HON. CHARLES MONROE FORTUNE, has been a member of the Terre Haute bar since 1901. Of this period he devoted ten years to service on the bench, and it is doubtful if any Indiana judge in a similar length of time had more important responsibilities and did more for the general purification of politics and political conditions. Judge FORTUNE was the man of the hour in that turmoil of investigations and trials centering at Terre Haute, and which for a time made that city the focus of national attention. Judge FORTUNE has lived all his life in the vicinity of Terre Haute. He was born on a farm in Vigo County, November 25, 1870, son of Henry Cole and Frances (HOWELL) FORTUNE, and grandson of Zachariah FORTUNE. Henry Cole FORTUNE was born in old Virginia, near Richmond, in 1831, and his wife was born in Meigs County, Ohio, in 1838. Henry Cole FORTUNE came to Western Indiana before the Civil war, and during the war operated a ferry on the Wabash River, at Darwin, Illinois. In 1869 he bought the farm on which his son, Judge FORTUNE, was born. He died in Clark County, Illinois, in July, 1883, and his wife on February 28, 1907. Judge FORTUNE, the youngest of seven sons, was twelve years of age when his father died. As a youth he became acquainted with hardship and with manual toil, had to do his own thinking and at an early age was earning his living. When he left home, at the age of sixteen, he worked as a factory hand at Terre Haute. He learned the watchmakers trade and after the end of his day�s work spent the evenings studying law. In 1898 he entered the law office of Cox & Davis at Terre Haute, and in 1901 passed his bar examination. For three years he was associated in practice with Judge James H. SWANGO. He entered politics as a Democrat in a city, which for years had been one of the Republican strongholds of the state. His election to the office of city judge in 1905 was therefore an overturning of precedents, constituting one of the biggest surprises in local politics for years. He became city judge in January, 1906, serving thirty-three months, when he resigned to become circuit judge of the Forty-third Judicial Circuit. As city judge he presided over one of the outstanding cases in the legal annals of the city. This was the trial of the case brought by the City of Terre Haute against the Terre Haute, Indiana & Eastern Railroad. Some of the ablest local lawyers appeared on both sides and these were recruited by legal talent from Chicago. Judge FORTUNE in his decision held for the traction company. The case was then appealed to the Circuit Court, and in the meantime Judge FORTUNE had been elevated to that tribunal, and consequently the ease was assigned to his docket he appointed a substitute judge, who, however, affirmed Judge FORTUNE�s ruling in the lower court. It was as a Democrat that Judge Fortune was elected a judge of the Forty-third Judicial Circuit, receiving the largest majority ever given a circuit judge in the district up until that year. He was on the circuit bench six years. As judge of the criminal division of the court he was the first judge in the state to render a decision in a double murder case, applying the death penalty by electrocution. It was the last electrocution from Vigo County. While on the circuit bench he handled on the average of 1,500 cases annually, and of all that volume of decisions only five were appealed and only one reversed by the higher courts. As judge of the Circuit Court he had the chief responsibility and accepted it in full measure in 1914 in directing the power of the courts in the investigation and exposure of the crooked politicians, applying the provisions of the corrupt practice law which had been enacted by the Legislature in 1913, and as a result of Judge FORTUNE�s vigorous assertion of the dignity and strength of the law 119 politicians from Vigo County were sentenced for varying lengths of time. These trials had still another effect beyond the cure of some long standing political crookedness in this section of Indiana. Largely on the basis of the facts brought out in these trials before Judge FORTUNE, United States Senator John W. KERN sponsored and brought to enactment the Federal corrupt practice act, which is now a part of the Federal statutes. Retiring from the bench in 1914, Judge FORTUNE has given his full time to his general law practice. He is a member of the Vigo County, Indiana State and American Bar Associations, is a member of the St. Joseph's Catholic Church, the Knights of Columbus. He has always been a great lover of outdoor sports including fishing and trap shooting. As a Democrat in political faith judge FORTUNE has been active and an interested worker in all political campaigns. Judge FORTUNE married, March 18, 1897, Miss Myrtle L. SPARKS, who died in the same year. She was well known in Terre Haute literary circles. On July 12, 1911, he married Gertrude MAISON, daughter of A.W. and Caroline (MYER) MAISON.
