Читать книгу Memoirs of Milwaukee County, Volume 4 - Josiah Seymour Currey - Страница 15

For only a brief period has Jackson Gardner Gilmore been identified with the business interests of Milwaukee but already he has become established as a progressive and enterprising man and substantial citizen through his connection with the Nokol Company of Wisconsin, of which he is the founder and president. He was born in Columbus, Ohio, September 15, 1890, and represents one of the old families of that state. His paternal grandfather, Judge William J. Gilmore, was a justice of the supreme court of Ohio. He was born at Gilmore Mills, in Rockbridge county, Virginia, and it was in the '50s that he accompanied his parents on their removal to the Buckeye state, where for many years he made his home, winning prominence as an able lawyer and jurist. His son, Clement R. Gilmore, was born in Eaton, Ohio, and was educated in Wooster University, completing his course by graduation with the class of 1882. He then studied law with his father and afterward entered upon active practice in Columbus, while subsequently he removed to Dayton, Ohio, where he served for several terms as prosecuting attorney. He was also treasurer of the Ohio Bar Association from 1900 until his death, which occurred in April, 1919. His long continuance in this office indicates most clearly the esteem and honor accorded him by his colleagues and contemporaries in the profession. He married Ellen Porter Gardner, who was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, a daughter of George W. Gardner, of the grain firm of Clark, Gardner & Rockefeller. Mr. Gardner has also figured very prominently in public life, serving as mayor of Cleveland, Ohio. He is widely known as a yachtsman and was the original promoter of yacht racing on the Great Lakes. He controlled business interests of great extent and importance, becoming a director of many banks and steamship companies subsequent to his partnership with John D. Rockefeller.

Jackson Gardner Gilmore obtained his early education in the schools of Eaton, Ohio, and later studied in the Steele high school in Dayton, from which he was graduated in 1908. He next matriculated in the Ohio State University, where he won his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1912. During his college days he became a member of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity and was also a member of the junior and senior honorary societies — the Bucket and Dipper and the Sphinx. He was president of the Varsity O Association. When his textbooks were put aside he went into the shops of the United Engineering & Foundry Company of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he spent nearly a year as a working student. He afterward became a working student with the Oxweld Acetyline Company, the Linde Air Products Company and the Union Carbide Company. His next position was that of assistant to the vice president of the Stewart-Warner Speedometer Company of Chicago. In 1915 he established business on his own account at Columbus, Ohio, representing the Stewart-Warner Company, the Willard Storage Battery Company and the Westinghouse Electric Company as district representative. He sold that business in 1917 and became district sales manager of the Carbo-Hydrogen Company of Chicago, with which he remained until 1920, when he removed to Milwaukee and organized and incorporated the Nokol Company of Wisconsin. He has since been the president and his territory covers Wisconsin and upper Michigan. He handles the Nokol, a device for automatic oil heating, the only one of the kind that is on the fire underwriters' list of approved appliances. It is manufactured by the Steam Corporation of Chicago. Already Mr. Gilmore has gained many patrons and his thoroughly satisfied customers are an advertisement for the business which is steadily growing.

On the 27th of June, 1913, Mr. Gilmore was married to Miss Harriett Crimmins of New York, a daughter of John D. Crimmins, a teacher and later a successful miner of Alaska, who was born in Maine, in 1860. Mr. and Mrs. Gilmore have become parents of two sons: Clement R., born January 30, 1915; and William Hastings, born February 16, 1920. Mr. Gilmore has usually been an advocate of democratic principles but has never sought nor desired office for himself. He has membership in the Congregational church and he belongs to the University Club and the Milwaukee Athletic Club. He has always enjoyed aquatic sport and he still, follows baseball and occasionally plays a game, enjoying all manly outdoor sports. He is a lover of music and art and thus the interests of his life are varied, keeping him in touch with the trend of the world progress along many lines. He has never held to any false ideas concerning the methods of success but by legitimate efforts carefully directed has won a creditable place which he now occupies in the business circles of his adopted city. His training has been thorough and comprehensive in some of the largest establishments in his line in the country and unfaltering industry has constituted the ladder on which he has climbed.