents would be prosecuted for the injustice. While with the McKinney family Mr. Peltz had a plethora of hard work and was able to attend school only in three winter seasons. He was severely punished for things he did and did not do, and to save his foster sister such indignities he would take the blame for her infractions. This condition of things continued until Mr. Peltz was in his fourteenth year. On the morning of March 3, 1877, he had been severely slapped and berated by Mrs. McKinney and started forth with no breakfast. He refused to go back when Mrs. McKinney called him, and he kept on going. At the local railroad station he sat by the old heater until the arrival of the local freight train, when, hungry and disconsolate, he crawled into a box car and went to Oak Harbor, Ohio, where there was a stave factory. He had had no breakfast and his cash capital was sized up in a single penny - a coin for which he recently said he would be glad to give $100 under his present financial conditions. He found employment with a sub-contractor at the stave factory and was to receive one dollar a day. He found board and an apologetic room at the rate of three dollars a week. On the Saturday pay day it was found that the sub-contractor had "jumped" the town and left bills unpaid, including the week's wage of young Peltz, who had depended on the stipend to pay his board and provide much needed shirt and hose. In this predicament the kindly landlord of the boarding house came to his rescue, gave him two dollars to provide himself with clean shirt and hose and handkerchiefs. That night and the following Sunday tried the soul of the penniless boy, but he determined to hold fast and to try to extricate himself from his unhappy condition. Monday morning he returned to the factory and secured a job at the rate of $1.25 a day. He remained there until late in the fall, when he was offered a job at $1.50 a day back in the town of Martin, where he found quarters in the home of the boss that his foster father worked for. He saved his earnings, and after somewhat more than a year had passed he was attacked with ague. The doctor said he must leave that malarial district, and under these conditions he started to join his maternal aunt, Mrs. Lenz, a resident of Canada, she having in the meanwhile learned of his whereabouts. This sister of his mother met him at Niagara Falls and assisted him on the remainder of the journey, he having been weak and ill at the time. His uncle, Mr. Lenz, taught him the trade of broommaker and provided him with care and a good home. While thus placed this youth of eighteen years was united in marriage to a winsome lass of sixteen years, Miss Alice Bean. Shortly afterward he bought the broom shop of his uncle who had joined in the land rush to Manitoba. Mr. Peltz worked hard, made up a load of brooms and with horse and wagon made a selling trip in towns around Walkerton, Ontario. The broommaking did not prove a financial success, and in March, 1893, with his wife, Mr. Peltz left Ontario, visited Buffalo and Indianapolis, then passed a few days with his next younger brother, in Chicago, where through the Chicago Tribune he learned of a call for a broommaker in South Bend, Indiana. He secured the job, arrived in South Bend the next morning and made his way to the Jacobson & Peterson broom factory. He was not greatly impressed with the factory, in which only one other man was employed at the time. The proprietors said they closed the shop in July and worked in harvest fields. Mr. Peltz proposed the policy of making up brooms during the slack season, pushing sales for the merchant and thus preparing for the rush season. That was the year of the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago and the broom factory did not, as before, shut down for the summer, but kept busy. Mr. Peltz worked in the shop ten hours a day and in the evenings applied himself to the selling of brooms. He became convinced that here was an opportunity for a good business, and the justification of his faith has been shown in the developments of the intervening years, as noted in preceding paragraphs.

In addition to being president of the Peltz- Kaufer Company Mr. Peltz is vice president of the Washington Street State Bank and has been active in the affairs of several real-estate concerns of his home city. He is a charter member of the South Bend district organization of the Travelers Protection Association and has been prominent in the affairs of the state and national bodies of this association. As a Mason he is a Knight Templar and has received also the thirty-second degree of the Scottish Rite. He is a member of the local Rotary Club and he and his wife are members of the First Presbyterian Church. He served as team captain in the sale of Government war bonds and in support of Red Cross work in the World war period and was otherwise active in local movements of patriotic order. The beautiful home of Mr. Peltz is at 1806 Kessler Boulevard and is one of the show places of South Bend.

