Monday, November 5, 2012

c1903 Photograph of Winfield Lee Cole while a student at the University of Maine


c1903 photograph of a young man identified on the reverse as W. Lee Cole - Winfield Lee Cole (1872-1944) - of Dayton, Maine, taken while he was a student at the University of Maine and a member of Alpha Tau Omega.   

The photograph was taken by the Ramsdell Halloran studio of Bangor, Maine.


From online research, hopefully correct: [corrections welcome]

Winfield Lee Cole (1872-1944) was born 31 December 1872 [according to his birth record; 30 December 1872 according to his WWI Draft Registration Card] at Dayton, Maine.  

His parents were Clark Remich Cole and Mary Foss (Weymouth) Cole, who were born at Alfred, Maine, and Hollis, Maine, respectively.  

In the 1900 Census, W. Lee Cole was working as a farm laborer, perhaps on the family farm.  Soon after this, he entered the University of Maine at Orono, where by 1902 he was the manager of the football team.

While at the University of Maine, in 1903, he and two others wrote a 58 page book entitled A Preliminary Investigation of the Conditions for Establishing a Waterpower at Birch Island Rips near Greenbush, Maine.

After graduation from the University of Maine with a degree in mechanical engineering, W. Lee Cole moved to Rhode Island.  He was boarding at the Howard E. Chappelle household at East Providence, Rhode Island, and working as a mechanical engineer at the time of the 1910 Census.

On 11 September 1912 in Rhode Island, W. Lee married Gertrude Gardner Sherman (1883-1979), daughter of Thomas Stanton Sherman and Mary Ann Frances (Buffinton) Sherman.  Gertrude was born 16 July 1833 at Bristol, Rhode Island.

The couple made their home at East Providence, Rhode Island and raised, I believe, three daughters.  W. Lee Cole was, at various times, the manager of a sprinkler company, the owner of a worsted mill and the superintendent of a machine shop.

Around 1920 the University of Maine sent out questionnaires to the last known addresses of its alumni to that date.  About a fifth of the alumni responded.  One of them was W. Lee Cole.  The completed questionnaires are held at Special Collections at the Fogler Library at the University of Maine at Orono.

If you have corrections and/or information to share, please leave a comment for the benefit of other researchers.

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