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CHARLES CLARENCE DINWIDDIE.
As the capable, efficient and popular superintendent of the public schools of Pocahontas, Charles Clarence Dinwiddie occupies a noteworthy position among the educators of Bond county, and is eminently deserving of more than passing mention in a work of this character. He comes of honored Virginian ancestry, being a lineal descendant of the founder of that family from which Robert Dinwiddie, one of the early governors of Virginia, was sprung. He is a true type of the self-made men of our times, having measured his own ability, and through his own efforts having hewn his way straight to the line thus marked out. A son of the late Joseph M. Dinwiddie, he was born near Woburn, Bond county, Illinois, March 6, 1880.

Joseph M. Dinwiddie was also a native of Illinois, his birth having occurred Augnst 1, 1832, in White Hall, Greene county. Succeeding to the occupation in which he was reared, he was engaged in farming and cattle dealing throughout his entire life, which was comparatively brief. He died February 28, 1881, while in manhood's prime. He married, in 1869, Millie A. Anthony, of Woburn, Illinois, and she is now living in Smithboro, Bond county. He was a stanch Republican in politics, and a member of the Methodist Episcopal church.

The youngest of a family of five children left fatherless when small, Charles Clarence Dinwiddie spent his earlier years in Smithboro, acquiring his elementary education in the public schools and at the home fireside. At the age of eighteen years he began his active career as a teacher, and for two years had charge of a school in Concord, after which he taught for a time in Seagraves. Going then to Decatur, Illinois, Mr. Dinwiddie worked in the railway shops for awhile, and after his return to Smithboro was variously employed, for a year being connected with the Vandalia Railroad as an employe. Resuming then his professional labors, he taught in Union, Illinois, in 1904 and 1905, later having charge of schools in different places in Southern Illinois. In 1909 he accepted the principalship of the Pocahontas schools, and has since filled the position to the eminent satisfaction of all concerned. Under his management the schools, which are housed in a large, well-lighted brick building, have made rapid progress, the course having been enlarged and now embracing two years of high school work.

Mr. Dinwiddie married, in 1905, Grace Stubblefield, of Pleasant Mound Illinois, and they have two children, Geneva and Joseph H. Politically Mr. Dinwiddie is a sound Republican; religiously he is a member of the Christian Church; and fraternally he belongs to the Ancient Free and Accepted Order of Masons and to the Modern Woodmen of America.