George E. Weaver. One of the most important offices in a municipality is that of city engineer. The permanence, the efficiency, the economy of operation of practically every public improvement and public convenience depends upon the skill exercised by the engineer in planning and supervising the construction of such improvements.
That had been the work of George E. Weaver at Independence, who is now serving his second term as city engineer. In the past three years the city had undertaken an exceptionally heavy amount of paving, sewer construction and other forms of improvement, and the citizens give Mr. Weaver great credit for the able manner in which this work had been carried out.
He comes of a family whose members have been usually devoted to some mechanical trade or profession. The Weavers originally came from Germany and settled in Pennsylvania, in colonial times, and the grandfather, also named George E. Weaver, was born in Pennsylvania in 1830, became an early settler in Ohio and the locality known as Weaver Station was established on his farm and was named in his honor. He died in Ohio at Greenville in 1912.
It was at Weaver Station, Ohio, that the city engineer of Independence was born November 29, 1879. His father, P. D. Weaver, born at Weaver Station in 1858, spent his life in that locality as a carpenter and builder, and died at Greenville February 7, 1916. He was an active republican. He married Miss Jennie Brown, who was born near Greenville, Ohio, in 1860 and died there in January, 1915. Her family also came from Germany in the early days and located in Pennsylvania, and her mother, Mrs. Annie Brown, is still living at Greenville, Ohio, at the advaneed age of eighty-seven. P. D. Weaver and wife had a family of seven children: George E.; William, a brick mason at Richmond, Indiana; Anna, who is living at Greenville, Ohio, unmarried; Norma, wife of Harrison Birley, a timner at Greenville; Charles, a carpenter and builder at Greenville; Estella, a senior in the high sehool at Greenville; and Robert, a member of the Freshman class in the Greenville High School.
George E. Weaver received his first advantages in the country near his birthplace, finished the course of the Greenville High School, and in 1904 completed a technical course in the Greenville Technical Academy. Having thus trained himself for his profession of civil engineer, he found employment in that line for one year in Greenville, and in 1906 came to Independence, where he had since followed his profession for the past ten years. For three years he served as assistant city engineer, and in 1913 was appointed to his present office and reappointed in 1915.
He is independent in politics. Fraternally he had been chiefly identified with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows in its various branches. He is a member and past noble grand of Lodge No. 69, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, at Independence, is past chief patriarch of the local encampment, and also belong sto the Rebekabs. Other associations are with Independence Lodge No. 648, Loyal Order of the Moose, and he is a stockholder in the Independence Loan and Building Association. On February 3, 1916, at Independence he married Miss Ollie Walters of Independence.