Frances Henry (Frank) Paradice was an
entrepreneur, inventor, and like his father George, an adventurer. It was Frank who relocated the Paradice
family to Denver, Colorado.
Frank was
born on September 27, 1857 at 3 Lower Bellevue in Clifton (Bristol),
Gloucestershire, England. He was christened
on October 18, 1857 at St. Andrew's Anglican Church in Clifton with the reverend Edward C. Streeten officiating.
In 1869, at
the age of 12, Frank accompanied his family to St. Catharines, Ontario, where
his father found work in the shipbuilding industry. There he met Catherine (Kate) Cuffe, who was born in St. Catharines on August 3, 1857 to John Evers Cuffe and Jane Sinnett.
Frank and Kate were married in St. Catharines on August 19, 1878.
The wedding was a double ceremony with Kate’s sister Margaret, who along
with her new husband George Havens witnessed Kate’s and Frank’s marriage.
Frank and Kate had 11 children, all of whom lived to
adulthood, a fact so notable that Frank’s obituary said, “His death is the
first to occur in a family of thirteen in over fifty years.” The children were:
Francis Henry (Frank) Paradice Jr.
was born in St. Catharines on April 5, 1879 and died on February 22, 1952 in
Pocatello, Idaho,
Catherine May (Kate) Paradice was
born in St. Catharines on August 18, 1880 and died on June 3, 1958 in Palo Alto, Santa Clara
Co., California.
Frederick James (Fred) Paradice was
born in Denver, Colorado on November 30, 1881 and died in Denver in September
1952.
George Evers Paradice was born in
Denver on Aug 15, 1883 and died in Ault, Colorado in February 1966.
Charles Edwin Paradice was born in
Denver on March 8, 1885 and died in April 1971. His last residence was in Orange, Essex Co.,
New Jersey.
Jane Edith Paradice was born in
Denver on May 5, 1886 and died on June 5, 1976 in Washington State.
Albert Edward Paradice was born in
Denver on November 13, 1887 and died there on July 31, 1969.
Lida Elizabeth Paradice was born in
Denver on January 21, 1889 and died there on June 10, 1980. Her name at birth, as recorded in the family
Bible, was Lida Isabel, but she renamed herself “Lida Elizabeth.”
Mary Margaret Paradice was born in
Denver on July 24, 1892 died there on August 25, 1962.
Frances Alice (Fran) Paradice was
born in Denver on March 4, 1900 and died on May 15, 1991. Her last residence was in Aurora, Arapahoe
Co., Colorado.
During the
first few years of their marriage, Frank and Kate lived in St. Catharines where Frank
 |
| Kate (Cuffe) Paradice and daughters |
worked as a tinsmith. Their
first two children were born in
St. Catharines.
In about
1880, Frank went to Denver, Colorado. A
family story says that the family had set off for California but only got as
far as Denver. They liked it and decided
to settle there. However, the 1880
census shows a Frank Paradice living by himself in a boarding house. It appears that Frank went alone to seek
opportunities in the United States and later sent for or returned to bring his
family to Denver. By November 1881 the
family was reunited in Denver and had settled at 644 South 12th where
Frank and Kate’s third child, Fred, was born.
Denver was
a rapidly growing frontier town. In
1858, the settlement that became Denver had been established by miners at the
confluence of Cherry Creek and the Platte River. The town languished until the railroad arrived
in 1870, setting off the period of growth.
In 1880 over 35,000 people lived in Denver. The population would soar to over 100,000 by
1890.
A
contemporary, Robert Latta, wrote a description of Denver at the time the
Paradices settled there:
Larimer was then the principal street… The
corner of Colfax and Broadway was a pasture ground for cattle, which was later
known as the ‘Million Dollar Pasture,’ because the owner still kept his cows
there after the land had become very valuable.
