Series:
Stephen Martindale IV (1859-1923). Papers, 1874-1932: Stephen Martindale IV was born in La Crosse 21 August 1859 and spent almost his entire life there. He was the son of Stephen Martindale III and Katharine Howard Martindale. Stephen was graduated from La Crosse High School, and later took both Bachelor of Arts (1880) and Master of Arts (1886) degrees from Beloit College. He also earned a Bachelor of Law degree from the University of Wisconsin Law School 1886 and he later studied law in the office of M. P. Wing and C. C. Prentiss, La Crosse. After practicing law for a while with his brother in La Crosse, he joined his father's insurance business which he took over in 1906 when father died. Stephen became district manager of the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company and was active in the firm at the time of his death, 16 February 1923. Active in the First Congregational Church and business and social organizations, he was also well known as a cultured and scholarly man. Copies of his obituary are located in his estate papers and in the folder of Genealogical Materials.
Stephen's Personal Correspondence is primarily to different members of his family and concerns his college years, the courtship of his wife, family business and personal matters, and descriptions of the events of his daily life. His letters to his wife are touching and eloquent as are those to his children. They reveal a devoted husband and a father who was earnestly committed to the education of his daughters at a time when relatively few women received higher education. Additional correspondence of Stephen and his wife Sophie with their children is listed with Sophie's papers above, in Box 11A and 11B.
The Business Papers, which are extensive and contain Stephen IV's personal and insurance business papers, are subdivided into several categories reflecting Stephen's own organization. It should be remembered that Stephen was in business with his father and the 1906 beginning date for some of the business groupings is an arbitrary date determined by the death of Stephen III in that year. General Business Papers include correspondence to and from the different minor insurance companies which Stephen represented; commissions; collection notices; payments received; correspondence to and from clients about insurance matters; loan notes; legal documents including property deeds, quit claims, and contracts; correspondence concerning property and stock transactions on behalf of relatives; office maintenance bills and receipts; and a small amount of correspondence to and from schools, charities, and various associations. The papers are arranged in one chronological series.
The papers for the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, Stephen's major business concern, comprise a separate grouping arranged in chronological order. These papers, which reveal the business's daily operation, include dividend sheets for policies; contracts; commissions; notes and correspondence to and from the general agent about clients, policies, selling tips, policy decisions, business trends, etc.; correspondence from the home office; and memoranda from the medical department concerning applicants or policy holders. The Bank Papers contains cancelled checks, account statements, loan notices, and bank books from several La Crosse banks. The Personal Insurance Papers are the policies and related materials for Stephen's own life insurance. Stephen purchased numerous policies from different companies which he used for loan collateral in his other financial dealings. Stephen IV's Tax Returns, provide further information about his income for almost every year from 1911 to 1924. Included are La Crosse city, Wisconsin state, and federal tax receipts, correspondence, assessments, earning statements, and tax return forms. The tax settlement which Stephen V made for the year of Stephen IV's death is filed here.
The Business Literature consists of printed materials sent to Stephen IV by all of the different insurance companies he represented. It continues a similar grouping found under Stephen III and offers a representative sample over a long time period of the forms and materials used in the daily operations of insurance businesses. There are form letters from home offices and general agents, rate comparison tables and booklets, agent instruction manuals, dividend illustrations, advertisements, and a sampling of blank insurance forms. These last items are undated and therefore filed at the end of the subseries. The vast majority of the Stephen IV Estate Papers are from 1923 to 1924 when Stephen V was estate administrator. The very late papers concern a trust Stephen IV established for his wife.
The General Papers mainly contain correspondence to and from Stephen V with Stephen IV's insurance business companies, clients, debtors, and creditors. There is also considerable correspondence from Stephen V to relatives (Anna and Ned Martindale, Estelle Rosenblatt, Robert Roberts, Francis Rausch, Edward Hill) with whom Stephen IV had complex bank stock and land deals. The correspondence of those relatives should be consulted for their letters to Stephen V. Other materials are bills, receipts, personal insurance papers, and later correspondence between Sophie and Katharine Martindale and the La Crosse Trust Company, which handled the estate from late 1924, and others. The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company folders primarily contain Stephen V's and Katharine's correspondence and business dealings with the firm in order to settle their father's daily business affairs and a dispute concerning their renewing his commissions for themselves. Bank Papers result from accounts which Stephen V established to settle the estate. The Miscellaneous folder contains an obituary, funeral records, and a few other items.
Household Bills and Receipts, 1906-1923, are arranged in chronological order. Since Stephen IV and his family lived in the same house as Stephen III, the 1906 beginning date was arbitrarily determined by the death of Stephen III, whose series should be consulted for earlier bills and receipts. Also, the 1923 ending date was established by the death of Stephen IV; later household bills and receipts will be filed in Katharine's series. Most of the bills and receipts are from La Crosse, but some come from Chicago, Minneapolis, and as far away as New York. They provide detailed information about the daily lives of a family during the period and are for such expenditures as food, clothing, furniture, appliances, home improvements, druggist supplies, medical costs, automobile expenses, membership fees, magazine and newspaper subscriptions, charitable donations, household operating expenses, and so forth. The above information is supplemented by household expense records found in the series Martindale Notebooks.
School Papers include numerous undated compositions and exercises, report cards, tuition and other receipts for his Beloit College days, and a commencement program.
