History of the American Negro: West Virginia Edition

Leonard C. Farrar

294 history american negro Leonard C. Farrar The state owes an incalculable debt of gratitude to the men and women who devote their lives to the training of the young. Without them we should soon be floundering in a morass of ignorance and superstition and civilization would be a thing of the past. One of the efficient, energetic young men of West Virginia who is doing good work in educational lines is Prof. Leonard Cecil Farrar, who is head of the public school at Omar in Logan County. Prof. Farrar is a native of the state, having been born at Charleston on July 28, 1884, son of Reuben Farrar, a barber. He was the son of Thomas Farrar, a pumpmaker and mechanic of Charlottesville,Va. The mother of our subject was, before her marriage, Miss Helen Porterfield, who was a teacher and who was the daughter of Eli and Charity Porterfield. Prof. Farrar laid the foundation of his education in the public and high schools of Charleston from which he was graduated in 1900. For his normal and college work he attended Ohio University and West Virginia Collegiate Institute. He was active in athletics while in school and college. He began teaching in the grades at Charleston in 1901. He was promoted to High School in 1911, where he taught till 1914. He was in the U. S. Railway mail service from 1917–18 when he again resumed teaching . He has had charge of the school at Omar since September 1922. On December 24, 1913, Prof. Farrar was happily married to Miss Willie Irene Norman, daughter of Thos. H. and Josephine Norman, of Washington, D. C. They have one child—a daughter, Josephine Virginia Farrar. Prof. Farrar is an Independent in politics and was once Assistant Charter Clerk for the state of West Virginia. He belongs to the Missionary Baptist church in which he is active and prominent. He has for a long time been identified with the Y. M. C. A., the B. Y. P. U. and is active in the work of the Sunday School. Among the secret and benevolent orders he affiliates with the Pythians, Odd Fellows, and is william garfield capel 296 history american negro a stockholder in the Prudential Bank and the Federal Insurance Co., Washington, D. C. Prof. Farrar is President of the National Forum Association of Washington and is ambitious for the establishment of an educational forum in every community. He believes that the permanent progress of the race must rest on patriotism, education and thrift, for, says he, “no educated, thrifty people can be long oppressed.” He is an advocate for triparte education of the head, the heart and the hands. William G. Capel No one who studies American biography as it relates to the successful business and professional men of both races, can fail to be impressed with the large number of those men who have had to fight their way up from the humblest beginnings. One of these is Dr. William Garfield Capel, the only Negro dentist at Beckley, W. Va. Dr. Capel is a native of the Old North State, having first seen light in Richmond County, N. C., on December 20, 1887. His father was H. Capel, his mother Nora Capel. In the absence of written records he knows but little of his earlier ancestors, but there is a tradition in the family that his great grandmother purchased her freedom and that of the family. As a boy, young Capel was taught by Rev. and Mrs. J. H. Clement at Rockingham, N. C., and passed from there to Biddle, now John C. Smith University, at Charlotte, for his preparatory and college work. He won his A.B. degree at Biddle in 1907, and went to what was then the Starling Ohio Medical College, now Ohio State, for his course in dentistry and won his D.D.S. degree in 1912. While he was under the necessity of making his own way and worked during each vacation, yet he made friends who encouraged and helped him. He remembers with peculiar gratitude the assistance given him by Mrs. J. M. Covington, a white friend of his home town. ...