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CHARLES EDWARD FEIRICH. A new but valued addition to the legal fraternity in Carbondale, having been a resident of the city less than three years at the time of this writing (1911), Charles Edward Feirich has already made his mark in large and enduring phrase in professional circles in this part of Illinois, and won the regard of the people as a man and a citizen. He has been unostentatious in his course, and whatever he has achieved in the way of reputation in general and standing at the bar is based on demonstrated merit, substantial attainments, creditable work and genuine worth.
Mr. Feirich is a native of Buffalo, New York, where his life began on November 1, 1886. In that city his father, Charles A. Feirich, is a prosperous carpenter, and during the minority of the son maintained his wife, whose maiden name was Anna Kreinbring, and their offspring in modest but real comfort, and gave his children all the educational advantages he was able to provide for them, doing all in his power to open to them the way to a better condition in life than he enjoyed himself.
One of the children at least, Charles Edward, the only one of whom we have knowledge, responded to the parental solicitude with every power at his command, determined that no lack of effort on his part should defeat his father's designs and ardent desires. He received a high school education in Buffalo, which he supplemented with more advanced instruction at the Metropolitan Select School, and throughout his course from the beginning strained every nerve to make the best use of his opportunities. After completing his academic training
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he studied law in the law department of Lake Forest University, and was admitted to the bar in December, 1904. With the world open to him for choice of a place in which to begin his practice and build his professional career, he deemed the great metropolis and commercial center of the Middle West the most attractive, and located "in among its throngs of men." He soon afterward became connected with the legal department of the Illinois Central Railroad as secretary to the road's chief counsel, Judge J. M. Dickinson.
In this excellent field of operation and school of broad practical development Mr. Feirich remained five years, gathering light from the great luminaries of the legal firmament with whom he came in contact from day to day, all the while extending his knowledge of the law and of human nature, and improving his opportunities for making acquaintances among men of large mold, superior endowments and comprehensive attainments. His advantages were exceptional, it is true, but they would have been of no benefit to him if he had not been of the caliber to fully appreciate and properly use them, and assimilate the mental and professional pabulum they furnished in such abundance and high quality.
In 1909 he moved to Carbondale, eager to stand on his own footing and work his own way forward without the assistance of adventitious circumstances, and in July of the following year formed a partnership with W. W. Barr, under the firm name of Barr & Feirich. Mr. Feirich is the local attorney for the Illinois Central Railroad Company, in Jackson county, and the firm represents a number of banks, corporations and other fiscal, commercial and industrial institutions. It stands in the front rank at the bar in Southern Illinois, and its members have amply shown that it belongs there. On June 11, 1907, Mr. Feirich was united in marriage with Miss Jennie Cottrill, of Buffalo, New York, a daughter of John J. Cottrill, one of the leading teaming contractors in that great and striding city on the lakes. Two children have been born in the Feirich household, both sons, Charles Cottrill and John Kenneth. The parents belong to the Methodist Episcopal church, and the father is a member of the board of stewards of the congregation in which they hold membership. In fraternal circles he is allied with the Masonic order and the Order of Odd Fellows. He is as zealous in his attention to the interests of these fraternities as his professional duties will allow him to be, fully appreciating their value as moral and social agencies in the community, and his membership is highly appreciated in each.