Certified Public Accountant, and in 1930-1933 he took a position with the Associated Telephone and Telegraph Company, and as a special assistant to the Treasurer, spent three years in Bogota, Colombia.

Bill was back with Arthur Anderson & Company from 1934 to 1940, this time as manager of their New York offices. For the next nine years he was Comptroller-Treasurer for the United States Plywood Corporation. In February of 1950 he became Assistant and Consultant to the Comptroller of the United States Navy, this position bringing him into contact with huge industrial and banking companies, unusually concerning Central and South America. Mr. Leary is married and has one daughter. The family now lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where he is associated with the Ethyl Corporation.

El Paso's oldest professional man was born on a farm four miles northwest of town on August 12, 1872. He attended our schools and received his degree in dentistry at the Chicago College of Dental Surgery. With the exception of one week spent in managing a dental office in Chenoa, "Charlie" Patton has dedicated his professional life of over sixty years to El Paso.

June 15, 1904 is an important date in Charlie's memory, for on that day he brought to El Paso the first automobile ever owned in Woodford County. It was a new one-cylinder Glide from a Peoria factory. Perhaps it was too new, for Charlie drove it home over the rough dirt roads of that period. A factory mechanic rode as far as Secor, and there he told Charlie to take it on to El Paso alone, that he would return to Peoria from Secor by train. It was like an aviator taking his first solo flight, but the Doctor got the car going down the hill at the Secor cemetery, and near the bridge the motor fell out the bottom of the car onto the road! Charlie got a farmer, drove a team back to Secor, picked up the mechanic who was still on the platform at the depot, and they went back and finally got the motor back into the car. It then made El Paso without further mishap, the cynosure of all eyes, but angering the folks whose teams were scared to the point of running away every time the horses saw the chugging machine.

While the good Doctor has three other stories which are factual and just as interesting as the one above, he made us promise we'd use only the one. Some extracurricular activities of this nimble-minded individual can be told. He has played with several well-known bands of Bloomington and Peoria, and all of the El Paso bands for over fifty years. G. L. Lowell of El Paso composed the "Woodford County Two-Step" which old-timers say was a "humdinger", and Dr. Patton completed the arrangements of it. Doctor Patton loves to travel, and it doesn't matter where; he has visited about forty-six of the forty-eight states, and he'll make those this summer. We then hope Congress adds Alaska and Hawaii to put him two down again.

Page 278

Go to previous page

Go to next page

Go to El Paso Story gateway page