July 24, 1881, marked the marriage of Mr. Peltz to Miss Alice Bean, who was born in Ontario, Canada, and whose father, Isaac Bean, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he having been a pioneer in the Province of Ontario and having later removed with his family to Coldwater, Michigan. Of the eight children of Mr. and Mrs. Peltz the eldest is Gordon Edward, of Detroit, Michigan; Isaac T. is vice president and sales manager for the Peltz-Kaufer Company; Oscar C. is a progressive farmer near Bourbon, Marshall County, Indiana; Josephine is the wife of N. T. Swanson, of South Bend; Albert W. died in 1929, at the age of thirty-five years, and as the result of disorders caused by his being severely gassed while under shell fire with the Engineer Corps of the American Expeditionary Forces in the World war; Gertrude is the wife of Theodore Schubert, of South Bend; Bertha is the wife of John A. Horning, who is secretary and treasurer of the Peltz- Kaufer Company; and William Harold, who married Hazell Holler, also connected with his father's business. Mr. and Mrs. Albert E. Peltz have special pride in the fact that they have fifteen grandchildren.

Click here for photo.

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


HARRY J. LAWS, physician and surgeon, is a resident of Lafayette. He has been practicing medicine for twenty years and the only important interruption to his service was the two years he spent with the colors during the World war.

Doctor Laws was born at Crown Point, Lake County, Indiana, December 7,1883. His grandfather, John Laws, was a native of England, came to America and was a pioneer in Northwestern Indiana. About 1857 he established the first grist mill at Cedar Lake, Indiana. Ten years later he moved to Crown Point. He became a railway engineer and piloted one of the first locomotives over the Monon Railway to Louisville, Kentucky. From 1887 his home was at Hammond, Indiana, where he conducted a building material and supply business. He served four years as a Union soldier in the Civil war. The father of Doctor Laws was Edwin Laws, who was born in Lake County and for many years was active in business at Crown Point. He married Catherine Ruschli, of Crown Point, of German ancestry.

Doctor Laws, one of two children, attended the grade and high schools at Crown Point. He went east for his medical education, and was graduated in 1907 from the Bellevue Hospital Medical College of New York University. Following that he had three years of training and experience as an interne in the New York City Hospital. Returning to Crown Point, he practiced medicine there from September, 1901, until June, 1912, when he moved to Lafayette. His offices are in the Lafayette Life Building. Doctor Laws in 1928 was elected president of the Tippecanoe County Medical Society and is a member of the Indiana State Medical Society and the Lafayette Academy of Medicine. He is a member of the Staffs of Saint Elizabeth and the Home Hospitals.

Doctor Laws enlisted in the Army Medical Corps, was commissioned a lieutenant and sixty days later promoted to the rank of captain. He was first assigned duty at Camp Wheeler at Macon, Georgia, and went overseas and was with the Army of Occupation in Germany. He was with the colors from July, 1917, until July, 1919. Since the war he has taken an active interest in the American Legion. He is a member of Lafayette Lodge No. 496, of the Masonic fraternity, the Royal Arch Chapter and Council, belongs to the B. P. O. Elks and is a member of the Lafayette Country Club. For six years, from 1923 to 1929, he was county coroner of Tippecanoe County, and is one of the leaders of the Republican party in his county.

Doctor Laws married Margaret C. McManus, of New York City. They have a son, Kenneth, born March 25, 1915, now attending high school at Lafayette.

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


MARK L. THOMPSON has been a member of the Lafayette bar for over ten years. He is one of the attorneys with offices in the Loan and Trust Building in that city.

A native of Indiana, he was born in Benton County, February 8, 1897. His father, Andrew J. Thompson, was born in Kentucky, and moved to Benton County, Indiana, in 1885. He had an active career as a farmer and business man, and was identified with real estate developments in Indiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Ohio. He married Rhoda Sayers, whose father, Ephraim Sayers, was an early settler of Benton County, Indiana.

Mark L. Thompson was one of a family of seven children. During his boyhood he moved with the family to various localities in Oklahoma, Arkansas and other states, getting his education in many different schools. He attended high school at Mechanicsburg, Ohio, and for one year was a student in Dartmouth College. He completed his law course in Columbia University of New York City, where he was graduated LL. B. in 1919. In the meantime, in March, 1918, he enlisted, and was given training in the cavalry, with the Engineer and Motor Transport Corps and the artillery, and eventually was commissioned a second lieutenant. He received his honorable discharge in December, 1918, immediately resuming his law studies.

Mr. Thompson in June, 1919, located at Lafayette, Indiana, was admitted to the Indiana bar and has been engaged in building up a successful general law practice. He served from 1924 to 1928, two terms, as prosecuting attorney of Tippecanoe County. He is a member of the Tippecanoe County Bar Association, Lafayette Lodge No. 492 of the Masonic fraternity, and is a Republican.