Broadway was one of the "speedways"
of Denver; it was the rule to go out Broadway slowly, but to race back…
In the early '80s the sidewalks downtown as
well as elsewhere were made of planks. Water was running in the gutters, and
trees grew on the sides. A hail and rain
storm came and washed the sidewalks into the streets, and I saw boys using them
for rafts at 16th and Curtis streets…
Cheesman Park was then a burial ground, and
many a gravemark said, ‘Killed by Indians.’ The Federal Government afterwards gave the
ground to the city, and most of the bodies were removed. The west end of it was made into a park and
called Congress Park. After the death of
Walter Cheesman his widow offered to build a pavilion there if the city would
change the name to Cheesman Park…
Saloons, gambling houses and houses of ill-fame
were flourishing and wide open. Ed Chase
was then one of the leading gamblers, and owned the Palace Theater, gambling
house and saloon on Blake Street. He
allowed no cheating in his house. It was
reported that it was a common event for someone to be shot there, but he told
me that the only time a gun was discharged there was one time a drunken man
dropped a gun, and it was discharged.
Frank
initially established himself in Denver as a plumber. The 1881 Corbett
& Ballenger's 9th Annual Denver City Directory lists him as a gas
fitter with Brown & Kiefer.
The following year he is listed as a plumber with the same
organization. By 1884 he was in business
with a partner, J.P. Ratican, as Paradice & Ratican plumbers, steam and gas
fitters located at 447½ Lawrence. He
remained in this partnership through 1888, and the business grew as shown by an
increasing number of employees. These employees
included Frank’s brother-in-law, Joseph Cuff (Kate’s brother), who was an
apprentice in 1885 and a plumber in 1886.
Frank’s brother William also joined the firm as an apprentice in 1886.
The
partnership with J.P. Ratican had dissolved by 1889, and Frank was in business
by himself. He branched out, operating a
company that sold wholesale plumbers’ supplies.
In 1890, The City of Denver
and State of Colorado described Frank’s business as follows:
“F.H. Paradice, wholesale dealer in plumbers’
supplies, manufacturer of closet tanks and anti-siphon traps, and agent for
Richardson & Boynton’s “Perfect” hot water heaters, at 1540 Blake Street
carries $50,000 in stock, and is doing business everywhere in Denver’s trade
territory. He was formerly in the
plumbing business, but has followed this line for the past year and has, perhaps,
the best trade of the kind in Denver.”
Frank’s
business was doing well. According to
the 1889 and 1890 city directories, Frank had a number of employees, including
two drivers, a warehouseman, a porter, a bookkeeper, and a city salesman. His brother-in-law, Harry White, was also
working for him as a carpenter.
Around this
time, Frank purchased a house at 2902 Colfax Avenue, which had space in which
to raise his large family. According to
Frank’s daughter Lida, the house became a center of social activity. Meals were major occasions, as usually one or
two of the children brought friends for dinner.
In the winter, Frank would flood the lawn to make an ice-skating rink,
and the children would bring friends home to skate all winter.
Frank and
Kate joined the Baptist Church, where they would take the children each
Sunday. They went in a mule-drawn
cart. The services were long, and
(according to Lida) boring. The mule
disliked the long wait outside the church as much as Lida disliked the sermons. When it saw that the driver was steering the
cart onto the street where the church was located, the obstinate mule would
turn the other way. Getting to church
became a weekly struggle between driver and mule.
Frank took
time from working to share his sense of adventure with his family. He two wrote letters to his parents in St.
Catharines describing family camping trips.
On December 12, 1893, he wrote the following:
Frank and Fred and the smaller boys, and even
Katie had been all summer coaxing me to take them out camping, and I had
promised them that I would try to take them for a short trip at least, as I had
taken the five boys out the year before, and we greatly enjoyed ourselves. Frank and Fred considered themselves great
campers and hunters after their experience up the Clear Creek Canyon, camping
out, as we did, three or four nights, and becoming scared by an imaginary bear
and other wild animals, and I can tell you that this experience was not to be
considered lightly, for our hunting dog experienced such a shock to his nervous
system that he ran out of nerve before we got to Morrison, although, he had
been riding all the way, and he just lay down and died-- fact, I assure you.
