HON. JOHN H. SCHAEFER. One of the foremost citizens of Columbus, Indiana, active in business and civic affairs and a political leader in Bartholomew County is Hon. John H. Schaefer, banker and manufacturer and an ex member of the Indiana State Legislature. He has numerous large business interests at Columbus, an old and very important one being the Schaefer Roller Mills, of which he is sole owner and operator. During a long and active career it has been his fortune so to conduct his affairs as to win the confidence and esteem of his fellow-citizens in a high degree, and no worthwhile public movement is considered complete until his name is on its list of supporters. John H. Schaefer was born on a farm in Bartholomew County, Indiana, near Walesboro, September 29, 1869, and is a son of Charles F. and Louise (Meyers) Schaefer. Charles F. Schaefer was born at Frankenhousen, Germany, where he was reared and educated, and when still a youth immigrated to the United States to seek his fortune, taking up his home in Indiana about the year 1850. He developed a farm in Bartholomew County, where he erected a home and made a success as a husbandman, and subsequently was engaged in the lumber business for a time. Eventually, with his brother, Albert, he erected the Park Roller Mills, at Columbus, and in this community passed the remainder of a long, useful and honorable life. Mr. Schaefer married Miss Louise Meyers, of Jackson County, Indiana, and they became the parents of six children. John H. Schaefer attended the rural schools until he was fourteen years of age, spending the summers in work on his father's farm, and from that time forward continued to reside under the parental roof and work with the elder man in the cultivation of the rich and productive fields. He was nineteen years of age when his father embarked in the flour milling business, and the youth soon learned the trade and bought an interest in the mill in 1892. In 1903, in company with George G. Schwartzkopf, he bought the mill, of which he took active charge, and in 1925, when Mr. Schwartzkopf died, became sole owner and operator by purchasing his former partner's interest from the estate. This has been a very successful enterprise, and during the World war was engaged in United States Government supply work. Mr. Schaefer is accounted one of the capable and reliable businessmen of Columbus. In 1916 he was one of the organizers of the Farmers Trust Company and later became vice president, a position which he held until the merger of this concern with the Peoples Bank. He was then appointed a director of the Union Trust Company, which later merged with the Irwin Trust Company to become the Irwin Union Trust Company, of which he is a director. He is a member of the Columbus Chamber of Commerce, of which he was formerly president and a director. Always a leader in civic and political affairs, he served as a councilman of Columbus from 1913 until 1917 and in 1923 was sent to the Lower House of the State Legislature as representative from Bartholomew County. During the World war he was very active in all the drives. With his family he resides in a comfortable home at 903 Fourth Street. On June 16, 1892, Mr. Schaefer married Miss Mary Bosse, of Columbus, and to this union there have been born six children Rachael, the wife of William Gray, formerly in the United States Army as a member of the Mexican Border Patrol, and now a civil engineer and instructor at the experimental laboratories at Purdue University; Earl, who served in the United States Navy during the World war, married Flora Roth, and is now associated in business with his father; Louis, also engaged with his father in the milling business, who married Caroline Scheidt; Misses Ethel and Ruth, who reside with their parents; and John H., Jr., who is attending school.