The Last of the Fighting Four – Charles H. Ables

Description

Born in Ravenswood, West Virginia, Charles H. Abels was the son of a prosperous businessman who, unable to cope with sudden and undeserved misfortune, left the responsibility of rearing and supporting their eight children to his wife, Martha H. Abels of Akron, who was to become Ohio’s Gold Star Mother in World War I.

Charles knew hardship as a small boy; knew the horror of war, as he describes it, from the viewpoint of the American soldier, in the book.Returned from overseas, he married, and, starting civilian life from scratch, was to reach such success as to be able to achieve comfortable retirement at sixty-two.

Homesteading, with his wife Elenora, in the Arizona desert, the young veteran built a two-room cabin and, from an initial capital of one dollar and fifty cents, managed to establish a gas station and grocery store. Eventually he found himself in politics, and was a member of the state’s House of Representative’s, where he battled “special interest” groups, for eight years. In terrain where the need for facilities to obtain water was crucial, he founded and built up a water company, which has since been taken over by the city of Phoenix.

Now retired, he enjoys, among other things, “puttering around the house and inventing things.” His affiliations include membership in the society of the First Division, and in the Veterans of Foreign Wars.