Lucius Parsons Warren (1885-1967) Lucius Parsons Warren (1885-1967)Lucius Parsons "Pat" Warren was born in Chicago, 7 July 1885, the son of William Seymour Warren and Fannie Roby Parsons. After graduation from Williams College in 1907, he followed his father's and grandfather's profession as an insurance underwriter; he was also active as a choral director. On 7 October 1916 he married Elizabeth Lavinia Huntington (9 October 1886-28 October 1927) of Memphis, Tennessee, daughter of Frederick Huntington and Annis Branch Eubank. After her death he married Lois Nancy Galbraith (born 17 September 1899) of Grundy Center, Iowa, on 30 October 1930. After the death of his sister Marion Parsons Warren in December 1924 and her husband Sanger B. Steel in May 1927, Pat raised their three sons in Chicago. Eventually, he and his second wife Nancy had a son, L.P. Warren, Jr. (12 November 1932-28 March 1995). On Pat's retirement in 1952, they moved to Leland, Michigan, where his mother had purchased a summer home in 1921. He died on 8 February 1967; Nancy died on 31 October 1970. Both were buried in the family plot in Lake Forest, Illinois.
He weighed nearly eleven pounds on the summer day he chose for making his first appearance in the world. He was born in Chicago, Illinois on July 7, 1885.
As a boy, he became one of the first students to attend the Chicago Latin School when it was formed and all of his early schooling took place there.
When he was ready for college he enrolled in Williams College at Williamstown, Mass. There he majored in Greek and graduated in 1907 with four-year honors.
While at Williams he participated in varsity basketball and baseball. During his junior year the baseball team was co-college champion, country-wide, with Princeton. In his senior hear, the basketball team won the New England Collegiate Championship for having won 17 out if 18 games played that season.
Our friend showed me an old scrapbook of newspaper clippings, worn, tattered and full of brittle yellowed pieces of newspaper. His father, William, made it for him while he was at college and it was a complete record of all the athletic games he participated in. In many stories there was special mention of his outstanding achievements.
He was named to join the Kappa Alpha Fraternity and was admitted to the Gargoyle Honorary Senior Society. He also became active in college choral work and was made a deacon of the college church.
Upon graduation he went into the real estate business and was active in that field until October, 1911.
At this time, he went into the insurance business and became associated with the Liverpool, London and Globe Insurance Company. His father was the western manager of this company and our friend had tried four years to get into the company. His father said he shouldn't go into the insurance business as it was no good for an enterprising young man.
In 1920 he became the Cook county manager of the Milwaukee Mechanics Insurance Company and he served in that post until 1925. He next became associated with the General Agency Office of Klee, Rogers, Wild and Lobe, an organization which later became known as the Associated Agencies. He was active there until his retirement in 1952.
In 1926, on the steps of St. Chrysostom's Episcopal Church in Chicago he was introduced to a lovely little girl who had just returned to the United States from Italy and was en route to her home in Iowa. On October 30, 1930, he married her, the very talented Nancy Galbraith.
At the time of his retirement in 1952 many honors had been bestowed upon our friend. In 1948 the Chicago Board of Underwriters gave him a beautiful Magnavox radio, phonograph, television combination in recognition of his two years of service as their president.
He has served on many committees in Chicago and the Illinois Association. He was, for many hears, secretary of the board of trustees for the Chicago Latin School. For 27 years he was a vestryman at St. Chrysostom's and was clerk of the vestry for 17 years. He also directed the Vesper Choir at that church for about 12 years. The Williams Alumni Association of Chicago was also privileged to have him as its president.
Our friend had been coming to Leland for summer vacations since 1918 and when he retired in 1952, he and his family moved to Leland to occupy the family home, known as Hillcroft.
He joined the Suttons Bay Rotary Club and is currently serving as its president. He is secretary of the Masonic Lodge at Northport. He is a director of the Leland Country Club, president of the Community Concert Association of Traverse City, past president of the Traverse City Choral Union, a member of the Leelanau County Cancer Society's board of directors, a member of the Leland Improvement Association and the local captain of the Boy Scout Fund Drive. He also directs the Senior choir at Leland Methodist Church and the summer choir of the Leland Community Church, and is a Leland township constable.
He is still involved in the insurance business on a small scale.
In addition to his lovely wife, he has one son, named for his father and better known as "Buster." He and his wife also raised three of his sister's children, William, Sanger and Munro Steel when their mother died.
He likes young people and actively supports them in their activities. If by this time, you are not well acquainted with our friend, then let me introduce L. Parsons "Pat" Warren.
