Charles M. Ewing
Charles M. Ewing, owner of the Ewing Funeral
Chapel at Shelbyville, entered the undertaking business in 1915, after a number
of years spent in educational and insurance work. Mr. Ewing has given Shelby
County an indispensable institution and his chapel, at 112 North Harrison
Street, will bear favorable comparison with any funeral home in the state. He is
a prominent member of the funeral directors profession, and is a thorough
business man.
Mr. Ewing was born in Brandywine Township, Shelby County, Indiana, July 9,
1877. In the same. house was born his father, William A. Ewing.
The Ewing family
was established in Indiana by his grandfather, James A. Ewing, who came from
Pennsylvania to Indiana about 1830 and took up a homestead of eighty acres and
developed it into a good farm. William A. Ewing spent his life as a farmer.
He
married Eliza Watts, who was born in another locality of Brandywine Township,
where her father, Morgan Watts, settled in the early days.
Charles M. Ewing has one brother,
W. Frank, who lives at Beaver,
Pennsylvania. Mr. Ewing attended schools in Shelby County, graduating from the
high school at Fairland, and later attended the Marion Normal College. To the
work of teacher he gave seven years of his early life, and many people in Shelby
County still recall him in the capacity of a teacher. He next entered newspaper
work, as manager of the Liberal Publishing Company at Shelbyville, where he
spent three years. The next five years he was in the insurance field for the
Prudential Insurance Company and in August, 1915, turned his talents and his
energies to the undertaking business. In 1919 he graduated from the Eskins
Embalming School. Mr. Ewing possesses ideal qualifications for his work.
He is a
man of kindly sympathies, a friend in need, generous and public spirited. In
1922 he was appointed by the governor of Indiana a member of the State Board of
Embalmers and was reappointed in 1926, serving two years as president of the
board and is now its secretary. In 1923 he was elected the third vice president
of the National Embalmers Conference of America and in 1929 was elected second
vice president. He was also appointed a member of the National Board of
Education by the president of the National Funeral Association of America.
Mr. Ewing married
Mabel Griffith, of Shelbyville, daughter of Mr. and Mrs.
James E. Griffith. Her father was a merchant and manufacturer, and the Griffiths
have been in Shelby County since pioneer times. The two children of Mr. and Mrs.
Ewing are Robert Donald, a student in Indiana University, and
Richard Louis,
attending high school.
Mr. Ewing was for three years, 1924-27, a member of the Shelbyville School
Board. He belongs to the Kiwanis Club, for five years was treasurer of the
Chautauqua Association, is treasurer of the Presbyterian Church, and is a past
chancellor and now master of finance of the Shelbyville Lodge, Knights of
Pythias, and also belongs to the Masonic fraternity and the Independent Order of
Odd Fellows. During the World war he did a helpful work in promoting the success
of the drives, including the sale of Liberty Bonds, and for five years was an
active member of the local Red Cross.
Indiana: One Hundred and Fifty Years of American Development, Vol. 3,
By Charles Roll, A.M., The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931.
Contributed by Phyllis Miller Fleming
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