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Family
Marriage: Children:
  1. Helen Elaine Waber: Birth: 17 Oct 1917 in Chicago,Cook co.,IL. Death: 2 May 1919

  2. James Thomas Waber: Birth: 8 Apr 1920 in Chicago,IL. Death: 7 May 2006 in Phoenix,AZ


Sources
1. Title:   Waber Family the First Nine Generations
Source:   S-2072042574
Author:   James A and Faith Elaine (Winters) MacGregor

Notes
a. Note:   Very interesting to hear from James Waber. I visited his home in Chicago when he was a boy. I was impressed that they employed a maid. James Sr owned a Duisenberger Sales. He held a patent on a puncture proof inner tube and displayed an inner tube with an ice pick imbedded in it, displayed in the front window of his showroom. James Sr. took me in a ride in one of the Dusinberg cars to Valparaiso, Ind., where I was attending radio school. James Sr. very well dressed and using "pince nez" reading glasses. I was impressed. I can verify that L. Arthur Waber was mugged, later in life, during a visit to Chicago. I remember his remarking about it. Believe it might have been after Bess died. I can verify that L. Arthur did amateur like painting as he displayed them in his last home which I visited. They were not especially great, but very good for late in life and lack of training. Personal note-Arthur had a radio sales store in Chicago. He brought antenna wire, earphones, crystal detector, etc to me, a kid on a farm, to begin my interest in radio(which became my lifelong career). I believe Arthur's store was ransacked by thieves, and most of radio equipment stolen Also, Arthur was an architect in building a Masonic Shrine building(Medinah) in Chicago. He gave me a chessboard made from mahogany used in building the Medinah Club. We had many chess games! I can't speak to the Coat of Arms. (wonder how you came out from your interview with the museum in Jacksonville Never got acquainted with James Jr. Believe he got a "PH D" and worked in Los Alamos. Regards Jim Which business would you be referring too? I understand my grandfather, James Warren, had several careers. Iunderstand that he fought in the Spanish-American war, but I have noparticulars about that. He was a surveyor for several railroadconstruction projects, one from Colorado Springs to Cripple Creek,another across the middle of Iowa, and maybe a north-south oneparalleling the Miscopy (but I could be wrong about that one). He met his wife, Anna, while working on the railroad in Iowa. He movedto Chicago where I believe he ran one of the first gas stations. Helater sold Duisenberg automobiles, but that business died about the timeof the Great Depression. When my father was in graduate school, thereare some letters between father & son collaborating on a puncture-lesstire. My grandfather did get a patent on the tire’s design. He evenmanaged to get on the Government List of Approved Vendors (during WWII?)in exchange for a favor he performed for a competitor. The nastycompetitor, however, had enough clout to prevent the government from everbuying tires from my father. The glib statement from my father was that my grandfather made and lost a“million dollars” (a fortune) three or four times in his life. Alas, there is little written record to verify any of this data. John Andrew, Wow. You have done some work. Yep, that was my grandfather’s company. We have some sample toy tiresstuck in a box somewhere. I had always intended to use them to make ashadowbox to present to my father on one of his birthdays. There were some publicity stunts that I heard of. The tire design wasthree layers, with hard rubber sandwiching a rubbery goo that hardened inthe presence of air. Thus, the tire was advertized as puncture-less. Toprove it, my grandfather had the Chicago (?) Chief of police fire a dozenbullets into one of his tires. They tested the air pressure before andafter and found that in spite of being punctured the air pressure wasgreater after. They theorized that the heat from the bullets passingthrough the rubber had caused the air to expand and that the tire hadsealed itself very quickly. Alas, the company folded from lack of business fairly quickly. And yes the nasty competitor might have been Firestone or Goodyear. Ijust don’t remember the details. John Thank you. When we had dinner with the Wabers them during our Chicagotrip in 1933 for the World's Fair, Great Uncle James was in the tirebusiness and my father agreed to talk to some of the Detroit automanufacturers about using the tires. I do recall that he talked withWalter P. Chrysler at the HQ in Highland Park, MI. No soap. Later Iread what buddies Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone and T A Edison were, andlearned that Ford Motor Co. always used Firestone tires as OE. I dorecall that as a demo, my father had a cross section of a tube, and asmall tube (ostensibly for an airplane tail wheel) as well as a sharppiece of steel wire, to use in puncturing that tube. When I was finished basic training in the army in June, 1943, I was givena furlough. On train travel to and from Detrooit, one always had totravel between the Union Station in the heart of downtown Chicago, to orfrom the Illinois Central Depot which was on the waterfront. South a waysfrom Grant Park. Returning to Camp Roberts I had quite a bit of timebetween trains, so I took a cab to the office of Great Uncle Jim. Theand I visited for a while, trading news, and in the process of ourdiscussion the subject of my marriage came up. I let him know that I hadno prospects. Then he explained how he was single a long time, worked onconstructing the RR to the west years earlier, and that he didn't getmarried until he was 32 (I think), and if he had it to do again, he'dprefer to wait a little longer. I thought that was curious at the time. -=-roland Hi Andrew, refresh my memory--who is Roland Smith?---is he one of AuntAnna's son in laws? The name is familiar---many young men went to seeUncle Jim in ln Chicago, your own grandpa included--since he was the onein the family who had " made it good" as they used to say! I remembergoing there when we were first married---he had a huge house with awrought iron fence and the grass was so thick, you wanted to take offyour shoes and walkin your bare feet! It was rambling and Tom and Ihad our own bed and bath--his mother-in-law was bed-ridden (I think shehad a stroke) and there was a live in caretaker for her). Uncle jim wasalways a joy [email from Elizabeth Waber]


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