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Glenning D. Simeral
Printer
-- from Callahan, J. M. (1923). Vol. II. In History of West Virginia, old and new (p. 26-27). Chicago: American Historical Society.
GLENNING D. SIMERAL is one of Wheeling's young and enterprising business men and is proprietor of the Owl Print Shop, the largest job printing and commercial printing establishment not an auxiliary of a newspaper plant in the Wheeling District.
Mr. Simeral was born at Beallsville, Ohio, February 21, 1887. Beallsville is in Monroe County, Ohio, and in that section of the state the Simerals settled in pioneer times, moving from Pennsylvania. Mr. Simeral's grandfather, John Jackson Simeral, spent all his life at Beallsville, where he was born in 1832 and died in 1902. For many years he was connected with H. Miller & Company, tobacco merchants. He was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. John J. Simeral married Lucretia Owens, who was born in Maryland in 1834, and died at Wheeling in 1914. They had seven children. One of them was John Seabury Simeral, who for a number of years owned and operated the Palace Hotel at Decatur, Illinois, and died at Toronto, Canada, at the age of sixty-seven. His sister, Alice, is now living at Oberlin, Ohio, the widow of John Jeffers, who was connected with the sales department of the American Agricultural Chemical Company at Cleveland.
Hamilton O. Simeral, father of Glenn D., was born at Beallsville in 1861, was reared there and became a general merchant, and in 1907 moved to Wheeling, where he was associated for several years with the W. A. Driehorst Company, retail merchants. He died at Wheeling in 1918. He was a democrat, always interested in local politics, especially at Beallsville, though not an office seeker for himself. He was a deacon and for many years an active member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and fraternally was affiliated with the Masons and Odd Fellows. Hamilton O. Simeral married Rosella Potts, now living at Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was born near Summerfield, Ohio, in 1864, and was reared at Atlanta, Illinois, where she was married. She is a niece of the late John B. Driggs judge of the Circuit Court and a very highly respected citizen of Eastern Ohio. Of her children Glean D. is the oldest. Ella Mae is the wife of Glenn O. DuBois, manager of the Zanesville, Ohio, office of the Bradstreet Company; Wilfred H. is a student in the Wheeling High School.
Glenn D. Simeral graduated from the Beallsville High School in 1905, was a student one year in Oberlin College in Ohio, and was twenty years of age when he accompanied his parents to Wheeling. Here for three years he was connected with Edward Wagner, a wholesale grocer, and then for four years was with the Joseph Speidel Grocery Company. After this general training in business Mr. Simeral organized the company and established the Owl Print Shop, and is now sole proprietor of that prosperous business at 917 Market Street. The shop has all the facilities for expert and high class typographical work and does a general job printing business. Mr. Simeral is also exclusive agent in the Panhandle of West Virginia and Eastern Ohio for Art Metal Steel Office Equipments.
Mr. Simeral is a democrat and is a member of the Thomson Methodist Episcopal Church on Wheeling Island. He is affiliated with Wheeling Lodge No. 5, A. F. and A. M., has attained the eighteenth degree in West Virginia Consistory No. 1 of the Scottish Rite, and is a member of Wheeling Lodge, Knights of Pythias, and Welcome Lodge, Ancient Order United Workmen. He is a member of the Wheeling Rotary Club and Wheeling Chamber of Commerce, and is a stockholder in the Community Savings & Loan Company in Wheeling.
September 6, 1918, Mr. Simeral joined the colors, being sent to Camp A. A. Humphries in Virginia, where he was assigned to duty as a clerk in the personnel office of the Receiving Station, and continued there until mustered out January 18, 1919. October 6, 1917, Mr. Simeral married at Wheeling, Miss Ethyl Cooper Montgomery, daughter of George and Mary Elizabeth (Ridgely) Montgomery. Her father, a merchant, died at Wheeling. The mother, who is still living at Wheeling, represents the old Colonial family of Ridgelys, who for several generations lived in Old Virginia. Mr. and Mrs. Simeral have one daughter, Mary Elizabeth, born July 31, 1921.
