Person:Wilbur Sutton (1)

WILBUR E. SUTTON, editor of the Muncie Evening Press, was born and reared at
Muncie, and since early manhood has never for any length of time been out of
contact with literary and newspaper work. The Evening Press of Muncie is a
paper with 14,000 subscribers, is a splendid home paper and carries in its
columns the features and contributions of many of the best-known syndicate
and special writers and artists in the American newspaper field. The Evening
Press’ business department, editorial and reporting staff comprises an
aggregate of about 100 employees. Mr. Sutton was born at Muncie, September
30, 1879, son of Samuel R. and Amelia (Coffeen) Sutton. His grandfather, the
Rev. Daniel B. Sutton, was one of the early itinerant ministers of the
Methodist Church in Eastern Indiana. He and his wife are buried at Red Key in
Jay County. The Sutton family came from Virginia. Samuel R. Sutton was born
near Xenia, Ohio, and was a boy when his parents settled in Jay County,
Indiana. On attaining his majority he moved to Muncie and for many years
followed the trade of carpenter. He was an active member of the High Street
Methodist Episcopal Church. Samuel R. Sutton died in 1913, at the age of
seventy-six, and his wife passed away in September, 1908. Both are buried in
Beech Grove Cemetery. Amelia Coffeen was born at Muncie, attended public
school there and a girls’ school in Illinois. She was the second wife of
Samuel R. Sutton, who by his first marriage had one daughter Emily, widow of
Edward Teverbaugh, of Indianapolis. By the second marriage there were six
children, two of whom died in infancy and one, Elmer E., of Bartlesville,
Oklahoma, died January 4, 1930. George H., Miss Mabel Sutton and Wilbur
Ervin, all of Muncie, are living. Wilbur Ervin Sutton attended the grade and
high schools of Muncie, was graduated from the Central High School in 1897
and immediately joined the staff of the Evening Times as a reporter. A year
later he was advanced to the position of city editor, and remained with that
paper until it was merged with other local journals in 1905. He then became
editor of the Muncie Evening Press and later for more than a year was city
editor of the Muncie Star. For a time he was without formal connection with
local newspaper interests and for four years had a private publicity bureau,
contributing to the newspapers and magazines. Mr. Sutton in 1917 returned to
the Evening Press and since 1918 has been its editor. He is a director of the
Delaware County Tuberculosis Society, is a past president and director of the
Kiwanis Club, member of the B. P. 0. Elks and also a director of the Muncie
Chamber of Commerce and of the Delaware County Health Association. He is a
member of the Muncie Garden Club and other organizations. Mr. Sutton was
married at Muncie, April 14, 1904, to Miss Allie Snell, who was reared and
educated in the Muncie schools. She is a member of the First Presbyterian
Church and is a director of the Muncie Visiting Nurses Association. Her
parents, Thomas B. and Alice Snell, lived in Muncie many years, where her
father owned considerable real estate. Her father died in March, 1905, and
her mother in April, 1922, and both are buried in the Beech Grove Cemetery.
Mr. and Mrs. Sutton have one child, Donn T. Sutton. The latter attended
school at Muncie, being graduated from the Central High School in 1923 and
continued his studies in McGill University at Montreal, Canada. During
1927-28 for about two years he was managing editor of the Muncie Press. He
has been writing since he was sixteen years of age, and has regularly
contributed to newspapers and magazines during his school life and subsequent
years. For a while he was in the editorial department of the Toledo News-Bee
and then joined the staff of NEA Service at Cleveland as a writer and editor.
Since 1928 he has been in the editorial department of that service at New
York City. During the Florida boom days Mr. Sutton was an editor for the
Miami (Fla.) Herald. He was married, June 27, 1929, to Miss Esther Wood, of
Muncie, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Norman Wood, of near Montpelier, Indiana.
Mrs. Sutton was educated in Spokane, Washington, and attended a girls’
college in Oxford, Ohio. She was a teacher in the public schools of Muncie
until her marriage.

Wilbur E. Sutton, Muncie Evening Press editor who had been ill at his home since a stroke suffered Sept. 13, 1946, died in Ball Memorial Hospital at 6:35 p.m. Thursday.

He had been a patient there following a heart seizure at his home, 108 McCulloch Blvd., last Tuesday. Mr. Sutton, editor of the Evening Press 32 years, was 70, having lived all his life in Muncie.

Funeral services will be in the chapel of Meeks mortuary at 4 p.m. Saturday, with the Reverend Arthur W. McDavitt, pastor of St. Johns Universalist Church, in charge. Cremation will follow. Friends may call at the mortuary from 3 to 5 p.m. and from 7 to 9 p.m. Friday, and after 1 p.m. Saturday.

Survivors include his widow, Allie Snell Sutton; a son, Donn T. Sutton of Chicago; a sister, Miss Mabel Sutton, and a brother, George Sutton, both of Muncie; and two grandchildren, Linda and Wood Sutton of Chicago.

The stroke which Mr. Sutton suffered three years ago paralyzed his right side and vocal chords. Kiwanis members, members of the Muncie Police Department and others volunteered their services in helping to care for him throughout the time of his illness. Despite his handicapped condition, he was able to receive friends and seemed to enjoy their visits. Death came almost exactly three years after the 1946 stroke.

