Pages 552-553-554 - Samuel N. Naylor owns and conducts, in a building that he owns and that is specially equipped for the purpose, a substantial upholstering business of general order, and the enterprise is one of the largest and most important of its kind in Grand Rapids, where the headquarters are maintained at the corner of Grandville and Naylor streets. Mr. Naylor was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, August 21, 1864, and is a son of Samuel Naylor, who was there engaged in the hardware business at the time when he entered service as a valiant soldier of the Union in the Civil war, in which conflict he sacrificed his life, he having been killed while participating in the historic Battle of the Wilderness. After his death his widow, whose maiden name was Ruth E. Niles, removed with her family of three sons and two daughters to a farm near Georgetown, Ottawa county, and in that locality the elder of the sons, Cash E. Naylor, died as the result of injuries received in a sawmill, he having been about twenty-one years of age at that time. Clarence Eugene Naylor, second one, nineteen years of age, was murdered in Georgetown in 1875. As a boy in Ann Arbor, Samuel J. Naylor, who was but an infant at the time of his father’s death, worked as a bootblack, sold newspapers and applied himself to other work within the compass of his powers, in order to aid in the support of the family. In the meanwhile he attended school when opportunity offered. The mother contracted a second marriage, but in 1876 she was again widowed, and it became necessary for her one remaining son, then twelve years of age, to assume a large part of the responsibility of supporting his mother and sisters. He soon came to Grand Rapids, where he first entered the employ of the Grand Rapids Alabastine Company, and later he worked thirty days for the Bishop Furniture Company, in order to obtain a bicycle which he considered a necessary equipment. In this connection he made himself so useful that the company gave him a permanent position. He continued his association with the Bishop Furniture Company twenty years, during which time he became its vice-president. While he was thus engaged Mr. Naylor had established a small upholstering business, and the same gradually expanded into one of importance. He had placed the management of this business largely in charge of his two sons, and when one of these sons entered the World war service Mr. Naylor, himself, severed his connection with the Bishop Furniture Company, in order to assume active supervision of the upholstering business, which is now one of broad scope, in the handling of high-grade upholstering work on both new and used furniture. In the well equipped establishment employment is now given to fourteen men and women, and in the year 1924, the repair department of the concern handled fully 5,000 jobs, besides which was done also a large business in the upholstering of new furniture. Mr. Naylor has built twenty or more houses, his factory and store buildings on Grandville avenue, in the southwest part of the city. Mr. Naylor is a Republican in politics, and is affiliated also with the Elks, Maccabees, and the Modern Woodmen of America. He married Miss Nellie Vanderstolp and they have two sons, Leonard J. and Cash E., both of whom are associated with their father in business. Cash E. served in the World war period as a member of the medical corps of the United States Army, and during the most of his period of service he was stationed at Waco, Texas.