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M. WILSON SIZEMORE.
As money, or any other medium of exchange, is the life-blood of business and commerce it is evident that bankers who manage and control the circulating medium stands related to the public as the physician who has his finger on the pulse of the patient and has the power of controlling his constitution for better or worse. No member of the business community has a greater responsibility than the banker, and any community or city is much to be congratulated that has at the head of its finances men of thorough training, stanch ability and moral dependability. To this class belongs M. Wilson Sizemore, cashier of the Carterville State & Savings Bank. In Williamson county he was reared and here has passed his life since coming here with his father in 1864. The elder gentleman is William E. Sizemore, a venerable citizen of Carterville, who, full of years but yet vigorous, is in the quiet of retirement after a long career as a farmer.
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William E. Sizemore was born in Henry county, Tennessee (September 23, 1824), whither his father, William Sizemore, went from Trigg county, Kentucky. His father was born in Halifax county, Virginia, in 1800 and was a son of George Sizemore, who came out of old England, his native country, and established himself in the Old Dominion. George's wife was a Miss Calicutt, and the issue of their union were Anderson; Jordan, who died in Missouri; Nelson, who was drowned as a young man; John, who migrated to South Carolina from his native state; Sarah, who married in Virginia and remained there; and William, grandfather of the immediate subject.
In 1816 George Sizemore's widow took her family to Trigg county, Kentucky, her husband a short time previously having been accidentally killed in Virginia while rolling a hogshead of tobacco, as was the custom at that time. In 1820 she and her husband removed to Henry county, Tennessee. There William Sizemore married Unity Canady, born in South Carolina in 1807, of Scotch-Irish ancestry. They went back to Kentucky in 1829 and a few years later left Trigg county and settled in Christian county, that state. William died in 1863, while his widow survived until June 24, 1887, passing away in Carterville, Illinois. Their children were William E., father of the subject; A. Perry; G. W.; J. C.; James R.; Jane, who married Jacob Colly; Lydia, who became the wife of Leander Keys; Rebecca, who married John M. Cruse; and Susan, who became the wife of E. C. Jones. All the children save Mrs. Colly and Mrs. Keys, came to Illinois.
William E. Sizemore grew up in Kentucky under such influences as the country then possessed; obtained a smattering of education; and married Lucinda Sizemore, a daughter of Anderson Sizemore, his uncle. He returned to Tennessee and there reared his children on a farm, finally leaving the state chiefly because of its secession sentiment and its relation to the Confederacy. He sought the loyal community of the North and passed the first year of his residence in Franklin county, Illinois, near old Frankfort, and when he came into Williamson county he located a mile north of Carterville, where his residence has since been maintained. Here his wife died in 1885 and here he married again in July, 1886, Miss Sarah Edwards.
In matters political Mr. Sizemore has never been active. He was reared a Democrat and espoused that faith until the issues of the war and the lining up of the Southern Democrats with secession, when he broke with his party and became a Republican, in 1860 there was no Republican ticket in his section of Tennessee and he cast his vote for Douglas for president. He volunteered for service in the Union army, joining the Seventh Tennessee, but before he was mustered in he was furloughed home, disabled, and when he returned his commander declined to accept him and his regiment was merged with another one and became the Sixth Tennessee Infantry. He returned home and soon afterward left the state.
The children of William E. and Sarah Sizemore were as follows: Sarah A., who died at Creal Springs, Illinois, at the age of sixty-two, as Mrs. W. A. Roberts; Cassie, who married E. B. Watson and died in Carterville, Illinois, in 1902; Fannie, of Carterville, who is the wife of Charles Malone; William B., who died in 1879 and left two children, the surviving one of whom is Mrs. Augusta Cole; M. Wilson, who was born in Weakley county, Tennessee, where his father removed from Kentucky in 1864; Victoria became the wife of Sherman Scoby and resides in Carterville; Thomas H. died in 1886, unmarried; and Frank is a resident of the community where his boyhood was passed. By his second
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marriage Mr. Sizemore has two daughters,�Eva, wife of Elmer Burkholder, and Miss Ava, both residents at the paternal home.
M. Wilson Sizemore was born October 7, 1856, and was just ready for school when he came to Carterville settlement. He was trained in the county district and confesses to having occupied a teacher's place in the school-room for a portion of one term of school. He was a farmer until prospects as a coal miner promised greater returns than labor on the farm, when he abandoned the latter and spent many years in and about the mines. He finally sought clerical work and was added to the station force of the Illinois Central Railway in Carterville and took charge of the freight and express business from 1897 to 1902. He then accepted the position of assistant cashier of the Bank of Carterville.
At the organization of the Carterville State & Savings Bank in 1904 he was chosen cashier and has retained the position since. This institution was chartered with a capital of fifty thousand dollars, and S. H. Bundy was elected president. Eventually J. B. Samuel succeeded Mr. Bundy and Ben. L. Washburn is vice-president of the concern. Mr. Sizemore is one of the directors of the Carterville Building & Loan Association.
On October 25, 1878, Mr. Sizemore and Miss Florence Tranbarger were married in Carterville. She was a daughter of William Tranbarger, a German, and she died in July, 1900. The only living child of the union is William B., who is a bookkeeper for the Madison Coal Company here and is married to Zella Mc Ewan. For his second wife Mr. Sizemore took in marriage, in August, 1901, Mary A. Caplinger, a daughter of L. K. Corder. A daughter, Zella, born in 1904, is the result of this union.
Mr. Sizemore is past chancellor of the Knights of Pythias; he is a Republican; and a member of the Missionary Baptist church.