Wilbur E. Sutton started his career as a Muncie newspaper editor in 1905, and from that time on every day of his life was devoted to his newspaper and to the community which it served. He was of a type that, regrettable, is passing from the American scene--the human, sincere, sometimes jocular and always well informed editor who knew any number of his subscribers by their first names--who they were, who their "folks" were, and what they wanted in a newspaper. He had his turn at bigtime syndicated writing; he was and could have remained a figure in the national scene. All this he turned down, because The Evening Press was his paper and Muncie was his town. Here were his friends.

The word "friend" is over-used; but in his case it had a peculiar meaning, the meaning of life itself, and though often confessing confusion and puzzlement as to that meaning, he could find it in loyalty and friendship as few others have. It was the moving love within and behind a long, a laborious but almost ideal newspaper career.

Mr. Sutton was born in Muncie, September 30, 1878, the son of Samuel R. and Amelia Coffeen Sutton, and a descendant of one of the city's first settlers, Eleazer Coffeen. Through his acquaintance with early residents he had an intimate knowledge of the city's history and traditions, and he served for many years as a director of the Delaware County Historical Society. He was educated in the Muncie public schools and was graduated from Muncie High School with the class of 1897.

He was married at Muncie, April 14, 1904, to Miss Allie Snell, the daughter of another prominent family in the thriving little city of some 25,000 population which then was Muncie.

They had one son, Donn T. Sutton, who was graduated from Central High School in 1923 and, studying newspaper work under his father from the early 'teens, became himself managing editor of the Press and later editor of NEA Service in New York City and Chicago.

Mr. Sutton's interest in youth was not only evidenced by the training he gave his son and dozens of other young men and women who became member of his staff. He kept up his contacts with the high school, appearing as a favorite speaker there year after year; and high school boys and girls, each with some problem, were frequent visitors at his office in The Evening Press newsroom. The door was open, and they received kindly advice and help, as did the countless others who formed the stream of callers at his office day after day. It made little difference to him whether they were persons of local importance or not, or what their affair might be.

In a typical morning he would spend 15 minutes with such an old friend as the late Otto Carmichael, wealthy financier, or some Muncie manufacturer troubled with economic worries; and the next hour with a colored janitor, or a foundry worker, or a political candidate, or perhaps a lady interested in kindness to dogs. It was the busy, variegated life of a typical editor, but to this was added the daily task of providing a front page column and editorials, and the fact that he became vitally interested in the caused that were presented to him by these callers and friends.

For them he spared neither effort nor time nor his own resources; and it was a significant fact of his life that, better to be available to his friends, he had an old-fashioned gas light placed in front of his home on McCulloch boulevard. He regarded this as something of a joke; but the light was never out. It burned day and night, and when he was not in his office they could see him at home.

As an editor, he was interested in his work and the progress of Muncie as a community; but as much in his friends and those who worked for and with him, from the managing editor to the newest girl reporter, and with these the advertising and financial people, and every printer in the composing room. Without seeming to do so, he watched the work of each reporter. One or another he would call into his office with the ecomium, "that was a good story." Local news was the foundation about which he hoped to and did build the Muncie Evening Press, and it was this, with emphasis on the human element, tragic or humorous, that he taught. He considered his newsroom a training school, and when he thought a reporter was able to handle a better job in a bigger city, he would tell him so and help arrange the position. His "graduates" worked on great papers in New York, Chicago and other cities; he watched their progress with keen satisfaction, and when they returned to Muncie they never failed to "look up the old boss."

His own newspaper life was almost entirely connected with the Muncie Evening Press, which he saw grow from a weak and struggling small-town paper to a commanding position in the evening field here and editorial importance throughout the state. During more than 40 years he was Muncie representative for the Indianapolis News, providing a daily file, which in itself was recognition of the reliability of the reporter-editor who, in the old tradition, started with his paper as a newsboy. He was a contributor during high school years, and when he was graduated from high school promptly went to work on the newspaper. It was then the Muncie Evening Times, which was merged in 1905 with the Muncie Evening Herald to become The Muncie Evening Press. He was the first editor of The Press. For a few months he was employed by The Muncie Star, maintained his own office in the Wysor building writing for out-of-town publications for five years, and in 1917 rejoined The Press which had been purchased by the late George B. Lockwood in 1910.

This became a successful combination, based on deep friendship. Both men were state leaders in the Republican party, and later exerted influence on a national scale. Mr. Lockwood also published the National Republic Magazine in Washington, official organ of the party, and Mr. Sutton's talents received national recognition when, during the 1920 presidential campaign, he became attached to Warren G. Harding's headquarters in Marion, O., as a political writer. In the 1928 national campaign he served the Republican national committee at its Chicago headquarters as a special writer, and early in the same year assisted in the management of Herbert Hoover's presidential campaign in Indiana. In 1932 he was head of the Indiana State Republican Committee's publicity department.

