Husband Col. Lewis Walker 1
Born: 4 Jun 1855 - Wellsville, Columbiana Co, OH 1
Christened:
Died: 24 Jan 1938 - Meadville, Crawford Co, PA 2
Buried:
Father: Nathan Updegraff Walker ( - ) 1
Mother: Malvina Brown ( - ) 1
Marriage: 1877 2
• Business: Hookless Fastener Company: Meadville, Crawford Co, PA.
Wife Susan Adelaide Delamater 2 3
Born: 27 Mar 1859 3
Christened:
Died:
Buried:
Father: Hon. George B. Delamater (1821- ) 2 3
Mother: Susan Cowle Town (1820- ) 3
Children
1 F Alice Walker 2
Born:
Christened:
Died:
Buried:
Spouse: Louis C. Soles ( - ) 2
2 M Lewis Walker, Jr. 4
Born: 25 Jun 1881 - Meadville, Crawford Co, PA 4
Christened:
Died: 11 Feb 1935 - Keystone Heights, Clay Co, FL 5
Buried:
Spouse: Martha Stowe Gill ( - ) 5 6
Marr: 11 Dec 1911 - Meadville, Crawford Co, PA 5
3 M Wallace Delamater Walker 2
Born: 25 Mar 1887 - Meadville, Crawford Co, PA 2
Christened:
Died: 4 Feb 1939 - Meadville, Crawford Co, PA 4
Buried:
Spouse: Fanniebelle McVey ( - ) 4
Marr: 27 May 1925 4
General Notes: Husband - Col. Lewis Walker
He spent his boyhood in the Ohio community which was his birth-place. At the age of sixteen, he entered Beaver College, at Beaver, Pennsylvania, and in the following year trans-ferred to Allegheny College in Meadville. From that time until his death almost sixty-six years later he was a citizen of Meadville, where his greatest interests and all his affections centered. In 1877 Colonel Walker was gradu-ated from Allegheny College and shortly afterward began the study of law. In due course he was admitted to the bar and turned to active practice, but from the outset he manifested a greater interest in corporate organization than other purely professional matters. He began to ap-pear infrequently at the bar, devoting virtually all his time to business promotion and management. By the time he was thirty-one he was associated in official capacities with sixteen different corporations. He had a considerable part in the development of the oil, natural gas and railroad industries in northwestern Pennsylvania, and in all these associations not only were his services highly valued by his corporate employers, but through the personal contacts involved he made many lasting friendships. Meanwhile, the Meadville community found reason to appreciate the worth of his civic zeal and public spirit. He remained throughout his career the warmest friend of the city and its institutions, and, with the development of the flourishing industry created through the organization of Talon, Inc., he became, perhaps, Meadville's greatest benefactor.
It was in 1893 that Colonel Walker first happened on the device that changed the course of his life and Mead-ville's too. While on a visit to the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, the famous World's Fair of 1893, he saw ex-hibited there a crude forerunner of the present perfected slide fastener, the invention of Whitcomb L. Judson. Its value then was dubious, but somehow Colonel Walker was impressed by its possibilities.
It would be nearly twenty years [a previous biographer has written] before it would become a standardized prod-uct of real commercial worth-twenty years filled with experiment, with trial and error, with lavish expenditure of money and of effort, with discouragement and rebuff, with distress and heartache. But it had in it something that struck a spark in Colonel Walker-a spark that pro-vided the union between the man and the idea.
Those who are interested in destiny's curious tricks may wonder at the chain of circumstance which, beginning almost accidentally in Chicago in the midst of one of the country's great depressions, would forty years later enable the faraway town of Meadville to prosper through an even greater depression. They may wonder also that it should have led a man of thirty-eight, already successful by ordi-nary standards, to turn gradually aside from his other interests until, at fifty-eight, when many men are thinking of easy-chair retirement, he embarked on the last and most productive phase of his career
Colonel Walker's initial investment for the promotion of the slide fastener was made at once. When further study confirmed him in his conviction that the device was commercially practicable, he poured more and more funds into the scheme, met greater and greater disappointments, but never lost faith in his ultimate success. At first, efforts were concentrated on experiments to improve the fastener. Some successes resulted, but the fundamental problem of manufacture-the effort to design and build machinery which would produce the fastener uniformly and at a commercially feasible price-remained unsolved for years. Attempts to market the new device were un-rewarded. Changes of location, first to Elyria, Ohio; then to Catasauqua, Pennsylvania; then to Hoboken, New Jersey, proved unavailing. So did changes in corporate organization from the Universal Fastener Company to the Automatic Hook & Eye Company; changes in man-agement, changes in engineering and operating personnel. "There was an almost continuous struggle to meet pay-rolls, to find money to buy machinery and materials. Early stockholders became discouraged and quit; new ones appeared and in turn disappeared. In all this pattern of con-stant change, Colonel Walker appears as the fixed and lasting element. . . . ."
