Biography of John Edward OFFNER, M. D., Marion County, West Virginia This file was submitted by Cheryl McCollum, E-mail address: 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 II pg. 54 JOHN EDWARD OFFNER, M. D., a successful physician and surgeon engaged in practice at Fairmont, Marion County, was born at Piedmont, Mineral County, this state April 15, 1878, a son of Isaac Henry and Mary Jane (Kalbaugh) Offner. The father was born July 11, 1844, at Romney, Randolph County, Virginia (now West Virginia), and is a son of Reuben and Matilda Jane (Cummins) Offner. Reuben Offner was born at Woodstock, Virginia, in 1804, and died at Romney in 1889, he having been a shoemaker by trade, a democrat in politics and a member of the Methodist Church. Isaac H. Offner gave many years of effective service as a school teacher, and he was a valiant soldier in the Confederate service in the Civil war as a member of the Thirty-third Virginia Regiment, in the brigade of Gen. "Stonewall" Jackson. Mr. Offner is now one of the venerable and honored citizens of Mineral County. His wife is a daughter of Alexander Kalbaugh, who was of German ancestry and whose wife was of Irish ancestry, he having been a Union soldier in the Civil war. Doctor Offner gained his early education in the schools of his native county, and thereafter he followed various vocations of mechanical order, he having been employed on public works, on railroads, in machine shops and in a paper pulp mill, besides which he was for a time a member of a civil engineering corps with the Dry Fork Railroad. In consonance with his ambition he finally entered the Maryland Medical College in the City of Baltimore, in which he was graduated in 1904, with the degree of Doctor of Medicine. He has since taken post-graduate surgical work in the University of Pennsylvania and in clinics in the City of Baltimore. At the time of the Spanish-American war he served eighteen months in the hospital corps of the United States Army. When the nation became involved in the World war Doctor Offner applied for and was recommended by the governor of West Virginia for a commission in the Medical Corps of the United States Army. He received a commission as lieutenant, instead of major, for which later he had been recommended, and he refused to accept the minor commission. He then tendered his services to the navy, in which he was commissioned a first lieutenant of the Medical Corps, but he was not called into active service until after the signing of the historic armistice, when he declined to enter such service. The doctor now holds the rank of assistant surgeon general on the staff of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. He is a member of the Marion County and West Virginia State Medical societies, the Southern Medical Association, the American Medical Association and the Baltimore & Ohio Railway Surgeons Association. Doctor Offner is a staunch democrat, and he was the first member of his party elected to represent the strong republican First Ward of Fairmont as a member of the City Council, of which he continued a member four years. His initial Masonic affiliation was with Fairfax Lodge No. 96, at Davis, this state, and from the same he was demitted to become a charter member of Pythagoras Lodge No. 128 at Parsons, West Virginia. From the latter he was demitted to assist in instituting Acacia Lodge No. 157 at Fairmont, of which he continues a member. He is also affiliated with the R. A. M. At Keyser, West Virginia, with the Commandery of Knights Templar at Grafton, and with Osiris Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Wheeling. He is a member of Fairmont Lodge No. 294 B. P. O. E., and of the Knights of Pythias. The doctor is an active member of the Fairmont Chamber of Commerce, and of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. At Okland, Maryland, July 8, 1901, Doctor Offner wedded Effie Blanche Taylor, who was born at Kerns, Randolph County, West Virginia, July 1, 1880, a daughter of Hayes H. Taylor, who was a soldier of the Confederacy in the Civil war. Doctor and Mrs. Offner have two children: Mildred Ruth, born March 23, 1902, and Edward Taylor, born May 18, 1903.