George Franklin Wise, 1882–1944

George Franklin Wise (25 November 1882–11 February 1944), born in Darke County, Ohio, was the youngest of six children of Benjamin L. and Anna Marie Coppess Wise. He was a second cousin of Annie Oakley (Phoebe Ann Moses).

George was a graduate of Lima College and Northern Ohio State University and began his teaching career at the age of sixteen. In 1908–1909, he taught the advanced class at the Webster School. In 1912, he accepted a teaching position with Brown’s Business College, located at 911 Locust Street, St. Louis, Missouri. On 22 September 1912, in St. Louis, George married Bertha Abigail Loy of Versailles, Ohio, the daughter of Isaac Newton Loy and Matilda Ann Stuck. George and Bertha had four children: Anna Marie, Olive Adelaide, John Harvey, and Alice Loy.

In 1918, George went to Cairo, Illinois, for eighteen months to manage a branch of the Brown’s Business College there. After returning to St. Louis, the Wises lived in several homes over the next few years: St. George’s Apartments on Olive Street, a home on Dixon Street, a flat on Clara Street, another on Cote Brilliante near Wellston. They finally moved to a house on Oakwood Avenue in Pine Lawn. In 1925, George and Bertha bought two lots in Ramona Park (now part of Berkeley, St. Louis County) on Flavia Avenue where the Wises, with the help of their children, felled seventeen trees and built their own home, living in it before it was finished.
The Wises had whimsical senses of humor and loved laughter and singing. They often performed skits, songs at church and community programs, and at nursing homes. They enjoyed games like cribbage, carrom, and cards. They were members of Nelson Presbyterian Church and later joined Elim Lutheran Church.

When the city of Berkeley, Missouri, was incorporated in 1937, Samuel Fordyce was appointed as the first mayor and George Wise was one of four men appointed to the city’s first Board of Alderman, to serve until the first general election. When Mayor Fordyce resigned before the first election, George Wise finished out the term as mayor and was elected mayor in the first Berkeley general election. George’s inaugural address contained many forward-looking recommendations, including one for an education committee to provide adult night schools to help illiterate citizens learn to read and write. He closed his address by urging cooperation: “The people by their ballots have designated you members of the board and me as their representatives. We must be sufficiently broad minded to forget our personal differences, likes and dislikes, and work for a common cause. If anyone cannot do this, his duty is very clear—resign. In your hands rests to a great extent—the future progress or retrogression of our city.”

George Franklin Wise was planning to visit his two daughters and their families in California when he became ill and died on 11 February 1944. He is buried in Concordia Lutheran Cemetery in St. Louis. Bertha Wise died 21 August 1940 and is buried in Greenlawn Cemetery, Versailles, Ohio.

Submitted by Faith Stern
5 May 2025

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