LIGHTER, E. C. - 1914

LIGHTER, WILHELM, SELENE, CRABB

Posted By: Volunteer
Date: 7/5/2009 at 03:36:43

HISTORY OF
Cherokee County
IOWA
VOLUME II
ILLUSTRATED
CHICAGO
THE S. J. CLARKE PUBLISHING COMPANY
1914
by Thomas McCulla

E. C. LIGHTER.

E. C. Lighter, owner of the Aurelia Sentinel and well known in journalistic circles of this part of the state, was born in Conrad, Grundy county, Iowa, in 1882. He is a son of Joseph H. and Emma (Wilhelm) Lighter, natives of Pennsylvania, who came west at a very early day and settled in Iowa. They now make their home in Pocahontas county, where since 1891 the father has published the Rolfe Reveille. To their union were born seven children, C. G., A. G., E. C., Cora E., Mabel, De Elda and Edwin.

E. C. Lighter acquired his education in the public schools of Rolfe, whither he went with his parents when he was nine years of age. When he was still a boy he learned the printers trade under his father and he has been connected with the newspaper business almost continuously since that time. In 1909 he took charge of the Marathon Republic in Marathon and he continued active in its management until May, 1912, when he came to Aurelia and purchased the Sentinel from A. S. Crabb, who had operated it for three years previously. Mr. Lighter has published this paper since that time and its circulation has increased rapidly, being now seven hundred copies weekly. He has made the paper an excellent news and advertising medium and in consequence a power in the direction of public thought and opinion.

In July, 1910, Mr. Lighter married Miss Ellen M. Selene, a native of Sweden, who came to America with her brother when she was fourteen years of age and made her home in Marathon until her marriage. She is one of a family of ten children, of whom four are now in America. Mr. and Mrs. Lighter are parents of a son, Carl Joseph, who was born June 6, 1913.

Mr. Lighter is a progressive republican in his political beliefs and a member of the Masonic lodge at Marathon. He is a progressive journalist and an able and enterprising business man, and the success he has made of the Sentinel has been a valuable factor in general progress.