1921 Duluth & St Louis County MN, Van Brunt.pdf - Garon.us

800 DULUTH AND ST. LOUIS COUNTY
September 14, 1910, recorded the marriage of Mr. Hanson to Miss
Blanche Forbes, of Duluth, and they have four children— John E., Jr.,
Richard H., Mary and Harriett.
Alfred Staff was a lad of fifteen years when he came to Virginia,
St. Louis county, where his father had previously settled and where the
latter's family joined him in the year 1893, and within the intervening
])eriod of more than a quarter of a century Alfred Staff has advanced to
well established place as one of the representative business men and
influential citizens of the progressive little city that was a mere mining
hamlet at the time when he here made his initial appearance.
Mr. Staff was born in Sweden on the 18th of January, 1878, and
about two years later his parents, Severin and Pauline Staff', immigrated
to the United States and first established their residence in the city of
St. Paul, Minnesota, where the father found employment at his trade,
that of a blacksmith. Later the family home was established at Ishpem-
ing, Michigan, and from that place removal was made to Palmer, that
state, where Mrs. Staff and the children remained until the winter of
1893, when removal was made to Tower, St. Louis county, Minnesota.
There they remained until the spring of the following year, when they
joined the husband and father at Virginia, Severin Staff' having previously
engaged in the work of his trade at this place and having been here
at the time when the village was practically destroyed by fire, in 1893.
He followed his trade here for many years as one of the substantial and
honored citizens of the village and city, and here his death occurred in
the year 1902, his widow being still a resident of Virginia.
Alfred Staff passed the period of his boyhood and early youth at
Ishpeming, Michigan, and Virginia, Minnesota, and his limited educational
training was received in the public schools of the former city. His
boyhood memories of Virginia recall the place as a frontier village chiefly
notable for its sixty-eight saloons, its gambling and the other untoward
activities of a new mining camp. Here he became a cook in the
J. C. Weimer mining camp,
stripping the Ohio property.
where was then in progress the work of
Later he worked as water boy for the mining
firm of Drake & Stratton, by which he was later advanced to the
position of night watchman, and thereafter he was for a time employed
by John H. Harding in the Adams mine at Eveleth. In 1895 he began
delivering meat from the butcher shop of Frederick Ingalls of Virginia,
and here he has been continuously identified with the meat business since
that early period in his career. Ambitious, self-reliant and progressive,
he has won advancement through his own well directed efforts and enter-
prise, and he is now one of the chief stockholders and a director of the
Virginia Meat & Packing Company, one of the important industrial concerns
of St. Louis county.
While working indefatigably in the winning of independence and
worthy success, Mr. Staff has been appreciative of civic duties and respon-
sibilities and has shown himself to be a loyal and progressive citizen.
His political allegiance is given to the Republican party, and in 1910 he
was elected alderman from the Second ward of Virginia, in which office
he served two vears, with characteristic loyalty and efficiency. In 1918
he was again elected a representative of this ward, for a term of four
years, and in April, 1920. he was elected president of the City Council,
in W'hich important office he is making his influence felt in progressive
movements and also in wise and efficient administration of all departments
of the municipal government. Mr. Staff is affiliated with the Benevolent
and Protective Order of Flks, the Fraternal Order of Eagles and