Clair C. Nevers Page335 - Clair C. Nevers is the Michigan manager of and a partner in the Lyon Furniture Mercantile Agency, a national organization that has rendered great service in connection with the furniture industry and business during a period of nearly half a century. "Efficiency, promptness, and financial responsibility" have been significant and consistent watchwords of this agency, and have definitely represented its policies during the entire period that has marked its upbuilding as one of the great commercial reporting and collection agencies of the United States, its special field of service being in connection with the furniture, carpet and allied industries, and being restricted entirely to the same. On a farm six miles distant from Lowell, Kent county, Michigan, Clair C. Nevers was born February 22, 1883, and he is the son of James and Adelia (Lewitt) Nevers, the former of whom is living retired in Grand Rapids, at the venerable age of eighty-three years (1925), and the latter of whom died March 31, 1924. Benjamin Lewitt, maternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, came from England and became one of the pioneer settlers in Grand Rapids, where he became an influential citizen and business man, his interests having included the shoe business and also association with banking. The early education of Clair C. Nevers was gained in the public schools of his native county, including those of Grand Rapids, and as a boy he gave evidence of his assertive energy and self reliance by following various occupations within the compass of his powers. Thus it is to be noted that he had experience as a newsboy and also as a bellboy in various Grand Rapids hotels. Thereafter he gained clerical experience in the offices of the Grand Rapids Malleable Iron Works, and his experience in the mercantile agency business has now covered a period of nearly a quarter of a century. For seven years he was associated with the great agency of R. G. Dun & Company, and since January 1, 1909, he has maintained active alliance with the Lyon Furniture Mercantile Agency, a national organization in which he has been one of the principals since the concern absorbed, by purchase, the business of competing agencies, July 1, 1917. The national headquarters of the agency are now established in New York City, and the Michigan general offices are in the Grand Rapids Savings Bank building. This now important agency was founded in 1876, by Robert P. Lyon, whose son, Arthur S., is now its executive head. The concern maintains offices in all of the leading furniture centers of the United States, and it has gained rank as one of the most reliable, substantial and influential of American commercial agencies. Mr. Nevers has membership in the Commercial Law League of America, the Grand Rapids Association of Commerce and the local Credit Men’s Association, his political alignment is with the Republican party, and he and his wife are communicants of Grace church, Protestant Episcopal. Hr is a Knight Templar and Shrine Mason, and his home city has membership in the Y.M.C.A., the Peninsular Club, the Masonic Country Club, and the Highlands Golf Club. August 2, 1906, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Nevers to Miss Elizabeth Alice Davies, and they have two children: Ruth Alice and Margaret Ann.

Transcriber: John Miller
Created: 22 March 2003