Andrew Squire, and Squire Valleevue Farm

Text by Florence Spurney

Illustrations by Eleanor Shankland

The biography of Andrew Squire is the classic nineteenth century success story. He was born in 1850 in Mantua, Ohio, the son of a country doctor; later the family moved to Hiram in order to offer their children better educational opportunities. "Three generations of impecunious physicians" (to quote Mr. Squire) had predestined him to medicine, and he attended the Cleveland College of Medicine for one term before deciding to break the pattern. He returned home to attend Hiram College, which had recently opened. After receiving his degree, he clerked in his father's drug store for a period, reading law in his spare time.

Returning to Cleveland in 1872, with letters of introduction from James A. Garfield, then a Congressman, and Burke Hinsdale, the president of Hiram, he was hired as a clerk by a local law firm, where he tended the fire and swept the office while getting his legal tranining. He was admitted to the bar in 1873.

During this period Andrew Squire was married to his childhood sweetheart, and walked from Hiram back to Cleveland leading a cow which his father-in-law had presented to the couple as a wedding gift. Following the birth of a daughter, young Mrs. Squire suffered a mental collapse and was never well again, although she lived until 1896.

Professionally, Mr Squire was advancing steadily. He was associated with several different Cleveland law firms, and in 1890 he formed a partnership with Silliam Sanders and J.H. Dempsey as the firm of Squire, Sanders, and Dempsey, which established a reputation as corporation counsel.

The second tragedy of Andrew Squire's life was the sudden death of his seventeen year old daughter, May, in 1891. Several years later his first wife died, and in 1896 he was married to Eleanor Seymour, a widow. The Squires built a home at 3443 Euclid Avenue, and lived there for forty years, long after the street ceased to be the fashionable address of the rich.

In 1911, Mr. Squire purchased a plot in Orange Township, Valleevue Farm, adding other parcels at various times. He and his wife held picnics there for many years before building a country home on the property. The farm, with its orchards, cows, and herb beds, was an absorbing hobby.

Other interests included reading history, biography, poetry, and historical novels. At the age of seventy-four he served as president of the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce.

On being honored by the Cleveland Bar Association for sixty years in the legal profession, Andrew Squire offered some words of advice to the members. He said he had never handled money except when he shared the responsibility with another person: "Greed is but a small way from graft." He also recommended weighing the ultimate cost of court action with the advantages of compromise: "Patience is the most important of human attributes." He died in 1934 at the age of eighty-three, still active in his law practice until his final illness.

Mr. Squire's connection with Western Reserve University dates back to 1900 when he was appointed a trustee. He served on the execuive committee of the board of trustees from 1914 until his death. As chairman of the committee on the School of Pharmacy, he took an active interest in its affairs. When the University Hospitals were being built, Dean Spease of the pharmacy school had to uproot his drug garden from its site on Adelbert Road, and Mr. Squire offered to provide space and care for it on his farm. Among other medicinal herbs, foxglove was raised to provide digitalis for the hospital.

Undoubtedly with the memory of his daughter in his thoughts, Mr.Squire, in 1919 provided in his will that his Valleevue Farm should be "held in perpeuity for the use and benefit of the teachers and sutdents of the women's college of the Western Reserve University." He specified, "I desire it cultivated and preserved as a farm for educational purposes, and to be a place where the practical duties of life may be taught; where the teachers and students can come in close contact with Mother Earth; and where those needing rest and recreation may obtain it. I desire that the woods thereon be kept and improved, so that all the young women in any way connected with the Western Reserve University may learn practical botany, may learn to love and enjoy the beauties of nature, trees, and flowers; and obtain a breadth of life that can only come from a familiarity with nature."

He further suggested, "It would be good for many of the young women to actually aid in the cultivation of the farm and in the care of the animals and fowls thereon...," and he asked that the farm be "designated for the purpose of broadening the views of the young ladies, bringing them nearer to nature and to God and teaching them to love the forests, fruits, birds, flowers, and animals; that reforestation is one of the great needs of this country; and that the best education and the truest happiness is found in constant and steady work that shall be helpful to their fellows, instill a love of home and family, that shall respect the rights and property of others."

According to a 1924 map, Valleevue Farm at that time was comprised of two hundred seventy-seven acres, of which eighty were cultivated (including an arboretum and drug garden), sixty-seven were pasture, one hundred five were in woods (including a twenty five acre sugar bush), and twenty-five were orchards.

Eleanor Squire died in 1937, and her will confirmed the bequest. With the transfer of the property to Flora Stone Mather College, the women of the school raised funds to purchase a station wagon for transportation to their new facility. A building that had once housed prized pigs was renovated and converted into a dormitory, christened the Pink Pig Pen, and the alumnae donated furnishings as well as money to build a fireplace. Management was placed under the Physical Education department of Mather, and a committe from the Outing Club was designated to plan recreational weekends. A 1940-1941 brochure shows a number of weekends reserved by specific groups but also several open weekends for which individuals could sign up. Meals from Friday supper through Sunday dinner, as well as transportation to and from the farm, were included in the $1.50 charge.

Professor and Mrs. Bacon of the Department of Biology moved into the manor house, modelled after an English Cotswold cottage, and designated the Eleanor Squire House. A first floor recreation room was reserved for the use of the Mather Faculty Women's Club. The farm house on the property, known as the May Squire House was used to provide home management experience for seniors majoring in home economics, a requriement of the Smith-Hughes law. Six at a time lived in the house for six weeks, commuting to campus for their classes.

In 1940 a summer session offered courses for camp counselors, teachers, nature guides, and Scout leaders; nature games, swimming and life saving, field trips, modern dance, and body mechanics. During World War II young women in the Crop Corps signed up for a month at a time to wrok daily from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. assisting in the farm work at Squire Valleevue Farm. The property has also been used in ecology research, with studies of plant succession, pond life, water analysis, entomology, and genetics being conducted over the years.

Currently a long-range plan is being developed to make the best use of the Squire Valleevue property as well as the adjoining one hundred and four acres given in 1977 to CWRU by the descendents of Jephtha Wade and designated for "research, investigation, teaching...enjoyment." If these goals can be achieved, surely Andrew Squire will smile down with satisfaction upon his old picnic grounds.