Loyal DURAND

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S.R. Durand, on his father, Loyal Durand:
[My] dad's father Loyal Root Durand died when Dad was only three and a half years old, and his brother Samuel Benjamin Durand only one year old.  Dad's mother, Maria Elizabeth (McVickar) Durand, inherited $60,000 in life insurance on her husband's death, and thus was able to build a home for herself and her boys adjacent to that of her widowed father, at what was then 591 Cass Street, just south of Juneau Avenue, in Milwaukee.  Her father, Dr. Benjamin Moore McVickar, owned an entire city block bounded by Van Buren, Cass, and State Streets, and Juneau Avenue. He was a great horticulturist with extensive gardens and orchards on his property, and employed several gardeners.  He died in 1883, when Dad was 15 years old.
My father as a young boy had many hobbies and interests.  In 1878, when he was 10 years old, his mother took him and his brother east for the summer to visit relatives, and he had a small autograph book in which many relatives wrote and signed notes for him.  This started him on collecting autographs of prominent men, and in the next years he acquired a book full of them, including several presidents, cabinet members, senators and congressmen, explorers, etc.  I have a paper my father wrote about a visit to Central Park in New York, a very good description by a 10-year-old of the park and the people who frequented it. For several years as a boy my father also collected postage stamps from all over the world, corresponding and trading stamps with other boys.  In 1884, when he was 16, he was editor and publisher of a boys' bi-monthly magazine called The Vignette.  This was an amateur publication, one of eight put out by groups of boys in Milwaukee.  In July of 1884 the National Amateur Press Association held its convention in Milwaukee, with boys attending from all over the country.  In the baseball game between the East and West on July 10, 1884, the West won by a score of 24 to 14, with my father playing center field and later second base on the victorious team.  He also wrote an account of the convention. Dad as a young boy attended the Cathedral School, a private boys' school of St. John's Episcopal Cathedral.  He went later on to the old Milwaukee High School, from which he graduated in 1886.
He entered the University of Wisconsin in Madison in the fall of that year.  In high school he had been captain of a cadet company organized and drilled by General Charles King, a retired veteran of the Civil War. In college, he maintained this interest in military affairs, and during his four years in Madison became captain of the Univeristy Military Corps.  He joined the Sigma Chi social fraternity in the days before fraternities had living quarters.  Dad was a good athlete, standing 6'4 tall and weighing 180 pounds.  During his college years he played first base for a time on the baseball team, and he was captain and number one player of the tennis team. When Dad's brother entered the University of Wisconsin in 1887, his mother gave up her home in Milwaukee and bought a home at the bend on Langdon Street in Madison.  This enabled her to economize somewhat in providing college educations for her two sons, as well as providing a home for them during their university years.  Her home became a meeting place for the Sigma Chis, and a place where many parties and dances were held.
My father studied law at the University of Wisconsin, and became a member of the Phi Delta Phi legal fraternity.  In his senior year in the law school, he wa svery sick with pneumonia for a long time and was therefore unable to graduate with his Mighty '90 class in June of 1890.  He completed his legal education and recieved his L.L.D. degree in 1891, but he always considered himself a member of the 1890 class, with whom he reunited periodically over the years.  He was admitted to the bar in 1892, and then remained in Madison for a year in the office of Burr W. Jones, a Justice of the State Supreme Court.  Upon returning to Milwaukee, Dad joined the law firm of Miller, Noyes, Miller and Wahl, remaining with this firm until 1897.  During those recession years of the United States' economy, there was practically no opportunity for a young lawyer to get established.  Dad often laughed about some of his early legal experiences, such as trying to collect rents at saloons.  These instances sometimes necessitated his using good judgment in making a hasty retreat, with the saloon-keeper and several patrons at his heels.
In 1897 my father borrowed money and purchased the general insurance agency of Alfred James, who disposed of his agency in order to join his father, who was president of the Northwestern National Insurance Company.  Soon after entering the general insurance business my father became the representative of about a dozen fire insurance companies, and also became the general agent in Wisconsin for the Employers' Liability Assurance Corporation, Ltd., of London.  He wrote the first employers' liability insurance policies for this company in the United States.  He established agencies in about a dozen cities in Wisconsin, and for about forty years until his death managed this large business. He quickly became a recognized leader among insurance men, and in the early 1900's was a director for twleve years and president for three of the Board of Milwaukee Fire Underwriters.  He was a director for six years and president for one of the Wisconsin Association of Insurance Agents.  His office for many years was in the old Marine Bank building at Mitchell and North Water Streets.  In about 1915 he moved his office to the Wells Building on East Wisconsin Avenue.  It included a large part of the second floor.  After 1930, his office was on the eighth floor of this building.
