Bio-Sawyers
SURNAMES: LEWIS, DOGGETT, SPOTTSWOOD
Since coming to Palo Alto, Alfred Washington Ellet, the efficient
vice-president of The Stanford Bank, has lived so quietly that few of
his acquaintances have even guessed at his exceptional technical
knowledge of the banking business. The old adage of "poets being born,
not made," applies equally to banking as Mr. Ellet has clearly proved
by many years of successful work in this intricate and interesting
business. Mr. Ellet is the son of Edward Carpenter Ellet and a grandson
of Brigadier-General A. W. El-let of national fame. He was born at El
Dorado, Kan., August 15, 1871. His childhood was spent in El Dorado
until he was sixteen, when he entered Swarthmore College where he
followed the general college course, and by his close application to
his studies laid the foundation for the remarkable success which has
attended his business career. At the age of nineteen he entered the
master mechanic's office of the Union Pacific Railway at Ellis, Kans.,
where he remained for six months, and then held a position with the
Gille & Van Peyma Wholesale Hardware Company of Kansas City, Mo.,
for three years, after which he became a clerk in the National Bank of
Commerce of said city, where he remained for a period of twenty-five
years, perfecting himself in the work of all departments.
At the end of a quarter century in the bank, Mr. Ellet was appointed
deputy bank commissioner for the State of Kansas, and for seven years
was an honored and most efficient member of the State Banking
Department of that state.
He was widely quoted as an authority on banking and has made its every
detail a close study. After resigning from the Bank Commissioner's
office, he was made vice-president of The Stanford Bank which was then
being established at Palo Alto, and by his keen judgment and personal
oversight, as well as his great experience, he has placed the venture
upon a firm basis, and made The Stanford Bank one of the solid
institutions of the valley. Although holding the office of
vice-president of both the Palo Alto and Mayfield branches of the
Stanford Bank, he personally attends to all the details of the business
of the two establishments and closely oversees his carefully
trained assistants. Every day finds him at his desk and his office
hours are the same as those of his employes. The new, handsomely
furnished home of the Stanford Bank in Palo Alto owes its inception to
him. Without doubt Mr. Ellet is among California's most proficient
bankers, having gained his knowledge by close and thorough study in all
lines of the business from the- days of his earliest manhood, and has
perfected himself in the mysteries of finance and banking as carefully
as astronomers or other men of science study their art. The growth of
The Stanford Bank has been steady and healthy. On May 31, 1918, it
opened with total assets of $210,352.18, and on June 30, 1922, its
sheets showed $503,773.58, and this is mainly due to the clever
management of its skilled vice-president.
On September 29, 1898, Mr. Eliet married Lida Anna Lewis of Kansas
City, Mo., a charming and popular girl and the daughter of William H.
and Mary F. (Doggett) Lewis, a well-known wholesale shoe dealer of
Kansas City. Mrs. Ellett's grandfather, the late Rev. W. H. Lewis, of
Missouri, was a prominent minister in the Methodist Church, South. He
was the author of the History of Methodism in Missouri, was a frequent
contributor to the Christion Advocate and the founder of the Young
Ladies' Seminary at Independence, Mo.; he lived to reach -the age of
ninety-six years.
Mrs. Ellet's ancestors trace back to the Spottswood family of Virginia,
of which Alexander Spottswood was governor in Colonial days, and to the
old Burwell stock one of whom, Lewis Burwell, was a colonel during the
Revolution. One of her ancestors, Anna Spottswood, was the heroine in
the famous novel "The Virginian," and the "Anna" in Mrs. Ellet's name
comes from her.
Mrs. Ellet is thus entitled to membership in all the leading patriotic
organizations, the Daughters of the Revolution, Colonial Dames, and the
Society of Colonial Governors. Mrs. Ellet was born at Chillicothe, Mo.,
but when she was seven years of age removed with her parents to Kansas
City. She was educated at the Central Female College in Lexington, Mo.,
a school of the Methodist Episcopal Church. She is a very gifted woman,
generous and beloved by all who know her. Coming as she does from
distinguished southern blood, she is an unswerving Democrat, and
laughingly refers to their marriage as the union of the "Blue and the
Gray."
Eugene T. Sawyers' History of Santa Clara County,California, published by Historic Record Co. , 1922. page 1093
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