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Louis E. Schrader
Court reporter
-- from History of West Virginia, Old and New. Vol. II. Chicago: American Historical Society, 1923. 206.
LOUIS E. SCHRADER. Almost an entire generation of the bar of the West Virginia Panhandle have come to know and appreciate the services of Louis E. Schrader, the official court reporter at Wheeling. He is also widely known over the state, since for many years he has been the official reporter for the State Senate.
Mr. Schrader was born at Wheeling, April 5, 1869. His father, Charles F. W. Schrader, as born in Germany in 1838, and as a youth learned the carriage maker's trade. About the time he completed his apprenticeship he came to the United States, located at Wheeling, and was one of the skilled men of his trade and active in business in that city for many years. He died at Wheeling in 1886. He was a democrat and a member of the Lutheran Church. His wife, Christiana Stifel, was born in Wheeling in 1849 and died in that city in 1909.
Louis E. Schrader, only child of his parents, was educated in Wheeling's public schools to the age of fourteen. His early training both in the law and in stenography was acquired while in the law offices of Russell & Stifel, a prominent law firm with which he remained five years. He later continued his shorthand studies at the Cincinnati School of Phonography and the Phonographic Institute of Cincinnati. The proficiency he developed took him into the profession of court reporting, and has been in that line of work continuously for nearly thirty years and has been official court reporter of Ohio County since 1893. His offices are in the Court House at Wheeling. For twenty years he has been official reporter of the West Virginia Senate. Mr. Schrader is now serving a term as member of the City Board of Education. He is a republican, a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, belongs to the Rotary Club and is affiliated with Wheeling Lodge No. 28, B.P.O.E.
In 1908, at Wheeling, he married Miss Alberta Prince, daughter of William and Isabelle (Close) Prince, now deceased. Her father was a steamboat captain on the Ohio River. Mr. and Mrs. Schrader have one son, Henry, born in 1909.
-- from the Wheeling Intelligencer, April 18, 1923 © Wheeling Intelligencer; reproduced with permission
Who's Who In Rotary
A home grown or native product, casting his lot with the Schrader family then living on Main street, on a spring morning -- April 5th. After attending and graduating from Wheeling schools he entered the law officers of Russell & Stifel, where the next five years were spent in law and stenography. He later continued his shorthand studies at the Cincinnati School of Phonography and the Phonographic Institute of Cincinnati.
The proficiency he developed took him into the profession of court reporting and he has been in that line of work continuously for thirty years and has been the official Court Reporter for Ohio county since 1893. For upwards of twenty years he has been official reporter of the West Virginia Senate and probably no man in the reporting profession is better known to his fellows than Lew.
For many years he has been active in the work of the National Shorthand Reporters Association and since 1899 when it was organized in Chicago, he has rarely failed in attendance at a National Convention. He was a moving spirit in the organization of the West Virginia State Association of Shorthand Reporters and was its first president.
Is a member of the board of directors of the Epworth Park Chatauqua Association, Bethesda, Ohio, and has served as its secretary. He likewise has a summer home at Bethesda.
After falling in love and concluding he could not live without her, he was joined in marriage on November 5th, 1908 for Alberta Prince, an Island Queen and the daughter of Captain Prince, of river fame. To this union one son, Henry Stifel Schrader has been given and Henry gives promise of keeping alive the Schrader spirit of working.
A Thomson Methodist, a B. P. O. E. No. 28, a live Rotarian, and a member of the City Board of Education, Lew always has enough work on hand to keep a busy man employed. A great student, mild in manner, soft in speech he enjoys as a diversion the movies and music and shows.
We join your legion of friends in the wish that you may long be spared to Rotary and the community and to have an increasing joy in service.
[ From the OCPL Vertical File ]
