Fayette County, West Virginia - Biography: CHARLES R. HEERMANS ********************************************************************** USGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. 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. ********************************************************************** WEST VIRGINIA In History, Life, Literature and Industry The Lewis Publishing Company 1928 - Volume 5, page 83-84 w/photo CHARLES R. HEERMANS began his career as a mechanical engineer, and for a number of years has held important responsibilities in shops and industries in West Virginia, being now shop superintendent of the new River company at Macdonald, Fayette County. Mr. Heermans was born in Meigs County, Ohio, December 31, 1878, son of Edgar and Sarah (Reeder) Heermans. The Heermans family is an old and prominent one of Pennsylvania, and from that state moved into many other localities. Edgar Heermans was born and reared at Scranton, attended public schools there, and spent many years of his life as an educator, teaching for several years in Meigs County, Ohio, then at Elizabeth, West Virginia, and about 1900 moved to Parkersburg and was bookkeeper for the Miller Lumber company of that city until he retired. He died in September, 1926, at the advanced age of niney-one, and is buried in the Mount Olivet Cemetery at Parkersburg. His widow, who survives him and lives at Parkersburg at the age of seventy-nine, is an active member of the Episcopal Church. She was born and reared at Lubeck, West Virginia. They had five children: Elizabeth, wife of John Curtis, of White Plains, New York; James S., who died at the age of thrity-three; Emmett R., who died in December, 1927, when fifty-two years of age; Charles R.; and William H., of Parkersburg. Charles R. Heermans attended public school at Elizabeth in Wirt County, West Virginia, and spent two years in West Virginia University. After his university career he went to New York and for five years was with the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company, rising to the position of gang boss in the shops. In 1905 he returned to West Virginia, for about four years was foreman in the shops of the Charleston Electric Supply Company and held a similar position with the Virginia Electric Company. He has been with the New River Company since 1911, at first as shop foreman at Carlisle, and in 1921 was transferred to the Macdonald main shops as superintendent. The New River Company shop organization in equipment and personnel is probably not surpassed by that of any other coal mining corporation in the State of West Virginia. Mr. Heermans has always been a popular executive, one who thoroughly knows his business on the mechanical side, and has taken an active and public spirited interest in his community. He is York Rite Mason, member of Beni Kedem Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Charleston, also belongs to the Knights of Pythias, is a Democrat, and both he and his wife are active members of the Presbyterian Church. He married at Charleston, July 17, 1905, Miss Lillian Stover, who was educated in public schools at the capital. She is a member of the Eastern Star and White Shrine of Jerusalem. Her parents were John and Fanny (Perry) Stover, of Charleston. Her father was a tinner by trade and for many years was in the tin shop business at Charleston, where he died in 1924 and is buried in Spring Hill Cemetery. Her mother still lives at Charleston. Mr. and Mrs. Heermans have two children. The daughter, Elizabeth Frances, born August 12, 1907, graduated from the Mount Hope High School in 1927 and now teaches in a public school in Fayette County. The son, Charles R., Jr., born April 16, 1914, is a student in the Mount Hope High School. Transcribed by (MRS GINA M REASONER), 1999 **********************************************************************