J. Arthur House
J. Arthur House. Aside from some very desirable assets, due partly to inheritance and partly to early environment and training, J. Arthur House started life on the same footing with any number of thousands of other young men. It has been one of the long boasted advantages of American democracy that any one of the many may attain by his own efforts and power a place among the few. In that respect Mr. House is a typically and thoroughly representative American.
He belongs to an old Cuyahoga County family. His grandfather, Ruel House, came from Glastonbury, Connecticut, in 1818 and settled at Euclid, now a Cleveland suburb. In 1837 he moved to East Cleveland, and lived there until his death in 1880. J. Arthur House was born at East Cleveland October 20, 1871, a son of Joseph W. and Clarissa House. His father, who was born in Cleveland in March, 1840, grew up and received his education in his native city and during the Civil war enlisted in the Union army as a member of Battery B, First Ohio Light Artillery. With a credible record as a soldier he returned to Cleveland and for a number of years was engaged in gardening about the city. In 1884 he entered the contracting business and has now been retired only a few years.
J. Arthur House attended the grammar and high schools of Cleveland until he was sixteen years of age. His first employment was as office boy at wages of $15 a month with the Nickel Plate Railroad. The former office boy now sits as one of the directors of that great transportation company. When he left the railroad 3½ years later he was occupying the position of claim clerk. For the following year he was clerk with Pickands-Mather Company, and then for two years was clerk with the Republic Iron Company.
It was this varied experience and training that he brought with him when he first became connected with the Guardian Savings and Trust Company. As clerk in that institution he was successively advance to teller, bookkeeper, in 1899 to assistant treasurer, in 1902 to assistant secretary, in February, 1906, was elected secretary, in 1912 became fifth vice president, and in 1914 was elected first vice president which office he held until December 4, 1917, when he was elected president of one of Ohio's largest and best known banking institutions.
Mr. House holds the position of director in a number of prominent corporations, including the Cleveland National Bank, Wheeling and Lake Erie Railroad, N. Y. C. & St. L. Railroad, Paragon Refining Company, Cleveland Brass & Copper Mills, Incorporated, Metal Craft Company, Triton Steamship Company, of which he is treasurer, the Morris Plan Bank, the Alleghany (sic) By-Products Company, the Cleveland Macaroni Company.
Mr. House is a member of the Masonic Order and the Union, Hermit and Cleveland Athletic clubs, the Country Club and the Shaker Heights Country Club, is a republican in politics, a member of the Euclid Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church and has found time to serve various public institutions. He is a trustee of St. Luke's Hospital, assistant treasurer of the Lakeside Hospital, and a trustee of the Deaconess Home. In Cleveland June 14, 1899, he married Miss Maude Marie Mills. They have two children, James A., Jr., aged twelve, attending the University School, while the daughter, Helen Elizabeth, is a student of the Hathaway Brown School for Girls.
From Cleveland - Special Limited Edition, The Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago & New York, 1918 v.1