CARL L. HEDGES, manager of the Indiana Dairy Marketing Association, with executive headquarters in the City of Muncie, judicial and commercial center of Delaware County, was born on the parental home farm in Linton Township, Vigo County, Indiana, near the City of Terre Haute, and the date of his nativity was January 31, 1884. He is a son of Abner and Emily (GRIFFIN) HEDGES, both like-wise natives of Vigo County, where they were reared and educated, where their marriage was solemnized and where they were representatives of sterling pioneer families. Abner HEDGES became one of the substantial exponents of farm industry in his native county, and there his death occurred in 1888, when his son Carl L., of this review, was a child of four years. His widow survived him more than a quarter of a century, her death having occurred January 28, 1914, and the remains of both being interred in the Prairie Creek Cemetery of Vigo County, where rest likewise the mortal remains of Wilford HEDGES and his wife, parents of Abner. Abner HEDGES was, as noted, a son of Wilford HEDGES, the latter having come to Indiana from Shelby County, Kentucky, and having, as a pioneer, taken up Government land in Vigo County, where he did his part in civic and industrial progress and where he passed the remainder of his life. Wilford HEDGES was a son of Charles HEDGES, who was born in Virginia and whose father came from England and became a Colonial settler in the Old Dominion State, where he established his home about forty miles distant from Quantico. Abner HEDGES and his wife were earnest members of the Baptist Church. Their only child is Carl L. Carl L. HEDGES gained practical experience in connection with the activities of the old home farm in Vigo County in his boyhood, though he was a child at the time of his father's death, as previously noted. His public-school education reached its maximum in his course in the high school at Pimento. He thereafter attended business college in the City of Terre Haute, and after leaving that institution he there passed about two years in the employ of the American Hominy Company. During the ensuing ten years he gave his attention to the management of the old home farm on which he was born, and he then became associated with the Model Ice Cream Company of Terre Haute, in the capacity of sales manager and in charge of the purchasing of the requisite raw materials from farms. He was thus engaged four years, and he then, on the 1st of January, 1925, came to Muncie and assumed his present executive office, that of general manager of the Indiana Dairy Marketing Association. In addition to giving a distinctly progressive and productive administration of the affairs of this important organization he has served also since 1927 as general manager of the Indianapolis district of the Dairy Producers Exchange, besides which he further proves his versatility and resourcefulness by having charge of the dairy department of the Indiana State Farm Bureau. Mr. HEDGES is a Republican in political adherency, is a member of the Muncie Chamber of Commerce, the local Exchange Club and the Dynamo Club, and he is affiliated with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. From pioneer ancestry in Virginia, Kentucky and Indiana Mr. HEDGES may be said to have an inherited predilection for sports field, and he has become specialLy prominent and influential as an adept in fox hunting, for which ancient and glorious sport he maintains a fine kennel of Walker fox-hounds for the chase and has participated in many representative field meets. Mr. HEDGES is not only a progressive business man but is also a loyal and public-spirited citizen who takes lively interest in all that concerns the welfare of his home city and native state. He and his wife have membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church. At Terre Haute, on the 18th of September, 1904, Mr. HEDGES was united in marriage to Miss Nellie D. KEMPER, a daughter of George KEMPER, who was long a farmer near Terre Haute and who also followed the trade of carpenter, both he and his wife being deceased, and the closing years of their lives having been passed at Martinsville, Illinois. Mrs. HEDGES received her education mainly at Martinsville, Illinois, where her discipline included that of the high school, and she has been specially active in various phases of work in connection with the Methodist Episcopal Church, besides being a gracious figure in social and cultural circles. Byron D., only child of Mr. and Mrs. HEDGES, completed his high school course in the City of Terre Haute, where he thereafter was a student in the Indiana State Teachers College, as the former normal school in that city is now designated. He is a coadjutor of his father in directing the business of the Indiana Dairy Marketing Association. He married Miss Geraldine SHEPHERD, of Mooreland, Henry County, and their one child is a winsome daughter, Joy Eloise.