Excuse this digression; I started out to tell
you of a trip to the mountains that occurred in September of 1893, so will
break away from the trip that took place in 1892. So then, to come back, or rather forward, to
'93: After many of the delightful
camping places of Colorado and Wyoming had been talked over, we finally decided
to go to Middle Park, an elevated plain about one hundred miles northwest of
Denver, to reach which it would be necessary to travel sixty or seventy miles
right up in the mountains through Idaho Springs and on up towards Georgetown
and then northward to Berthoud Pass, and down the range into the Park…
It being thought that our commissary was
stocked sufficiently (with the addition of deer, antelope, jack rabbits, sage
hens, etc. that the boys figured on as a certainty, without mentioning the many
messes of mountain trout George, Charlie and Albert were to catch), we now paid
attention to the munition of war. There
was the double barreled shot gun for Frank, and two single shot guns for myself
and Benton, the driver we were taking with us to drive one of the wagons and to
be generally useful around the camp, there was a twenty-two rifle for Fred, and
a Winchester for any such emergency as bear, mountain lion, or wolf, all of
which were possibilities up where we were going-- and I must not forget to mention
a forty-five revolver I carried in case we should meet a knight of the road who
had lost such a necessity of his profession-- as I am of a charitable
disposition and feel sure I should have relieved his needs and given it him if
he had hinted that he needed it. But I
am pleased to say that I have no occasion to record any interviews with these
gentlemen proverbially so pressing in their demands.
Then, there were powder and shot cartridges for
the small rifle and the large, fishing rods and fish hooks and lines, camp
stools and camp stove, pots and pans innumerable, tin plates and cups; for
though we had only intended to take our driver and the five boys and myself, we
wound up by making arrangements to take the whole family excepting the baby. This would be nine children, myself and Kate
and Mr. Benton, twelve in all-- and Kate, thinking to give one of the
neighbor's children at treat, added her to the list-- a girl about fourteen
years of age-- and then Kate's sister, Eliza, was also added; this made
fourteen to provide for…
Well, when we had loaded on all the things we
could think of, and that I can't think of now, we put on the wagon covers and
then our rigs looked like the typical prairie schooners or the wagons of the
Oklahoma boomers, and at last the horses were hitched up, the tent and camp
stove were tied on and the tent poles were slid under the wagon, and Frank's
saddle, pots and pans, cans of gasoline and coal oil were hitched on to every
available projection, and we fourteen tourists, of all ages, from two years to
fifty, climbed in, all the boys excepting Arthur, with the old man for driver
in one wagon, and the remainder, consisting mostly of girls and women, with
your humble servant for driver, in the other…
We were to experience some rough driving before
we made Idaho Springs, and were to learn the name of a hill which I think the
children and women folks will remember when they have forgotten how old they
are, and I don't think I'll forget Floyd's Hill, myself.
This is a mountain road like you see in
pictures, where a man and donkey are trying to hang on by their whiskers, with
the road about two inches wide, only more so.
There were big round rocks in a curve of the
road where it pitched down at about the angle of Uncle Tom's cabin roof, and
the wagons would swing around dangerously near the edge of a precipice three
hundred feet high.
But we got down safe to the bottom of the
mountain, and I emitted a sigh of relief and straightened out the kinks in my
leg after the terrible strain holding the break chuck up to the wheel for a
straight two or three hours.
As the middle of our third day's outing was
getting near, the clouds came up with all the indications of a mountain
storm. We were beginning to climb up
into the hills pretty high by this time, and the notion began to dawn on us
that we were getting a pretty damp reception in a country like Colorado, where
it hardly ever rains.
We had left the road that runs alongside of the
railroad and were fast leaving that indication of civilization behind us, and
were making toward a small town called Empire, perched right up in, and
surrounded by mountains...
We went on through Empire, and then began to
climb the range at a heavy grade some of the steep and rough places making us
think we had undertaken more than we could accomplish in trying to go over the
range with our heavily loaded wagons, and after just climbing a particularly
difficult piece of mountain scenery we came in view of what appeared to be the
continuation of our road leading up the face of the rocky hill side, where a
man's nose and his toes would both come in contact with the road at the same
time if he preserved a perpendicular position while walking up this road. I came to the conclusion, and I believe that
the rest did also, that, if it was necessary to climb that road to get into the
park, we would do our camping on this side of the range, and outside the park
gates.
