Nicholas Clement Alten
My Great-Great-Grandfather
N.C. Alten's Life
Alten was not only involved with his company. He was on the Board of Directors of Lorain Savings and Banking Co, and he was on the Board of the Chamber of Commerce. He also was on the Board of Directors of the Lorain Telephone Company. He owned stock of this company, and after many mergers, it eventually became Sprint stock.
During World War I, Walter William Alten, N.C.'s son and my great-grandfather, registered for the U.S. Military draft. However, he was exempt from duty because he was deaf in his left ear and was "needed on account of father's age to operate business".
In 1918, just after World War I, the Flu Epidemic of 1918 struck. It killed the second child of N.C. Alten, named Florence Cecilia Alten. She was only 30 at the time, and she was married with two children.
N.C. Alten married Mary Elizabeth Libs on February 12, 1885 and had seven children (six girls and one boy). Just four days later, Charlie Dow would publish the first edition of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
N.C. died of a heart attack on October 3, 1933. He was 76. A newspaper article and an editorial both honored his memory, saying that his death brought "to a close a whole chapter in Lorain's history". On the same day of his death, a fire in LA's Griffith Park trapped 50 people.
Postcard of Lorain
N.C. Alten's Birthplace
N.C. Alten's Family
N.C.'s Family
As stated earlier, N.C. and Mary had seven children. Their first child was a girl named Alice Ada. She was born on February 28, 1886 and died in 1985.
Florence Cecilia was their second child. She was born on February 2, 1888 and died from the flu epidemic in 1918, on October 28.
Their third child, Walter William, is my great-grandfather. He was born on August 24, 1890 and died on August 18, 1954.
The fourth and fifth children were twin girls, named Corrine Margaretta and Lucille Mary, born August 21, 1892. Corrine died in September of 1977, after marrying the brother of Walter's wife. Lucille attended the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where she played the organ. She did concerts on the West coast for 35 years. She died single on Christmas Day of 1968.
The sixth child was Thelma Elizabeth, born on July 7, 1895. She died at the age of 42 in April 1937.
The seventh and final child was Geralda "Geri" Esther. She was born on September 9, 1897. She was the last of the family to die when she perished in the 1990s.