By 1912 the outlook was so dark that only two em-ployees remained with the company, but better things were at hand. One of the employees was Gideon Sundback, who had spent six years in the attempt to design a new fastener and new machinery to produce it. In 1912 he felt he had succeeded. Colonel Walker thought so too. With his own last resources and new investments by business acquaint-ances he gathered together enough capital to establish a new organization. He was always proud of the fact that he repeatedly stressed the speculative nature of the in-vestment to buyers of stock in his companies. Although his own faith was undimmed, he never held out rosy promises impossible of fulfillment to others. As best he could he limited his stockholders' list to substantial busi-ness men who could afford a loss, who could afford to wait the years he knew would be necessary before they could hope to receive any return on their investment.
On May 15, 1913, the Hookless Fastener Company was incorporated and Colonel Walker was elected president. At this point he gave up all his other interests to devote himself exclusively to this favorite enterprise. Unwilling to leave Meadville because of his profound attachment to the community, he brought the new company here, al-though shrewd business judgment would have suggested a more central location geographically, one adjacent to probable markets, with greater transportation facilities and a larger labor supply. In September, 1913, three car-loads of machinery were brought from Hoboken and in-stalled in a small rented building on Race Street, Mead-ville. Some twenty persons comprised the working staff. A bad moment resulted when it was discovered that the new fastener, which was finally to make or break the company, was faulty. It proved to be only a moment, however, relatively speaking. The faults were overcome in another new type of fastener perfected by Gideon Sund-back, who also designed the automatic precision machinery required to make it. Although there have been important improvements, fastener and machinery have remained the same in their fundamental principles since 1913.
For some twelve years, Colonel Walker and his two sons comprised the company's sales force. They were obliged to perform prodigies of salesmanship to obtain the meager orders which kept the company alive in early years. The first important upward trend was reached in 1917, when the fastener was adapted to sailors' money belts and sales of the company in that year totaled twenty-four thousand units. Aviators' suits, gloves, tobacco pouches and other commodities began to display the slide fastener. Yet in 1920, after seven years of operation, total sales amounted to only $26,000, and there were just five machines in the Meadville plant and forty-two employees. It was then twenty-seven years since Colonel Walker had made his first acquaintance with the fastener. Another thirteen years were to elapse before the company paid its first dividend. With increasing business and able manage-ment, profits, of course, were earned on an expanding scale, but these were turned back into the business to finance its development and enhance its security.
In September, 1921, a second factory was rented in Meadville and in 1922, a third. In 1924, Factory No. 4 was built, and for the first time the organization was installed in its own home. It was Colonel Walker's in-sistence which led to the decision to reinvest profits in the business. It was his influence which solved another weighty problem in the way he hoped to have it solved. After mature consideration of all factors of the expand-ing business, it was decided to remain in Meadville and carry through in this city the necessary expansion pro-gram. In 1926 the company purchased the site of the former Meadville Theological Seminary. Existing build-ings were remodeled, new ones were erected, and in Jan-uary, 1927, the new plant was occupied-the fifth in Meadville in less than fourteen years. In contrast to the twenty workers who originally started with the company in 1913, there were now five hundred.
In 1928, the name "Talon" was adopted for the product of the company. Nine years later, in 1937, the name of the company itself was changed to Talon, Inc. Mean-while, the country had gone through its most severe de-pression, but there was no depression for the manufac-turers of Talon. Sales and production figures forged ahead every year except one. Meadville shared in the prosperity of the company. There was no unemployment, no wage cuts. The city alone could not supply the workers needed by the company. Others came in from near and far and wage rates went up periodically. To meet the rapid growth of employment, Colonel Walker set up a scientific training school for new employees, which greatly facilitated their absorption into the organi-zation, `and at the same time enabled them to reach a high level of earning power in a few weeks. The earnings of his employees concerned him deeply, and the high-wage policy which he adopted at the outset was never abandoned, no matter what justification could have been found for doing so in fluctuating business conditions. To level off seasonal variations in orders, he made a careful study of his customers' requirements, forecast them as accurately as possible and in slack periods kept his em-ployees at work building up inventories with which to take care of later increased demands. This he did in the interests of the security of his workers, and so successfully that in 1937 the average worker at Talon, Inc., had em-ployment on more than ninety per cent. of the working days. That his workers appreciated his fair dealing and consideration goes without saying. There has never been industrial strife at Talon, Inc., and any differences arising between employer and employee were promptly ironed out by Colonel Walker's frank approach, his willingness to understand another's viewpoint and his very considerable gifts as a harmonizer and negotiator.