Coming up closer to the road we saw that it was
a jack trail and that although our road was pretty tough, it was an asphalt
boulevard, compared with this burro's sky path which led to a mine perched
somewhere up among the clouds.
Our hopes and ambition to get over the pass
became elevated as our road became depressed, and we now determined to keep on
and get over the top, no matter what difficulties we should encounter, unless
we should have to undertake such a terrifying performance as to travel over
such a road as we had just passed.
We were now getting into a different kind of
country-- beautiful mountain ferns and flowers are now becoming plentiful, and
occasionally a wild raspberry bush and some patches of strawberry plants were
noticed as we drove along at a lively pace on a pretty good road, but away up
on the side of the mountain, where we had a beautiful view of the valley,
hundreds, or perhaps I might safely say, thousands, of feet below with the
mountain stream, clear and bright as melted silver winding and twisting on down
through the valley as far as the eye could reach, and the road that we had been
driving all day on, appeared in some place as a different road entirely, and
running paralel [sic] with ours in many part-- and, in fact, several of us
thought it was another road; but it was all the time, and is now, I expect, the
same road, doubling itself to climb the sugar loaf hill we are now on…
After a very hard day's pull we are on top of
the range, about twelve thousand feet high, on a level with snow. We could have secured some if we had walked a
short distance off the road, but the girls and boys were all tired out, and as
they had walked most all the distance, picking the beautiful mountain flowers
and gathering wild raspberries, strawberries and gooseberries, and at the same
time relieving the horses of considerable averdupois.
We were all anxious to get down into the park
for it was quite cool and we did not relish the idea of camping on the range
with a possible snow storm.
Now came the tug of war-- holding down the
breaks, for we had a down hill drive for several hours, but we got to the
bottom without any casualty, and at the first ranch we came to we bought some
fresh milk and home made bread and continued our drive into the park...
After driving about twenty-five miles, and
thinking we must be close to Grand Lake, we met an old man, and asked him how
far we were from the Lake. We noticed
him smile as he said about thirty miles, and then we all had a fit for we had
been struggling along all day through the rain, hoping to get to the Lake by
night, and here we had passed the turn off on the road and were now a full
day's drive from the Lake, and had come to the Hot Sulphur Springs instead.
After buying the town out of bread we started
in the morning for Grand Lake, where we arrived after a long hard drive of
about thirty-five miles.
This is a beautiful mountain lake, and almost
surrounded by nearly perpendicular hills rising about a thousand feet and is a
great place for fisherman campers to congregate. The trout had just quit biting
when we got there, so after stopping a couple of days, we started back to
Denver, where we arrived safely after five days on the road.
*****
By 1892,
Frank may have sold his plumbing supply business to a larger company, L.
Wolff Manufacturing Co. of Chicago. From
1892 to 1905 the Corbett & Annual
Denver City Directories list Frank as the manager for L. Wolff Mfg. Co. at
1533 to 1537 Blake.
In 1892 the
economic conditions in Denver were deteriorating, which may be the reason for
Frank’s association with L. Wolff. An
agricultural crisis had hit the Great Plains in the late 1880s. Drought coupled with low prices for wheat and
corn left many farmers with debts they could not pay. In addition, railroad companies were
overextended financially. In early 1893,
the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad went bankrupt, setting off a chain
reaction that pushed one-quarter of American railroads into insolvency. Subsequently, the stock market collapsed, beginning
the depression of 1893.
Colorado’s economy was devastated. A project to convert the railroads serving
the mines from narrow-gauge to standard gauge was suspended. Making matters worse, Congress repealed the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, which had required
the government to purchase a prescribed amount of silver every month. The price of silver dropped, destroying the
livelihood of many Colorado miners. Thirty
thousand miners and smelter workers lost their jobs. A bank panic occurred in Denver with four
major banks closing in one day. The
unemployment rate in Colorado rose to about 10% and remained near there until a
slow recovery began around 1900.
