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BARBOUR COUNTY WEST VIRGINIA
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Submitted to the West Virginia Biographies Project by:
Valerie & Tommy Crook
vfcrook@trellis.net
November 10, 1999
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The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.,
Chicago and New York, Volume III,
pg. 310
Barbour
GEORGE W. SHOMO. In his younger years George W.
Shomo had considerable experience as a farmer, barber
and coal miner, none of which satisfied him as a per-
manent occupation. Railroad service proved more at-
tractive. He entered it through the telegraphic branch,
and for over fifteen years has been one of the efficient
men of the Western Maryland Railroad Company. After
several shifts elsewhere he came back to his home town
of Junior, where he has been agent for the railroad and
at the same time a valued citizen of the community.
Mr. Shomo was born on a farm near Junior, March
15, 1882, and is member of one of the old and well known
families of this section of Barbour County. While on the
farm he attended local schools, and at the age of eighteen
took up the work of the barber's trade in a shop at
Junior. He worked at that occupation four years, and
then for two years was a miner, digging coal for the Davis
Colliery Company at Junior. He left the mines to secure
a technical and business education in the Morris School of
Telegraphy at Cincinnati, where he finished his course in
the Spring of 1906.
With this training he made application for service with
the Western Maryland Eailroad, and was first assigned
to duty as assistant agent at Hendricks, West Virginia.
He remained there two years as assistant agent and a
year and one half as operator, and then after a brief
service as relief agent at Harding returned to his native
town and began his duties as agent April 19, 1911, suc-
ceeding S. S. Bailey. It has been his ambition to make
his efficiency in behalf of the railroad company a source
of effective service to the town and community, and that
ambition has been well realized. During the past ten
years he has acquired other interests, and was one of the
promoters and is a partner in the Big Chief Mine. He
served as mayor of Junior in 1913, and had been selected
as recorder of the town of Hendricks just before leav-
ing there. He is a charter member and still a stockholder
in the Merchants and Miners Bank of Junior.
Mr. Shomo is strong in the faith of the republican
party and cast his first presidential vote for Roosevelt in
1904. He is a Knight of Pythias, and for a quarter of a
century has been a Methodist, has been teacher in the
Sunday school and is superintendent of the home
department of the Barbour County Sunday School Associa-
tion.
May 29, 1902, at Belington, when he was twenty years
old, Mr. Shomo married Miss Edna B. Bolton, daughter
of Napoleon B. and Louise (Johnson) Bolton. The Bol-
tons are an old family of this section. Mrs. Shomo was
born August 8, 1881 on a farm between Philippi and
Belington, third in a family of five children. The others
were: Rev. John 0., for some years a Methodist minister
and now engaged in the centenary work of his church;
Ella, wife of John Thompson, a farmer near Belington;
Miss Myrtle, teacher in the public schools of Belington;
and Lula, wife of Jesse Glenn, of Belington. Three chil-
dren were born to Mr. and Mrs. Shomo, but all of them
died in infancy. Mrs. Shomo was a teacher before her
marriage and was active in school work for eight years.
She joins with her husband in a deep interest in the
church and Sunday School.
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