Page:History of Southeast Missouri 1912 Volume 1.djvu/661

 HISTORY OP SOUTHEAST MISSOURI 589 of the Franco-Prussian war, and there he was reared to years of maturity. He received excellent educational advantages and, reared on the border between France and Germany, he had virtually equal facility in the use of both the French and German languages, — a knowledg'e that proved of great value to him during his subsequent business career in America. His mother died in her native land and after he himself had established his resi- dence in the United States his venerable fa- ther, John Albert, joined him and passed the residue of his life in Louisville, Kentucky. Nicholas Albert gained his initial business experience in his native land, where he con- tinued to maintain his home until 1830, when, as a young man, he embarked on a sailing vessel and set forth to seek his fortunes in the United States. After a long and weary voyage he lauded in the city of New Orleans, whence he proceeded to Kentucky and located in the city of Louisville. There he was given a municipal office, largely due to his famil- iarity with the French and German lan- guages, and in the '40s he removed with his family to Jackson, Cape Girardeau county, Missouri, where he engaged in the general merchandise business, in company with his brother. In 1852 he removed to Cape Girar- deau, the judicial center and metropolis of the county, and here he soon gained prece- dence as one of the leading merchants of the county. He was a man of marked ability and sterling character, commanded the high re- gard of all who knew him and was an influ- ential factor in local affairs of a public order. He was well known throughout the county and was the confidential advisor of its French and German citizens, the while he was deeply appreciative of the institutions and advantages of the land of his adoption, to which his loyalty was ever of the most un- equivocal type. He was called to various of- fices of local trust and at the time of his death was incumbent of the position of United States gauger for his district. He was summoned to the life eternal in August, 1874. at the age of sixty-eight years, and his name merits enduring place on the roster of the sterling citizens who have aided in the development and upbuilding of this favored section of the state of Missouri. In politics he gave his support to the cause of the Demo- cratic party and both he and his wife were devout communicants of the Catholic church, in whose faith they were reared. Mrs. Albert died in 1872. at the age of fifty-six years, leav- ing four sous and one daughter, all of whom attained to years of maturity, and three of whom are now living. Leon J. Albert, the second in order of birth of the five children, gained his rudi- mentary education in Louisville, Kentucky, and he was about twelve years of age at the time of the family removal to Missouri. He continued to attend school at Cape Girardeau, this state, and was about twelve years old when the family home was established in the little city, where he has maintained his resi- dence during the long intervening years, within which he has risen to a position as one of the representative citizens of the sec- tion of the state to which this history is de- voted. Here he continued his higher aca- demic studies in St. Vincent's College. After leaving this institution he was for a time em- ployed as clerk in his father's mercantile es- tablishment and later he was for two years a clerk on boats of the St. Louis & Memphis Packet Company, operating a line of steam- boats between the two cities mentioned. After severing his connection with this company jIr. Albert became associated with his uncles, John and Sebastian Albert, in the wholesale grocery business at Cape Girardeau, and wdth this line of enterprise he was thus identified from 1864 until 1871, in which year he as- sumed the position of cashier in the bank of Robert Sturdivant, which was then a private institution. In 1882 the bank was incorpo- rated under the laws of the state, under the title of the Sturdivant Bank, and Mr. Albert continued to serve as its cashier until Janu- ary, 1902, when he was elected president of the institution, of which ofSce he has since continued incumbent. He has wielded much influence in the upbuilding of this solid and popular banking concern, which bases its op- erations on a capital stock of one hundred thousand dollars and which now has a sur- plus fund of twenty-five thousand dollars. From dates designated it will be seen that Mr. Albert has been consecutively identified with the executive affairs of this bank for a period of forty years, and additional signif- icance is given to this statement by reason of the fact that the Sturdivant Bank is the old- est in the state south of St. Louis. Its man- agement has ever been along careful and con- servative lines and it has successfully weath- ered the various financial panics of localized or national order, without the slightest ques-