USA > Indiana > Elkhart County > A twentieth century history and biographical record of Elkhart County, Indiana > Part 50
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The seventh in a family of six sons and four daughters, Dr. Car- per spent the first twenty-six years of his life on the home farm. After attending the country schools and later the high schools of Auburn and Butler, at the age of twenty-two he obtained a teacher's certificate, and for the following ten years was a country school- master. In the meantime he was preparing for a more extended career by studying medicine, and in 1873 he began practice at Roan, Wabash county, where he continued four years, was then located at Liberty Mills ten years, followed by five years at Niles, Michigan, and in 1801 be located in Elkhart. He graduated from Fort Wayne Med- ical College in 1882. Dr. Carper has given study and attention to his specialties for the last twenty-five years, and the cures which he has affected, notably in carcinomatous cases, all of which are treated with- out the use of the knife, have been such as to place his fame beyond the reach of envy or cavil.
Dr. Carper affiliates with the Modern Woodmen of America, and to whatever cause he gives his adherence he offers support with the same earnest zeal that characterizes all his professional work.
He married. in 1870, Miss Hattie S. Steele, and they are the par- ents of three children, two sons and one daughter.
H. C. FIDLER.
H. C. Fidler, proprietor of a dry goods store in Nappanee, was born in Lebanon county, Pennsylvania, January 1, 1848, and traces his ancestry back to Gotlieb Fidler, who came to America in 1710. landing in New York. He was the progenitor of the family in the United States and his descendants are now numerous. Henry Fidler. father of our subject, was born in Berks county, Pennsylvania, and by occupation was a farmer, engaging in the tilling of the soil through- out the period of his active business career. He married Miss Han- nah Chall, who was also a native of Pennsylvania and was descended from German ancestry. He died in the Keystone state at the age of sixty-two years, while his wife passed away at the advanced age of eighty years. In their family were ten children-six sons and four daughters, all of whom reached years of maturity.
H. C. Fidler, the fourth child and second son in that family, is indebted to the public school system of his native state for the educa- tional privileges he enjoyed and which prepared him for meeting life's practical and responsible duties. He continued upon the homestead farm until eighteen years of age and at that time secured a position as clerk in a little general store in the coal regions of Pennsylvania. There
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he remained for a year, after which he returned home and two years attended school. He then accepted a clerkship in a general store in Minersville, Pennsylvania, where he remained for four years, on the expiration of which period he again returned home. In 1872 he started for the west. locating at South Bend. Indiana, where he became a salesman in the dry goods store of A. S. Leip & Brother, remaining in their employ until the fall of 1874. At that time he once more took up his abode in Pennsylvania, where he continued to reside until the spring of 1878. In that year he again located in South Bend and for one year clerked for D. M. Shirley. In the spring of 1879 he went to Elkhart City, where he acted as salesman for Broderick Brothers & Hazelton, continuing with that house until the fall of 1882, when he embarked in business on his own account at Wakarusa in partner- ship with William Maurer. That connection was maintained for about nine years or until the spring of 1891. In the fall of 1892 he estab- lished his business at Nappanee as a dealer in dry goods, and for thirteen years has conducted his store here with a fair measure of suc- cess. He carries a large and well selected line of dry goods and has always studied the wishes of the public so that by his earnest desire to please, his reasonable prices and his honorable business methods he has secured a gratifying patronage.
In August. 1892. Mr. Fidler was married to Miss Clara E. Leib. a daughter of Daniel and Peary ( Doane) Leib and a native of La- grange county. Indiana. The two children born of this marriage died in infancy.
