FRANK TRAINER, the editor and publisher of the Echo at Bethany, became a resident of Moultrie County in 1887, and on April 14 of that year issued the first copy of the Echo, which is now a seven-column folio, and is published as an independent local newspaper, devoted to the interests of Bethany and its vicinity. This gentleman was born in Meigs County. Ohio. September 28, 186-2, his parents being Samuel and Amanda (West) Trainer, natives of Pennsylvania and Ohio respectively. They were married in Ohio and settled in Meigs County, on a farm, where the mother died January 27, 1876, at the age of fifty-three years, and where the father still resides, enjoying a green old age, as he is now seventy-seven years old, having been born in June, 1814.

The ten children of this worthy couple were equally divided between sons and daughters, and our subject was next to the youngest in age. He was reared upon the farm and educated in the common schools. In 1881 he came to Illinois and taught school in Macon County, and in 1885 he entered a printing office in Macon City and there learned "the art preservative of all arts," after which he again engaged in teaching. It was in 1887 when he located at Bethany and established the paper which he has since owned and edited.

Mr. Trainer had married in 1885, before coming to Bethany, Miss Hala Bricker, daughter of Aaron and Louisa Bricker. She was born in Fayette County, Ill., and is now the mother of two beautiful children, Arthur and Alva Dean. The Cumberland Presbyterian Church is the religious body with which the young couple are identified, and their influence is ever cast in the direction of morality and Christianity. Although Mr. Trainer has not been a resident of the town long, he is a young man who is universally liked and well spoken of by the older members of the community, and he bids fair to make his mark in the future history of Moultrie County.

Portrait and Biographical Record of Shelby and Moultrie Counties, 1891 - p. 398/399

Transcription copyright 2003/2007, Moultrie County ILGenWeb/USGenWeb