C. W. Lewis

LEWIS, WATT, HOCKERT

Posted By: Volunteer Transcriber
Date: 3/6/2007 at 08:20:41

Biographies from the 1914 "Past and Present of O'Brien and Osceola Counties of Iowa"

C. W. LEWIS.

It would be interesting to know the underlying reasons which govern the choice of occupation and if it were possible to determine in any way the best occupation for a young man to enter, much of the failure in life would be eliminated. Undoubtedly there are many preachers who ought to be farmers, while, on the other hand, there are many farmers who would fill the pulpit with distinction. At this present day and generation there is such a multiplicity of professions offered to the young man that he is often bewildered by reason of their large number. Today there are thousands of occupations calling for young men where there was a scarce hundred a century ago. The important thing, after all, is for the young man to pick that occupation for which he is best fitted, then to equip himself that he may be an honor to the profession which he chooses. The life history of C. W. Lewis, one of the enterprising newspaper men of Osceola County, is an example of a man who is peculiarly trained for his chosen life work. As a son of a printer, he has learned the trade from the ground up and consequently there is no angle of the business which he does not thoroughly understand.

C. W. Lewis, the editor and publisher of the Ashton Leader, was born March 2, 1887, in Marcus, Iowa. He is the son of F. A. and Nettie (Watt) Lewis, who are natives of Wisconsin and Iowa, respectively. His father was a newspaper man and was editor and publisher of the Marcus News for twenty-five years. He was postmaster of Marcus for nine years, holding that position at the time of his death in 1906. F. A. Lewis and wife were the parents of three children: C. F., a farmer of Woodstock, Minnesota; Wilson, who resides with his mother, and C. W., with whom this narrative deals. C. W. Lewis was educated in the Marcus schools and graduated from the high school at the age of eighteen. Before graduating from the high school he had worked in his father's printing office after school hours and in this way became acquainted with the mechanical side of the business at an early age. For the past fourteen years he has been a printer and in active service, with the exception of three years, when he was assistant postmaster of Marcus. He came to Ashton and began the publication of the Leader December 17, 1909, and has had the satisfaction of seeing this paper increase its circulation and widen its influence in this community.

Mr. Lewis was married May 23, 1911, to Florence Hockert, the daughter of J. S. Hockert, a retired merchant of Sutherland, Iowa. To this union have been born two children, Merton, born in June, 1912, and Merna, born in July, 1913 Fraternally, Mr. Lewis is a member of the Modern Woodmen of America. Politically, he is Democratic, but is not a partisan in any sense of the word. He advocates the best measures in his paper in a fluent and forcible manner and yet in a way which indicates his independence of expression.

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