John Cecil Somers is one of the youngest bankers of Champaign, and his career and experience have been worked out in one-institution.
When he was seventeen years of age he entered the Commercial Bank of Champaign, and by doing the duties which lay nearest and making himself generally useful to his superiors and to the bank’s best interests he was promoted through clerkships until he now has entire administrative management of the bank and is one of its stockholders.
Mr. Somers was born at St. Joseph, Illinois, January 26, 1887, and is barely thirty years of age. His father, John W. Somers, was born and reared in Somers Township of Champaign County and died at St. Joseph in 1906. He was a Republican and a member of the Methodist Church. His father, Waitman T. Somers, was a native of Virginia and an early settler in the farming districts of Champaign County. His wife was Mary Young. John W. Somers married Elizabeth Ann McDonald.
John C. Somers received his early education in the St. Joseph High School and left that to enter the Commercial Bank at Champaign. He has devoted himself with singular fidelity to one line of business and that accounts for his early success. He is a Republican, without official aspirations, is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church and has attained the Knight Templar degrees in Masonry and is a member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and the Champaign Country Club.
On January 24, 1908, at Champaign, he married Miss Hazel C. Scott, who was born at Mahomet, Illinois, September 4, 1888. They have one son, Albert George, born September 24, 1912.