Biography - Oliver M. Fraim
OLIVER M. FRAIM. A man of enterprise and progressive ideas who has done
much to develop the interests of Johnson county, especially in the line of
reclaiming farming lands from the swamp and timber, Oliver M. Fraim, of
Belknap, Illinois, has associated himself with ventures of an extensive
nature and is now considered one of the leading business men of his
community. As the promoter of various enterprises he has done much to
develop the best resources of this section, and for a number of years he has
been identified with railroad contract work and the automobile industry,
while his present large general merchandise house has grown from a small
beginning into one of the leading stores of its kind in this part of the
county. Mr. Fraim was born April 14, 1864, in Mt. Vernon, Indiana, and is a
son of Elvis Linch and Margaret (Meek) Fraim.
Elvis Linch Fraim was born in Indiana, whence his father, a native of the
East, had come at an early day and engaged in the packing business. Elvis L.
as a young man interested himself in flat-boating from Indiana points to New
Orleans, and when the Civil war broke out he enlisted and served until its
close in the Union army. On his return he engaged in farming near the town
of Flora, Illinois, where he died in December, 1911. He married Margaret
Meek, daughter of Isaac Meek, a cabinetmaker who was city clerk of Kinmundy,
Illinois, up to the time he was eighty-two years old, and they had a family
of six children, namely: Emma, Mattie, Lula, Maggie, Oliver M. and William
E.
Oliver M. Fraim was educated in the schools of Loogootee, Indiana, and when
sixteen years of age became a clerk in a store owned by Daniel A. Goodman,
who was engaged in the timber business in Southern Illinois, with
headquarters at Indianapolis, Indiana. In April, 1893, Mr. Fraim was made a
flattering offer by a South Bend concern, but his employers refused to
release him, and in August of the same year, when they asked him to take a
lay-off, he decided to branch out on his own account. He had traveled
extensively over the south in the interests of his firm, and had filled
important contracts for the railroads of Southern Illinois, and is still an
extensive tie and timber buyer, furnishing the ties for the Chicago,
Burlington & Quincy Railroad. On his return from Indianapolis, in 1893, he
located in Belknap, where he opened a restaurant, and also engaged in the
buying and selling of wheel spokes for Eastern firms in Ohio, Indiana and
Eastern Pennsylvania. He soon built up a big store trade, which has grown
into the present large general merchandise business, with an investment of
ten thousand dollars. Also, during this time, he contracted with the Big
Four Railway Company to furnish their piling and timber for extensions, and
with the Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad for their piling at Joppa and
their inclines. From the beginning of the automobile industry until
September, 1907, when he retired from the field, Mr. Fraim furnished
seventy-five per cent of all the spokes that were put into automobile
construction throughout the United States. Mr. Fraim is also an
agriculturist, and was the pioneer in the development of bottom or swamp
land. He would buy farms considered practically worthless, for a few hundred
dollars, would cut the timber, drain the swamps, and sell the same property
for around three thousand or thirty-five 'hundred dollars. Quick to see and
grasp an opportunity, Mr. Fraim 's operations have covered a wide field and
have brought him into contact with a number of the leading business men of
his section. Although he is shrewd and keen in his dealings, he has always
respected the rights of others, and his business standing wherever he has
operated is high. As mayor of Belknap he gave the city an admirable business
administration, during which many needed reforms were introduced.
Fraternally he is popular as a member of the Belknap Lodge, A. F. & A. M.,
and he and his family are members of the Belknap Methodist Episcopal church,
of which he has served as a trustee for the past ten years.
In 1883 Mr. Fraim was married to Miss Mattie West, of Belknap, daughter of
Lemuel West, a native of Ohio, and they have had a family of seven children,
namely: Eric, a minister at Port Sanilac, Michigan, who is married and has
four children, Beatrice, Irene, Elden Morton and Virgil Ray; Floyd, in the
timber business in Louisiana, is married and has two children, Elizabeth and
Harvey Oliver; Grace, the wife of S. D. Martin, a barber of Belknap, has one
child, Hazel; Fred; Mrs. Hazel Matheny; Ray McKinley and Mabel reside at
home with their parents.
Extracted 14 Jan 2018 by Norma Hass from 1912 A History of Southern Illinois, volume 2, pages 739-740.