To other phases of the business, Colonel Walker gave the same close personal attention that he did to problems of employment and labor relations. Intensive study went into the development of new markets for the Talon fastener, its adaptation to new types of merchandise. The laboratories and the engineering and experimental depart-ments of the company were kept at a high peak of efficiency by Colonel Walker's "passion for constant improvement." Here new products were developed, new machines de-signed, production equipment standardized, experiments carried out to meet the needs of new and potential cus-tomers.
"No progress without change," the Colonel was fond of saying, and his company was wedded to this belief from the start.
Among the most attractive of his qualities [it was writ-ten of Colonel Walker] was a willingness to give credit to the many others who had contributed to the success of the company which he headed. He was the last to claim such credit for himself. He took satisfaction rather in the fact that he had been able to surround himself with able workers, and that he had opened the way for their accom-plishments.
He was an executive in the truest sense of the word. He was shrewd in his judgments of men, as well as of business situations. He was enthusiastic and confident, and could impart that enthusiasm and confidence to others. Loyal to his associates, naturally he won their loyalty. He gave his best to those around him, and received their best in return.
Colonel Walker proved, as have others, that a man can combine indomitable leadership and an inspiring person-ality with the generous and kindly qualities of benevolence. He survived the bitter struggles of the business world, without himself becoming bitter. He succeeded, and he wanted to succeed; but he would have scorned success that came at another man's expense. He believed that business should succeed through cooperation, and that a business man could be regarded as successful only if he contributed to the success of others. Not the least impor-tant element in his own company, he believed, was that its product added to the usefulness and salability of the prod-ucts of those many other industries which it served. . . . .
When he died, he left an organization employing four thousand men and women, whose annual payrolls amounted to nearly $4,000,000, whose wage levels for employees were at the highest point in the company's history, whose selling prices were the lowest of all time and whose new Meadville factory had been outgrown and several times enlarged and supplemented by another plant in Erie and still another in Meadville. Products of the company were sold in millions of units, instead of thousands, and its prosperity was the largest single factor in making Mead-ville what it is today. "For here was a town of twenty-three thousand instead of the thirteen thousand who lived here in 1913. A town which went almost unscathed through the depression, whose banks never closed, whose stores were busy and prosperous, whose homes were well-kept, whose relief lists were at a minimum. A town in which nearly every family had one or more representatives in the colonel's plants; a town in which the colonel's com-pany was the largest taxpayer, the chief contributor to local philanthropies, and a larger employer than all other combined. The colonel had felt that he owed much to Meadville and its people; Meadville and its people were appreciative of what he had done in return. . . . ."
His personal efforts and benevolences were not the least of his contributions to Meadville and its institutions. From the day he became a student at Allegheny College until his death, Colonel Walker maintained his profound interest and close associations with the college. He served for many years on its board of trustees, was one of its prin-cipal benefactors, and took a leading share in the develop-ment of its program and policies. It was just that he should receive in 1937 the Alumni Award for "Service to Alma Mater." Other Meadville institutions shared in his generous interest. One of the leading Congregational lay-men of the city, he was a charter member of Park Avenue Congregational Church and for twenty-five years superin-tendent of its Sunday school. For a number of years he was also moderator of the Congregational Conference of Pennsylvania.
"He gave liberally always not only of his means, but of himself, to community philanthropies. He was a trustee of the Meadville City Hospital, and a generous contributor to it. In civic, literary, commercial and social bodies, he was an active and loyal member. Wherever he went, in whatever circle, he showed the supreme talent for friend-ship and for friendliness which was a central theme of his character."
Colonel Walker's personal tastes were always simple. He was unchanged alike by the bitter struggles of the business world and by the notable successes which were eventually his. "He moved through life serene and calm, as much so when under pressure and in adversity as in the last easier years. Though his was an immensely pro-ductive life, he found time always for truly human rela-tionships."
Colonel Walker derived his military title from his ap-pointment as colonel on the personal staff of Governor James A. Beaver of Pennsylvania in 1890, after earlier service in the Pennsylvania National Guard. [HNP, 11]