Lewis County, West Virginia    Biography of Bertram A. KOBLEGARD

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Submitted by Valerie Crook, <vfcrook@earthlink.net>, July 1999
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The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., 
Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 158


BERTRAM A. KOBLEGARD. The name Koblegard has been
a prominent one in commercial affairs in West Virginia
for a long period of years. Its distinctive associations over
the state at large were with the wholesale grocery busi-
ness. Bertram A. Koblegard is a son of the wholesale
merchant, was with his father in business for a time but
now conducts a leading fire insurance agency at Weston.

Bertram A. Koblegard was born at West Union in
Doddridge County, West Virginia, March 11, 1874, son of
Jacob and Isophene (Powell) Koblegard. Jacob Koble-
gard was born in Denmark, October 5, 1848, and came to
the United States at the age of sixteen. He had a fair
education, a bent for industry, but had literally no money.
For several years he worked on farms in Ohio. He then
came to West Virginia, and by successive steps became a
prominent factor in the wholesale grocery business, and
for thirty years was connected with the firm Ruhl Koble-
gard & Company, with branch offices in Weston, Clarks-
burg and Grafton. He sold out his interest in this busi-
ness in 1904. For a number of years he was also presi-
dent of the National Exchange Bank of Weston and was
president of the Crescent Window Glass Company of Wes-
ton. Jacob Koblegard finally went back to Denmark, and
died at Copenhagen, September 4, 1919. He was a mem-
ber of the Masonic Lodge, and he and his wife were
Methodists. His wife was born in Harrison County, West
Virginia, in 1855. They were the parents of four chil-
dren: Bertram A.; Mamie C., wife of E. R. Minshall, of
Tulsa, Oklahoma; Rupert N., of Washington, D. O.; and
Thorne F., of Weston.

Bertram A. Koblegard has lived most of his life in Wes-
ton where he attended the grammar and high schools,
and for two years was a student in Gettysburg College
in Pennsylvania. In 1896 he graduated A. B. from Ohio
Wesleyan University at Delaware, and then returned to
Weston to participate in his father's wholesale grocery
business. When his father retired he established an office
to handle fire insurance, and in that business has found a
congenial as well as profitable field.   He has several
financial interests, and is a man of unusual gifts, dis-
played particularly in literature. He has written several
novelettes, one play, and a number of short stories that
have been contributed to magazines. In religious matters
he is a liberal. He has been active in the democratic party,
was a member of the city council, and was defeated with
the rest of his ticket as candidate for county clerk in 1908.
He is a member of the Ancient Order of United Workmen.

In 1897 Mr. Koblegard married Flora Davisson. They
have two sons: Jacob, a graduate of the Weston High
School and now in the automobile business in New York
City; and Edwin, also a high school graduate, and a clerk
in the Weston postoffice.