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Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by OH-FOOTSTEPS Mailing List January 24, 1999 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest Volume 99 : Issue 43 Today's Topics: #1 Obituary: Nehrer, 1976, Cuyahoga C ["JRDR" Subject: Obituary: Nehrer, 1976, Cuyahoga County BERNARD NEHRER, beloved husband of Elizabeth (nee Zacovic), dear father of Rosemary Bereg, Patricia Pfeiffer, James and Betty Grau, grand-father of ten, brother of Margaret Hodge, Eileen Hogon, Betty Sturges (deceased), Frances Gedeon and Carl. Funeral Mass Saturday, Nov. 6, at 10:30 a.m. at St. Francis De Sales Church. Interment at the Holy Cross Cemetery. Visitation at THE ZABOR FUNERAL HOME, 5680 PEARL RD., PARMA, FRIDAY 2-4 AND 7-9 P.M. If desired, family requests contributions to The Holy Family Cancer Home, Parma. ------------------------------ X-Message: #2 Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1999 19:12:09, -0500 From: AUPQ38A@prodigy.com (MRS GINA M REASONER) Subject: Ohio connections WEST VIRGINIA In History, Life, Literature and Industry The Lewis Publishing Company, 1928 - Volume 4, page 55-56 with photo ROBERT R. STEELE, well known West Virginia funeral director, is proprietor of the Steele Funeral Home, Incorporated, at Huntington, located at 1126 Third Avenue. Mr. Steele was born at McArthur, in Vinton County, Ohio, May 6, 1877, son of Jasper N. and Mary (Ervin) Steele. His grandfather, Robert M. Steele, was a native of Pennsylvania, a cabinetmaker by trade, moved from his native state to Ohio, and during the Civil war was a soldier in Company H of the Fifty-third Ohio Infantry. The maternal grandfather, Nelson Ervin, was born in Ohio and spent his life as a farmer, dying at the age of forty-nine. Jasper N. Steele was born at Clearfield, Pennsylvania, in 1846, was reared and educated in Ohio, taught school in early life, and in 1877 was admitted to the bar. Shortly after being admitted he was engaged in handling a murder case for a college friend, whom he succeeded in clearing. He became so dissatisfied with the law as a profession that he never took another case. He removed to Huntington in 1913, and was retired until his death on November 26, 1922. His wife was born in Jackson County, Ohio, September 9, 1855, and died in 1925. They were members of the Methodist Episcopal Church and Republican in politics. In their family were four children: Mrs. Rhoda Braley, wife of a farmer in Gallia County, Ohio; Ervin B., who is associated in undertaking business with his brother Robert; Robert R.; and John D., a farmer at Tonkawa, Oklahoma. Robert R. Steele grew up on an Ohio farm, attended schools in that state, and as a youth clerked in a grocery store three months, and for five years was with a shoe and leather business. He learned undertaking at Rutland, Ohio, beginning in 1895, and at the end of a year the business was turned over to his management and he continued it five years longer and was offered the business if he would remain. Seeking a larger field for his operations, he removed to Charleston, West Virginia, in 1899, and in 1900 became a member of Simpson & Steele, undertakers. He was with that firm until 1905. He also was a traveling salesman, covering twenty-two states, but in 1911 left the road and located at Huntington, where he was connected with an undertaking firm until May, 1915. On August 13, 1915, he started a business of his own on Eleventh Street. At that time his total cash capital amounted to $19.20. He was a man of experience and thorough qualifications for his work, and his business has grown and prospered. Since 1918 it has been located at 1128 Third Avenue, and in 1926 he incorporated the Steele Funeral Home. At that time each of the employes was given a share of stock apportionate to his years of service with the company. The business has all the facilities and equipment for expert service, including eleven motor cars. Mr. Steele married, in 1899, Miss Ethel Hooper, who was born in Meigs County, Ohio, daughter of Ira W. Hooper, an Ohio farmer. Mr. and Mrs. Steele have a daughter, Alice Pauline, who is the wife of Rev. L. Riggleman, a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, at Milton, West Virginia. Both Rev. and Mrs. Riggleman are graduates of the Southern Methodist University of Dallas, Texas. They have a daughter, Alice Roberta Riggleman. Mr. and Mrs. Steele also have a daughter, Anna Byrne, now twelve years of age. The family are members of the Johnson Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church. Mr. Steele is a York and Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner, member of the Knights of