Mr. Fidler has now been a resident of Elkhart county for twenty- six years and has manifested a keen and zealous interest in the wel- fare and progress of this part of the state. In his political views he has been a life-long Republican. He holds membership with the Chris- tain church and his career has been actuated by honorable motives and determined purpose. Those who know him intimately give him their friendship and those whom he has met in business and public life enter- tain for him respect and esteem
A. ELMER MANNING.
A. Elmer Manning, the present sheriff of Elkhart county, was born on a farm about four miles east of the city of Elkhart. February 22, 1863. His father. Anthony C. Manning, a native of Ohio, came To this county during its pioneer epoch, leaving his home in the Buck- eve state when a young man and taking up his abode within the borders of Jefferson township, there being at that time no railroads in the county, and he with other early settlers would float flour on rafts down the Elkhart river to St. Joe, Michigan. He took an active and promi- nent part in the development of this part of the state, aided in trans- forming its wild lands into productive farmis, and in other ways promoted
A. & Morning
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the progress and advancement which made a once wild region the home of a prosperous people. After many years of hard labor on the farm, however, Mr. Manning retired from agricultural pursuits and removed to Elkhart. in the council of which city he served several years, and in addition also served his township of Concord as assessor two terms and his county as sheriff from 1861 to 1862. He was twice married, be- coming the father of two daughters by his first wife, while to the second union, when Sarah Stockdale, the mother of our subject. became his wife, five children were born, four of whom are still living. She, too, preceded him in death, passing away at Elkhart, where he also was called upon to lay down life's labors, at seventy-eight years, dying in the faith of the Methodist church. His political support was given to the Republican party.
When but ten or twelve years of age A. Elmer Manning accom- panied his parents on their removal to Elkhart, where he grew to years of maturity and received his education in its public schools. On reach- ing the age of eighteen years he began work for the Western Union Telegraph Company, in their construction department. where he re- mained for eighteen years, and for the two following years was a member of the police force of Elkhart. For a similar period he was in the employ of C. G. Conn, of the band instrument factory. On the expiration of that time. in 1902. he was elected sheriff of Elkhart county, by a majority of 701, to which position he was re-elected in 1904 by 2.325 majority. He takes an active interest in political affairs, as a representative of Republican principles, and with a full appreciation of his duty and a patriotic love for his country, keeps well informed on the issues of the day and gives his support to all measures which he believes for the public good.
Mr. Manning was married in 1885 to Lillie B. Metzger. of Elk- hart. where she received a public school education. Mr. Manning is a member of the Knights of Pythias fraternity and of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.
ETHAN L. ARNOLD.
Ethan L. Arnold, of Elkhart. a young attorney who has already made his way into prominence at the bar of the county, and who is one of the influential and active members of the Democratic party in the county, was born on a farm in Cass county, Michigan, January 18. 1875. He is a grandson of an early settler of Michigan, George Arn- old having come with a brother from Vermont and located in Michi- gan along in the early days. On his pioneer homestead was born Alvin F. Arnold, the father of the Elkhart attorney, who was reared in his native state and continued the occupation of farming until he moved to Elkhart about 1883 and took up the business of construc- tion contractor. He and his wife. Sarah A. ( Keene) Arnold, who is
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also a native of Michigan, are well known and highly esteemed resi- dents of Elkhart, Ethan L. and another son being their only children.
Having lived in Elkhart since he was eight years old, Mr. Arnold naturally feels as much at home in the city as though he were a native son. Ile was educated in the city schools, after which he took a com- mercial course in the Elkhart Business College, and in 1801 he entered the law office of Chamberlain and Turner, where he remained, as an employe and student, until 1902. Admitted to the bar in 1900, he has since been in the active practice of his profession, he and Forest F. Hughes being the members of a well known and prosperous law firm.
is has been mentioned, Mr. Arnold is one of the vigorous ex- ponents of Democracy in this county. He has served as chairman of the Elkhart city central committee, and as vice chairman of the Demo- cratic county committee. April 17, 1905. Mr. Arnold was appointed a member of the Elkhart board of public works, and by the board was elected its president. He affiliates with the Modern Samaritans of the World and is a member of the Century Club of Elkhart.
By his marriage, April 28, 1900, to Miss Lotta M. Rhoades, of White Pigeon, Michigan, he has two children, Elizabeth and Leon. .
JACOB H. DELL.
Jacob II. Dell is one of the citizens of Wakarusa who would be most quickly selected in answer to a request for the names of the rep- resentative men of affairs and influence in the community. \ man of strength of character and high ideals, he has not only achieved a high degree of success and prosperity in material affairs, but has gained a place of eminent usefulness and esteem in his community.
