Читать книгу Memoirs of Milwaukee County, Volume 3 - Josiah Seymour Currey - Страница 34

Frank Cleveland is actively associated with the study of problems which have to do with organized efforts for city development.

He is now the secretary-manager of the bureau of conventions of the Milwaukee Association of Commerce and is also secretary-manager of the advertising council of the association. He is constantly alert to any opportunity that is offered for the city's improvement, the extension of its trade relations and the maintenance of its civic standards. His labors are constituting an important element in the promotion of public welfare.

Mr. Cleveland was born in a lumber camp on the headwaters of the west branch of the Muskegon river in Missaukee county, Michigan, February 2, 1877, and is a son of Charles L. and Sarah A. (Underbill) Cleveland, both of whom were natives of New York and both representatives of early colonial families. The progenitor of the Cleveland family in the new world came to America in 1635, while the Underbill family was founded in America a few years later, both families settling in Boston, Massachusetts. Their representatives participated in the early wars of the country. General Moses Cleveland being a soldier of the American Revolution. He removed westward, becoming the founder of the city of Cleveland, Ohio.

Charles L. Cleveland, father of Frank Cleveland, was a lumberman, sawmill man and a master mechanic. In his youth he came west to follow his chosen vocation and subsequently engaged in the lumber business. He has been a resident of Michigan since 1868 and is now seventy-nine years of age, yet is hale and hearty.

Frank Cleveland attended the high school at Bellaire, Michigan, and afterward became a student in the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, where he prepared for teaching and for journalistic work. After leaving college he engaged in the newspaper business and has gone through the whole curriculum of newspaper activity and advertising. For nine years he was in the editorial department and for six years in the advertising department, being connected with the Chicago Record-Herald, the Milwaukee Sentinel, the Old Evening Wisconsin, and later the Milwaukee Journal. He came to this city on the 5th of April, 1910, and after a number of years of active identification with newspaper publications he became connected with the Milwaukee Association of Commerce on the 1st of June, 1918. He has since been identified with the organization and has built up the convention bureau and organized the advertising council. He has done most effective and resultant work in these connections, the city greatly benefiting by his labors.

Mr. Cleveland volunteered his services for the Spanish-American war and the experiences of his life have been interesting and daring. He deserves great credit for what he has accomplished, for he earned all the money to put himself through school by working in the lumber woods and mills, being employed in some of the largest camps of the country. He never lived in a town that had a railroad until he was fifteen years of age and when but fourteen years of age he was driving a team in the lumber woods. He may well be proud of his record, which indicates the elemental strength of his character and his developing capacity, bringing him to a point among the forceful and resourceful business men and representatives of the Cream city.

Fraternally Mr. Cleveland is connected with the Masons, Knights of Pythias and the Elks and he belongs to the Kiwanis Club, the City Club and the Press Club. He has always greatly enjoyed music and athletics. He had two years of conservatory training in music and, as an avocation, played in some of the best bands of the country and in two regimental bands. He taught school for a short time, but found that he could not make money enough to satisfy himself in that profession and did not resume teaching after completing his university course. Turning to Journalism it proved the initial step that has brought him to his present responsible position. He has been a close and constant student in the school of experience and has learned many valuable lessons which he has put to practical account in the advancement of his own and of public interests.