Liberty Biographies

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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.)