Howard L. Boggs

Page 481-482 - Howard L. Boggs is secretary of the Grand Rapids Credit Men’s Association, and both in character and technical and executive efficiency is admirably fitted for this office in which he is giving a vigorous and valuable administration. The Grand Rapids Credit Men’s Association is a branch of the National Association of Credit Men, which has a membership of more than 31,000, representatives of banking institutions, manufacturers, and wholesale and jobbing concerns. The Grand Rapids branch has 280 members, and of its affairs, Mr. Boggs assumed the management, in the capacity of secretary, in August, 1924. He was selected on account of his special eligibility for the position. He had previously served as comptroller of the Associated Manufacturers Company of Waterloo, Iowa, manufacturers of farm implements. He was in New York City at the time when the nation entered the World war and forthwith became a member of the Seventh Regiment, New York National Guard. When his command was mustered into the United States Army he held the grade of private, and the regiment was assigned to the Twenty-seventh Division, with which he had one year of active service overseas. He was in action at the front and the most important engagements in which he took part were as here designated: East Poperinghe Line; Dicke Busch sector, in Belgium; the Hindenberg Line sectore had H, Bony; LaSalle river, in the vicinity of St. Souplet; Jonc de Mer Ridge; and St. Maurice River. Mr. Bogs was one of only thirty out of his company of two hundred and fifty members to come out of the service without having been wounded, gassed or otherwise injured. He continued in service until the armistice brought the war to a close, and after his return to his native land he received his honorable discharge with the rank of corporal. His interest in his former comrades is signalized by his affiliation with the American Legion. After his return to Waterloo, Iowa, Mr. Boggs entered the employ of the Associated Manufacturers Company as assistant credit manager and was later made comptroller. While with this firm he was elected chairman of the credit managers division of the National Association of Farm Equipment Manufacturers and vice-chairman of the National Bankruptcy committee of the National Association of Credit Men. Mr. Boggs was born at Albion, Iowa, and is a representative, in the third generation, of one of the honored pioneer families of that state, his grandfather, William F. Boggs, a native of Pennsylvania and a cabinetmaker by trade, having removed to Iowa soon after completing his service as a gallant soldier of the Union in the Civil war. His maternal grandfather, Captain T. S. Devine, served in the Mexican and Civil wars. These sterling war veterans made the overland trip with their families by means of teams and covered wagons and reclaimed in the Hawkeye state productive farms from the government land they there obtained. Mr. Boggs is a member of the Sons of the American Revolution. Edward A. Boggs, father of the subject of this sketch, is a representative citizen and business man of Waterloo, Iowa, in the public schools of which city Howard L. Boggs acquired his early education, he having there been graduated in the high school and having later continued his studies in Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. Hon. Eastman, who served as lieutenant-governor of Iowa and who was the author of the Iowa motto inscribed on the Washington monument, at Washington, D. C., was a grand-uncle of Howard L. Boggs. Mr. Boggs married Miss Marietta Burne, of New York City, and they have two children: Richard, aged eight years, and Jacqueline, aged two years (in 1925).