W.F. Severa Bottle

[odditysteve]

Here is a little W.F. SEVERA bottle i picked up recently. I know they made a nice Bitters but cant find any others like this by severa. i cant imagine it being all that uncommon but nontheless its former contents are a mystery to me. does anyone else have one like this or any info on it? i also posted on the recent additions forum about it and a few others i aquired with it.

 

[odditysteve]

another view

 

[surfaceone]

Hello Steve,

Eleventh night greetings. I've dug several of these over the years, in aqua, clear and amber. I think they were well advertised in the ethnic papers of the age. There's an excellent history of Waclav Francis Severa from AB&GC magazine. I've also seen his first name spelled as Vaclav. His was a great American immigrant story.

"Waclav Francis Severa must have been quite an entrepreneur...Severa was born in Czechoslovakia in 1853, and came to the United States at age 15, without money or a command of the English language. He borrowed money to go to Racine, Wisconsin, where he had relatives. There he learned the trade of trunk making. In 1876, he moved to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and after a year of trunk making, went to work as a drug store clerk in nearby Belle Plaine. He opened a drug store of his own in Cedar Rapids in 1880. Severa was very successful, and on June 4, 1895, was given a patent for certain medicines and toilet preparations. He put out 32 products including the stomach bitters, a balsam of life, lung balsam, female regulator, corn cure and hair tonic. The directions were given in English and Polish.

n 1901, the retail part of the business was sold and the company became the W.F. Severa Co., manufacturers of proprietary medicines. Severa conducted a printing office in connection with the drug business and printed his own circulars and almanacs, the latter numbering over one-half million copies in 1901. He was founder of the Bohemia American Savings Bank and held interests in and served as director of the Cedar Rapids Light and Power Co., the Merchants National Bank of Cedar Rapids, the Cedar Rapids and Iowa City Interurban Railway and the Cedar Rapids Life Insurance Co. Severa's only son Lumir, became Vice President of the Severa Co. in 1911. There were labeled only variants of the stomach bitters in later years."

There's further biographical information on Severa right here.

"In 1901, Cedar Rapids businessman W.F. Severa attended a high school graduation in that city and was very impressed by the intelligence and presence of the valedictorian, who was also a Czech-American. Mr. Severa was dismayed when he learned that theyoung man was to become a manual laborer because he could not afford to attend college. Severa agreed to finance his education. The young man refused what he considered to be charity, but accepted an interest-free loan. The valedictorian, Efrem Hrbek, became the first recipient of a Council award and eventually received his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa and became a professor of Czech language and literature at the University of Nebraska." From.

"Here we have a TINY, unopened corked glass vial that is only 1.25" long. It contains 6 tablets, was was likely a sample. THE W.F.SEVERA COMPANY was located in CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA." From.

 

[marjorie040]

ONLY IN AMERICA!

Great story surfaceone, thanks so much for posting it!!

Regards,