ELMER W. DENISON. Northwestern
Montana has attracted many enterprising and capable young
citizens to the service of its growing business and industrial
life, and one of the representatives of this class is the
present city treasurer of Chester, Mr. Elmer W. Denison, who has
been identified with this vicinity since 1910, and was formerly
engaged in banking and other lines of business in Minnesota.
He is a native of Adair county, Iowa, where he was born August
14, 1879, a son of Neldo and Erma R. (Shirk) Denison. The
father, who was born near Hanna, Indiana, his father having come
from Connecticut in an early day, was one of the first
prospectors to try the Black Hills diggings. He died in 1882 at
the age of thirty. The mother was born at Walnut, Illinois, a
daughter of R. L. Shirk, a Pennsylvania German. She is now
living with her son in Chester, Montana, and was sixty years old
on July 3d of the present year (1912).
Elmer W. Denison obtained his early education in the public
schools of Iowa, and also took a special course in law and
English in Minnesota. His entrance into business was in the
credit department of a large lumber company of Minneapolis, with
which he continued seven years, and was then cashier of the
Sheldon Brothers Bank until May, 1910, when he resigned and
located in Chester. He has built up and now contrals a large
business in land, town real estate and general real estate
brokerage, and is the owner of the Denison Land Company. Mr.
Denison has been twice honored with election to the office of
treasurer of Chester.
His marriage occurred in the city of Minneapolis, March 24,
1909, to Miss Mary Viets. Her father, W. H. Viets, was formerly
a resident of New London, Connecticut, whence he moved west to
Minneapolis. Carolyn Ruth Denison, their one Child, was born in
Minneapolis, September 19, 1911. Mr. Denison, affiliates with
the Masonic order, Lodge No. 65, at Rugby, North Dakota, is a
Republican in politics and is a member of the Presbyterian
church. He takes much pleasure in the outdoor sports and
recreations, and is a citizen of broad interests.
(Source A History of Montana, Helen Fitzgerald Sanders; pub.
Chicago, Lewis Pub. Co., 1913, p. 1809.)
CARL F. HAWKINSON. Since January,
1910, Carl F. Hawkinson has been a resident of Joplin, Montana,
and here he is most successfully engaged in the restaurant and
general merchandise business. He is one of the pioneers in this
town, having come hither when there was but one building in the
place. He is loyal and public spirited in his civic attitude and
no measure forwarded for the good of progress and improvement
fails to receive his most hearty support.
Carl F. Hawkinson was born in Sweden, the date of his nativity
being August 24, 1874. He is a son of Hokanson and Kate (Kisa)
Hawkinson, both of whom were born and reared in Sweden, where
was solemnized their marriage in 1856. The father came, alone,
to America in 1882 and located on a farm in Douglas county,
Minnesota, where he continued to reside until his demise, in
1902, at the age of sixty-nine years. Mrs. Hawkinson, with a
family of nine children, followed her husband to America in 1884
and she is still living, her home being in Minneapolis,
Minnesota.
Mr. Hawkinson, of this notice, was a child of but ten years of
age at the time of his arrival in the United States and he
completed his educational training with attendance in the
district schools of Douglas county Minnesota. He also pursued a
one-year commercial course in Northwestern Business College at
Minneapolis. He resided on the home farm with his parents until
he had reached his twenty-first year, when he started to farm in
Minnesota on his own account. He homesteaded one hundred and
sixty acres of land in Red Lake county, Minnesota, and proved up
on the same in five years, at the end of which he disposed of
that estate and engaged in the general merchandise business at
Farwell, Minnesota. He was a resident of Farwell for a period of
four years and in 1894 removed to North Dakota, settling at
Tolley, where he was variously engaged for the next four years.
In January, 1910, he came to Joplin, Montana, and at that date
there was but one building in the place. Mr. Hawkinson purchased
this structure and immediately engaged in the restaurant
business, which he still conducts and in November, 1911, he
purchased an additional lot, on which he erected another
building, in which he runs a strictly first-class general
merchandise store. He also conducts a bakery--the only one in
the town--and his different business enterprises are netting him
a large and most gratifying profit. Mr. Hawkinson has achieved
success through his own well-directed efforts and for that
reason it is the more gratifying to contemplate. In his
political convictions he is a stalwart Republican and in
religious matters he and his wife are devout members of the
Lutheran church.
At Farwell, Minnesota, August 25, 1899, was celebrated the
marriage of Mr. Hawkinson to Miss Esther Rystedt, who was born
at Farwell and who is a daughter of Andrew Rystedt, a native of
Pope county, Minnesota. Mr. and Mrs. Hawkinson have two sons,
namely,--Walter, whose birth occurred in Red Lake county,
Minnesota, in 1900; and Carl Wenzel, born at Farwell, Minnesota,
in 1906.
(Source: History of Montana, by Helen Fitzgerald Sanders; pub.
Chicago, Lewis Pub. Co., 1913, p. 1810.)
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