Adelbert W. Brown

ADELBERT W. BROWN has spent over forty consecutive years in the service of the Mutual Life Insurance Company in the State of Iowa. He is one of the older men in point of service with the oldest life insurance organization in America, and has one of the most successful records of the thousands of representatives of the company.

Mr. Brown, who is manager of the Davenport office of this company, was born on a farm in Eastern Maine, July 28, 1871, son of Samuel H. and Ellen (Herrick) Brown. The Herrick family was one established in Maine in Colonial times, and of English ancestry and Revolutionary stock. Mr. Brown was four years old when his father died. Six years later his widowed mother brought her family out to Iowa and settled at Charles City in Floyd County. She lived to the advanced age of eighty-nine, passing away in 1928. The only brother died in 1922. Adelbert W. Brown attended public schools at Charles City and at the age of seventeen began work as office boy for the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York, and has now rounded out forty-two years of consecutive employment in the company. From office boy he had a steady promotion in responsibilities, eventually became cashier, leaving that to engage in field work. He has been connected with some of the largest and most productive agencies of the company in the Middle West, including those at Omaha, Milwaukee and Chicago. For thirteen years he was located at Des Moines, later accepting the position of manager of the Des Moines office and in 1911 came to Davenport as manager of the Davenport office, with jurisdiction of Western Illinois and Eastern Iowa. This is one of the best fields in the country and has steadily produced great volumes of business for the Mutual Life. The president of the Mutual Life Insurance Company is now David Franklin Houston, former secretary of agriculture and secretary of the treasury in President Wilson's cabinet. The Davenport office under Mr. Brown's management has been getting double the volume of business of many other agencies in the Middle West.

Mr. Brown was one of the organizers of Davenport Association of Life Underwriters, serving as the first secretary, and has also been its treasurer and president. He is a member of the Davenport Country Club, Davenport Outing Club, and is a vestryman of Trinity Cathedral of the Episcopal Church. Mrs. Brown is a member of the Davenport Woman's Club and active in church organizations.

Mr. Brown married, in 1900, Miss Gertrude T. Fairchild, who was born at Ames, Iowa, moving to Clinton in 1893. Her father, Dr. David S. Fairchild, who died March 22, 1930, was one of the eminent surgeons of Iowa, for many years a division surgeon for the Chicago & Northwestern Railway, a former professor in Iowa State College, dean of Drake Medical College and editor of the Journal of the Iowa State Medical Society for eighteen years. Doctor Fairchild was a resident of Clinton. He practiced medicine in Iowa for over half a century, and was author of a valuable historical book, entitled Pioneer Practice. His large library of over 7,000 volumes was left to the Iowa Medical Library at Des Moines, forming a nucleus for further growth.

Mr. and Mrs. Brown have two children and three grandchildren. Their son, Robert Fairchild Brown, entered the insurance business under his father. He married Virginia Gault Murphy, of Sterling, Illinois, and his son is Robert Fairchild Brown, Jr. The daughter, Margaret Fairchild Brown, is the wife of Chester Day Salter, of Davenport; their son is named Chester Day Salter, Jr., and they have a daughter, Susanne Salter.