Mr. Dell is one of the best informed men in Wakarusa concern- ing the history of this part of the county. He is so not only by long personal experience and observation but also by praiseworthy interest in those details of life and progress which mark the course of every locality from its beginning to its attainment of distinct dignity in the civic and business centers of a county or state. Having lived in the county from pioneer times to the present, and having identified him- self so thoroughly with the county's affairs, Mr. Dell is known and esteemed not only in Wakarusa and vicinity but throughout the county.
Born in this county February 21, 1844. Mr. Dell was the third of the nine children, five sons and four daughters, of Jacob and Mary ( Cripe ) Dell, the names of both parents being familiar in the early as well as later annals of the county. The family is of Scotch-Irish and German lineage. Mr. Dell is now the oklest of the six living children. his brothers and sisters being as follows: Nancy, wife of Daniel Culp. of Nappanee; William, a resident of Wakarusa; Mary, wife of J. E. Roose, a farmer near Wakarusa; Solomon, a rural mail carrier at Wakarusa; Catherine, wife of David IT. Moyer, a carpenter and joiner.
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The senior Jacob Dell was born in the state of Pennsylvania, was a carpenter and joiner by trade as well as a practical farmer, and in 1834, when northern Indiana was little better than a wilderness, came out and cast his lot in with the pioneers of Elkhart county, putting up his first log cabin near the village of Goshen. Politically first a Whig and then a Republican, he was an ardent supporter of the principles he stood for, and was a man of more than ordinary influence in his commmirity. He and his wife were members of the German Baptist church. He attained the advanced age of seventy-six years. His wife. who was also a native of Pennsylvania. and who also lived in Ohio to her ninth year, was a daughter of one of the first men to be men- tioned in connection with the early settlement of this county. Her father located near Goshen in 1820, when the red men were more numerous than the whites in this country.
Mr. Dell spent the first twenty-one years of his life on his father's farm, and in that time he laid a good foundation for a useful and suc- cessful career. He well remembers and can give a good description of the little log-cabin school that he attended, a structure exactly typi- cal of those that are very minutely described in the general history of this work, and he had many of the experiences in gaining an educa- tion that are there narrated. He used a goosequill pen fashioned out by the schoolmaster's hand, and an Elementary speller and McGuffey's reader were the books from which he gained the principal sources of his early training. never having had an arithmetic and securing his ready and practical acquaintance with the principles of that branch of knowledge almost entirely by personal application and study. The school that he attended was supported by subscription. \ character well grounded on industry and intelligent ambition was the only capi- tal on which Mr. Dell made his start in life. Thirty-seven cents a day for hard manual labor is a very small reward, but that was the size of his first wages. Mr. Dell, who has been identified with the sawmill and humber industry since early days in this county, is an authority on the conditions of forestry as they were fifty years ago. He, like many others, recalls with regret the frightful devastation which has been wronght in the once great forest areas of this county, and how the magnificent lumber trees were either destroyed purposely in order to clear up the ground for agriculture or were sacrificed at ridiculously low prices.
Mr. Dell took jobs at clearing the forests, and after his marriage went into partnership with Christian Werntz in the sawmill business. That was in 1868, and their mill was located on the present site of Wakarusa. no village existing here at the time except the Old Salem postoffice a mile or so to the northeast. The entire territory of Olive and Harrison townships was densely wooded with the finest kind of lumber trees. Mr. Dell has lived in the vicinity of Wakarusa since 1854. thus spending the principal part of his boyhood as well as man-
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hood there, and from an incipient community consisting at best of three or four " shacks " has witnessed the town " Knee-deep-in-the- inud " attain a population of eleven hundred. His enterprise and capable business management have brought their reward in material welfare. His sawmill is one of the best equipped in the county, having a capac- ity of fourteen thousand feet per day. and he has had as many as seventeen teams and ten men in his employ. During the month of Felmuarv. 1005. he paid out a thousand dollars for labor.
