Hilma Mattson - A Woman Ahead Of Her Time

Hilma M. Mattson (1883-1952) was a lady truly ahead of her time for, as a single woman when women had limited opportunities, she became first a lawyer and later a business woman who founded and ran her own oil business.

Early Life and Family

Hilma's parents, Gustav and Cristena Mattson, immigrated from Sweden and were pioneer settlers of Big Springs, an unincorporated area southwest of Hawarden, IA. She and her siblings, a brother and three sisters, grew up on the family farm. In 1902 she graduated from Hawarden High School.

Career

Though not mentioned in her obituary, she apparently taught school immediately out of high school, as a January 1903 newspaper article references her closing her school in an adjacent community two weeks for vacation. 

Neither was there indication that she attended college, however she later passed the South Dakota bar exam and practiced law in Deadwood, SD, until 1915. An article about her father's death that year disclosed she planned to relocate to a new unnamed city. At some point, she moved to Shreveport and founded  the State Mutual Oil Company. A well named Mattson No. 1 was drilled in Oil City in 1920.  Using GPS coordinates provided on the Department of Natural Resources website to locate, it was southwest of the dead end of Angel Street in the Caddo area of Oil City.

In addition to Mattson No. 1, another well attributed to State Mutual Oil was Boisseau No. 1, drilled in 1921 and  identified as a wildcat well.  It was off of Thornapple Road approximately 1.3 miles west of Hwy 1. There were likely others however the DNR website does not contain a search by owner functionality, at least to the public.  

The 1922 American Oil Directory had the following listing:

State Mutual Oil Company

229 Market Street (Shreveport)

Pres & G.M. (President & General Manager) H. M. Mattson 

That is approximately at the corner of Market and Fannin, a Goodyear store parking lot across from the current U.S. District Court building.

Per a 1922 newspaper article, State Mutual Oil Company was approved by the Indiana Securities Commission to sell shares of its 103 acre oil lease in Caddo Parish. The offering of 2,700 shares at $50/share equaled $135,000 or $1.82 million in today's dollars. The article stated the company owned its own drilling machinery valued at $40,000.

Her obituary states she lived in Oil City for approximately 25 years before her death. Social columns in her hometown Hawarden (IA) Independent newspaper over the years reveal she continued to frequently travel to and stay in both Iowa and South Dakota for weeks or months at a time. At various times she was listed as being from Shreveport and other times from Oil City.

Death

Hilma died in the Vivian hospital after a sudden week-long illness on 13-Jun-1952. A service was held the next day in Oil City at an unnamed site. Her body was accompanied by local ladies, Francis Boyd and Polly Elkins, to Hawarden for a second service the following Tuesday in the Big Springs Baptist Church, where she'd been a member in her youth. She was then interred in the family's plot.

She never married (nor did her brother and two of her sisters) and was the last of her immediate family, having no direct heirs or even nieces or nephews.

Settlement of Estate

Hilma's will was admitted into probate in July 1953, which included a provision for continued care of two Boston terriers by a caretaker residing in Hawarden . The district court was asked to rule on the validity of the clause. Its review revealed the will was created in 1936 and the dogs had died years earlier. This along with another vague provision for a donation to charity, with no specific one named, caused the court to set aside both and award the entire estate, valued between $25,000 and $30,000 ( $218,000 to $264,000 in 2014 dollars), to distant relatives.

This was a real life case of that dream people have of a long-lost relative leaving them something.


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