Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 95, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 March 1912 — WILLIAM SPRINGER’S LUCK. [ARTICLE]

WILLIAM SPRINGER’S LUCK.

New-Made Millioniare Expounds His xJVj Philosophy as an Heir. The folowing dispatch from Little Rock, Ark., is of interest to Jasper county readers of The Democrat because of the large landed interests of the late Warren Springer, of Chicago, near Kniman, in this county, and the fact that Warren Springer was quite well known to many readers of this paper here: Willlapi Springer, jack of all trades, \o whom his father’s second wife voluntarily surrendered a million dollars, onq-half of the estate of his father, Warren Springer, who died recently In Chicago, is most philosophical over ihis sudden jump into affluence. For the first time since fortune smiled upon him the one time roving accountant and itinerant sign painter told parts of his early history and explained how he became estranged from his father, who was a prominent real estate operator in Chicago. '

The newly made millioniare, who is forty-five years old, is married and has been living at 1507 Rock street.

“Forty-five years is a splendid age at which to inherit money,” he said. “You are still young enough to enjoy ft, and it is certain you won’t live long enough to spend it all.”

Mr. Springer—be was plain Bill Springer, the painter, until a week ago to everybody in Little Rock—came here five years ago from Atlanta, Ga. For some time he has been employed by the Capital City Advertising Company, and when the telegram came breaking the news from his father's second wife that he was to share in t>he estate of tHis father, ihe was busy with his pots and brushes. *

“I can hardly realize* it,” said Mr. Springer, “but it will not make I any difference with me. The thing that surprises ine most is that fath- ! er left me anything. I. certalnly| never expected him to. When we separated it was under very unfriendly circumstances, and I never looked for a penny of his money. “While I have always made a good living and have seen much of! the world in my .travels, it doesn’t seem real to know now that I’m surely" a millioniare. My trouble with father, as is generally the case in all family differences, was not 1 so serious, after all. We probably j just imagined it was. To begin at the beginning, I was born in Plano, 1 Mich., in 1867. When I was ten 1 months old my father and mother! separated. I remained with my mother, who still lives in- Plano. l! attended the public schools of my home town and was graduated from the University of Michigan when I was twenty-two years old. “In the meantime my father went

to Chicago and engaged in the machine shop business on a small scale. He was successful In his affairs and shortly after I left the university hd persuaded me to join him in Chicago. My mother did not want me to go, telling me I could not get along with my, father, but I went anyway. I was with my father only a short time. I soon saw. that we could not get along, and after a hot argument one day I. parted with him. “The trouble was that father—at least; I thought so then—was too strict. It appeared to me that he wanted to have all the fun, while 1 Should tread the straight and narrow path. Possibly now I would look differently at those things, but then I was sure I was getting the worst of the deal.

“That was about all there was to it. 1 simiily decided we could not get along and went out In the world for myself. While I had a good education, I found a few years later that if I intended to travel all the time 1 would have to have some sort of occupation where I could catch on,’ as the saying is, anywhere. From accounting I took up sign painting.” ,