Lake-Porter County IN Archives Biographies.....Owen, W. B. 1882 - 
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com December 17, 2006, 9:50 pm

Author: T. H. Ball (1904)

W. B. OWEN.

    W. B. Owen, superintendent of the National Fire Roofing Company at Hobart,
Indiana, is a young man whose responsible business position indicates his marked
capability and enterprising spirit. He is numbered among Indiana's native sons,
his birth having occurred in Porter county on the 31st of October, 1882. His
father, William B. Owen, was born in Crown Point, New York, in 1835, and about
1878 became a resident of Porter county, Indiana. He was a prominent brick
manufacturer of Porter and Lake counties, establishing his home in the latter
about 1886. There he founded a brick manufacturing plant, which he conducted
until his death in 1901. This became a leading industrial enterprise of the
county and was a factor in the business prosperity of the community in which it
was located. Mr. Owen's father was well known in temperance circles, took an
active part in the work of suppressing the liquor traffic and gave his political
allegiance to the Prohibition party. He served as town trustee of Hobart for
about twelve years and was greatly interested in the development and progress of
the town. He was also a prominent Mason and was an active and zealous member of
the Methodist Episcopal church, his life being in consistent harmony with his
professions. He married Miss Annie Pride, a native of Glasgow, Scotland, who
came to America with her parents when but six years old. She was a resident of
Chicago for some years, and she died in Lake county, Indiana, in November, 1897.
Mr. and Mrs. William B. Owen, Sr., were the parents of four children, three sons
and a daughter: William L., who is studying medicine in Chicago; Jessie and
Robert, who are deceased; and W. B.

    W. B. Owen, the youngest of the family, pursued his early education in the
public schools of Hobart and afterward attended the Chicago Manual Training
school for three years. He was then associated with his father in business, and
in 1902 was made superintendent of the National Fire Roofing Company, which
position he now holds. He has a thorough and accurate knowledge of the business
in both principle and detail, and combined with his executive force and keen
discernment he has been enabled to so control the affairs of the company as to
make its interests very profitable. He now has in his employ one hundred and
five men, and the enterprise of which he is the head is one of the most
important productive industries of the county. Fifteen hundred car-loads of the
products were shipped in the year 1903. The company also owns a large plant at
Twin Bluff, Illinois, near Ottawa, of which Mr. Owen is superintendent, and
there they do about one-half the amount of business transacted at Hobart.

    In 1902 Mr. Owen was joined in wedlock to Miss Eva May Kitchem, a daughter
of Albert Kitchem. They have one child, Jessie. Like his father, Mr. Owen is a
most stalwart advocate of temperance principles and gives his political
allegiance to the party which embraces his views on this question. He is a
member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and his has been an upright and
honorable career. In all of his business life he has never been known to take
advantage of the necessities of his fellow men, but places his dependence upon
the sure and safe qualities of energy, good workmanship and honorable
dealing—which always prove an excellent foundation upon which to rear the
superstructure of prosperity.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

ENCYCLOPEDIA
OF
Genealogy and Biography
OF
LAKE COUNTY, INDIANA,
WITH A COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY 
1834—1904

A Record of the Achievements of Its People in the Making of a Commonwealth and
the Founding of a Nation.

REV. T. H. BALL
OF CROWN POINT, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
ILLUSTRATED
CHICAGO   NEW YORK
THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
1904


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