Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 5.djvu/30

 574

VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

andoah county, Virginia, and six years later was reelected to that office, of which he is the present incumbent. The many and varied responsibilities of his position are performed by him with ability and skill, and in the ex- act and careful discharge of his duties he repays the public trust expressed in his elec- tion.

Mr. Wunder's professional and public af- fairs have so nearly required his entire time that he has been unable to pursue other lines of activity, although for five years he was secretary and treasurer of the Shenan- doah Loan and Trust Company, of Wood- stock, Virginia. The deep study and vigor- ous mental exercise required in the practice of law have made that ])rofession most con- genial to him, for he is a man of scholarly tastes and habits, finding in that calling room for their full indulgence. His poli- tical beliefs are Democratic, and he is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, holding the office of steward in its organi- zation.

Mr. Wundcr married, October i8, 1883, Caroline Mary Newman, born in Shenan- doah county, Virginia, July 17, 1862, daugh- ter of Benjamin P. and Elizabeth ( Hick- man) Newman. Children of Mark Bird and Caroline Mary (Newman) Wunder: Charles Newman; Walter Henry, married Nell Lo- gan; Elizabeth Mary, married Harold N. Corman, one child. Mark ^^'under; Edgar Douglas.

Abraham Roberts is a member of an old English family representative of the best type of the strong middle class of that domi- i.ant race, which today, after centuries of sturdy resistance to the oppressive acts of a government and institutions which tended to absolutism, have gained not only politi- cal independence at home, but have formed the social foundation for the great republic of the Western Hemisphere, upon which in safety has been built up the most complex population the world has ever seen.

For three hundred years or more the Rob- erts family can be traced back in their Eng- li.sh home, among the bold hills of Corn- wall, that long arm which runs out westward from England as though her bulwark against the stormy Atlantic, and for three hundred years the members of this family have been miners. For the major part of this loiig period they had been content to

remain in the old home, around which had, grown up the associations of centuries, and engaged in the same hardy occupation which their fathers had followed, from time immemorial.

It was not until the time of Abraham Roberts Sr., the father of Abraham Roberts, of this sketch, that that more enterprising spirit came amongst them which ha^ im- pelled so many of their fellow countrymen to abandon the security and certainty of home for the hazards and fortunes of the New World. Abraham Roberts Sr. was of this character. He was born in Cornwall, England, the ancestral home of his family, June 30, 1835, and there passed his child- hood and early youth, gaining there his education and learning the occupation of his fathers. But while he was so engaged, the ambition to see the world and try himself in new lands and amongst strangers, and to take advantage of the golden opportunities which report had it were to be found abroad, grew gradually in his mind until it domi- nated all other considerations, and he de- termined to take the step. In 1854, when only nineteen years of age, he sailed for the United States, and reaching his destination without mishap, settled in New York state, and there resumed for a time the hereditary tiade of his family. The same enterprising spirit which moved him to leave the old home, urged him to see a new occupation, however, and accordingly, when the occa- sion offered, he abandoned mining and es- tablished himself in a mercantile business at Calumet, Michigan, a venture in which he prospered greatly. The move to Michigan which Mr. Roberts made occurred in the year 1864, in which state he settled, making the town of Calumet his home. Here he resided for the remainder of his life, finally dying August 13, 1907, at the age of seven- ty-two years. He married, in December, 1865, in Eagle River, Michigan, Alice Uren, also a native of Cornwall, where she was born in 1845. Mrs. Roberts was a daughter of Richard Uren, a pioneer of the "Copper Country" of Northern Michigan. He was born in Cornwall in 1817, died sixty-seven years later. To Mr. and Mrs. Roberts Sr. there were born eight children, as follows: Abraham, of whom further ; William Thomas, now a resident of Seattle, Wash- ington ; John Quincy, a resident of Mar- quette, Michiaan; Frank Vivian and Rich-