Joseph B. Keiter
Joseph B. Keiter, proprietor of a farm of sixty-three acres in Sugarcreek township, is a native of Virginia, but has been a resident of this county since the days of his young manhood. He was born in Hampshire county, in that part of the Old Dominion now comprised within the state of West Virginia, May 30, 1847, son of Benjamin and Harriet (Babb) Keiter, both of whom also were born in Virginia. Benjamin Keiter was a farmer in his native state and in 1872 came to Ohio and in the next spring located on the old Allen place, now the Talbot farm, in this county, where he remained for seven years, at the end of which time he and his wife moved to the place where their son Joseph is now living, the latter and his brother meanwhile having bought the same, and there they spent the rest of their lives. Benjamin Keiter died in August, 1885. His wife had predeceased him about two years, her death having occurred in 1883. They were the parents of five children, three of whom are still living, the subject of this sketch and his twin sister, Mrs. Elizabeth Spahr, of Xenia, having a brother, Edward B. Keiter, of Beavertown.
Reared on a farm, Joseph B. Keiter was trained in the ways of farming and has followed that vocation all his life. After his marriage in 1885 he established his home on the place on which he is now living and where he had previously for some time resided, the family having taken up their residence there about 1880, and has ever since made his home there.
It was in February, 1885, that Joseph B. Keiter was united in marriage to Emily Edwards, who was born and reared in Cincinnati, daughter of I. N. Edwards, and to this union five children have been bom, namely: Ida N., wife of Lawrence Coy, a farmer of this county: Lina Etta, wife of J. W. Bellmeyer, a Spring Valley township farmer; Lawrence, who is also a Greene county farmer, residing on the Fairfield pike; Warren Sheldon, a soldier of the National Army now (spring of 1918) in training at Camp Sherman for foreign service, and Florence and Margaret, at home with their parents.
From History of Greene County Ohio, Its People, Industries and Institutions, vol. 2. M.A.Broadstone, editor. B.F.Bowen & Co., Indianapolis. 1918