When I was very young, I can remember vividly sitting under a large oak tree on our front lawn on late summer afternoons, waiting for my father to come home on his bicycle.  We children were always very excited to see him come around the corner from Lafayette Place into Lake Drive and ride the block and a quarter to our home.  He had a fine bicycle, a type I've never seen since, for instead of a chain between the pedaling sprocket wheel and the back wheel, it had enclosed gears and a transmission rod.  When Dad bought our first automobile in 1910, he abandoned his bicycle, which I at the age of 12 attempted to ride without tires, and badly bruised and scraped my knees and arms as a result.
Several of Dad's friends in the years between 1910 and 1930 walked the couple of miles downtown to their offices.  Each morning with good weather Dad would wait at a parlor window after breakfast until he saw the group coming down Lake Drive, when he would leave the house to join them.  Usually in the evenings, Mother would drive down to get him; later when my brother and I had learned to drive at high school age, we took turns picking him up at about 6pm at his office. Upon returning from work, my father was always eager for some playing with his children, usually with my brother and me.  Mostly we played catch with baseball mitts and a hard baseball, and Dad got a big kick out of throwing the ball as fast as he could at me.  As a result, I was a star player on my grade school team, and on a neighborhood team that played in the Milwaukee Journal League (something like the Little League of today). Unfortunately, baseball was not played in high school then, so I turned to tennis and became the state interscholastic champion, with Dad's help and encouragement.
Dad, upon returning to Milwaukee after his university days, had helped to establish the Town Club, which had five tennis courts.  The Wisconsin State Tennis Championships were played at this club in August of each year, and this was the prime social event of the summer season. Dad won the state singles championship several times, and also the doubles championship many times, playing with his good friend Robert McMinn.  About 1910, upon joining the Fox Point Country Club, he gave up tennis for golf and became a good player at this sport, usually shooting within ten strokes over par.  In addition to playing tennis and golf, Dad was a great gardener, and each summer cultivated a large backyard garden of flowers and vegetables. My father loved outdoor activities, but he was noted also as an expert bridge player.  He played bridge several times a week, usually after lunching at the University Club or the Milwaukee Athletic Club.  Groups of men always gathered behind his chair to watch his skill in playing and bidding bridge hands.  Also, many Saturday evenings during the wintertime, he played Skat, a German card game; usually he played with my uncles Charles Lemon and Seldon Sperry, a Mr. Williams, and a Mr. Booth.  Frequently, after dinners at home during the week, we played card games or other games as a family, and sometimes Dad and I played chess.
After the First World War, Mother and Dad became even more adventurous.  We made several motor trips east to Niagara Falls, and to visit Dad's three aunts, Jane and Louise Durand and Hannah Gould, in Rochester, New York, and several Durand cousins there who were all most hospitable to us.  We drove on other trips to Jamestown, Washington, Gettysburg, Valley Forge, and Philadelphia to see many historic places, since Dad's great interest was American history.  We visited New York City, where Dad had meetings with the executives of various insurance companies he represented in Wisconsin.  We visited many historic places in New England and the old Durand farm homesteads in Berlin and Derby, Connecticut.  In Boston, Dad conferred on each trip with the executives of the Employers Liability Insurance Corporation, for which he was the general agent for Wisconsin. These trips were made when long distances had to be traveled over dusty gravel roads, and when we often had to stay in miserable small-town hotels, since it was before the days of concrete highways and modern motels.  Mother was a mighty good sport to make these trips of several weeks' duration, for she did not, I am sure, enjoy them nearly as much as Dad did.
