M. G. Addicks was a member of the Newton Public Library board of trustees for 11 years.[1] The son of Charles Samuel and Lydia May (Baumgardner) Addicks, Milton Gerhart Addicks was born July 23, 1888, at Geneseo, Illinois.[2] His family moved from Illinois to Des Moines, Iowa, in 1904.[3] Three years later he came to Newton at the invitation of F. L. Maytag.[4] Young Milton was working as a bellhop at the Savery Hotel when he met Mr. Maytag. The latter asked Milton if he’d like to come work for him at the Parsons Band Cutter & Self-Feeder Co., which Maytag had an interest in. The company made feeder attachments for farm threshing machines.[5] Milton was hired as an invoice and billing clerk.[6] He became the seventh office employee of the Maytag Co., which was just starting to manufacture washing machines.[7] During his seven-year tenure at Maytag he wrote the invoice for the first washing machine manufactured by the company, The Pastime.[8] He later was promoted to assistant sales manager to L. B. Maytag, Maytag’s son.[9] Milton lived with Mr. & Mrs. Howard Grange for two years, boarding at the Guessfords’.[10] About 1909, he moved into a half-room “cracker box” at Mrs. Mellie Guessford’s, 301 E. Main St., where he remained until 1916.[11] Addicks left the Maytag Co. in 1914 to manage the savings department of the First National Bank of Newton.[12] When the Newton National Bank was re-organized in 1932 he became that institution’s assistant cashier.[13] In 1941, Addicks was appointed Jasper County Treasurer, succeeding F. H. McCarl who died suddenly in his office of a heart attack.[14] He served in that office for a year.[15] Addicks moved from Newton to Portland, Oregon, in 1942 where he was a cost accounting clerk in a shipyard.[16] Returning to Iowa in 1943, he served as vice president and a member of the board of directors at the Citizens State Bank in Donnellson.[17] Addicks assumed the presidency of the bank in 1947 and remained in that position until his retirement in 1966.[18] Co-owner of the bank at the time of his retirement, he sold the institution and then assisted the new owners before returning to Newton in 1967.[19] On November 17, 1907, Milton G. Addicks joined the Newton Methodist Episcopal Church.[20] It was at the church that he met Miss LaVina Pearl Bean (1890-1982), a high school senior, who attended the Epworth League meetings there.[21] They were married February 22, 1916, in Reasnor.[22] Addicks served in a number of capacities in the church.[23] He was also very active in Republican politics.[24] He was a 50-year member of Newton Lodge No. 59, A., F. & A. M. and a member of Newton Chapter No. 100, Order of the Eastern Star.[25] He was also a member of the Knights of Pythias, Modern Woodmen of America, CROP, the Jasper County Farm Bureau, and 4-H.[26] He was a member of the Lions Club, for which he had a 25-year perfect attendance, and was a life member of the Newton Chamber of Commerce.[27] Milton G. Addicks, 106, died September 5, 1994, at Careage of Newton, of heart failure.[28] Burial was in Palo Alto Cemetery in rural Newton.[29]
-Larry Ray Hurto
[1] https://iagenweb.org/jasper/history/whoswho/whoswho4.htm. He is listed as a Free Public Library trustee in Smith’s Directory of Newton and Jasper County, Iowa for 1920, Vol. I (Dorchester, MA: Edgar Smith, Publisher, 1920), p. 33.
[2] The Newton Daily News, September 6, 1994. Milton’s mother died when he was 17 months old. Larry Ray Hurto, ed., A History of Newton, Iowa (Dallas, TX: Curtis Media Corporation, 1992), p. 383. His father died in 1932. The Newton Daily News, April 14, 1932.
[3] Dave Stolper, “M. G. Addicks: bellhop to Maytager, then banker,” The Daily News, Newton, IA, July 19, 1984.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Larry Ray Hurto interview with Milton Addicks, November 17, 1984; A History of Newton, Iowa, p. 291.
[6] A History of Newton, Iowa, p. 383.
[7] The Newton Daily News, September 6, 1994.
[8] “100th birthday festivities set for M. G. Addicks,” The Newton Daily News, July 22, 1988.
[9] A History of Newton, Iowa, pp. 383-384.
[10] Larry Ray Hurto interview with Milton Addicks, November 17, 1984.
[11] Ibid.
[12] The Newton Daily News, September 6, 1994.
[13] “100th birthday festivities set for M. G. Addicks.”
[14] The Newton Daily News, June 9, 1941.
[15] Ibid., September 6, 1994.
[16] Ibid. He was employed by the Willamette Iron & Steel Corp. Polk’s Portland (Oregon) City Directory 1943-44, Vol. LXXVII (Portland, OR: R. L. Polk & Co., Publishers, 1944), p. 25, lists him as Milton H. Addicks.
[17] The Newton Daily News, September 6, 1994.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Ibid.
[20] Larry Ray Hurto interview with Milton Addicks, November 17, 1984.
[21] Ibid.
[22] Newton Daily Journal, February 23, 1916.
[23] The Newton Daily News, September 6, 1994. He was President of the Epworth League, taught Sunday School, served as Sunday School superintendent for 11 years, and attended annual and jurisdictional conferences as a member. A History of Newton, Iowa, p. 384.
[24] The Newton Daily News, September 6, 1994.
[25] He was “made a Mason” in 1920. Email, January 3, 2025, from Wade E. Sheeler, Secretary, Newton Lodge No. 59, A., F. & A. M. Addicks was Treasurer of Newton Lodge from 1927 to 1942. 150th Anniversary, Newton Lodge #59 A. F. & A. M., Newton, Iowa [2005], p. 79.
[26] The Newton Daily News, September 6, 1994.
[27] Ibid.
[28] Ibid.
[29] https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/search/collections/60525/records/3948447.