William G.
& Lula Stein Laurenson
William
G.
Laurenson (1880 - 1967) who according to his
obituary was born in
Kansas City of Irish descent and died in
Dallas, Texas; however
according to his World War II draft
registration card, he was born in
Irvington, New York. He and his wife
would be buried in Fairview
Cemetery, Denison, Texas although neither
one of them ever lived in
Grayson County.
Lula
Laurenson (1881 - 1951) was the daughter of
wealthy Austin, Texas residents, Isaac and
Eliza Stein; Isaac owned a
jewelry store on Congress Avenue. Lula's
four siblings were Minette
(1877-1942), Wildley Alphonse (1878-1944),
Carrie (1883-1928) and May
(1885-1970). Isaac Stein died in his
store on December 21, 1897
as the result of a heart attack. Eula
and her five children
continued to live in Austin until 1904.
Carrie Stein
married her
childhood sweetheart, Howard G. Howland, in
1903 in East St. Louis,
where his family had moved from Austin
to Mexico City in
1897, not to see each other again until the
week of their marriage.
In 1899 Howard returned to Texas from
Old Mexico to enlist in the
33rd Regiment, Texas Volunteers Co. E and
sail to the Philippines to
fight for his country. After his
service, Howard remained in
Manila where he found work. Then he
wrote Carrie Stein asking her
that age-old question and soon Howard moved
to East St. Louis where his
family had moved in the meantime.
After starting a career as an
electrician for a large packing house, he
and Carrie were married in
November 1903. (St. Louis
Dispatch,
November 19, 1903, pg. 1) By 1916 the
Howland family had moved to
Parsons, Kansas (1916 Parsons, Kansas City
Directory) and then to
Bakersfield, California by 1922. In
1928 Carrie Stein Howland was
living only with her son, Granville H.
Howland, Jr.; she died February
9, 1928 and is buried in an unmarked grave
at the historic Union
Cemetery in Bakersfield, California.

Three
months after Carrie's death, Granville
Howland, Sr. announced his intention to
marry in the Los Angeles Times.
Minnette Evelyn
Howland,
daughter of Carrie Stein & Granville
Howland, married George
Coleman and embarked on a career as a
newspaperwoman in Bakersfield.
She died in 1937 at the age of 32,
leaving George with two small
children, Patricia Louise and Charles "Chuck"
Coleman.
In
1905 Eliza and her four other children were
listed as living at the
same address in the 1905 Dallas City
Directory. In 1906 May, the
youngest child and daughter, married Joseph
Pinkney Thomas, a co-worker
at E.M. Kahn,
Dallas' oldest clothing store. They
remained in Dallas and reared eight
children.
By
1910 Eliza, Minette, Wildley Alphonse "Al"
were living in separate
residences in Dallas; but by 1912 all three
were again living
together in Ft. Worth where Minette and
Al were stenographers.
Living at
the same address as the Stein family was Roy
Van Campen, recently
arrived from Indiana and a bookkeeper for August
A. Busch & Co.,
the American brewing company. Minette
and Roy, who was 10 years
her junior, married and shortly thereafter
Roy took a job as bookkeeper at Denison's Crystal Ice Co.;
about five years later Roy became the
bookkeeper and treasurer for
Munson Realty Co. Eliza moved with her
daughter and son-in-law to
Denison where they lived at three or four
different addresses before
Roy's death in 1925. Roy was the first
member of the family to be
buried in Fairview Cemetery
in Denison. Lula visited them at least
once from Kansas in 1919 when they were
living at 1315 W. Sears St.
Al
was married for a short time to Anyce
(Anice) D. Stein with whom he had
one child, Aubrey Alphonse Stein (1904
-1964). Wildley's World
War I draft registration lists him as a
stenographer for Gulf Refining
Co. in Port Arthur in 1918. In 1920 he
was listed as "widowed"
and working as a stenographer in Beaumont
while Ancye Stein is listed
as "widow of Al" in the 1920 Dallas City
directory, so evidently the
couple was divorced sometime between 1914
and 1920.
Lee Stein,
Eliza's unmarried sister, had moved from
Austin to San Antonio by 1900
where she and her mother were living when
her mother died in 1914.
Lee B. Stein was listed as a doctor's
assistant in the 1926 San
Antonio City Directory. According to
the 1929 Denison City Directory, Eliza
and her widowed daughter were joined by her
divorced son, Al, and Eliza's unmarried
sister, Lee Beauregard Stein.
The 1930 census
for Denison lists Al as a secretary for a
lumber
company in Denison. The four of them
lived from late 1920s until their deaths at
317 N. Scullin Ave.,
Denison.
Within a few
years the rest of the Stein family died and
were buried at Fairview Cemetery - Minette
in 1942; Al Stein in 1944;
and their mother, Eliza, in 1945. Lee
Stein lived alone in the
house for less than two months before
succumbing to "cerebral
apoplexy"; her body was returned to Austin
for burial in the same
cemetery as her parents.
Lula Stein moved
to Kansas
City around 1908, where she met and married
William G. Laurenson
December 7, 1912. The Laurensons
incorporated the Non-Spi (or
NonSpi) Deodorant Company in 1914.
Advertisements for the product
appeared in newspapers and magazines early
on and could still be found
in 1951. NonSpi Co. was located on
Walnut St. in Kansas City,
Missouri. The antiseptic liquid was
advertised as unscented and
containing no artificial coloring matter;
only two applications per
week were needed. The Laurensons sold
the company in 1930.

