Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 January 1917 — Merle W. Porter Receiving Recognition In Shoe Field. [ARTICLE]

Merle W. Porter Receiving Recognition In Shoe Field.

The many friends in this city of Merle W. Porter, son of W. M. Porter, of Hammond, and a nephew of W. VPorter of -this city, will be pleased with the success he is attaining as A shoe salesman for the Grand Rapids Shoe and Rubber Co. Mr. Porter is -a graduate of Rensselaer high school, of the class of 1910, and for a number of years was a resident of this city. In the Shoe and Rubber Review, a monthly publication of. the firm by whom Mr. Porter is employed, the latter receives especial mention and on the front cover of the book is Mr. Porter’s picture’. In speaking of him under the caption, “On the Firing Line,” the Review says: “Merle W. Porter, who occupies the spotlight this fnonth, after three years in the stock room of the Grand Rapids Shoe and Rubber Company, ojins the outside staff and takes to the road for the company, where he can meet personally the customers to whom he has been shooting goods for the past three years. We bespeak for him your friendly consideration for he’s leaving a perfectly good home 'to go out and hit the rattlers, and it will be some time before he becomes casehardehed to the inconveniences of continual travel, like Harvey Skillman, John Maurits, Glen Finch and the other pirates wtho, at the expense of the company have acquired a speaking acquaintance with every time table and landlord in Western Michigan. », “Mr. Porter tearfully confesses that he was born in Kansas, and at Wichi-

ta at that. “As this happened only 26 years ago. August 4, 1890, to be exact for the benefit of historians, friend Porter remejn’bers all about it and he often mentions the happiness of his parents and the jealousy of the neighbors when the news was flashed around the state that another Grand Rapids Shoe and Rubber Company salesman had come to live in Wichita. “While he had a good education, still he felt that one never can know too much, so in August, 1915, he engaged Clara Belle Morrison, of Rapid City, a former school teacher, to sign a life ocntract with him, and he’s AvnndnT-ndpvprrfnnehOWthedeUC'a'’ he ever persuaded her to give up a regular job to-come to his house to live.- Brother Porter’s shoe experir ence was not all gained with this company. .For three years- he was salesman and assistant buyer in the shoe department of ttne of Grand Rapids’ largest stores. Mr. Porter will handle the celebrated Frog Brand lines of mackinaws, rain coats and work coats, thus brniging the three years which he spent in the men’s furnishing goods business with his father in Indiana. “We anticipate for Mr. Porter the same success on the road as has characterized his work inside the housed-——— ——