George Franklin Jobe
George Franklin Jobe, a retired farmer of Xenia township, better known locally as "Doc" Jobe, who for several years past has been living in Xenia. where he and his sister Lida have their home in West Market street, is a native son of Greene county and has lived here all his life. He was born on a farm in Xenia township, four or five miles east of Xenia, February 26, 1853, son of George and Mary Ann (Hutchinson) Jobe, the former a native of New Jersey and the latter, of Kentucky, who had become residents of Greene county in the days of their youth, had here married and here spent their last days, both living to be more than seventy years of age.
George Jobe was born at Trenton, New Jersey, and was but an infant when his father died. When he was four years of age his widowed mother moved to Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, where his youth was spent and where he learned the trade of carriage-maker. When a young man he came to Ohio and located at Xenia, where he opened a carriage shop on Third street and did a thriving business, becoming in a comparatively short time, the owner of a whole block of property and a thriving business. Out of the generosity of his heart, however, he created his own financial undoing, for a simple readiness to act as security for the obligations of others so reduced him in goods that he lost most of his property. Being compelled to relinquish his business in Xenia, George Jobe bought a two-hundred-acre farm four and a half miles east of Xenia and there engaged in farming, spending the remainder of his life there. Upon taking possession of that farm he found it but partly broken, the only improvement on the place being a log cabin and a rickety stable. He later erected there a fine ten-room house and made other improvements in keeping with the same and it was not long until he had one of the finest farm plants in that part of the county. One of the attractive features of this farm was a splendid walnut grove, besides considerable other native timber of noble proportions. George Jobe lived to be past seventy years of age and his widow survived him for several years, she having been seventy-four years of age at the time of her death. She was born, Mary Ann Hutchinson, near Flat Rock, in Bourbon county, Kentucky, a daughter of John and Margaret Ann (Finley) Hutchinson, who later came up into the Miami valley and settled in the Bellbrook neighborhood, where they cleared off a place in the timber, built a log cabin in the clearing and there established their home. The Hutchinsons were members of the United Presbyterian church. John Hutchinson and his wife spent their last days on their farm near Bellbrook, both dying within one week. They were the parents of nine children, of whom Mrs. Jobe was the sixth in order of birth, the others being as follows: George, deceased, who was a farmer in the neighborhood of Sidney, this state; John, deceased, who also was a farmer in the vicinity of Sidney; Andrew, who was a tailor in Xenia; Samuel, a farmer, of the Sidney neighborhood: William, a tailor at Xenia; Sarah, deceased: Jane, who married Andrew McClure, of Shelby county, this state, and Martha, who married James B. Sterrett.
To George and Mary Ann (Hutchinson) Jobe were born nine children, namely: James Harvey, deceased, who was a merchant in Xenia and who married Mrs. Eliza M. Anderson, who was a Stewart, of Clark county; John Hutchinson, deceased, who married Nancy Ellen Collins and was engaged in farming ; Margaret Ann, deceased; Hugh Boyd, deceased, who married Margaret Ann Jobe; Martha Jane, deceased; William H., deceased; Samuel F., deceased; George F., the subject of this biographical sketch: Lida R., unmarried, who has always made her home with her brother George, and Albert Alexander, deceased.
George F. Jobe and his sister Lida, the only present survivors of their formerly considerable family, have always made their home together and until their retirement from the farm and reriioval to Xenia in 1914, had always lived on the home farm east of town. Their early schooling was received in the schools in the neighborhood of their home and George F. Jobe supplemented this course by attendance one year at the Cedarville school and a course in college at Jacksonville, Illinois. Miss Lida Jobe attended school one year at Xenia and one year at Oxford, Ohio. Mr. Jobe later assumed direction of the farm operations and he and his sister remained with their parents, caring for them during their declining years; and continued the operations of the farm until February 24, 1914, when they left the old home place and moved to Xenia, where they own a twelve-room house at 22 West Market street and where they are now living. Mr. Jobe still owns the home farm of one hundred and ninety-three acres, besides two other farms in Greene county, one of eighty acres at Wilberforce and one of one hundred and sixty-five acres in Cedarville township. He is a Republican, but has not been a seeker after public office. He and his sister are members of the First United Presbyterian church at Xenia, in the faith of which communion they were reared.
From History of Greene County Ohio, Its People, Industries and Institutions, vol. 2. M.A.Broadstone, editor. B.F.Bowen & Co., Indianapolis. 1918