Page:History of Southeast Missouri 1912 Volume 1.djvu/804

 696 HISTORY OF SOUTHEAST MISSOURI souri generally. He is by no means inclined to rest on his oars, but is ready to assume any responsibility and imdertake any work that will promote the well being of the community and of the state. Personally he has the at- tributes which assure a man of success in anything he undertakes. E. L. Clevenger. One of the public- spirited citizens of Piedmont is the agent and yard master of the Iron Mountain Railway, E. L. Clevenger. He is the eldest of three sons of Henry and Susan (Horwood) Clev- enger, of Fulton county, Pennsylvania. The other two brothei-s live in Washington, D. C, and in San Francisco, respectively. The parents died in Pennsylvania, the father at the age of sixty-four and the mother in Penn- sylvania, when thirty-nine years old. E. L. Clevenger was born in Fulton county, Pennsylvania, February 6, 1870. When he was six years old his parents took him from the farm to town and sent him to school until he was fourteen years old. At that age he started work in a tan yard and four years later he came west. For a time Mr. Cleven- ger worked on farms in Iowa, but in Decem- ber of 1891 he came to Missouri as an opera- tor of the Iron Mountain Railway at Annap- olis and has continued in the railroad work in this state ever since. ,From Annapolis he was transferred to Blackwell, Missouri; in 1894, was sent to Williamsville as agent, and in 1902 he was promoted to his present posi- tion at Piedmont. In this town Mr. Clevenger has worked untiringly for the improvement of the schools. He was "first elected to the school board in 1908. He was reelected in 1911 and chosen president in recognition of his hard work for the cause of education. Both Mr. and Mrs. Clevenger are active members of the Christian church. Mrs. Clevenger was for- merly Miss IMargaret Suddeth, of Prairie City, Iowa. She became Mrs. Clevenger Sep- tember 4, 1892. Mr. and Mrs. Clevenger have four children, Ruby, Helen, Marjorie and Edrice. all at home. Polities has no part in Mr. Clevenger's busi- ness, biit he is a staunch Republican in mat- ters of political policy. John C. Dale. Distinctly a man of affairs, with a wide and successful experience in busi- ness and service in public office, Mr. Dale is best known in the county as a lumber mer- chant. His parents, James L. and Sarah J. Dale, were natives of Tennessee, who came to Missouri in 1847 and located in Wayne county, near Piedmont. Here John C. Dale was born May 16, 1857, the first of a family of four children of whom three are still liv- ing. Both parents are deceased. Until eighteen years of age Mr. Dale lived on his father's farm. At that time he went to Greenville and spent the next four years as deputy clerk, deputy sheriff and collector under James F. Hatton. At the conclusion of this period he kept books for Mr. Fred Evans, of Piedmont, and later was employed in the same capacity by Mr. H. N. Holliday, of Williamsville. Mr. Holliday was then planning the Holliday Railroad, later 'built to Greenville. After spending four years in mercantile business in Piedmont, Mr. Dale went to Texas in 1885. He remained there ten years, the entire time working in the clerical de- partment of the Southern Pacific Railway. In 1895 he returned to Missouri where he has remained ever since. Saw mills, a stave factory, real estate, the insurance busi- ness and lastly the tie and lumber busi- ness have claimed his attention during these last sixteen years. Mr. Dale operated saw mills for three years and in 1900 he became superintendent for the Pioneer Cooperage Plant at Lutesville, which was established over forty years ago. He kept this position for six years, until he resigned it to engage in a successful real estate and insurance busi- ness. Mr. Dale spent the period from 1905 to 1909 at the last mentioned business, and then went into the lumber and railroad tie business. In a normal season his son Harry is his official tie and lumber inspector and buyer. Mr. Dale himself is the owner of three hundred and fifty acres of timber and farm land in Bollinger county, besides one and three-fourths acres and a fine residence in Lutesville. The marriage of Mr. Dale to Miss Anna Dennis, of Wayne county, occurred August 1. 1879. Miss Dennis was the daughter of William Dennis, former sheriff of Wayne county, a personal friend of Sam Hildebrand and a Confederate soldier. Mr. and Mrs. Dale have seven children living: Maudie, wife of S. E. Chandler, was born in 1883. Hattie, a bookkeeper in Shreveport, Louis- iana, was bom in 1885. The third daugh- ter, Martha V., is the wife of J. H. Byrd, of Kansas City, Missouri, and was born in 1888. Ollie, born 1890, is with the Consoli-