DePree was born in 1870. In 1906, working in Holland, he invented a fumigator that used formaldehyde. Then, he opened his own drug store on the corner of Central Avenue and Eighth Street.
Cornelius Blom, Jr. saw a lot of fires. The son of Cornelius Blom, Sr. and Jannetje Mieras Blom, he was five years old at the time of the Great Holland Fire.