Thompson Richard Winsheimer and Lydia Melissa Widaman

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Husband Thompson Richard Winsheimer ¹

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            AKA: Thomas M. Winsheimer 2
           Born: 30 Nov 1856 1
     Christened: 
           Died: 
         Buried: 

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         Father: Lawrence Winsheimer (1817-1905) 3
         Mother: Anna Margaret Zeise (      -1903) 1

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       Marriage: 7 Apr 1881 4

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Wife Lydia Melissa Widaman ¹

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           Born: 
     Christened: 
           Died: 
         Buried: 

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         Father: John Michael Widaman (      -      ) 4 5
         Mother: Catharine Miller (      -      ) 4 5 6

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Children

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General Notes: Husband - Thompson Richard Winsheimer

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He was educated in the common schools of Greensburg, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. He began active life by working on the construction of the Southwest railway from Greensburg to Connellsville. He learned the printing trade in the office of The Westmoreland Democrat, and November 23, 1882, with his cousin, Benjamin Franklin Vogle, bought that newspaper plant. He was content to follow the pursuits of the editor of a weekly newspaper in a country town, doing his duty fearlessly in the discussion of public measures and political conditions from an absolutely conscientious standpoint. Knowing only the honest principles of Democracy, as established by the founders of the party, he was always aggressive in striking at and exposing political crookedness within the party, and to his persistent efforts, perhaps more than any other man, after a fierce and prolonged battle, in 1903-4, in which friendships of a lifetime were canceled, were the vampires which hung at the throat of the Westmoreland County Democracy shaken off. As a man of keen perception in the newspaper field and as to his capabilities in discovering and handling live subjects, he had full recognition with the profession and reading public. He was also the business man of The Democrat and brought to that paper a line of patronage that kept the plant in a healthy condition. The newspaper business was his life work, although as a side line or diversion he has contributed to the world something of poetry, music and history, not of the classical order, but in the lines of sweetness and simplicity that appeal to the heart as well as to the mind. He contributed of his energies to the development and progress of the community, while others, perhaps, reaped the ultimate benefits without a thought of his labors. He advocated morality in society, cleanness in politics and public affairs, advancement and expansion of the local business world, and felt gratified and satisfied when success resulted in any of those directions.

1 John W. Jordan, History of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, Genealogical Memoirs, Vol. II (Chicago, IL: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1906), Pg 166.

2 Samuel T. Wiley, Biographical and Historical Cyclopedia of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA: John M. Gresham & Co., 1890.), Pg 133.

3 John W. Jordan, History of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, Genealogical Memoirs, Vol. II (Chicago, IL: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1906), Pg 165.

4 John W. Jordan, History of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, Genealogical Memoirs, Vol. II (Chicago, IL: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1906), Pg 167.

5 John W. Jordan, History of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, Genealogical Memoirs, Vol. III (Chicago, IL: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1906), Pg 647.

6 Fenwick Y. Hedley, Old and New Westmoreland, Vols. III & IV (New York, NY: The American Historical Society, Inc., 1918), Pg 126.