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The
Antigua bottle below was stumbled
upon on Labor Day weekend 2020
at Post Oak Creek. The bottle was in
good condition except for
wear from rocks and gravel, with the
original stopper still inside.
When examination of the bottle was
done, a "letter" was seen to
be inside the bottle, wet and wedged
inside the neck of the bottle.
When the paper was carefully removed
with tweezers and unfolded,
the paper wasn't a letter at all, but
instead a Merchants &
Planters National Bank check dated May 22,
1931 during the Great
Depression and signed by Phil Bennet in
the amount of $200.00.
On the front
page of the Sherman Daily Democrat dated May 14,
1922 is a full page advertisement for Keith's Drug Store
on page 5. The owner had just
installed an up-to-date and
sanitary Soda Fountain; the readers were
invited to visit the store on
Wednesday, May 17, 1922. On the left
side of page 5 is an small
advertisement for Nonspi deodorant.
The
bottle has a kidney shape indention on one
side and is flat on the
other side with "Nonspi" embossed on each
side of the bottle.
The bottle had its original rubber
stopper. Nonspi was a deodorant
product for women. From The Nonspi Co.
advertisement:
Nonspi:
An antiseptic Liquid - "I Am Free to Be"
for excessive armpit
perspiration - No woman can radiate
freshness and sweetness for
greatest charm as long as she is annoyed
by excessive underarm
perspiration. Neither can she avoid
ruined gowns nor the
embarrassment of armpit odor. If you
are such a sufferer, by all
means use Nonspi which Keeps the
underarms Dry and odorless.
Nonspi is an old reliable remedy
that destroys the odor and
diverts the excessive moisture from the
underarms to other portions of
the body. It has a record of many
years of honorable service,
used by more than a million women and is
sold at all druggists and
toilet counters. "The Nonspi Company
- 2673 Walnut St., Kansas
City, Missouri."
Inside
the bottle was the wet Merchants &
Planters National Bank check, dated May 22,
1931.

An contraption
that can emboss the NonSpi company seal on
stationery.

The couple moved
to their home
in Kansas City, Missouri, located at 1216 W.
60th Terrace, in 1925,
which was five or six miles south of
downtown. Lula Stein
Laurenson died in Kansas City in 1951 but
her body was shipped to
Denison, Texas, and buried alongside her
mother and siblings in Fairview
Cemetery.

Lula's
will was filed in the probate court of
Jackson County, Missouri, in
1952, with her estate valued at more than
$1.5 million (in 2017
dollars). The bulk of her estate went
to a trust for the benefit
of
her husband, a sister in Dallas, and other
relatives. Later that
same
year William moved to Dallas, Texas, to live
out the remaining 15
years of his life. W.G. Laurenson died
in 1967 and was buried in
Fairview Cemetery at Denison as well.



Biography Index
Susan Hawkins
©2025
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