Lee M. Hutchins Page 666-667 - Lee M. Hutchins was born at Sharon, Wisconsin, October 14, 1854. In the Year 1860, he accompanied his parents when they moved to Ionia, Michigan, where he attended school and was graduated from the high school in 1873. His father had been a druggist and in 1873 Lee M. Hutchins went into the same store his father had left five years before. From errand boy to manager he worked through all the grades, being the manager for ten years. In all of his business life he has been off the pay and profit rolls but six weeks. In 1887 he went with James E. Davis and Company, wholesale druggists in Detroit. He remained with that company through its various changes until the name was changed to the Michigan Drug Company in 1898. He came to Grand Rapids in 1898 as secretary and treasurer of the company of which he is now the head. In the development of the business and on account of the death of Henry Fairchild, one of the founders of the Hazeltine & Perkins Drug Company, and later through the death of Dr. C. S. Hazeltine, he became the company's treasurer and general manager. That the great drug house, one of the best known in the north-central states, owes in a great measure its success to his unusual ability and thought is known to all men who know Grand Rapids. In all his years in this city Mr. Hutchins has been prominent among the business men, the professional men and others who have done the big things accomplished in this city. He is vice-president of the Grand Rapids Trust Company, a director of the Grand Rapids National City Bank, a director of the Macey Company. For many years he has been one of the leading men in the extension of the wholesale trade in this city, and has been active in the Association of Commerce, being one of its leading speakers. In church matters Mr. Hutchins has been identified with Westminster Presbyterian Church, and for several years has been an elder of that church. Mr. Hutchins was married November 26, 1879, to Miss Alice Wilson. She was born in Ionia, September 24,1856, and died at her home on College avenue, Grand Rapids, September 4, 1921. Mrs. Hutchins was survived by her husband Lee M. Hutchins, and one son, Wilson Hutchins. He is president of the Grand Rapids Foundation. His parents were John B. and Charlotte E. (Bowles) Hutchins, natives of western New York and Sandusky, Ohio. The father was a farmer and druggist and died at Ionia in 1891, aged sixty-eight years. His mother died in 1893 at the age of fifty-nine. The father was a Democrat and at one time a candidate for congress.

Transcriber: Gloria Paas
Created: 3 April 2003