Charles  M. Ewing

          Charles M. Ewing, owner of the Ewing Funeral Chapel at Shelbyville, entered the undertaking business in 1915, after a number of years spent in educational and insurance work.  Mr. Ewing has given Shelby County an indispensable institution and his chapel, at 112 North Harrison Street, will bear favorable comparison with any funeral home in the state. He is a prominent member of the funeral directors profession, and is a thorough business man.
          Mr. Ewing was born in Brandywine Township, Shelby County, Indiana, July 9, 1877.  In the same. house was born his father, William A. Ewing.  The Ewing family was established in Indiana by his grandfather, James A. Ewing, who came from Pennsylvania to Indiana about 1830 and took up a homestead of eighty acres and developed it into a good farm.  William A. Ewing spent his life as a farmer.  He married Eliza Watts, who was born in another locality of Brandywine Township, where her father, Morgan Watts, settled in the early days.
          Charles M. Ewing has one brother, W. Frank, who lives at Beaver, Pennsylvania.  Mr. Ewing attended schools in Shelby County, graduating from the high school at Fairland, and later attended the Marion Normal College.  To the work of teacher he gave seven years of his early life, and many people in Shelby County still recall him in the capacity of a teacher.  He next entered newspaper work, as manager of the Liberal Publishing Company at Shelbyville, where he spent three years.  The next five years he was in the insurance field for the Prudential Insurance Company and in August, 1915, turned his talents and his energies to the undertaking business.  In 1919 he graduated from the Eskins Embalming School.  Mr. Ewing possesses ideal qualifications for his work.  He is a man of kindly sympathies, a friend in need, generous and public spirited.  In 1922 he was appointed by the governor of Indiana a member of the State Board of Embalmers and was reappointed in 1926, serving two years as president of the board and is now its secretary.  In 1923 he was elected the third vice president of the National Embalmers Conference of America and in 1929 was elected second vice president.  He was also appointed a member of the National Board of Education by the president of the National Funeral Association of America.
          Mr. Ewing married  Mabel Griffith, of Shelbyville, daughter of  Mr. and Mrs. James E. Griffith.  Her father was a merchant and manufacturer, and the Griffiths have been in Shelby County since pioneer times.  The two children of Mr. and Mrs. Ewing are  Robert Donald, a student in Indiana University, and  Richard Louis, attending high school.
          Mr. Ewing was for three years, 1924-27, a member of the Shelbyville School Board.  He belongs to the Kiwanis Club, for five years was treasurer of the Chautauqua Association, is treasurer of the Presbyterian Church, and is a past chancellor and now master of finance of the Shelbyville Lodge, Knights of Pythias, and also belongs to the Masonic fraternity and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.  During the World war he did a helpful work in promoting the success of the drives, including the sale of Liberty Bonds, and for five years was an active member of the local Red Cross.

Indiana:  One Hundred and Fifty Years of American Development,  Vol. 3, By Charles Roll, A.M., The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931.
Contributed by Phyllis Miller Fleming

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