Charles Stewart Nichols (1865 - 1926)

Born 14 Nov 1865 in English Prairi, IN.

Ancestors

Died 14 Jun 1926 at age 60 in Howe, IN.

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CHARLES S. NICHOLS, Former Senator, Community Leader, Dies At His Home at Howe Taken from the LaGrange Standard News Paper 06/18/1926

Charles S. Nichols died on Monday evening of this week at his home just east of Howe. The end came quietly and easily at ten minutes to eleven, a short time after he had retired for the evening, and was entirely unexpected. He had been active during the day, and shortly before the supper hour had contemplated a short automobile ride, which he was compelled to fore go because of a heavy shower of rain. With him at the last were his sister Mary, and Donald Cartwright, a young man who had been attending him of late during his illness. His going was without suffering, an easy slipping away into the Great Adventure, the final result of light paralytic attacks which kept him from active participation in the business and community affairs in which he had always been interested. Possibly the receipt of a telegram that morning, announcing the death of Burnell Gunther, a cousin, in Chicago, was the shock that hastened his death. The community, the county, and his innumerable friends throughout the state were saddened to hear of his passing, and many were the expressions of sympathy that poured in. The funeral services will be held at half past two Saturday afternoon, at Saint James Chapel on the campus of Howe Military School, in which he had taken so great an interest during his life. Father Charles H. Young, the rector, will officiate at the obsequies, assisted by Rev. Irving Todd. The body will be laid to rest in the family mausoleum in beautiful Riverside cemetery on the banks of the Pigeon River at Howe. The body will be in state at the home on Friday, for the last visits of friends. Charles S. Nichols spent all his life in LaGrange County, with the exception of a few years during his youth, and was essentially a part of all that was progressive. He was born in Greenfield Township on the old homestead yet in the family name, south of Brighton, November 14, 1865, the son of Charles G. and Ella Burnell Nichols. His grandparents were among the leading pioneer settlers of LaGrange County, his paternal grandfather, Drusus Nichols, coming to the County from his native state of Connecticut at an early date to become later the owner of the Mongo mills and to engage in merchandising there. His father Charles G. Nichols, was born in Connecticut, and was given the best of educational Opportunities in the new country to which he came with his parents, first at Mongo, later at Notre Dame University in South Bend, finally in the LaGrange Collegiate Institute. His mother Ella Burnell was the daughter of Samuel and Mary Burnell, who came to the new world from England and settled on a government tract of land in English Prairie about 1831. Charles S. received his primary education in the common school of the county and at a business collage in Three Rivers, Michigan. For three or four years in his youth he was employed with his uncle in a store at Albion, Indiana and it was there he received the solid basis for his success in later commercial ventures. On the death of his father in 1892 he came back to Lima, where he entered the service of the State Bank of Lima, of which his grandfather, Samuel Burnell, was one of the organizers. On

April 1, 1896, he and his mother bought out the other interests in the bank, and she was its president and her son, Charles, its cashier, until her death in 1903, when he succeeded to the presidency, which he still held at his death. His business activities were numerous, and outside of the State Bank of Lima he was primarily interested in many organizations in the county and also among the promoters and backers of any sensible commercial enterprise. He was temporary receiver for the Ellison bank in LaGrange after its failure, and when the LaGrange State Bank was organized in 1903 he was one of the board of directors, was at the same time elected to the vice presidency and held that office until his death. He was a director and a member of the board of trustees of the Farmers Rescue for years: he helped in the organization of the Lima creamery and the Lima elevator, and was for some time a director of the LaGrange County Telephone Company. For many years he was a member and treasurer of the board of trustees of Howe Military School, and the financial matters of that growing institution were left almost entirely in his hands. In his political faith he was a Republican. He served as a member of the county council for many years until his election as a state senator in 1920, and represented LaGrange, Steuben and Noble counties one term in the later office. As a member of the county Republican committee he was a persistent and faithful worker for years, and in 1904 was honored with the appointment as a delegate from the Twelfth congressional district to the National Republican convention in 1904 at Chicago which nominated Roosevelt and Fairbanks. He was a member of the Episcopalian church, and the church benefitted by his allegiance to its cause. He was a thirty-second degree Mason, a Shriner, a member of the consistory of the Scottish rite, at Fort Wayne. In Pythian circles he also rose high, joining the lodge at Albion in 1889, he became chancellor commander of the Howe castle in 1892, and for about twenty years was a member of the finance committee of the grand lodge receiving regularly every year his re-appointment to the position. Of his immediate family only his sister Mary, with whom he lived in the home at Howe, and his brother Samuel B. of Howe, are living. Three brothers preceded him in death, Drusus B., who died in 1891, Frank Morse, who was drowned at Ferrall Lake, east of Howe, in 1915, and Gunther C., who died in 1917. Two nieces, Margaret Ellen Nichols the daughter of Mrs. H. H. Kendall of Fort Wayne, and Mrs. Charles Evens of St. Paul, and four nephews, James H. of Baker City, Oregon, D. H. of Cleveland, Ohio, and Kenyon and Morse, the sons of Mrs. John P. Caton of LaGrange, survive him.

Sources

• Frank M Nichols III (fnichols@columbus.rr.com)

LaGrange Standard Paper 06/18/1926