Joseph M. Shew.

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Joseph M. Shew was one of the citizens of Noble County whose memory deserve to be cherished long among his former associates and in the permanent records of the county. He was a man of great enterprise and usefulness, though physically a cripple, and did a great service as a teacher, an occupation he followed many years, and also at one time held the office of county treasurer.

He was born in Ohio May 21, 1841, and came with his parents to Noble County, Indiana, when a boy. The family located in York Township, three miles north of Albion, and in that locality he grew up attending the common schools and also the college at Wolcottville. He had a well trained mind, and used it as a teacher in the public schools of this county for twenty-eight terms.

All the time he was teaching he lived on the farm. In 1889 he was s elected county treasurer, and filled that office with signal ability for four years. He was always active as a republican and was a member of the Knights of Pythias and Independent Order of Odd Fellows at Albion.

He married for his first wife Melissa A. Niles, who died at the age of twenty-six. She was the mother of two children : Clarence W., cashier in Campbell & Felters Bank at Kendallville, and Bertha, wife of Clyde Bowman, a resident of Chicago. Mr. Shew married for his second wife Mrs. Almeda (Deater) Spencer, widow of Clifford Spencer. Mrs. Shew, who is still living in Washington Township, on the farm of 110 acres, which is cultivated by renters, was born at Albion, Indiana, in 1860. By her first husband, Clifford Spencer, she had one son, who died at the age of fourteen months. Mrs. Shew is the mother of three children: Paul N., a mechanic at Warsaw, Indiana; Leila, wife of Floyd Fetters, of Noble County; and William B., who lives with his mother. Mrs. Shew is a member of  the Baptist Church and is affiliated with the Rebekah Lodge.