Mr. Thompson married Gertrude Bergstrom, who was born in New York City. They have two children, Warren and Alden.

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


HARRY BENJAMIN ROUSE. As a business man Harry B. Rouse made a commendable record, but the people of Jasper County think of him and will for years hold his name in esteem particularly for the services he has rendered as a sheriff.

Mr. Rouse was born at Kankakee, Illinois, November 4, 1884, son of B. F. and Ida May (Rainford) Rouse. His father was also born at Kankakee and spent his active life as a farmer. Sheriff Rouse's maternal grandfather, Dr. John Rainford, was born in England, was brought to America when a small boy, and for many years was a practicing physician in Newton County, Indiana, where he was widely loved and honored. Doctor Rainford had a family of thirteen children. Harry B. has one brother, Grover C., who lives at Schneider, Indiana.

Harry E. Rouse finished his high school education at Kankakee and immediately took up a business career. For some time he owned and operated a bottling works, trading the plant for a farm. He was on the road as a traveling salesman until called to the duties of sheriff of Jasper County.

Mr. Rouse was elected sheriff in 1926, and his administration has been commended by much more than a routine performance of duties. He has been a vigorous enforcer of the law, has practically stamped out the illicit liquor traffic in the county and has established an enviable reputation in seeking out and apprehending other violators of the criminal laws. He has helped trace several bank robbers, and has received a fine tribute from the American Surety Company, the Illinois Bankers Association and binding companies. Through his office every automobile in Jasper County stolen during the past four years has been recovered.

Mr. Rouse is president of the Indiana Sheriffs' Association, and his election brought that honor to Jasper County for the first time. He succeeded Benjamin Strong of Lake County in this position. Mr. Rouse as a young man was a baseball player and joined the professional ranks and played in several of the minor leagues in the Middle West. He married in 1904 Miss Maude Laverne Bradbury, of Lafayette, Indiana. They have two children, Harry B., Jr., born in 1921, and Mildred Belle, born in 1923. Mr. Rouse is a Royal Arch Mason, member of the Knights of Pythias, the Methodist Episcopal Church and is a Republican in politics.

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


GEORGE L. MORGAN is a highly respected citizen of Rensselaer, a retired business man, and is one of the last survivors of the veterans of the Civil war.

Mr. Morgan was born in Clinton County, Indiana, February 14, 1848. His father, John D. Morgan, was born in Pennsylvania and moved to Indiana at a very early date. He learned the trade of cabinet maker and in later years did considerable building and was a plaster contractor. He married Mary Moore, who was born in Ohio, daughter of William Moore and granddaughter of George Moore. George Moore was a Virginian and was a soldier in the Revolutionary army under Washington. He was in the war for independence seven years and was with Washington at Valley Forge. The grave of this old Revolutionary soldier is in Jasper County, Indiana. He lived to be ninety-eight years, eight months and nine days old.

George L. Morgan was one of a family of twelve children. Only two others are living, Josephine, in Colorado Springs, and Elizabeth, in Michigan. George L. Morgan attended public schools in Jasper County and before he was fifteen years of age he enlisted, August 11, 1862, serving in Company A of the Eighty-seventh Indiana Infantry. He was part of the time under General Thomas, was at the battle of Chickamauga and was with Sherman on the march to the sea. He received his honorable discharge in June, 1865, and went through nearly three years of warfare without a wound.

Mr. Morgan after the war learned the trade of plasterer, and this was his occupation for many years. He also acquired an expert knowledge of carpentry and the millwright trade and he found employment for his talents and business abilities until he retired in 1915. Mr. Morgan is a Republican, a Presbyterian and for many years has been a member of the Grand Army of the Republic.

He married Mary J. Morris on July 28, 1879. She died July 26; 1927. There were four children, Nora, Kenneth, Cecil and John. Kenneth and John are deceased. Nora is the wife of Walter F. Congdon, of Detroit, Michigan. Cecil married L. W. Miller and also lives at Detroit, and has two children, Jenneth, born in 1921, and George W., born in 1924.

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


GEORGE S. RAINEY during the past ten years has ably sustained his rank and position as a member of the Lafayette bar. Mr. Rainey came to the bar after a preparation which involved making his own way and studying in the intervals of his regular routine, and his accomplishments have been in keeping with the sturdy independence and self reliance he exhibited as a youth.

