Charles F. Hoch

CHARLES F. HOCH. While he is giving all his time to his official duties as county treasurer of Sheridan County, Charles F. Hoch is most widely known through his many years of work as a capable teacher and educator. He has been identified with school work in a number of Kansas counties, and has been a resident of this state since childhood.

Mr. Hoch was born near Valparaiso, Indiana, November 26, 1863. Though of German origin this family has an American record dating back to the earliest colonial times in Pennsylvania. In fact the records run back to the earliest years of the seventeenth century. Mr. Hoch's grandfather, George Hoch, was a native of Pennsylvania and in an early day settled on a farm in Northern Indiana, where he died before Charles F. was born.

Joseph Hoch, father of Charles F., was born in Pennsylvania December 10, 1826, grew up in New York State, lived for a time in Canada, was married in Michigan, and for a number of years had a farm near Valparaiso, Indiana. In 1871 he brought his family to North Belleville in Republic County, Kansas, and homesteaded and developed a farm in that community. In the spring of 1890 he moved to Decatur County, where he continued farming, and after 1893 lived retired in Sheridan County. He died in that county December 1, 1913. He was a republican in political affiliation and while a resident of Porter County, Indiana, served as constable. He was affiliated with the Lutheran Church. Joseph Hoch married Laura L. Farnham. She was born near St. Joseph, Michigan, in March, 1836, and is now living, at the venerable age of eighty-three, with her only child, Charles F. Hoch, at Hoxie.

Charles F. Hoch was seven years old when brought by his parents to Kansas. He attended the rural schools of Republic County and was on his father's farm to the age of twenty. He attended high school in Chester, Nebraska. For two years he taught school in Republic County, another two years in Thayer County, Nebraska, again taught one year in Republic County, and for one year was principal of the schools at Norway, Kansas. The next locality to obtain his services as an educator was Decatur County, where he spent four years in the schools. After that he took up school work in Sheridan County, where he was active as a school administrator and teacher until April, 1916. In November of that year he was elected county treasurer and by re-election in 1918 filled that office for a second two-year term.

Mr. Hoch, who is unmarried, is a democrat and is acting elder of the Christian Church. He is affiliated with Carrickville Lodge, No. 632, of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and Kenneth Lodge, No. 157, Woodmen of the World.

Pages 2257-2258.