Laura Bell and Edward Charles Reitz
Obituary Laura Bell Thompson Reitz
· 18 May 2015 ·
Birth: unknown
Death: Jan. 14, 1913
Obituary published in The Gospel Messenger, February 8, 1913, page 96: THE PASSING OF SISTER E. C. REITZ. About twenty years ago, Prof. E. C. Reitz and wife moved from Boone County, Iowa, to Anaconda, Montana, where they engaged in school-teaching for about six months. Later in the same year they moved to Missoula in the same State, where they founded, and successfully conducted the Garden City Commercial College. For about ten years they stood aloof from any church relations. Though often conscious of their duty to their God, and sometimes keenly convicted, they could not decide on uniting with any of the churches of Missoula, without first giving themselves to a thorough investigation of the Word, and then to decide accordingly. After deciding that the Church of the Brethren came nearest the apostolic church, the writer received a letter from them, requesting some one to come and administer baptism. In accordance with this request Eld. J. U. G. Stiverson and wife were sent under the direction of the Mission Board. The applicants were duly baptized and received into the church – the first to be baptized into the Church of the Brethren in the State of Montana. The above baptism took place in 1902. For ten years more they continued in the school work, though at a disadvantage religiously, being isolated from the church all these years. In the latter part of last November, Sister Reitz was taken sick. The doctor was called but was unable to locate the malady. Other doctors were called in consultation, until six doctors had exhausted their skill without any success. About Dec. 15, the writer received a message to come and anoint her. Taking with me Eld. Geo. E. Wise, of North Yakima, we started on our journey – a distance of nearly five hundred miles, reaching there in time to administer the anointing on the morning of the 17th. We found Sister Reitz strong in the faith, and ready for the service. While the anointing did not restore her to health, it was effectual in bringing to her a comfort, peace of mind, and resignation that she could not have had otherwise. A few days later Bro. Reitz started with her to Rochester, Minn., to the hospital of the Mayo Brothers, surgeons of national fame, only to find that they, with all their experience and skill, were powerless to locate her trouble or to give relief. While Sister Reitz was anxious to recover, and to be spared to her husband and two children, yet she was resigned to the Father’s will, and yielded to the summons on the 9th inst., at the hospital in Rochester, Minn. Her remains were brought to Missoula, where the funeral was held in the M. E. Church on the 16th inst., at 2 P. M., by the writer, assisted by the M. E. and Congregational ministers, from the words of Rev. 14: 13. Sister Reitz, whose maiden name was Laura Bell Thomson, was born in Putnam County, Ind., April 30, 1866, making her age at the time of her death, forty-six years, nine months and twenty-one days. She was not only possessed of excellent qualities as a mother, but as a Christian. She had that self-forgetting and self-sacrificing spirit for the comfort and pleasure of others that made her a host of friends, both in and out of the school. Her place in the home and the school will be hard to fill. The immediate relatives of both Brother and Sister Reitz live in Iowa, and while they were present, at her bedside, at the time of her death, besides the husband and little daughter, members of both families, yet none were present at the funeral except the bereaved husband, son and daughter. Bro. Reitz and the two children deserve the prayers and sympathies of the church. May the Father in his mercy richly sustain them, is our prayer.
D. B. Eby
Jan. 20 Obituary provided by Rebecca Brubaker Freeman (#47513221)
Note: Age 46 Burial: Missoula Cemetery Missoula Missoula County Montana, USA Plot: Grave 2, Lot 12, Block 071, Inter # 01683 Created by: Graves Record added: Feb 06, 2012 Find A Grave Memorial# 84567186
The article below is taken from the Missoula County History – Geneology and History – Geneology Trails website:
http://genealogytrails.com/mon/missoula/bios.html
Prof. E. C. Reitz.
“He is a fighter and does things!” These words have almost passed into a proverb in their frequent application to Prof. E. C. Reitz of Missoula, the interesting subject of this brief review. And they have sprung, in their reference to him, out of his well-known habit of acting on conviction in every case, and putting all his forces at work to accomplish the end he aims at. He is not whimsical or fanatical, but a man with a high and stern sense of duty, guided by integrity and the most earnest desire to do all he can for the benefit of his fellow men of every class and condition; and as his ideals are lofty, and his springs of action intense, he leaves no stone unturned in his efforts to carry out his views. Men have reviled him and called him unsavory names, but no opposition, and especially no abuse, has ever deterred him from his purposes, and that is one thing even his bitterest opponents always give him credit for. They know he is honest and consistent in his efforts to make the community around him as clean and pure as possible, and they esteem him for the inflexible determination with which he continues his work in this behalf, even though he sometimes runs against a pet desire of their own.
rofessor Reitz was born in Dixon, Lee county, Illinois, on August 3, 1864, and is a son of Conrad and Elizabeth (Keller) Reitz, natives of Pennsylvania, early emigrants to Illinois and pioneers in Iowa. They are now living at Maxwell, Story county, in that state, retired from active pursuits, the former aged seventy-one and the latter seventy-two years of age. On November 29, 1911, they celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of their wedding, and the celebration was a “golden wedding” in fact for their hosts of friends who had the pleasure of attending it.
Conrad Reitz, the professor’s father, the place of whose nativity is Somerset county, Pennsylvania, has been, in many respects, a remarkable man. He has tried his hand in various lines of productive enterprise and succeeded well in them all. For many years he was a mechanic and wrought laboriously and faithfully at his trade. Then he turned his attention to farming, and in this he was a leader in his locality and one of the most prosperous men engaged in the industry there. After that he became a merchant, and his triumphs in merchandising were no less signal and substantial than those he won in other departments of work. He moved to Illinois when he was a young man, and in 1870, when the pioneer days were still lingering in some parts of Iowa, he located in Boone county in that state, where frontier conditions still largely obtained. His high character, great energy and foresight and other masterful natural attributes made him successful in all his undertakings in spite of the fact that he had but a limited education from the schools.
