History of Michigan, / by Charles Moore. [Vol. 3]

HISTORY OF MICHIGAN

1339

schools of Midland and Saginaw, Michigan, and as a youth he took up
the study, and subsequently the business, of pharmacy, at Bay City.
He thus became interested in the science of medicine, and determined to
become a physician, accordingly entering the Michigan College of Medicine and Surgery, at Detroit, where he was graduated with the class of
I894 and the degree of Doctor of Medicine. He embarked in practice
immediately at Bay City, where he held the office of health officer from
I894 to I9oo, and in I901 came to Flint, where he has since carried on
an excellent practice, maintaining offices at his residence, No. Ioo8
North Saginaw street. In addition to his general practice, a representative one, he is surgeon for the General Motors Company, represented at
Flint by the Buick Motor Company. Doctor Tupper takes a keen interest in public affairs, and since its organization has been a member of the
Park Board of Flint. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity, in
which he has attained to the thirty-second degree, and belongs to Michigan Sovereign Consistory, at Detroit. His religious connection is with
St. Paul's Episcopal church, and for over nine years he has held membership in the church choir. He has never ceased being a student of his
profession, constantly attends lectures and clinics, maintains membership in the various societies of the calling.
On June II, I902, Dr. Tupper married Mrs. Jennie King, widow of
Edward T. King and daughter of James Reed. Mrs. Tupper conducted
art studios in Grand Rapids and Bay City, Michigan, several years before
her marriage to Dr. Tupper.
WILLIAM W. WRIGHT. The handicaps which oppose some men seem
only to emphasize the fine character of their success. Perhaps it is the
nature of some men to thrive on difficulty, and without the service of
frowning circumstances and opposition their lives might have sunk down
to the commonplace level of human achievement. It is not always possible
to say whether any individual would have gone still further had he not
suffered so many reverses in his career, but it is any how distinctly creditable that such men attain so high positions regardless of the circumstances
which impelled or retarded them in their course. When William W.
Wright of Jackson was nineteen years old he suffered an accident by
which his right hand was cut off. Up to that time he had practically no
education, and though now a man not only well educated but possessed
of broad culture, it is a fact that is noteworthy in his biography that he
obtained practically all his learning by private studies after the injury
to his hand. Another accomplishment which followed upon that disaster
was acquiring the skill to write with his left hand, and he now is a better
penman with that member than most men are with their right hand.
William W. Wright is one of the most successful real estate and insurance
men of southern Michigan, is a man of affairs in the best sense of the
word, is a member of the Jackson Chamber of Commerce, a director in
the Central State Bank of Jackson, is president of the Jackson Brass
Foundry, and has many other relations with the community. He is a
director of the Interstate Fire Insurance Company of Detroit, Michigan,
and vice president of the local fire insurance agents' association of Michigan. He is also president of the Jackson Real Estate Board and is president of the Jackson Association of Local Fire Insurance Agents.
William W. Wright was born in Marshall, Michigan, March 22,
I871. He comes of a family of railroad men, and the record is somewhat
remarkable. His father was Joseph Van Buren Wright, a locomotive
engineer on the Michigan Central, who was killed when he was thirty
years old. Grandfather Elijah Wright, was also an engineer on the
same railroad. Two brothers of Joseph Van Buren Wright, and uncles