Barbour County, West Virginia Biography of George W. SHOMO This biography was submitted by Valerie Crook, E-mail address: The submitter does not have a connection to the subject of this sketch. This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit organizations for their private use. All other rights reserved. Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other means requires the written approval of the file's author. This file is part of the WVGenWeb Archives. If you arrived here inside a frame or from a link from somewhere else, our front door is at http://www.usgwarchives.net/wv/wvfiles.htm The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 310 GEORGE W. SHOMO. In his younger years George W. Shomo had considerable experience as a farmer, barber and coal miner, none of which satisfied him as a per- manent occupation. Railroad service proved more at- tractive. He entered it through the telegraphic branch, and for over fifteen years has been one of the efficient men of the Western Maryland Railroad Company. After several shifts elsewhere he came back to his home town of Junior, where he has been agent for the railroad and at the same time a valued citizen of the community. Mr. Shomo was born on a farm near Junior, March 15, 1882, and is member of one of the old and well known families of this section of Barbour County. While on the farm he attended local schools, and at the age of eighteen took up the work of the barber's trade in a shop at Junior. He worked at that occupation four years, and then for two years was a miner, digging coal for the Davis Colliery Company at Junior. He left the mines to secure a technical and business education in the Morris School of Telegraphy at Cincinnati, where he finished his course in the Spring of 1906. With this training he made application for service with the Western Maryland Eailroad, and was first assigned to duty as assistant agent at Hendricks, West Virginia. He remained there two years as assistant agent and a year and one half as operator, and then after a brief service as relief agent at Harding returned to his native town and began his duties as agent April 19, 1911, suc- ceeding S. S. Bailey. It has been his ambition to make his efficiency in behalf of the railroad company a source of effective service to the town and community, and that ambition has been well realized. During the past ten years he has acquired other interests, and was one of the promoters and is a partner in the Big Chief Mine. He served as mayor of Junior in 1913, and had been selected as recorder of the town of Hendricks just before leav- ing there. He is a charter member and still a stockholder in the Merchants and Miners Bank of Junior. Mr. Shomo is strong in the faith of the republican party and cast his first presidential vote for Roosevelt in 1904. He is a Knight of Pythias, and for a quarter of a century has been a Methodist, has been teacher in the Sunday school and is superintendent of the home department of the Barbour County Sunday School Associa- tion. May 29, 1902, at Belington, when he was twenty years old, Mr. Shomo married Miss Edna B. Bolton, daughter of Napoleon B. and Louise (Johnson) Bolton. The Bol- tons are an old family of this section. Mrs. Shomo was born August 8, 1881 on a farm between Philippi and Belington, third in a family of five children. The others were: Rev. John 0., for some years a Methodist minister and now engaged in the centenary work of his church; Ella, wife of John Thompson, a farmer near Belington; Miss Myrtle, teacher in the public schools of Belington; and Lula, wife of Jesse Glenn, of Belington. Three chil- dren were born to Mr. and Mrs. Shomo, but all of them died in infancy. Mrs. Shomo was a teacher before her marriage and was active in school work for eight years. She joins with her husband in a deep interest in the church and Sunday School.