Birth and Baptism
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Born February 6, 1894, Slater O'Hare appears in Shreveport birth and baptism records as Vincent Slater. Throughout life, he was known as Slater, his mother Lottie's maiden name.
From Sacramental Records of Holy Trinity Church, Archives of the Diocese of Shreveport
On the 1st of April 1894 I have baptized Vincent born February 6th to William O'Hare & Mary Carlotta Slater. Sponsors Fred Bowers & Miss F. Ames. -J. Gentille Bowers was a Shreveport druggist and Ames the same friend and member of the Holy Trinity choir who served as proxy for William Crockett's baptism.
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Career and Military Service
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The 1912 Dallas, Texas directory identifies 18-year-old Slater as manager of the Dixie Theater.
In January 1913, Slater O'Hare married Texas-born Pauline Swayze at Omaha's Brandeis Theater, once described as "the most beautiful theater in America." The wedding announcement indicates that they were married in the pastor's study located in that building. I've established no other connection between Slater and the Brandeis. According to the 1914 Omaha directory, Slater was working in the garment industry as a cutter and his wife Pauline as a seamstress. In 1915, Slater was temporarily back in Manhattan working as a lithographer and living with his wife, mother, and older brother William Crockett. |
Brandeis Theater, Omaha, opened 1910
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Slater's 1917 draft registration reveals that he was working as a bookkeeper for Laemmle Film Service in Des Moines, also his older brother's employer.
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When Slater entered Company C, 6th Engineers three months later, he was assigned to Fort Slocum, Long Island, NY. While serving overseas between late 1917 and late 1918, he was severely wounded at the Battle of Chateau-Thierry and honorably discharged five months later with a Purple Heart.
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By 1920, Slater O'Hare had recovered from his WWI injury and returned to Iowa where he married Esther Marie Wilson, born in Marion County, Iowa. Ex-wife Pauline O'Hare was living in Hoboken, NJ, and working as a dressmaker.
In the early 1920s, Slater managed theaters in Knoxville, Clarinda, and Fairfield, Iowa. In the mid-1920s, he joined Paramount Pictures as a salesman and was transferred to San Antonio where he remained through most of the '30s when Paramount transferred him back to Des Moines.
In the early 1920s, Slater managed theaters in Knoxville, Clarinda, and Fairfield, Iowa. In the mid-1920s, he joined Paramount Pictures as a salesman and was transferred to San Antonio where he remained through most of the '30s when Paramount transferred him back to Des Moines.
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During World War II, Slater O'Hare became an entrepreneur and fund-raiser. He managed a theater in Wellman, Iowa, where he served as the state war bond chairman during 1942, organizing a campaign to increase war bond sales by bringing film stars into theaters in at least 15 Iowa cities. At some point in the early 1940s, Slater purchased the Grand Theater in Wellman and retained ownership after leaving town. By 1943, he owned a bowling alley and began managing the Humota Theater in Humboldt were he was credited with remodeling the lobby and auditorium and with bringing projection booth equipment, acoustics, and lighting up to date so that audiences "could now see the gnats' eyebrows." By 1944, Slater and three associates purchased two theaters in Iowa Falls.
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His business ventures must have paid off because Slater donated $1,000 to the construction of Humboldt's hospital--a sizable donation in the 1940s.
Death
The younger son of William Christopher O'Hare died in Los Angeles on February 13, 1949, age 55, after having moved to California to be nearer his son William Slater O'Hare, an aeronautical engineer also known as Slater. The older Slater is buried in Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery, Redlands, California.
