WAYNE ERWIN WHETSTINE.

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         Wayne Erwin Whetstine, editor of the Columbus Safeguard and for more than a year past postmaster of Columbus Junction, is a native of Wellman, Washington county, Iowa. He was born February 19, 1878, a son of R. S. and Elizabeth (Bolding) Whetstine. The father was born in Indiana, August 18, 1837, and the mother in Illinois, November 8, 1841. Mr. Whetstine, Sr., . . .

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. . . was one of the pioneer settlers of Washington county, Iowa, arriving there when a youth of sixteen, and he has ever since that time been a resident of Iowa. He served in Company I, Eighteenth Iowa Infantry, at the time of the Civil war and is now almost retired from active labor. To the union of Mr. and Mrs. Whetstine seven children were born: Edward, Earl, Otis, Eunice, Alva, Wayne Erwin and Bertha. Alva is engaged in farming in this county on a place northwest of Columbus Junction.

         Matthias Whetstine, Sr., the great-grandfather of our subject on the paternal side, was born in one of the southern states. He emigrated to Iowa and located in Washington county where he died at the advanced age of one hundred and five years. His son, Matthias Whetstine, Jr., grandfather of our subject, served in the Civil war in the same company with his son, Enoch, a brother of R. S. Whetstine. He was a blacksmith by trade, a republican in politics and a Methodist as to religious belief. He married Emelia Lee, whose father was a brother of Colonel Lee, a well known pioneer circus man. She died in Washington county, Kansas, about twenty-two years ago, at the age of seventy-nine years, her husband passing away in the same county when he had reached his eighty-fifth year.

         The grandfather on the maternal side was Wesley B. Bolding whose parents emigrated from England. He was born at Big Springs, Kentucky, August 9, 1819, and was married December 24, 1840, to Nancy Drake, who was born in Gibson county, Indiana, October 22, 1822. She removed with her parents to Coles county, Illinois, in her infancy and died at Coppock, Iowa, December 16, 1901, her body being buried in the Wayland (Iowa), cemetery. She was a Methodist and her husband was a Universalist, although his father was a Methodist minister. Wesley B. Bolding died at the residence of his son, Dr. W. R. Bolding, at Oakville, Iowa, in 1905, having arrived at the age of eighty-five years, seven months and twenty-eight days. Politically he was a republican. There were eleven children in the family of Mr. and Mrs. Bolding, namely: Mrs. Elizabeth J. Whetstine, of Wellman, Iowa; William R., a physician of Burlington, Iowa; John L., who makes his home at Omaha, Nebraska; Mrs. Permelia Perry, a resident of Galena, Kansas; James M., who died in his thirty-second year; Daniel D., of Denver, Colorado; Charley W., who died in infancy; Mrs. Alice M. Stonebarger, of St. Michael, Nebraska; Erasmus M., who lives in Washington state; Mrs. Clara E. Watts, of Phoenix, Arizona and Mrs. Sarah Eldora Kurtz, of Washington, Iowa.

         Wayne Erwin Whetstine received a common school education and from the age of eleven years he has been identified with newspaper work. He began setting type in a newspaper office, and, being keenly alert and wide-awake in a calling for which he was well adapted, he developed special ability, so that at the age of sixteen he took editorial charge of the Kalona (Iowa) News. He was at that time the youngest newspaper editor in the United States. He was connected with a number of Iowa papers and on October 1, 1905, purchased the Columbus Safeguard, of which he has since had charge. The Safeguard is one of the oldest weekly newspapers in this part of the state, having been es- . . .

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. . . tablished in 1870. It is a representative of the principles of the republican party and has been an efficient instrument in forwarding the interests of that organization. On February 10, 1911, Mr. Whetstine was appointed postmaster of Columbus Junction by President Taft and assumed the duties of his office on the 1st of April following.

         Mr. Whetstine was married May 18, 1911, to Miss Lola F. Endsley, who was born in Kansas, a daughter of I. A. and Emma (Duncan) Endsley, both of whom are residents of Columbus Junction. Mrs. Whetstine has one brother, Willard Endsley. Mr. Whetstine is a member of the Knights of Pythias, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Court of Honor and has many warm personal friends in those organizations. Although a young man, he occupies a position of growing responsibility and by his energy and good judgment has ably performed his part in promoting the best interests of the community.