Biography

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This photograph of Wilbert F. Carey is part of a Springfield College series of lantern slides depicting YMCA Training School alumni who held positions at YMCA facilities.

Wilbert Franklin Carey was born on October 31st, 1868, in Watsonville, Pennsylvania, the eldest of two sons of  Theodore and Mary J. Stadler Carey.

After Carey received his formal education, he became known as "almost a jack of all trades" as a young man because he engaged in twelve or more lines of work before settling into his role working in YMCA facilities in 1891.

From this work, he decided to attend the YMCA Training School to prepare for a career in the YMCA.

While in Springfield, Carey served as the class secretary and was a member of Dr. James Naismith's class when basketball was introduced.

Carey graduated in 1892 and then served the YMCA for 21 years in three locations in South Bend, Indiana and both Pottsville and Lancaster in Pennsylvania.

He had an eighteen-year career as an agent with the New England Mutual Life Insurance Co.

Carey spent two years away from this profession to serve as General Secretary for the Army YMCA of Gettysburg Pa. during World War I.

His younger brother Charles H. Carey was a former physical director at Alexander Hamilton High School in Brooklyn, NY, and associated with YMCA's in Dallas, Texas, Brooklyn, New York, and Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Carey retired from New England Mutual Life Insurance Co. in 1932 and passed away on June 16, 1940. 

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