BIO:  Lee Light GRUMBINE, Lebanon County, PA

Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Abby Bowman

Copyright 2005.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/lebanon/
_______________________________________________ 

Biographical Annals of Lebanon County Pennsylvania.
Chicago: J. H. Beers & Co., 1904
_______________________________________________ 

Page 48 - 51

LEE LIGHT GRUMBINE, lawyer and journalist, was born in Fredericksburg, Lebanon 
county, July 25, 1858.  His early ancestry emigrated to America from the Rhine 
country about the year 1755, and his genealogy connects him with the early 
Moravian settlements in eastern Pennsylvania, through his paternal great-
grandfather, Peter Fuehrer, who was a Moravian teacher among the pioneer 
settlers of the New World.

Mr. Grumbine was educated in the public schools, Palatinate College and Wesleyan 
University, Middletown, Conn., graduating A. B. from the last named institution 
in 1881.  In 1884 he received the degree of A. M. from his alma mater.  While in 
college he began the work of giving public elocutionary entertainments which he 
has kept up as a diversion ever since, varying it with lecturing and teachers' 
institute work.  In 1886 he was chosen instructor of elocution in Cornell 
University, but through some misunderstanding never entered upon the duties of 
the position.

After leaving college, Mr. Grumbine engaged in teaching, and in the meantime 
studied law, being admitted to the Bar of Lebanon County in 1884, and to the 
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in 1887.  For seven years he practiced law, a part 
of the time as a member of the firm of Gobin & Grumbine.  Leaving the practice 
of the law temporarily he turned his attention to literary work and founded the 
Lebanon Daily Report.

Mr. Grumbine's career has been one of great versatility along various lines, and 
it must be said that whatever he has attempted he has carried through 
successfully.  His chief work of course has been that of a lawyer.  Quiet and 
unobtrusive in manner, independent in conduct even to aggressiveness, without 
the employment of the arts of the politician, or the seeker of favor, he has, by 
sheer force of his character, ability and rectitude of life, commanded a leading 
position at the Bar of his county, and enjoys the confidence of a large 
clientage.  He served continuously for many years as a member of the examining 
board of the Bar.

As a journalist he made a brilliant record in the short time that he was engaged 
in that work.  He, in conjunction with the Sowers Brothers, who were conducting 
a printing house, founded the Lebanon Daily Report in November, 1889, and he was 
for four years its editor, guiding hand and part owner.  Conducted on thoroughly 
independent lines, in the public interest, it at once became a recognized force 
in Pennsylvania journalism, his editorials being frequently quoted in the 
metropolitan press.  Under his management it was foremost in reform, the dread 
of evil doers and machine politicians.  Among the more prominent achievements of 
the Report during Mr. Grumbine's editorship was the establishment of the 
Pennsylvania Chautauqua at Mount Gretna, and of the Pennsylvania-German Society.  
In the famous Swallow campaign, in 1898 he took editorial charge of the 
Harrisburg Commonwealth, a Prohibition daily printed at the State capital, and 
always stood very closely to Dr. Swallow in his memorable fights against the 
saloon and the Quay machine.  He was also one of defendant's counsel in the 
libel suits brought against Dr. Swallow.  He resumed the practice of the law in 
1894, and has been prominent in many of the leading cases of the county.

Another field of activity in which the subject of this sketch has won 
distinction is that of literature and public speaking.  He is a vigorous, 
convincing and yet graceful writer on many subjects, and has contributed a 
number of valuable papers to different periodicals.  He is the author of a 
volume of poems and translations, which illustrate a prefatory treatise on the 
Pennsylvania-German language – a study of its status as a spoken dialect and 
form of literary expression with reference to its capabilities and limitations.  
His verses both in English and German breathe a genuine poetic spirit, and as 
lyric songs and pictures of Pennsylvania-German life give the writer the rank of 
a real poet.  He is a recognized authority on the Pennsylvania-German dialect, 
and has made a close study of the provincialisms of eastern Pennsylvania, having 
their origin in German idioms and expressions, which he has frequently treated 
in lectures.  An article on the same subject was read before the American 
Philological Association, of which he was for years a member.  He has also in 
course of preparation a history of the Mennonites, which he is writing for the 
Pennsylvania-German Society, and which will be published by the Society as soon 
as finished.  Another book in course of publication at this writing is a volume 
of public speeches on the liquor traffic to be issued by the State Executive 
Committee of the Prohibition party.  A number of these have been published as 
campaign documents and distributed over the State by the hundred thousand.  As a 
public speaker he has been very successful.

Mr. Grumbine has also displayed a considerable talent in organizing or in the 
art of doing things.  Among his achievements in this line it may be said that he 
was the prime mover in the organization of the Pennsylvania Chautauqua and a 
member of its first board of managers.  With the resources of a first-class 
newspaper at hand he was prominently instrumental in the organization of the 
Pennsylvania-German Society.  Recognition of this fact is made in Vol. I of the 
Society's Proceedings:  "during the months of December, 1890, and January, 1891, 
articles appeared in various journals throughout eastern Pennsylvania, the 
earliest being in the Lebanon Daily Report, followed by the New Era of Lancaster 
and the Philadelphia Inquirer, advocating the formation of a Pennsylvania-German 
Society."  It was not the intention of its promoters to perpetuate the dialect, 
as is sometimes thought, but to secure for the heroic and pious German settlers 
of Pennsylvania that recognition which is due them, and to save to history their 
contributions to the material, political and religious development of the 
nation, which the society has been doing with eminent success and satisfaction.  
It numbers most of the leading professional and business men of Pennsylvania-
German extraction in the State and elsewhere among its members.  Mr. Grumbine 
has been a member of the Executive committee of the society continuously ever 
since its organization.  He has also been one of the leading spirits in the 
Lebanon County Historical Society since it was founded, has been a member of its 
Executive committee since its organization, and has contributed a number of 
papers to its publications.  He planned and helped to organize the Lebanon 
County Trust Company, one of the flourishing financial institutions of this 
county, of which he is one of the directors, vice-president and solicitor.

In politics Mr. Grumbine has been a Prohibitionist for twenty years, having by 
his labors, his earnest devotion to the cause and his forceful writing and 
speaking won a high place in the confidence and the councils of the party.  He 
has for many years served on the State Executive committee and has taken a 
leading part in the party's conventions, presiding, on several occasions, and 
frequently serving as chairman of the committee on Resolutions.  He was the 
author of the Gettysburg platform of 1903, which committed the party to "license 
repeal" as the first step toward the solution of the liquor problem, and which 
was justly regarded as one of the strongest and most statesmanlike papers ever 
adopted by a political convention.  It attracted wide attention.  He was the 
Prohibition candidate for the office of lieutenant-governor in 1902, running a 
close second to Dr. Swallow for the nomination of governor.  In 1900 he 
accompanied the Prohibition candidate for president on his tour through the 
State, and was one of the leading speakers in that campaign.  Serving in 
numerous capacities of trust and responsibility in private life he never held a 
public office.

Mr. Grumbine was married, in 1881, to Roie E. Adams, of Naples, N. Y., and has 
one son, LeRoy Adams Grumbine, a student in Oberlin College and Conservatory.