Shelby County, KY - Bios:  Sparks, Albert A.
Posted by Sandi Gorin on Wed, 21 Apr 1999
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Albert A. SPARKS 3071, Shelby Co. 

Surname: Sparks, Terrell, Winings, Roche

History of Posey County Indiana, The Goodspeed Publishing Co., Chicago, 1886. 
Reprinted by Unigraphic, Inc., Evansville, IN 1967[Shelby County]

ALBERT A. SPARKS, editor and proprietor of the Mount Vernon Democrat, was born in 
Clay Village, Shelby Co., Ky., February 22, 1855, and is the next oldest in a family 
of three sons and one daughter born to the marriage of Walter J. Sparks and Eliza A. 
Terrell, natives of Louisville and Hancock County, Ky., respectively. Our subject was 
raised in Shelbyville, Ky., securing an ordinary English education. At the age of twelve 
years he began learning the printer's trade which he mastered after a four years' 
apprenticeship with the Shelby Sentinel. He then went to Louisville, Ky., and worked 
on the Evening News of that city two and a half years, and later for a short time on 
the Courier-Journal. In 1873 he came to Evansville, Ind., and was employed as compositor 
on the Journal of that city. He then went to New Orleans, La., and was employed in the 
office of the New Orleans Times and also the Democrat, for about two years. In 1877 he 
returned to Evansville and accepted a position on the Courier-Journal, remaining there 
two years, when he came to Mount Vernon and purchased the Democrat, which he has since 
conducted in an able manner. Mr. Sparks is, as his paper implies, an unswerving Democrat 
and advocates the principles of that party through the columns of his paper in a bold and 
fearless manner. He was appointed postmaster at Mount Vernon, Monday, November 2, 1885, 
and entered upon his duties November 16, 1885. He is a Mason and a member of the I.O.O.F. 
In February, 1879, he was married to Henrietta (Winings) Roche, daughter of Dr. Moses Winings, 
whose sketch appears elsewhere in this work. She has two sons by her first marriage named 
Peter W. and John D. Roche.