October 25, 1865, Mr. Dell married Miss Barbara Pletcher. Eight children have been born of their marriage, only three of whom are living. William A., who was educated in the common schools of Wakarusa and is now a capable carpenter and joiner, married Miss Eva Boose and has five children, Nora, Alma, Ira, Jacob and Alma. William A. Dell is a stanch Republican. Rosa E., who is a graduate of the Wakarusa high school and taught five terms of school in this town, is now a student in Christian College at Meriam, this state. Hat- tie was one of the graduates of the Wakarusa high school in 1905. Mrs. Dell, who is one of the most esteemed home-lovers and home- makers in the town of Wakarusa, was born in the state of Ohio, was brought to Indiana when a child, and received her education in the common schools. She and her husband are members of the beautiful Christian church which is one of the most recent additions to the pub- lic architecture of Wakarusa, and they have always done their share in all the work of the society.
.A stanch Republican in political affairs, having cast his first vote for Abraham Lincoln, Mr. Dell has not only firmly supported his politi- cal principles but has been one of the ablest upholders of civic im- provement and advancement in community and county affairs. His fellow citizens have sent him as delegate to various county conventions. As trustec of Olive township for five years he effected many notable improvements, erecting two schools in the country and the major part of the excellent public school in Wakarusa. He was treasurer of the school board four years. Having been a pupil of the log-cabin school days, he is the more thoroughly able to appreciate the changes that mark the present school system, and his entire influence is always thrown for the continued advancement of education. Mr. and Mrs. Dell reside in a beautiful and comfortable cottage home on Waterford street.
DANIEL DOERING.
Daniel Doering is one of the public-spirited and enterprising young business men of Elkhart county, was born and has lived in this county practically all his life, and since arriving at mature years has identified himself in a peculiarly efficient and beneficial way with the life and affairs of his community of Wakarusa. He was born in Union town- ship, August 10, 1864, and was the fifth of twelve children, whose
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parents were John A. and Anna ( Heimerich ) Doering. Eleven of the children are still living: Alvina, wife of John E. Sloat, a harness- maker at Nappanee: George, who is married and living at Wakarusa. being also in the harness business: Emma, wife of Enos Newcomer, a jeweler ot Nappanee: William, married, a jeweler in Nappanee : Daniel ; Anna. wife of George Miller, a teacher and carpenter at Goshen; John . H., married, who is a dealer in vehicles at Wakarusa: Henry, who is married and is a fireman on the Lake Shore Railroad: Sarah, wife of William Bigler, who is a mail clerk on the Lake Shore and resides in Goshen: Calvin. in partnership with his brother in the buggy business at Wakarusa : Paulina, a student in the business college at South Bend.
John A. Doering, the father of this family, was born in Hesse- Cassel. Germany, July 16, 1830, and is now living in Nappanee. For- merly a tailor, he turned his attention to farming, at which occupation he gained unusual success. He came to America when sixteen years old, and after living in Columbiana county, Ohio, three years, came to Elkhart county In this county he was one of the early settlers, and he purchased eighty acres of land and by industry and careful atten- tion to details paid off all indebtedness against it and in time was in comfortable circumstances. In politics he is a Democrat, and he and his wife are members of the German Reformed church. His wife was born in Germany in 1836 and died in 1897.
Mr. Doering was reared on his father's farm in Union township and lived there till he was twenty-two years old, having in the mean- time acquired his education in the common schools with some high school work. He had two hundred dollars when he began his inde- pendent career. and he has made a fine showing in his business career. Learning the trade of carpenter and joiner, he followed it actively two years, then for two years earned a living as driver of a milk wagon. and in August. 1880. entered upon a seven years' business connec- tion with Mr. Newcomer, at first as apprentice and later as partner in the jewelry business. In 1896 he established a jewelry store in Wakarusa, and during the subsequent years has built up a fine trade in this line.
December 25. 1894. Mr. Doering married Miss Chloe McCloud. and they are the parents of three sons, namely: Clio, a bright little fellow who is in the third grade of school and has never missed a day's attendance or been tardy: Ward, also in school; and Dwight. Mrs. Doering was born in Kansas, January 9. 1874, being a daughter of Mitchell and Sophronia ( Clyde ) McCloud, and was educated in the Nappanee high school, also having studied music. She is one of the enthusiastic religious workers of her community, being a member of the Methodist church, secretary of the Home Missionary Society and of the ladies' Aid Society and also a teacher in the Sunday school. Mr. Doering and family reside in a pleasant little home on Elkhart
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street, and they enjoy the highest esteem of all their many friends and acquaintances.