Professor Reitz was educated in the public schools of Iowa and at Keokuk College in that state. He afterward pursued a course of special training for business and in penmanship at the Gem City Commercial College in Quincy, Illinois, from which he was graduated in 1890. While attending this school he was also actively engaged in managing his father’s farm. It is easy to conclude that his duties in his dual engagements at this time were burdensome, but that was a matter of no special consequence to him, as, even at his age at that time, he was a person of prodigious energy, with capacity for carrying on several lines of work at once.
In 1891 the professor formed a partnership with one of his schoolmates, and together they taught penmanship in Illinois and Iowa for several months. In September of the same year he entered Zanerian Art College in Columbus, Ohio, the only pen-art school in the world, and at the same time began special studies in English in the Thompson English Training School in Columbus. The next year he became a teacher in that school and also gave instructions in the army barracks in the city. This year, 1892, he completed his course in the Zanerian Art College and received his diploma from it as a graduate in all its departments.
Professor Reitz then came to Montana and located in Anaconda. He conducted a private school there for a few months, during which he visited Missoula to look over the field with a view to finding a suitable place for a permanent residence and the establishment of his business. In 1893 he returned to Boone, Iowa, and was married to Miss Laura B. Thompson, who was a school teacher in that city, having gone there from her native state, Indiana. He brought his bride to Anaconda, and continued teaching his private school there until June, the end of the term, when he moved to Missoula
Some weeks after his arrival in this city to remain, he opened a private school here with no capital but ability, both natural and acquired, energy that stopped at no obstacle, and honesty of purpose that has never wavered in the slightest degree. In October, 1903, he started the Garden City Commercial College, and conducted it on the third floor of the First National Bank building until sometime in 1904, when he moved it into the building it now occupies, which he had erected for the purpose. The building is an imposing and attractive one, a credit to Missoula in its architectural features, and as completely equipped as a commercial college as any in the country, if it does not surpass them all in this respect. Here is a manifestation of progress from a humble start to a splendid and far-famed institution, and its achievement is altogether due to the arduous and self-denying labor of Professor Reitz and his highly accomplished wife. She has been the teacher of the shorthand department in the school since they started life together, and deserves fully one-half of the credit for their success in their useful undertaking. They have two children, their son, Zaner Walter, now aged eighteen years, and their daughter, Edith Alpha, aged twelve at the time of this writing (1912). Professor Reitz has been an active and helpful factor in the progress and development of the city and county of .Missoula. He has stood for a clean town, believing that he was in some measure responsible for the moral as well as the educational welfare of his pupils. Missoula, like most other western cities, has at times been wide open, and many and bitter have been the contests over this feature of its life. Professor Reitz has always clamored for the strict enforcement of the law, and has fought for it through peace and through turbulence, continuing his efforts in the face of the most violent opposition, and when failure seemed inevitable. For he is one of the men who never give up, and only unlimbers his full battery at such critical times as would drive weaker men from the field, and he has done much to make the city orderly and law-abiding
He is a fighter and does things. When the bridge from the north to the south side of the river was swept away, on the 7th day of June, 1908, and the people were obliged to go three miles around to get across, the city had no money to build even a temporary structure. The city council could do nothing, as it had no funds. He took the matter up, and in a few hours raised $1,100 for the erection of a new bridge, which he swelled to $6,000 within the next few weeks. He then received bids, awarded the contract for the building of the bridge, gave bonds as guarantees of good faith and supervised the work of construction. The bridge was completed and opened for traffic and turned over to the city council free fr om debt. More than to any other one man is Missoula indebted to him for speedy relief from a great inconvenience at the time, and for a permanent improvement of great value in this matter.
Professor Reitz yielded to the importunities of his friends sometime ago and started an enterprise in the coal trade. The Garden City Commercial College Coal Company is the result, and from it the people are always sure to get full weight, the exact quality promised and prompt deliveries at the most reasonable cost to them. Professor Reitz believes firmly that honesty in business will be as successful, not only in the long run, but all the time, as any other course in mercantile dealings, and he conducts the affairs of this coal company on that basis. He applies the same rule to every thing connected with his school, and parents have always felt that their children were in safe hands when under his control. For they know him to be a man of the strictest integrity and uprightness in every relation of life, and zealous in inculcating his principles in all who receive his tuition. Missoula has no better or more useful citizen, and none whom the people of every grade and class hold in higher or more deserved esteem. Mr. and Mrs. Reitz are ultra religious and for many years have been members of the Brethren church, always doing all in their power to further the cause of Christianity. [History of Montana, Volume 3, 1913, transcribed by C. Danielson]
Edward Charles Reitz died in Spokane, Washington in 1952.
A brief obituary appeared in the Helena Independent Record for him on Feb. 2, 1952:
Spokane, Feb. 5. – AP – Edward C. Reitz, 89, long-time head of the Garden City Commercial college at Missoula, Mont., died in a local hospital yesterday after a brief illness.
Reitz was born in Illinois and moved west when a youth. He lived for 56 years in Missoula, where besides his college post, he managed the Great Western Fuel and Ice company prior to his retirement several years ago.
He was active in Montana political circles before coming to Spokane to reside with his daughter, Mrs. Edith Culver.
Funeral services will be conducted Wednesday and later this week services will be in held at Marsh and Powell funeral home in Missoula.
Surviving besides Mrs. Culver are a son, C. W. Reitz of Richland, Wash., two grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
Linked below is a Missoulian article from August 21, 2008 by Michael Moore about the Garden City Commercial College building on S. 4th. St W., in Missoula.