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John N. McEeachern—“Everybody’s Friend”
Golden-Hearted Atlantan, Who Lies Awake at Night Studying How He Can Scatter Sunshine in Somebody’s Life,
President of Industrial Life and Health Insurance Company, Has Fought His Way Up from the
Bottom, and Has Never Forgotten a Friend.
0 STORY of the building of The
Golden Age or any other worthy
enterprise within his reach, would
be complete or just without the
name of John McEachern, writ
ten in letters of living light.
It can be said of John McEach
ern, like they say in New York,
about George Foster Peabody’s
N
benefactions —like the rain they “fall on the
just and the unjust.”
Some men and women can’t stand prosper
ity. If wealth is thrust upon them it makes
them “play the fool,” and if they get it by
grasping and grinding, they stand aloof and
alone in a frigid atmosphere when they reach
the Arctic summit of their hoarded gains.
They forget the pit whence they were digged
and the rock out of which they were hewn.
Not so with John N. McEachern. He has
carried his friends up with him, as, step by
step, he has climbed from victory to victory,
and now he would feel as cold and as lonely as
a marble monarch if he could not feel about
him the jostling fellowship of the friends he
had known in the “yesteryears!”
A Loyal Son of Cobb.
I knew John McEachern first when I was a
little red-headed, freckle-faced boy over in
Cobb county. He drove “Old Lucy,” the fast
test mare in all that country, and his sunny
disposition, his contagious laugh, his winsome
personality made “John Me,” as everybody
called him, a favorite with everybody, young
and old, white and black. And the love that
his neighbors gave'him was given back in such
full measure that he has found peculiar delight
in giving Cobb county boys a chance in life.
The number whom he has set up in business
A Memory of Milton H. Edwards
For weeks I have walked about, somehow,
as one in a dream —unable to realize the fact
that Milton H. Edwards is dead! When the
clipping from the Eastman (Ga.) Times-Jour
nal found me out on the field, announcing his
unexpected death, my heart almost stood still.
No premonition, no warning whatever, had
come. And in my whirling, busy life I found
it impossible to bring myself together and write
what my heart was urging me to say, either
to the stricken family or as a personal tribute,
for the heart that urged expression faced that
poverty of feeling which can only be known by
one who has lost a friend.
The first time I ever saw Milton IT. Edwards
was in the winter of ’96, when, on a rolling
chair, I lectured at Eastman, and I learned that
he went before the directors of the bank that
owned the hall and said: “Let’s not charge
young Upshaw for that hall. He is just start
ing out to make his way in the world, after be
ing on bed for seven years. Let’s give the'
boy a boost.”
“Agreed,” said the directors, and the boy
on the chair gratefully received the “boost,”
not so much for the $5 or $lO that the lecture
hall would have cost, but because of the spirit
of generous friendship that was in the deed.
That was Milton H. Edwards —it was a life
principle with him to “boost” what he count
ed worthy. He was always his pastor’s right
hand man. When I helped the beloved pastor,
Milo Massey, in a gracious meeting at East
man, ten years ago, it was my good fortune to
be a guest in the home of Milton Edwards,
and the fragrance of the. fellowship of that
The Golden Age for December 5, 1912.
A Personal Appreciation by WILLIAM D. UPSHAW, Editor
through his insurance company is simply le
gion.
Leaving the farm for the mercantile busi
ness, and followed by a very Nemesis of fire,
he ran from the ashes of two fateful burnings,
went to Texas and made the money that paid
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JOHN N. McEACHERN.
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every dollar of his indebtedness and then be
gan tramping the streets of Atlanta selling ‘ ‘ in
dustrial insurance.”
“Why should this money be going out of
the South?” said the farmer-bred son of wis
dom and toil.
He organized a company for himself, launch
ed out into the insurance deep, and because
he knew the business from the curb stone up,
Hi !fi Hi Hi !fi Hi Hi Hi Hi !fi Hi Hi Hi Hi Hi !li Hi !fi !fi Hi Hi Hi
Christian home js yet in my heart. The one
consuming thought of Milton Edwards and his
consecrated wife was their church and its wel
fare —the spiritual needs of their Sunday
School classes, their neighbors and friends.
Their children breathed such an atmosphere
every day.
Robert Burns said of the home scene around
the hearth-stone of the praying Scotchman:
“From scenes like these old
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he has won signal success when many a fan
ciful “financier” has gone down.
Two decades ago! And now lie is the chief
owner a,nd manager of a business which covers
many States and which carries comfort and
security to thousands of laborers every week.
The Friend That Never Failed.
Those cardinal qualities which the preachers
call “grace and gratitude,” would urge me
not to discriminate between friends, but John
McEachern (to be right confidential) has been
so close by in person and .in purse that he be
came the one man during the “dark ages” of
our most struggling struggles to whom, more
than any other, The Golden Age owes its exist
ence today.
Director, and always on a necessary paper,
he was the friend who never failed by night or
day. I remember running out to his home one
night, when unexpectedly called out of the
city. He had retired.
“Here is a paper, John, that must be exe
cuted before I lejtve. Hate to pester you, old
man but it just must be ‘did’’ ”
“John Me” sat up in the bed smiling. “Give
me your fountain pen,” he said, as he put, his
name to it. ‘I don’t mind signing ’em as long
as you don’t make me pay ’em.”
Now, I submit, my country men, that that
was a rare and genial way to meet a nocturnal
intruder with a note to sign.
Walter McElreath, a. nephew of John Mc-
Eachern, and attorney of The Golden Age,
has likewise been ready to get up at midnight
to help steer the ship amid the breakers and
now that “the morning dawneth,” we
will quaff Gobi) county memories around
Christmas tea, at the Bungalow and sing to
the days of “Auld Lang Syne!”
Scotia’s grandeur springs.”
And we may well say that from such Chris
tian life as I saw in that home, America’s safety
springs.
If Milton Edwards had lived, how he would
have feasted on Alex W. Bealer’s preaching and
fellowship, and how Bealer would have rested
his heart many a time on the broad shoulders
and loyal support of this stalwart Christian
man!
Verily, an earnest, honest Christian man is
“the noblest work of God.”
WILL I). UPSHAW.
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