He was born at Sulphur in Crawford County, Indiana, November 21, 1893, and is a member of a family that has been in the state for over a century. He is a descendant of Robert and Mary Rainey. Robert Rainey was born at Portsmouth, Virginia, and settled in Floyd County, Indiana, in 1825, acquiring a large amount of land in that section of the state. His son, William Rainey, was born near Galena in Floyd County, was a farmer and married Levina Lamb. They were the parents of John Rainey, who was born in Crawford County, was a soldier in the Union army during the Civil war and followed the vocations of cooper and farmer. He married Polly Jones. They were the grandparents of George S. Rainey. The latter’s father was Charles S. Rainey, who was born at West Forks in Crawford County, became a farmer and cooper, and married Almira Goad, of Virginia ancestry and a direct descendant of Chief Justice Hale of England.

George S. Rainey was one of a family of nine children and was reared on a farm in Crawford County. Beyond the common schools he had no opportunities except those he made for himself. At the age of seventeen he became a telegraph operator, working for, two years for the Southern Railway Company and then with other railroad lines until 1918. While thus engaged in telegraphy, Mr. Rainey served two years as chairman of the Order of Railroad Telegraphers. Mr. Rainey never had the opportunity to attend college, but made diligent use of his spare time while a railway telegrapher. He studied for his self improvement and for a number of years read law, and in 1918 passed the examination for admission to the Indiana state bar. Following that he was in the law office of the late Russell K. Bedgood, of Lafayette, and in 1920 engaged in a general law practice for himself. During the war Mr. Rainey was a member of the legal advisory board. He is a member of Tippecanoe County Bar Association, and he is affiliated with Tippecanoe Lodge No. 492 of the Masonic Order and the Masonic Grotto.

He married Hallie E. Spaulding, of Kentucky, of a family that came from Richmond, Virginia. They have one son; Charles W., attending the Jefferson High School at Lafayette.

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


COLIN BRUCE KENNEDY began his career as a telephone and telegraph engineer, and experimentally and as a pastime became interested in the possibilities of radio communication when it was in its pioneering stage. Mr. Kennedy has accomplished some big things in the technical development of radio transmitting and receiving, and is also a very successful business executive. For a number of years his name has been familiar to the public in connection with one of the most popular receiving sets, formerly manufactured by the Colin B. Kennedy, Incorporated, a Missouri corporation, later the Kennedy Manufacturing Company, and now by the Colin B. Kennedy Corporation, a Delaware corporation, with manufacturing plant and business headquarters at South Bend.

Mr. Kennedy was born at Teeswater, Ontario, Canada, February 6, 1885. His parents, Archibald and Jessie (Cameron) Kennedy, were natives of Scotland. His mother died in 1925, at the age of seventy-three. His father died in April, 1930, at the age of ninety-one years. All of the eight children are living, Colin B. being the fifth in age.

Mr. Kennedy attended the public schools of Teeswater, learned telegraphy, became a telegraph and cable operator and for several years was in California as an engineer in the research laboratory of the Federal Telegraph Company at Palo Alto.

Mr. Kennedy organized his present business in 1919, which year practically marked the beginning of the modern radio industry as understood by the general public. At first as a hobby, and later as a business, he has been identified with the development of radio transmitting and receiving equipment for over twenty years.

Mr. Kennedy moved the plant for the manufacture of the Kennedy radio sets from St. Louis to South Bend in 1928. Shortly afterward the Colin B. Kennedy Corporation was organized to acquire all the assets of the Kennedy Manufacturing Company, formerly the Colin B. Kennedy, Incorporated. His organization was one of the first in the field in the manufacture of A. C. electrically operated sets. The financial position of the corporation has been reinforced by the large holdings of the Studebaker interests in the corporation. The corporation has a large plant in South Bend, employing about a thousand persons, and manufacturing approximately five hundred sets per day. In addition to Mr. Kennedy as president of the corporation the chairman of the board is F. H. Wellington. Clement Studebaker III and Julius J. Spindler are vice presidents.

Mr. Kennedy is a member of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, the Associated Manufacturers, the National Radio Association, the Radio Manufacturers Association, and the South Bend Chamber of Commerce. He married, October 29, 1912, Miss Mary LePage. She was born in British Columbia, Canada. They have two children, Colin Gordon, born January 31, 1914, and Donal Craig, born February 15, 1922.

Click here for photo.

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


Deb Murray