Bio: Oby, Walter (1882 - 19??)

Contact: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Oby, Connor, Franzen, Klemme, Goetz, Wahl, Kotilinek

----Source: History of Marathon County Wisconsin and Representative Citizens, by Louis Marchetti, 1913.

Oby, Walter (3 December 1882 - 19??)

Walter Oby, cashier of the Stratford State Bank of Stratford, Wis., was born in Switzerland, December 3, 1882, and is a son of Ulrich and Eliza Oby. In 1888 the parents of Mr. Oby came to America with their six children, and selected Wisconsin as their home, settling at Albany, in Green County. The father engaged there in the manufacture of Swiss cheese, moving later on a farm and in 1897 removing to a farm near Leroy, Minn. There the family home was maintained until 1902, when a farm was bought in Wright County, Minn., on which the father died in 191 1. The mother survives and still lives in Minnesota, the home farm being under the care of her son Ernest Oby. Walter Oby was the fourth born of his parents' children. After attending the public schools he entered the Southern Minnesota Normal School & Business College and in 1903-4 attended a business college, after which he returned for a time to the home farm. In 1907 he became a bookkeeper in a bank in Minnesota and eighteen months later was placed in charge of a bank, in the meanwhile being elected the first cashier of the Stratford State Bank at Stratford, Wis.

The Stratford State Bank was opened for business on December 10, 1908, organized to meet a public demand and, according to the report of its condition on February 4, 1913, it is in a very prosperous condition. The following are its present officers: R. Connor, president; Chr. Franzen, vice president; and Walter Oby, cashier. The directors are: R. Connor, Chr. Franzen, H. L. Klemme, William F. Goetz, and H. S. Wahl, M. D. A general banking business is carried on, small accounts as well as large ones being welcomed, and other features may be enumerated as according to its statements. The bank receives deposits, loans money, writes and looks after insurance, draws up legal instruments, rents safety deposit boxes, loans customers' money on first class mortgages, supplies abstracts, acts as notary public, and at all times is ready and willing to give expert advice concerning business transactions. The names of the men representing capital and business probity all over Marathon County are the names of the officials of this institution. They occupy a fine modern brick building equipped with steam heat and have the latest improved steel vaults and burglar proof safes for the preservation of their money and documents. This building, with its cement basement, was built in 1909, and among other provisions there is a comfortable directors' room.

Mr. Oby was married in May, 1909, to Miss Alma Kotilinek, a daughter of Thomas and Mary Kotilinek, of Maple Lake, Minn. Mr. Oby is local representative of twenty-two insurance companies; is treasurer of the Stratford Telephone Company, and is a member of the village board. He is interested also in the Farmers and Merchants State Bank of Savage, Mont.