Hubert T. Parson
Hubert Templeton Parson (September 18, 1872 – July 9, 1940) was an American businessman who served as president of the F. W. Woolworth Company. Early life Parson was born on September 18, 1872, in Toronto, Ontario. He was a son of Eliza S. (née McGibben) Parson and Henry Edwin Parson, a former oil operator who made a fortune but lost it due to fires and the discovery of oil in Oil City, Pennsylvania. He had two brothers, Charles Parson (of Missoula, Montana) and Stuart Parson (of Bronxville, New York). When he was seven years old, his parents brought him to Brooklyn. After receiving his education at the Boys High School in Brooklyn, where he completed a course in bookkeeping. Career After his graduation from the Boys High School, Parson worked several jobs in Brooklyn, first with the Atlantic Chemical Company, then, at age 19, becoming a partner in a chicory importing business. In the spring of 1892, Parson began working with the F. W. Woolworth Company as a $12 a week bookkeeper, obtaining that position through a 5-cent "want ad" when the Woolworth executive staff consisted of only four men. In 1905, he became treasurer, and eventually, after the death of Carson Peck in 1916, he became general manager and vice president of the Woolworth Company in 1917. Following the death of Frank W. Woolworth in 1919, Parson (who was always thought of by Woolworth as the son he never had) served as the second president of the company before retiring in 1932 (just before the company's 60-year age limit), responsible for the founding of over 2,000 stores. Personal life In 1893, Parson was married to Maysie Adelaide Gasque (d. 1956). Maysie's brother, Clarence Warren Gasque was the director of Woolworth's in England. Parson walked Clarence's daughter, Maysie Gasque, down the aisle at her July 1930 wedding to Roland Robinson (later 1st Baron Martonmere) at St Margaret's Church, Westminster where Princess Mariza Chavchavadze was a bridesmaid. Maysie and Roland were the parents of Loretta Anne Robinson, who later married Edward S. Rogers Jr., the president and CEO of Rogers Communications Inc. Parson died at New York Hospital in New York City on July 9, 1940. After a service at Fairchild Chapel, he was buried at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. His widow, who was then living at 998 Fifth Avenue, died in May 1956. Residences The Parsons owned a house down the street from F.W Woolworth (who was at 990 Park Avenue) at 1071 Fifth Avenue in New York (today the site of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum) and a large home at 72 Avenue Foch in Paris, which later was confiscated by the Nazis and became the base of operations for the Gestapo in Paris. At the time of his death, they were residing at 420 Park Avenue. In 1918, Parson bought Shadow Lawn, a colonial, wood-frame structure mansion in West Long Branch, New Jersey (not far from the resort town of Asbury Park), from Joseph B. Greenhut, head of