BIOGRAPHY OF EDWARD K. TOOMPAS, HARRISON CO,
WEST VIRGINIA
**********************************************************************
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.
**********************************************************************

Submitted by Valerie Crook
(vfcrook@earthlink.net)


The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.,
Chicago and New York, Volume II,
pg. 615
Harrison

EDWARD K. TOOMPAS is in the most significant degree a
self-made man, and his achievement since coming to the
United States from his native Greece marks him as a man
of strong mentality, determined purpose and worthy am-
bition. By self-discipline he has broadened his education
far beyond the meager compass represented in his limited
schooling in his native land, and in material affairs he has
won substantial success that now marks him as one of the
representative business men of the City of Clarksburg,
Harrison County, West Virginia.

Mr. Toompas was born at Pialia, Trikhala, in Thessaly,
Greece, on the 7th of January, 1884, and is a son of Kon-
stantinos and Vasileke Toompas, both likewise natives of
that place. In the schools of his native land Edward K.
Toompas received a limited education, in which he learned
to read and write the Greek language. Thereafter he was
variously employed in his home district until he had attained
to the age of twenty-one years, when, in 1905, he came to
the United States, determined to win in this land of oppor-
tunity a, place of independence and prosperity. A stranger
in a strange land, entirely unfamiliar with the English
language and with the customs of the country, he landed
in the port of New York City and thence proceeded forth-
with to Manchester, New Hampshire, where kinsfolk and
other friends were living. There he found employment as
an ordinary laborer in a textile mill, and in this connec-
tion he applied himself diligently for three and one half
years, within which, by study, reading and observation, he
substantially advanced himself and learned to read and write
the English language, in the speaking of which he had
rapidly gained proficiency. After leaving New Hampshire
he was employed eighteen months in a restaurant in the
City of Annapolis, Maryland, and he continued to avail
himself of every possible opportunity for expanding his
education and fitting himself for a broader field of en-
deavor.

In 1910 Mr. Toompas came to Clarksburg, West Virginia,
and purchased a one-fourth interest in the Manhattan Cafe,
in the conducting of which his associates have been from
that time to the present three other ambitious and pro-
gressive fellow countrymen, Victor Charpas, John Pappas
and Charles Theodorou. The firm conducts two of the best
equipped and most popular restaurants in this section of
the state. The firm owns the Manhattan Building, on West
Pike Street, a modern structure in which ia located the Man-
hattan Cafe, a most attractive marble and tile restaurant
with the best of modern appointments and service. Here
ia to be found the best type of independent refrigerating
plants, and here the firm conducts its own bakery, which
supplies bread, pastries and other products of the best
order. The second place owned and conducted by the firm
is the Clarksburg Restaurant, at 110 Third Street, opposite
the post office, and both establishments eater to a sub-
stantial and representative patronage. In this field of enter-
prise Mr. Toompas has been most successful, and he also
has other business interests of important order. He is vice
president of the Palace Theater Company and the Palace
Theater Realty Company, of Manchester, New Hampshire,
the former corporation operating the Palace Theater, a high
grade amusement place. Mr. Toompas is interested also in
other theater enterprises in New Hampshire and is asso-
ciated in the ownership of a fine grain ranch of 2,000 acres
in the Province of Alberta, Canada. The record of his
career offers both lesson and incentive, and he richly merits
the substantial success which he has won.

Mr. Toompas gives his political support to the republican
party, is a communicant of the Greek Orthodox Church, and
in the Masonic fraternity he has received the thirty-second
degree of the Scottish Rite, his maximum York Rite affilia-
tion being with the Clarksburg Commandery of Knights
Templars, besides which he is numbered among the nobles of
Nemesis Temple of the Mystic Shrine, at Parkersbnrg. He
has gained a host of friends in business and social circles
at Clarksburg, and his name is enrolled on the list of eligible
bachelors in this city.