Page:History of Southeast Missouri 1912 Volume 1.djvu/801

 HISTORY OF SOUTHEAST MISSOURI 693 most determined iudividuality have so entered into his makeup as to render him a natural leader of men and a director of opin- ion. He has ever manifested a deep and sin- cere interest in community ali'airs and for three sessions represented his district in the state legislature of Missouri. A native sou of Perryville, Missouri, Charles E. Kiefner was born on the 25th of November, 1869, and he is a scion of an old and honored German family, his father, Jolm Kiefner, having been born in Bavaria on the 6th of April, 1834. John Kiefner was reared to the age of sixteen years in his old father- laud and he received an excellent primary education in the public schools of Germany. In 1850 he immigrated to the United States in company wnth. his grandfather and they located in the city of Baltimore, Maryland, where the young John learned the cabinet maker's trade. In 1865, just after the close of the Civil wai', John Kiefner decided to establish his home in the west and in that year he came to Perryville, where he opened up a furniture and undertaking business, continuing to be engaged in that line of enterprise for a period of forty years. On the 25th of December, 1854, at Baltimore, was solemnized his marriage to Miss Cather- ine Lakel. who traces her origin back to ster- ling German stock. Mr. and Mrs. Kiefner became the parents of eleven children, five of whom are living at the present time, in 1911. On other pages of this work is dedicated a sketch to Samuel B. Kiefner, an older brother of the subject of this review. Mr. and Mrs. Kiefner are now living at Perryville, where they are retired from the active affairs of life and where they are enjoying to the full the fruits of their former years of earnest toil and endeavor. They are a fine old couple and are everywhere beloved for their admirable qual- ities and genial kindliness. Charles E. Kiefner was educated in the public schools of Pei-ryville and at the age of fourteen years he accompanied his parents to Kansas, where they resided for the ensuing four years. During this period Mr. Kiefner learned the carpenter's trade and upon his return to Perryville, at the age of twenty-one years, he opened offices as a contractor and builder. In 1894, when the railroad was ex- tended into Perryville he entered into a part- nership alliance with Mr. Tlapek in the lum- ber business, in which line of enterprise he has continued to be interested during the long intervening years to the present time. As a captain of industry he is a man of shrewd executive ability — one who sees and grasps an oi^portunity in time to make the most of it. But all his attention has not been devoted to business enterprises. He is a stanch Re- publican in his political proclivities and his first public oifice was that of alderman of Perryville. So well did he discharge his duties in this connection that later he was elected mayor of the city, serving in that capacity for a period of four vears, from 1899 to 1903. In 1902 Mr. Kiefner was further honored by his fellow citizens in that he was then elected to represent Perry coimty in the Forty-third general assembly of Mis- souri. He was elected as his own successor in that office for the two succeeding sessions and he finally retired from the legislature in 1908. He was assigned to membership on important committees of the house and was a faithful and earnest worker in the deliber- ations of both the floor and committee room. At the present time, in 1911, he is president of the Republican county committee. In every possible connection Mr. Kiefner has contributed his fair quota to the progress and upbuilding of Perryville and Perry countj^ at large and as a citizen no one commands a higher degree of popular confidence and esteem than does he. On the 10th of July, 1895, Mr. Kiefner was united in marriage to Miss Jettie Luckey, who was born and reared at Brazeau, in Perry county and who is a daughter of Robert Luckey, a representative farmer at Brazeau, now deceased. Mr. and Mrs. Kiefner are the fond parents of five children, whose names are here entered in respective order of birth, —Charles H., Edwin L., Frank W., John and Kathryn. In their religious faith the Kief- ner family are devout members of the Presbyterian church, to whose charities and benevolences he is a most liberal contributor. In a fraternal way Mr. Kiefner is affiliated with the time-honored Masonic order and with the Modern Woodmen of America, in addition to which he is also a valued and ap- preciative member of the local lodge of the Ancient Order of United Workmen. His is a noble character, one that subordinates personal ambition to public good and seeks rather the benefit of others than the aggrand- izement of self. Genial in his associations, he