Last Updated on June 8, 2012 by
Charles F. Oehmke, assistant postmaster of Urbana, has been continuously identified with the post office in that city for the past eleven years. He was formerly a successful teacher. He is a native of Champaign County, where he was born January 22, 1880. His parents were John Fred and Elizabeth (Schultz) Oehmke, both natives of Germany. John F. Oehmke came to America at the age of seventeen and at once located in Champaign County. He had experience as a farmer, also in the marble works, and subsequently bought a farm, which he cultivated until his death in 1910. His widow is still living in Gifford, Champaign County. John F. Oehmke was honored with several township offices, and was a man of capable work and citizenship in this county. He and his wife had fourteen children: William, of Larchwood, Iowa; Louis Frank, deceased; Fred, of North Dakota; Louisa, deceased; Charles F.; Edward, of Larchwood, Iowa; John, a farmer of Fennel d, Illinois; Henry, of Oklahoma City; Rose, wife of J. T. Michaels, of Oklahoma City; Emma, deceased; Martin, of East St. Louis, Illinois; Walter, of Detroit, Michigan; Minnie, still at home; and Frank, of Pomeroy, Iowa.
Mr. Charles F. Oehmke was educated in the common schools and had six months of high school training. He had also nine weeks of summer terms in the University of Illinois. At the age of seventeen he became a regular hand on the farm, and after three years in that occupation took up school teaching. He taught six years altogether, most of the time in the country schools, but during the last year in the Philo grammar school.
On July 13, 1906, Mr. Oehmke passed the civil service examination and since then has been connected with the Urbana post office, at first as clerk but now as assistant postmaster.
He married November 15, 1908, Miss Bertha J. Eyestone, a native of Champaign. They have two children: Irene and Charles McDonald. Mr. Oehmke is a Democrat in politics, a member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and the Methodist Episcopal Church.