Mr. Doering owns one hundred acres of the old homestead, and his present material circumstances are a great honor and credit to the ability and management he has displayed in the transactions of a busy career. As a stanch Democrat and having cast his first vote for Cleve- land, he has been a delegate to the county convention and has also served as chairman of the Democratic county committee, being one of the prominent and influential Democrats of the county. He has served two terias as a member of the town council, and in 1904 was elected a member of the Wakarusa board of education, being at present secre- tary of the board. He is president of the Wakarusa Improvement As- sociation, which was organized in January, 1905. for the promotion of the industrial and commercial interests of the town. Fraternally he affiliates with Lodge No. 287. K. of P., at Nappanee. He as well as his wife is a loyal and active worker in the Methodist church, and has been identified officially with the Wakarusa church for many years. He has served as superintendent of the Sunday school four years. He has the unusual record of never having missed attendance a single Sun- clay in seven years, which is evidence enough that he displays the same interest and attention in religious work that he does in connection with business affairs. And it is due, without doubt, largely to this zeal in behalf of any cause which he may espouse that his life has been pro- ductive of such excellent results. In the church proper he is a mem- ber and secretary and treasurer of the board of trustees.
THOMAS S. YATES.
Thomas S. Yates, now retired from a career of most successful activity as a builder and contractor during a period of over half a century, practically all of it in Elkhart county, is one of the men of mark, of great usefulness and worth in material and civic life, who by no means should be omitted from a history of the county.
Born in Miami county, Ohio, April 27. 1826, so that he is now in the shadow of his eightieth year, he comes of a family noted for its vitality. its prominent participation in the affairs of business and indus- try, and the integrity and personal worth of its individual members. His father was Nezer Yates, who was born about four miles from Cape May, New Jersey, at the age of four years was taken by his parents to Clermont county, Ohio, where he was reared to the age of nineteen, then moved to Miami county, Ohio, was married. settled in a log cabin home, where he made the beginning of a very successful career, improved an excellent farm, and died when seventy-three years quid ten days old, having been born in 1801 and passing away in 18;4. Tracing the family history to other generations, there is Thomas
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Yates, the father of the last-mentioned, who was also born in New Jersey and was a son of William Yates, who descended directly from an English emigrant that located in this country some time in the seventeenth century. Priscilla Sayres, the mother of Mr. Yates, was born and reared in Pennsylvania, later came to Miami county, Ohio, where she died at the age of forty. Her father, Thomas Sayres,- was a Virginian by birth and of English descent. Nezer and Priscilla Yates had eleven children, two of the sons dying young, the rest grew to mature years and eight of them married. The father married a second time and by that union had one daughter.
Mr. Thomas S. Yates, the oldest of his parents' children, was reared and educated in his native county, and at the age of eighteen began learning the carpenter and builder's trade, which he followed continuously for fifty-four years. He has been a resident of Elkhart county over half a century, having located in the southern part of Jaek- son township near Milford in September. 1853, bringing his family there in the following December, and on April 4th of the next year took up his permanent abode in Goshen. No one else in the county has a building record that can compare with his. Dwelling houses and other classes of building all over the county attest his diligence and skill, and in his time he has seen many changes in the methods of con- struction as well as in the tools and equipment for conducting his work. The Presbyterian, Baptist. Methodist, Episcopal churches in Goshen are monuments of his craft: also the old Jackson house: the remodel- ing of the court house and jail was intrusted to him; he superintended the building of the county asylum; remodeled the Hotel Hascall ; built the old high school that was burned in 1875, and the woolen mill. he- sides a great number of private residences. Many of the elegant homes out on Elkhart prairie were constructed by him. among them those of John Violett. John Smiley. Jacob Yoder, which were the finest private homes of their day. . As may be inferred from the preceding, Mr. Yates has had a busy and very successful career: at the same time he has had misfortunes, having lost all his property in 1862 and begin- ning the struggle of life all over again.
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