Thompson Richard Winsheimer

THOMPSON RICHARD WINSHEIMER born November 30, 1856, educated in the common schools of Greensburg. 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, in which business he has since been continuously engaged. He has been 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 has always been 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 has full recognition with the profession and reading public. He is also the business man of The Democrat and has brought to that paper a line of patronage that keeps the plant in a healthy condition. The newspaper business is 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. Like the ordinary political journalist he has participated in the elevation of local great men to positions of honor, trust and profit, and has subsequently shared in the fate so common to newspaper men of forgetfulness and ingratitude. He has 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 has 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 an of those directions. Mr. Winsheimer married April 7, 1881, Lydia Melissa Widaman, daughter of the late John Michael and Catherine Miller Widaman, of New Stanton, and later of Irwin.

Source: Page(s) 166-167, History of Westmoreland County, Volume II, Pennsylvania by John N Boucher. New York, The Lewis Publishing Company, 1906.
Transcribed May 2007 by Nathan Zipfel for the Westmoreland County History Project
Contributed for use by the Westmoreland County Genealogy Project (http://www.pa-roots.com/westmoreland/)

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