Mr. Lockwood died in 1932. Despite the shock of this personal loss, and the depression trials to which the newspaper was subjected, the editor continued to write such encouragement as he could in his columns, and to help those who called on him. To George B. Lockwood, his friend, he wrote one of the finest tributes of his career. It was titled, "Our Elder Brother," and years afterwards would be looked up in the files as a gemlike expression of grief and appreciation. This was an editorial inte3nsely difficult for the writer because of his own familiarity and loss; but of later years such losses became frequent, and he did not fail to note them with brief, sincere expressions. He had, technically, the ability to single out and size up salient points in the characters of those he knew, and when he praised them it was from heart. Thus his memorials provided an unknowable measure of consolation for those who were bereaved, and they treasured these pieces among family possessions.

Following the depression years his newspaper became more successful and he began to reap the rewards of time and work. He took a more active part in national politics, serving as a leading supporter for Wendell Willkie. As a delegate, he went on the Philadelphia and saw his man nominated. When, after this Franklin D. Roosevelt was the victor, Mr. Sutton remained a Republican stalwart but it was as a "loyal opposition" rather than a professional Roosevelt-hater. His criticisms were based upon acts and facts of economics and politics rather than personal bitterness. Through the war years in particular he put political bias aside and wrote and spoke and worked for an American victory. During this time, he kept up personal correspondence with scores of servicemen, often acting as agent and helper for their families.

In one instance, a Muncie sailor in the Pacific wrote a particularly effective appeal for labor peace at home. Mr. Sutton--as he often did--thought this piece should have wider publicity, and printed it in full on page one. It attracted immediate attention, and there was a demand for reprints in pamphlet form. The eidor waw to this, and, when the seaman returned home after V-J Day, turned over the proceeds to the surprised veteran--several hundred dollars.

Although he was in failing health for several years prior to his attack three years ago, Mr. Sutton continued to write his daily column when he could, and remained active in public affairs. He was vice-president of the Muncie Mission and Eddie Thomas Memorial Mission; director of the Delaware County Tuberculosis Association, the Delaware County Historical Society, the Muncie Boys' Club, a member and past president of the Muncie Kiwanis Club and a member of the Muncie Chamber of Commerce and the Loyal Order of Moose. He was a vice-president of the Indiana Taxpayers' Association. Since his confinement three years ago he had been named an honorary life director of the Tuberculosis Association.

He was a member, for many years, of the First Presbyterian Church.

All these activities presented causes which he advocated from day to day in his column, "Comment," devoted to both serious and witty observation and discussion of daily life here. For a number of years he conducted an Evening Press column, "Stray Stuff," and a nationally syndicated column, "That's the Way I Fell About It," which appeared in over a hundred newspapers. These columns reflected the sparkling, kindly humor and homespun philosophy which were irrepressible in his everyday work and conversation.

He had several favorite subjects for editorial advocacy and would stay with them until results were achieved. One of these was improvement and beautification of White River. A lover of the outdoors, it seemed unthinkable to him that Muncie's river, which he regarded as his own, should be dirty and polluted. Over and over again he would assail this problem, fighting official indifference with wit and sarcasm, until the intercepting sewer and other changes brought the needed improvement. The river situation was never improved quite to his liking, and he wrote about it from time to time up to the last.

This, and a dream for a lake somewhere near Muncie. He envisioned at one time a site near Yorktown; later, a site near Smithfield southwest of Muncie where perhaps the river could be turned into a lake. It seemed unpardonable to him that a prosperous city, one devoted to manufacturing with its dirt and boredom, should not provide for itself the best of outdoor recreation facilities. His plan for physical improvement of the city included smoke control, painting up and beautification, widening of streets--anything that would make Muncie a cleaner, more pleasant place to live. He was still working on this when he was stricken three years ago.

His interest in local politics was independent, sometimes too much so for the satisfaction of factional leaders. He hated and fought municipal graft, but in later years found himself too much occupied with vital things to worry about petty offenses and peculations of this or that individual. He never sought a paid public office for himself, laughed at politics as "a good game, like poker," and did most of his political writing in favor of some movement or candidate, or in support of going efforts, particularly the city schools and parks. Politically, he opposed every proposition which might mean waste or exhorbitant taxes, regardless of the party involved. He insisted on thorough news coverage of local taxing procedure, preaching that most of the average man's tax bill is paid at home, and that nothing comes free.

In his daily columns, these general interests were often put aside for some quick, vital project. He was capable of towering wrath, as when a man boasted in court to killing a neighborhood cat with burning gasoline; or when conditions at a county institution or perhaps the jail called his attention to suffering or unfairness.

These things came in long years of day-by-day work as a small city editor in a typical American city, work which, he sometimes wrily pointed out, added up to several million words in The Evening Press alone. It was an influential and interesting position, which he relished with good humor and wit that concealed the idealism beneath.

More than the position, he enjoyed his friends, who called him by his first name in actual thousands. They might get in trouble; he stuck by them. He would hurry out of his office the first minute he learned someone might need him. Misfortune, illness, or death occurring to someone he knew affected him in a peculiar way, so that he could hardly speak, and would seek privacy until the dejection passed, or he could do something to help.

It was this wise, loyal friend that Muncie remembered today, himself an "elder brother" to all those he knew and served.