RICHARD ALOYSIUS WERNEKE, Terre Haute attorney, one of the leaders of the Democratic Party in that city, is a man of many interesting activities and attainments. He was born in Terre Haute, May 1, 1883, and has some prominent family connections in this section of Indiana. His grandfather, August WERNEKE, came from Germany and was a tanner at Greencastle, Indiana. The father, August A. WERNEKE, was a printer by trade and also prominent in Terre Haute musical circles. Mr. WERNEKE through his mother is related to Martin BURKE, a Vigo County pioneer, who died in 1856. Martin BURKE helped build the first structures at St. Mary�s of the Woods when Sister Theodora organized that famous school. Susan (BURKE) KELLY, a sister of Martin BURKE, was the mother of Andrew F. KELLY, who was killed while on duty, April 20, 1863, as engineer on the steamboat Dakota, which was carrying Union soldiers down the Mississippi River. Andrew P. KELLY married Bridget JOHNSON, and one of their children was Susan Demaris KELLY, mother of Mr. BURKE, the lawyer. Through Bridget JOHNSON KELLY, Mr. WERNEKE is a descendant of Peter SEIDLES, a Pennsylvania soldier in the Revolutionary war. Richard A. WERNEKE attended parochial and public schools in Terre Haute and studied law in the office of his uncle, Albert G. KELLY. He was admitted to the bar in 1910 and for twenty years had a busy practice, mostly on the civil side of the docket. He is a member of the Vigo County, Indiana State and American Bar Associations. Mr. WERNEKE was city chairman of the Democratic Party when Terre Haute for the first time elected its entire Democratic ticket. He has been a delegate to various state and national conventions, being at the Houston Convention of 1928. From 1914 to 1917 he served as prosecuting attorney of Vigo County. He successfully prosecuted the first man ever condemned to the electric chair in Indiana, and he also prosecuted the first double murder trial in Vigo County. Mr. WERNEKE�s name appears prominent in connection with war activities in Terre Haute. He was a member of the legal advisory board, helped organize the welfare fund campaign and also helped organize the campaign for funds as a result of which the Terre Haute Military Companies � Company B of the Second Indiana National Guard, Company H of the First Indiana Infantry and Company A of the First Separate Battalion, Indiana Engineers � were sent to camp fully and completely equipped. Mr. WERNEKE himself went to France in October, 1918, � Knight of Columbus secretary, being at Bordeaux and Paris. While in Paris he had the honor of the first interview after the armistice with Andrew TARDIEU, the high commissioner. This interview was cabled November 11, 1918, to a group of Indiana journals. It was through TARDIEU that he received from the French government the cannon that was presented to Terre Haute. He returned from France in April, 1919. Mr. WERNEKE is a member of the Knights of Columbus, Loyal Order of Moose, Chamber of Commerce, Fraternal Order of - Eagles, Gamma Eta Gamma legal fraternity, Hank Walton League, Terre Haute Boat Club, Associate member of the Indiana Democratic Editorial Association - and a member of St. Benedict�s Catholic Church. He is former chairman of the Indiana Democratic Cit, has been chairman of the city and Vigo County Democratic committee, and during the campaign of 1928 was a financial director of the national Democratic committee. He married, September 10, 1910 Miss Nina A. WYNN, of Dedman, Illinois. She is a daughter of Charles T. and Mattie Ethel (BARR) WYNN and granddaughter of John William and Clarissa WYNN and Michael and Sarah BARR. The BARRs were Indian pioneers. John William WYNN was with an Indiana regiment in the Civil war. Mr. and Mrs. WERNEKE have one son, Richard Aloysius, Jr.
This book has no cover, and no index, and no author. I bought it on Ebay; it just has the insides, but it is full of Indiana biographies. I am not researching these families, just thought I would share. I do not know anymore about these families or these surnames. NOTE: I don't know if there is any additional mention of this family in the book, it has no index. I do not want to sell this book. I am typing the biographies from it. -Lora Radiches
Typed by Lora Addison Radiches.
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