[ Leelanau Enterprise-Tribune, Thursday, December 12, 1957 ]
Most of his friends know him as the energetic director of the summer choir at the Leland Methodist Church, the perpetual program chairman and song leader of the Suttons Bay Rotary Club, and the man who makes the head count at the daily meetings of the International Coffee Club of America at the Leland fire station. But only a few are aware that in his younger years, L. Parsons (Pat) Warren was a sports celebrity who was named All-American in college basketball and also earned distinction in baseball.
Pat won the honors while attending Williams College in Williamstown, Mass., where he was graduated in 1907.
What is quite amazing about his basketball achievement is that Pat played on the varsity team only one year, but played so brilliantly that when the Helms Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles selected All-American teams for years prior to the time when All-American selections were made annually, Pat was officially named to the 1907 team.
Williams was a comparatively small college of only 550 students, but the Helms Foundation calls its basketball teams of 1901 to 1910 "brilliant," with the 1906-1907 team the most outstanding. That year they lost only one game, to Dartmouth by a score of 24 to 8. But in the teams' second encounter Williams got revenge by winning 10-6. A 20-minute melee between the players in the hotly contested match resulted in suspension of games between the two teams for three years.
That same year, Williams was scheduled for a non-league game with Yale, but the Bulldogs, who were in contention for their league champoinship, didn't relish risking their reputation or injury to their players so they sought to cancel the game. But Williams insisted on the match, so Yale, after being careful not to announce that the game would not count, fielded a team composed mainly of substitutes. Williams trampled their opponents by a whopping 76-6 score. An account of the game said "L. Parsons Warren was considered to be the fastest forward in New England."
Pat was not a big man as basketball players are today. He was 5'8" tall and weighed 160 pounds. And basketball was a rough and tumble game in those days, with players frequently finding themselves tossed up among the spectators. And once a substitution was made, the original player couldn't re-enter the game.
Pat recalls of being in one scramble for the ball when he flung his head back, striking his opponent in the nose and breaking it. The game was suspended while the injured players's nose was taped up and he finished the game.
Although he played only one year of varsity basketball, Pat played baseball for three years, and in 1959 the Centennial of Intercollegiate Baseball picked Pat on the All-Williams Baseball Team.
Pat was a center fielder, and consistently hit over 300. One game he likes to remember was with Dartmouth. After 16 scoreless innings, Pat got a hit that scored a man from third and won the game.
That was in 1906 when the team toured the midwest playing Big Ten teams. Their game with the University of Michigan was called because of darkness after the 13th inning with both teams scoreless. The next day they were edged by the University of Illinois 3-2, then the following day won over the University of Chicago 4-2.
In addition to baseball and basketball, Pat had rather an impressive record in track. In 1907 he won both broad jump and pole vault in their regular class meets.
Leland and Leelanau county can be justifiably proud of the athletic achievements of Pat Warren.
[ Leelanau Enterprise-Tribune, Thursday, January 20, 1966 ]
L. Parsons (Pat) Warren, former basketball all-American and organizer of the Leland Community Sings, died Wednesday, February 8 at Munson Medical Center where he had been a patient for two months. Mr. Warren was 81.
A Leland resident since 1952, he was born July 7, 1885 in Chicago, the son of Mr. and Mrs. William S. Warren. In October, 1930, he married the former Nancy Galbraith in Chicago.
Mr. Warren was an insurance man in the Chicago area for many years, and is a past president of the Chicago Board of Underwriters. In Leland he organized the Community Summer Sings at the Leland Country Club, and was a director of the Summer Community Church Choir.
Perpetual program chairman and song leader of the Suttons Bay Rotary Club, he is a past president of that club as well as past president of the Leland Fire Department Association and past master and secretary of the Northport Masonic Lodge.
As a sports celebrity, Mr. Warren won all-American honors from the Helms Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles as a college basketball forward at Williams College in Williamstown, Mass., where he graduated in 1907. He was also a baseball standout, and in 1959, the Centennial of Intercollegiate Baseball picked him on the All-Williams baseball team. A center fielder, he consistently hit over .300.
Funeral services for Mr. Warren were held Saturday at the Leland Methodist Church, the Rev. Elmer Faust officiating. Interment was Monday in a Lake Forest, Ill. cemetery.
Surviving are his wife, Nancy; a son, L. Parsons Warren Jr. of Grand Rapids; and three nephews who are Leland summer residents, William W. Steel of Williamstown, Mass., Sanger B. Steel of Scotia, N.Y., and Munro Steel of Lafayette, Ind.
At his family's request, all memorial gifts should be given in his name to the M. Ray Applegate Leland Memorial Foundation in care of Ivan Rustad, treasurer.
[ Leelanau Enterprise-Tribune, Thursday, February 16, 1967 ]
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![[ Photo: Pat Warren singing with his family, Leland, Mich. ]](../pix/hillcroft.jpg){kind=link}