Pythias, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Guyan and Spring Valley Country Clubs, Guyandotte Club and is former president of the Kiwanis Club. He is a member of the County Anti-Tuberculosis League, the State Board of Embalmers, West Virginia Funeral Directors Association, and is now president of Capitol No. 2 District Funeral Directors Association and a member of the National Selected Morticians. He is a Republican. His hobby is golf. Mr Steele is on the Board of Stewards of the Johnson Memorial Church. He and his family reside in a beautiful home located a mile from the corporation limits of Huntington. WEST VIRGINIA In History, Life, Literature and Industry The Lewis Publishing Company, 1928 - Volume 4, page 62-63 CHARLES W. WATTS, president of the Watts-Ritter Dry Goods Company of Huntington, is a successful business man who started his career with neither capital nor influence, merely with such abilities and talents as he possessed, which of themselves were of no ordinary merit. He has had a career at Huntington for thirty years, and has risen from bookkeeper to president of one of the leading wholesale houses of that city. Mr. Watts was born at Webster, Ohio, in 1867, son of James M. and Nancy (Collis) Watts, his father a native of Virginia and his mother of Maryland. His father spent most of his active life in the iron industry at Jackson, Ohio. He was a Democrat and a member of the Presbyterian Church. Charles W. Watts was the second in a family of three children. His schooling was consigned to the advantages of his home locality, and in 1887 he was keeping books for a firm at Point Pleasant, West Virginia. In 1888 he came to Huntington, and was for two years bookkeeper for the Barlow-Henderson Company was succeeded by Biggs, Watts & Company, and in 1906 it became the Watts-Ritter Company, wholesale dry goods, with Mr. Watts as president. The company has thirty traveling men covering territory in Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia and Kentucky, and does an immense volume of business in dry goods, notions and holiday goods. While this is the business to which Mr. Watts gives most of his time and energies, he has become connected with a number of other important business organizations. He is a director of the First National Bank of Huntington and member of the executive committee; is president of the Blue Jay Manufacturing Company, overall manufacturers, selling their goods all over the United States; is vice president of the Empire Furniture Company and a director of several other companies in Huntington. Mr. Watts married, in 1895, Miss Elizabeth Biggs, who was born in Kentucky and died in 1904. In 1916 he married Ouida Caldwell, daughter of the prominent Huntington banker and capitalist, the late James L. Caldwell. Mrs. Watts finished her education in the Mary Baldwin Seminary at Staunton, Virginia. She is a member of the Episcopal Church, while he is a Presbyterian. Mr. Watts is a member of the Guyandotte Club and Guyan Country Club. ------------------------------ X-Message: #4 Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1999 22:26:44 -0600 From: Byron Atkinson Subject: William Oyler MD Ohio/Indiana WILLIAM A. OYLER, M.D., was born in Montgomery County, Ohio, April 19, 1849, and is the third of the twelve children born to Jacob and Rachel A. (Williams) Oyler, natives respectively of Kentucky and Ohio, and of German and English descent. Jacob Oyler moved to Darke County, Ohio, while he was yet a young man, and was there married. In 1856, he came to Miami County, this State, where he served for eight years as Justice of the Peace, and in 1869 moved to St. Clair County, Mo.; the following year he removed to Grundy county, Mo., where he still resides on his farm of 340 acres. William A. Oyler attended school and assisted on the home farm until twenty-one years of age; in 1871, he began reading medicine with Dr. S.F. Landrey, of Galveston, Ind.; he then studied under Dr. O.C. Irvin, of Bunker Hill, and in the class of 1880-81 graduated from the Indiana Medical College at Indianapolis. In 1881, he came to Pulaski, this county, where he is fast acquiring a renumerative practice. He was married, September 18, 1870, to Catherine Galbraith, a native of Pennsylvania, who has borne him six children, of whom one boy and four girls are still living. In politics, the Doctor is a Democrat, and both he and wife are members of the Baptist Church. "Counties of White and Pulaski Counties, Indiana - Indian Creek Township" by F.A. Battey & Co. - published in 1883 Byron Atkinson byrona19@starnetinc.com ------------------------------ X-Message: #5 Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1999 