George A. Fancher

GEORGE A. FANCHER, proprietor of the Fancher Printing Company of Coffeyville is a veteran of the printing art and has followed his trade in many states and towns all over the Far West. For the past thirty years his home and center of activities have been in different cities of Kansas and he is now proprietor of one of the leading job offices in the southern part of the state.

He comes of old and substantial American stock, his ancestors were French a number of generations back, and the family was established in this country by three brothers who settled in New York when it was still a colony. Mr. Fancher's great-grandfather was a soldier in the Revolution.

J. W. Fancher, grandfather of the Coffeyville business man, was born in New York State in 1792. He spent most of his life in his native state as a farmer, and when he retired he moved to Michigan, living with his son J. W., Jr., and died at the latter's home in Buchanan, Michigan, in 1876. He married Eliazbeth[sic] Hicks, who was born in New York State and died at Syracuse. She was a Quakeress and a regularly ordained preacher in that faith. The children of these worthy people were: Alva, who enlisted in a New York regiment in the Civil war and died while in service; George H., who became a banker and died at San Francisco, California; Bradley C., who was a lumberman and was killed in an accident in a sawmill at Berrien Springs, Michigan; J. W. Fancher, Jr., father of George A.; Lee R., who is a banker at Merced, California, and was a soldier for four years in a New York regiment of infantry during the Civil war, and the sixth of the family was also a volunteer from New York in the war and was killed in one of the battles in which his regiment engaged.

Mr. George A. Fancher was born at Buchanan, Michigan, February 20, 1868. His father, J. W. Fancher, is now living retired at Merced, California. He was born at Syracuse, New York, in 1838, was reared there, educated in the public schools and afterwards in the schools of Ypsilanti, Michigan. As a young man he went to Buchanan, Michigan, where he married. By trade he was a cooper, and at one time he served as principal of the public schools of Buchanan. He has been a successful business man and now has extensive land holdings in Michigan, Indiana and California. While a resident of Berrien County, Michigan, he served as sheriff and also as chief of police at Buchanan. Politically he is a democrat. J. W. Fancher married Miss Margaret Roe, who was born in 1842 in LaPorte County, Indiana, and died at Davis in that state in May, 1906. Their children were: Alva C., who is a rancher at Athlone, California; Melvin H., who lives on one of his father's farms in Starke County, Indiana; George H.,[sic] who is the third in age; Willis, a fruit farmer at Los Angeles, California; Clarence, who lives on one of his father's farms at Merced, California; Lona, wife of Doctor Winan, a physician in Chicago; Chloe, wife of Doctor Denaught, a physician at Hamlet, Indiana.

While attending the public schools at Buchanan, Michigan, George A. Fancher learned printing in one of the newspaper offices there, and in 1884, following his graduation from the Buchanan High School, he went to Chicago and had his first journeyman's experience in that city. He had his share of traveling about over the country as nearly all printers do, and from Chicago went to Leadville, Colorado, and in 1886 reached Kansas and secured employment at his trade in Hutchinson. In 1889 he went to Saline, and from there to Winfield in 1891. He followed the trade at Winfield for ten years. In 1901 he moved to Iola, and from there four years later came to Coffeyville, where he has had his home and his business since 1905. At Coffeyville he was employed for four years as a printer in the offices of the Journal.

In 1909 Mr. Fancher established the Fancher Printing Company, which has complete mechanical facilities and an organization of expert printers for all classes of jobs of printing. His plant is at 108 West Tenth Street. Mr. Fancher resides in a country home with ten acres of ground three miles northeast of Coffeyville, and built his attractive residence there in 1910. He also owns a dwelling house at 302 East Eleventh Street and another at 612 East Fifth Street.

Politically he is a republican. He is a member of the Chamber of Commerce and affiliates with Coffeyville Camp No. 665, Modern Woodmen of America.

In 1895 at Winfield, Kansas, he married Miss Anna Brown, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. H. C. Brown. Her father was a farmer now deceased and her mother still lives in Winfield. Mr. and Mrs. Fancher have two children. Alva Keath was born April 20, 1905, and is now in the public schools at Coffeyville. Carl Prentice was born May 14, 1909, and is attending school in the country district near his father's home.

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VOLUME 1 & 2
BIOGRAPHIES — VOLUMES 3, 4, & 5
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