Early Life
His father died when Loren was four years old. His mother worked as a maternity nurse and seamstress, among other jobs, to support herself and Loren. At age eight, Berry prepared and sold horseradish, and had newspaper and laundry routes. In high school, he was a reporter for the Wabash Plain Dealer and was sports editor and business manager for his school’s monthly publication. As business manager, he gained experience selling advertising space. While selling advertising for timetables that served interurban railroads, Berry was asked by the manager of a telephone company to sell advertising space in the company’s directory.
In 1910, Loren and his wife Lucille moved to Dayton, Ohio, and, on a shoestring budget, began The Ohio Guide Company, printing timetables. He recognized the opportunities for Yellow Pages and soon concentrated on a telephone directory operation that, as L. M. Berry and Company, developed into a coast-to-coast enterprise and became one of the foremost telephone directory publishers in the United States, handling one out of every four telephone directories in the United States.
His wife Lucille died in 1935 and Loren married Helen, who lived until 1974.
Read more about this topic: Loren M. Berry
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