GORDON, George U.

GORDON, HECKARD

Posted By: Volunteer Transcribers
Date: 1/19/2003 at 20:30:54

GEORGE U. GORDON. 

George U. Gordon, county superintendent of schools in Clinton county, Iowa, was born fifteen miles from Canton, Ohio, and received his early education in the public schools of that state. After teaching school for a short time he entered Valparaiso College, Indiana, where he was graduated in 1884 with the degree of A. B., and subsequently received the degree of A. M. from that institution. After his graduation Mr. Gordon went to Kansas, where he engaged in teaching for a few years, and in 1890 removed to Preston, Iowa, where he taught one year. He then resigned his position there after having been chosen for a second year, to accept the principalship of the school of Chancy, now a part of Clinton, and was at the head of the schools of that place for two years. While teaching at Chancy he read law under Senator L. A. Ellis, the ablest member of the Clinton county bar at that time, and was admitted to practice by examination before the supreme court in 1893.

In 1893 Mr. Gordon was admitted to the bar and engaged in the practice f law in Clinton for two years and a half. He was elected county superintendent of schools for this county in 1895, and on the 1st of the following January assumed the duties of that office. So efficiently did he fill the position that he has been twice re-elected, and is now serving his third term, being the first Democrat to fill the office for so long a time in this county. He has supervision of eleven graded schools, together with one hundred and sixty rural schools and three hundred and five teachers.

Mr. Gordon was married in 1892 to Miss Otilia Heckard at Wheatland, Iowa. Socially he is a member of Emulation Lodge, No, 255, A. F. & A. M., and America Lodge, No. 567, I. O. O. F., both of Clinton. He is popular and is the center of a large circle of friends and acquaintances, who honor and esteem him for his many virtues and genuine worth. He is a courteous, genial gentleman, and affable and agreeable at all times.
Source: The 1901 Biographical Record of Clinton Co., Iowa, Illustrated published: Chicago : S. J. Clarke Pub. Co., 1901.