Working with
L. Wolff Manufacturing Co., Frank appears to have weathered the
depression. His daughter Lida never
mentioned having experienced any hardship during her childhood, although she might
have been too young to remember much (four years old when the Panic began in
1893). Frank’s letters to his parents written
during this period were upbeat, describing adventures on which he had taken the
family, although one letter alluded to the bank failures: “Thinking that perhaps we could replenish our
treasury before leaving the little bit of civilization we were in, I sent to
the postmaster… to see if he would cash a check on a Denver bank. This request nearly took his breath away, and
he stated that the only way he could cash it would be to send it to Denver, a
wait of about six days. We concluded not
to accept his kind offer, and excused him for his precaution, as we remembered
the number of banks that had just then gone to the wall all over the country.”
During his tenure with L. Wolff Manufacturing Frank was
involved in a lawsuit involving an accusation that could have destroyed his
reputation. The decision in his favor was
reported in The Idaho Daily Statesman
on January 29, 1909 (pp. 3 and 6):
PARADICE
WINS DENVER CASE
A number of Boise people have
been interested in a suit, in a Denver court, which involved among other
contracts, the money paid by the government for the plumbing at the Boise
barracks and which resulted in judgment for the defendant. F. H. Paradice,
father of Frank Paradice of this city.
Mr. Paradice was the manager of the L. Wolf Manufacturing company of
Chicago and his firm had furnished the supplies for L. H. Balfe, who had
contracts for plumbing at Boise barracks, a post In Colorado, one in New Mexico
and one In Wyoming. Balfe was rather a high roller and got behind in his
accounts with the firm and to protect the company Mr. Paradice was obliged to
come on to Boise and attach the checks from the government to Mr. Balfe.
The scene in the office of
Captain Winn, then constructing quartermaster at the barracks, was a very
stormy one and Balfe swore he would get even with Paradice. This he did a short time ago by getting the Wolf
company, from which Mr. Paradice had retired on account of deafness, to bring
suit against Paradice, in which it was alleged Paradice made charges on the
books of the company, while its manager, against Mr. Balfe for $8000, when he in
fact had drawn the money personally. The
judgment entirely exonerated Mr. Paradice.
In 1911, Frank apparently was again operating his own
business as Paradice-Crean Plumbing Co. at 1425 Tremont Place. However, according to a family story, the
business was not doing well. Frank was going
deaf. Customers were taking advantage of
his hearing loss and cheating him. Frank
decided to convert his large house to apartments to supplement his income.
A family story says that at this time Frank’s daughter Lida
was engaged to be married. The wedding
was to take place in the family home.
However, Frank had installed a plumbing fixture (a sink or a toilet,
depending upon who told the story) in the living room. Lida was so embarrassed by this development
that she eloped.
In addition
to running the plumbing supply business and subsequently managing Paradice
Apartments, Frank was an inventor. He
obtained patents for a variety of plumbing-related devices, including:
·
1888: Automatically operating flushing tank for
closets, anti-siphoning trap, and service or water tank for water-closets (3
patents);
·
1896: Specification book;
·
1900: Hose connection and water-closet (2 patents);
·
1901: Water-closet;
·
1904: Hose connection and grease trap (2 patents);
·
1906: 1906:
System for sprinkling lawns, gardens, greenhouses, parks, etc.;
·
1923: Hose mender, band, and coupling.
The hose
mender was still in use forty years later, but Frank did not profit from the
royalties. He died the year it was
patented, and the family may have sold his patent rights.
One
invention of Frank’s never made it to the patent office. With eleven children and usually a few
friends having dinner each night, dish-washing was a challenge. To meet the challenge Frank tried to invent
an automatic dishwasher. Unfortunately,
he tested his prototype on Kate’s best set of china, and it pulverized the
dishes. Apparently he gave up on the
dishwasher after that incident.
Frank died in
Denver on July 4, 1923. According to his
obituary, he had been ill for a short time with heart trouble. Frank was buried in Fairmount Cemetery,
Denver, on July 9, 1923.
Kate
lived for another 13 years, residing in Denver with her unmarried daughter Fran
and daughter Mary, a widow. She died on
August 11, 1936, and was buried beside Frank on August 14, 1936.
