Henry Christian Spencer (June 24, 1915 – May 30, 1999) was an American businessman and executive at the Kerite Company in Seymour, Connecticut. As secretary and vice president, he was involved in discussions about unions at the company, and in its joining with Hubbell Company.

Early life and education

He was born at St. Luke's Hospital in Cedar Rapids, Iowa the son of Dr. William Henry Spencer and Bertha (Wenig) Spencer. He was named after his mother's brothers Henry and Christian Wenig, and his great grandparents Henry and Christina (Ohde) Knutz.

His father, William Henry Spencer, (1878–1936) attended Tilford Collegiate Academy and graduated from the Illinois College of Physicians and Surgeons, Chicago, in 1904. After a fellowship at Cook County Hospital, he practiced in Cedar Rapids, with an office in the Granby Building. He was a member of the Odd Fellows, Freemasons, Shriners, Knights of Pythias. His ancestors had been early Iowan settlers from New England.

His mother, Bertha Wenig, (1884-1974) was the daughter of George Kaspar Wenig and Ida Ernst Wenig, both of Cedar Rapids. She studied education at the Armour Institute, now Illinois Institute of Technology and taught in the Cedar Rapids schools. She was active at St. John's Episcopal Church. She was a member of the Order of the Eastern Star for 62 years.

His parents separated in 1920, although they remained married. His mother retained custody of the children.

Henry Spencer attended Washington High School in Cedar Rapids, and graduated from Iowa State College in 1936 with a B.S. in chemical engineering. He was a member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity.

Career

He worked for the Calco Chemical Company from 1936 to 1946, partly at American Cyanamid in New Jersey. After this, he moved to Connecticut.

In 1948, he visited the United States Rubber Company Footwear Plant.^[1]

He began working for Kerite Company in Seymour, Connecticut in 1951. In 1956, he gave a tour of the Naugatuck Chemical Plant to a group of students from Yale University.^[2] In 1969, he was elected secretary of the Kerite.^[3] Later, he served as vice president. In 1973, he reported that the company employees had voted against joining the United Rubber, Cork, Linoleum, and Plastic Workers Union. The vote had been 208 to 132 out of 380 eligible workers. Kerite was the largest employer in Seymour, Connecticut.^[4] In 1977, he wrote a letter to Senator Strom Thurmond strongly condemning the Voluntary Standards and Accreditation Act of 1977, in which he wrote that the act "reeks of socialism."^[5] He retired from Kerite in 1978.

He served as chairman of the Manufacturers Council of the Lower Naugatuck Valley Chamber of Commerce, and worked on projects including a 'clergy-industry conference,' and the establishment of the Waterbury-Oxford Airport^[6] He was also the industrial chairman for the first Valley United Fund Drive, and he sought donations from over 150 corporations for a variety of community organizations.^[7]

He was a corporator of Griffin Hospital in Derby, CT, a director of the Lower Naugatuck Valley Chamber of Commerce, and chairman of the Board of Junior Achievement of the Lower Naugatuck Valley. In 1969, he was awarded a special "Founding Chairman" award from Junior Achievement.^[8]

He was a deacon at the Middlebury Congregational Church. Between 1953 and 1963, he was a feature in multiple musicals as part of a comic opera group at the Middlebury Congregational Church.^[9]

He was a master mason at King Solomon's Lodge No. 7 AF&AM in Woodbury, Connecticut, of which he was the Worshipful Master in 1959.^[10][11] He also served as district deputy of the Second Masonic District of the Grand Lodge of Connecticut, and in this capacity he visited many lodges including Crystal Lodge in Old Lyme, CT and Union Lodge in Danbury, CT. In 1961, as Grand Master, he presented pins to longtime masons at St. Peters Lodge in New Milford, CT.^[12] In 1962, He held a meeting of the district deputies at Hiram Lodge in Sandy Hook, CT.^[13] On November 16, 1963, he presented a talk at the Meridian Lodge 77 in Meriden, CT on Freemasonry during the Civil War.^[14]

He was also a member of the Boy Scouts, the Republican Town Committee, and the Middlebury Hunt. He was a founder of the Middlebury Land Trust in 1969, and later, a member of the South Britain Congregational Church. In 1962, he was recognized as a three-gallon blood donor after giving blood at the Seymour Methodist Church.^[15]

He was also a founder and president of the Spencer Historical and Genealogical Society, and authored many important articles in its journal, Le Despencer.^[16] He was a member of the Society of the Descendants of the Founders of Hartford.

Family life

He married Evelyn Margaret Burchard (June 23, 1913 - October 31, 2002), on December 28, 1938, in the chapel of St. Paul's Methodist Church in Cedar Rapids. The wedding was performed by the Rev. Dr. A.W. Henke, Superintendent of the Cedar Rapids District of the Methodist church officiated. The bride's uncle Ernest Wenig sponsored a pre-nuptial lunch at the Roosevelt Hotel.

Evelyn was the daughter of Frederick Burchard, the owner of the Royal Laundry in Cedar Rapids, and Stella (Johnson) Burchard. She graduated from Iowa State College in 1938 and was a member of the Gamma Phi Beta sorority. Together, they had five children, and one (William) who died in infancy: Samuel, Thomas, Stella, Michael, and Rebecca Spencer. Beginning in 1947, they lived on an old farm in Middlebury, Connecticut where they had horses, a donkey, chickens, and other animals. Evelyn was a trustee and a deacon of the Middlebury Congregational Church. She served on the board of Regional School District 15 and the site selection committee for Pomperaug High School. She was a charter member of the Middlebury Historical Society, and a Master Gardener in the State of Connecticut.

In the summers of 1956 and 1958, they hosted dog obedience classes at their farm, run by Wilbur Gift of the Mattatuck Kennel Club.^[17]

In 1972, he married Mary P. Adams (December 21, 1918 – January 12, 2010). They lived in Southbury, Connecticut and retired in Green Valley, Arizona. Both are interred at the United Methodist Church of Green Valley Memorial Garden.

Henry's brother, Dr. Carl G. Spencer (1917-1985), was a large animal veterinarian. A scholarship in his name at the Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine was for students interested in pursuing bovine and ovine medicine. Together, the brothers erected a gravestone memorializing their grandfather, George Cogswell Spencer and their father, William Henry Spencer, M.D.^[18]

In 1988, he travelled east and visited each of his five children, concluding with lunch with his son Tom at the Union Club in New York. He supported George H.W. Bush in the 1988 election after having met him years earlier at a party hosted by Malcolm Baldrige Jr.

In 1989, he travelled to attend the commissioning of the USS Philippine Sea in Portland, Maine, for which his son Mike was one of the top three officers on the ship.

Genealogy

• Henry Christian Spencer, son of

• William Henry Spencer (1878–1936), son of
• George Cogswell Spencer (1854–1926), son of
• Abner Nutting Spencer (1820–1879), son of

• William Spencer (1781–1871), son of
• Ashbel Spencer (1737–1808), son of
• Caleb Spencer (1709–1789), son of

• Obadiah Spencer (c. 1666–1741), son of
• Obadiah Spencer (c. 1639–1712), son of
• Thomas Spencer (1607–1687)

References