Each summer from the time I was about 7 until about 16 years of age, we spent several weeks in the country in cottages rented on one of the lakes west of Milwaukee...my father spent the week in Milwaukee, where his mother with the servants maintained our home, and would arrive in the country early Saturday afternoon.  At that time, his large office with many employees worked from 8:30am to 6pm each day, and on Saturdays until 1pm. My father's service in public life was outstanding.  He gave generously of his time and talents, at a considerable sacrifice to his health and his business interests, over many years. He entered public life in 1919 by being pesuaded to accept and appointment to the Milwaukee Board of Education.  The following year he became president of this board, responsible for the school system of Milwaukee,  and he was president again in 1924, 1925, and 1926.  He was re-elected and served on the school boardfor fourteen years, until 1933, when he declined to run again.  I remember so many, many subzero winter evenings when right after dinner, he left for committee or board meetings, and did not return until after midnight.  Dad served, too, as a trustee of the Milwaukee Public Library from 1920 through 1926, and as president of that board in 1924 and 1925.  One advantage of this service was that he brought home books for a few days before they were selected for circulation; he enjoyed in particular reading books on international politics, history, and biographies of well-known men.
Another board my father served on in the 1920's was the Milwaukee Auditorium Board. Besides Dad's great interest and service in public life in Milwaukee, he served the University of Wisconsin in several capacities from 1919 until 1933.  He was appointed by the Alumni Association in 1919 as their representative on the Board of Visitiors, an advisory board to the board of Regents.  In 1924 he was president of this board.  He made frequent visits to Madison, where he conferred with the heads of various departments and many other professors on the needs of the University, and presented his recommendations through the Board of Visitors for action by the Regents.  In 1922, he became a director of the University Alumni Association; he was its vice-president from 1928 until 1932, when he withdrew, at a time when his health necessitated reducing demands on his energy. During my father's most active business years he became a director of several Milwaukee manufacturing companies.  His investments in insurance companies he represented, such as the Continental Corp., the Home Insurance Co. (later part of City Investing Co.), and the Northwestern National Insurance Co. (later the NN Corp.) were all successful. However, he had bad luck during the 1929 to 1933 depression period with investments in two local companies, a farm loan mortgage company, and in some railroad stocks.  But at the time of his death in 1937, he left an estate to mother of over $100,000, which enabled her to have a comfortable income for the rest of her life.  Dad's prominence in business and education resulted in his biography being included in Who's Who in the Midwest.
My father's health began to fail about 1935, but he kept up an active social and business life until his death at the age of 69 from heart trouble on October 3, 1937.  An account of his life in the Encyclopaedia of American Biography, 1938[?], concludes by quoting an editorial that was printed in the Milwaukee Journal a day after his death as follows:
'Public Education and Library - these were the[four] words that Loyal Durand wrote when asked to provide some data on the many activities of his long career in Milwaukee.  They come back to us now, with his passing, as an indication of what he thought was worthwhile.  In them, we get an index to his life and the contribution he made to his city and state. Always it was education - forthe children, for the middle-aged, for those who had passed the prime of life but still wanted to improve their knowledge - through the public school system from kindergarten to the university, through such agencies as the public library - always it was education, the spread of knowledge, that counted in the life of Loyal Durand. ...In his quiet, evenly-balanced way, he had a marked influence on each institution with which he came into contact.  In the public school system he was looking ahead always to wider service for children. He stood by the university and its young people when the institution was attacked.  To him, youth was sound and he refused to see cause for alarm.  But he did see cause for apprehension whenever funds were lessened, or an educational institution departed from the path of widest service to all children.  And he was quick to say so. Loyal Durand did many other things - good things - in connection with business and civic organizations.  That was part of his workday life.  But his heart was always with the schools.  We have a better public school system, a better university, and a better public library because he lived.'
The funeral service for my father was a very large one, attended by many personal friends of the family, business friends, and public officials. His remains were buried in the Durand family plot in Forest Home Cemetery in Milwaukee. Dad was a wonderful father to me, always interested in my success in school work, and always eager to participate in sports and games with me when I was a young boy.  He was deeply devoted to Mother and to all his four children, and he had many close personal friends who admired him greatly.
I, for my part, know that Bampo was a proud inheritor of his father's staunchly Republican political affiliations.  In a letter from the early 1980's, Bampo related to my father's proudly Republican distant cousin Theodore Roosevelt Wood that his father had indeed met Teddy Roosevelt.  In fact, he wrote, Loyal Durand was very near Roosevelt when the candidate was shot by a would-be assassin; Roosevelt escaped unharmed, as the bullet lodged in a thick stack of papers he had folded in his breast pocket. Also, I recall Bampo's relatin