Sources:
1871 Ontario Census for
St. Catharines (#9922, b 4).
General Register
Office, England, Certified Copy of an Entry of Birth Francis Henry Paradice
(Original registration in the District & Sub-district of Clifton, City
& County of Bristol, 1857.
Registration Year 1857, 4th Quarter, Clifton, Vol 6a, Page 63).
Church of England.
St. Andrew's Church (Clifton, Gloucestershire), Parish registers,
1538-195. Baptisms 1824-1883, Salt Lake
City, Utah : Filmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah, 1997. FHL BRITISH Film #1749585, Page 470, #3026.
Certificate of Death
- Francis H Paradice (Photocopy of Original supplied by Colorado Vital
Statistics (City & County of Denver).
FH Paradice Obituary (Newspaper clipping
in Lida Paradice LeBert's scrapbook; source not given.)
Information
Extracted for Genealogy - Marriage - Francis H Paradice and Catherine Cuff (Ontario Vital
Records).
Certificate of Death
- Catherine Cuffe Paradice (Photocopy of original supplied by Colorado Vital
Statistics (City & County of Denver).
Information
Extracted for Genealogy - Marriage - Francis H Paradice and Catherine Cuff (Ontario Vital
Records). .... Province of Ontario, Vital Registrations (Births, Deaths and
Marriages), Images available online at www.ancestry.ca or photocopies through
the Family History Library, Lincoln Co. Schedule B - Marriages, page 619,
record #005866.
Paradice Family
Bible.
State of California.
California Death Index. (Accessed
online through Ancestry.com).
US Social Security
Act Application for Account Number SSN
067-10-5403. (Photocopy of original application by Charles Paradice filed
27 Nov 1936.).
Social Security
Administration, Social Security Death Index, Social Security Death Index,
Master File. Provo, Utah: MyFamily.com, Inc., 2005. Index online at www.ancestry.com. and
http://ssdi.rootsweb.com/.
Paradice, Jane Miles
Obituary (Unidentified newspaper clipping found among Lida Paradice LeBert's
effects).
Fairmount Cemetery, Burial
information sheet. Denver, Colorado,
USA.
Province of Ontario,
Vital Registrations (Births, Deaths and Marriages), Images available online at
www.ancestry.ca or photocopies through the Family History Library, Lincoln Co.
Schedule B - Marriages, page 619, record #005866.
Morrison, A., Ed.
1890. Page 92 in The City of Denver and State of Colorado. Geo. Engelhardt, publisher.
U.S. Congress. 1889.
House Annual report of the Commissioner of Patents for the year 1888.
Serial Set Vol. No. 2658, Session Vol. No.5, 50th Congress, 2nd Session,
H.Misc.Doc. 109, p. 235.
U.S. Congress. 1897.
House Annual report of the Commissioner of Patents for the year 1896.
Senate, Serial Set Vol. No. 3472, Session Vol. No.6, 54th Congress, 2nd
Session, S.Doc. 183, p. 274.
U.S. Congress.
1901. House Annual report of the
Commissioner of Patents for the year 1900. Serial Set Vol. No. 4041, Session
Vol. No.13, 56th Congress, 2nd Session, S.Doc. 138, p. 311.
U.S. Congress.
1902. House Annual report of the
Commissioner of Patents for the year 1901. Serial Set Vol. No. 4232, Session
Vol. No.14, 57th Congress, 1st Session, S.Doc. 151, p. 323.
U.S. Congress. House.
1905 Annual report of the Commissioner
of Patents for the year 1904. Serial Set Vol. No. 4856, Session Vol. No.77,
58th Congress, 3rd Session, H.Doc. 266, p. 374.
U.S. Congress. House.
1907. Annual report of the
Commissioner of Patents for the year 1906. Serial Set Vol. No. 5198, Session
Vol. No.95, 59th Congress, 2nd Session, H.Doc. 558, p. 369.
U.S. Congress.
1924. House Annual report of the
Commissioner of Patents for the year 1923. Serial Set Vol. No. 8329, Session
Vol. No.68, 68th Congress, 1st Session, H.Doc. 104, p. 413.