23:23:46, -0500 From: AUPQ38A@prodigy.com (MRS GINA M REASONER) Subject: BROOKHART in History of Ohio HISTORY OF OHIO by Charles B. Galbreath The American Historical Society, Inc. 1925 - Volume 5, page 435 EDGAR J. BROOKHART. In the attractive little City of Celina, the judicial center of Mercer County, are established two substantial and well ordered insurance corporations that have contributed definitely to the prestige of Ohio in this special and important field of business enterprise. Of each of these corporations, the National Mutual Insurance Company and the Celina Mutual Casualty Company, Edgar J. Brookhart is the efficient secretary, and his progressive administration in this connection has been potent in the development of the business of each of the companies. Mr. Brookhart, who is a lawyer by profession but whose time is now largely demanded by his executive duties as secretary of the two insurance corporations, was born, and reared in Mercer County, the date of his nativity having been August 8, 1881, and he is a son of Jacob C. and Sarah M. (Upton) Brookhart. He was graduated from the high school at Mendon, this county, and thereafter completed a course in the law department of Ohio Northern University at Ada, in which he was graduated as a member of the class of 1903. After thus receiving his degree of Bachelor of Laws he was admitted to the bar of his native state and engaged in the practice of law at Celina. He made a record of successful professional achievement, and also served for some time as referee in bankruptcy. In 1914 Mr. Brookhart directed his energies to the organizing of the National Mutual Insurance Company, of which he has since continued the secretary, and in February, 1920, he organized also the Celina Mutual Casualty Company, of which likewise he is the secretary. The National Mutual Insurance Company, offering fire insurance indemnity along general lines, was organized, September 4, 1914, and has had a "safe, sound and steady growth." Its total admitted cash assets as shown in its eighteenth semi-annual statement, December 31, 1923, are $347,638.64, and its total liabilities are given as $220,215.19. The company carries full legal reserves, and its record has been one of splendid growth. The personnel of the official corps of this company is as here designated: O.F. Rentzsch, president; A.W. Parsons, vice president; D.M. Brookhart, treasurer; and E. J. Brookhart, secretary. The directorate includes these officers and one other member, Charles Montgomery, assistant secretary and treasurer. The Celina Mutual Casualty Company, whose functions include full insurance coverage on automobiles, was organized February 23, 1920, and this corporation likewise has demonstrated in its service its worthiness as touching public support, with the result that is already substantial business shows a constantly cummulative tendency. Its statement of December 31, 1923, gives its total admitted cash assets as $152,699.53, and its net cash surplus as $11,833.77. The executive officers of the company are the same as those of the National Mutual Insurance Company, but F.U. Brookhart is the one other member of the Board of Directors. Mr. Brookhart represents his companies as a member of the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies, the Federation of Mutual Fire Insurance Companies, and the National Association of Mutual Automotive Insurance Companies. Of the last named association, Mr. Brookhart was the organizer and the first president. In the time-honored Masonic fraternity Mr. Brookhart has received the thirty-second degree of the Scottish Rite, besides being a Noble of the Mystic Shrine, and in his connection with the great fraternity he is serving (1924) as district lecturer of the Fourth Ohio District. He is vice president of the Kiwanis Club of Celina, is a member and national councilor of the United Staes Chamber of Commerce, is secretary of the Board of Trustees of Ohio Northern University, is an active member of the North Shore Golf Club, and at Celina he and his wife are members of St. Paul's Methodist Episcopal Church. Mrs. Brookhart, a popular leader in social and cultural circles in her home community, took both classical and musical courses in Ohio Northern University, and in Celina she has membership in the Alturian Club, the Community Club and the 1914 Club. December 25, 1902, recorded the marriage of Mr. Brookhart and Miss Dora Montgomery, daughter of Dr. West Montgomery, a leading physician and surgeon at Ada, Ohio. -------------------------------- End of OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest V99 Issue #43 ******************************************