ALFRED CHARLES SCHNEIDER. In the subject of this review we present the brief life record of the oldest established hardware merchant in the city of Bowie and a gentleman who has contributed not only to his own substantial upbuilding, but to the material upbuilding and prosperity of his favorite county metropolis as well.
Since the year 1883 Mr. Schneider’s identity with Bowie has been positive and his faith in its future never failing. It was that year that he cast his fortunes with the then infant metropolis of Montague county and with his accumulated capital of one thousand dollars engaged, in company with his brother, in a small hardware business on Tarrant street. The business prospered and in time the brother dropped out of it, but Alfred C. kept on in his steady upward tendency, enlarging his stock, adding other departments and features and increasing his trade until it became one of the most important places of business in Bowie. As he grew in financial strength and the condition of his business warranted he invested in business property adjacent to his store until one-half of the block in which his business house stood belonged to him. This he improved by the erection of five store rooms, on as many lots, the first five west of the First National Bank. His residence on Cowan street he also built, and this was he unconsciously added substantial beauty and material wealth to his adopted town.
Alfred C. Schneider was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, December 3, 1854. His father, John Schneider, a native of Switzerland, died in Galveston, Texas, in 1856. The latter was a hotel man and married a Swiss lady, Sophia Bock, who passed away in Galveston in 1895. The issue of their marriage were two sons, Oscar C., of Montague county, and a farmer, and Alfred C., of this record.
Private schools largely furnished Alfred C. Schneider with a fair education and he remained with his mother, an aid to her hotel ventures until his separation to establish himself in business in Bowie. In 1874 the family located in Texarkana, where the mother was proprietor of the William Tell house for a number of years, going there from Houston where she was also a hotel keeper. She ultimately returned to Galveston and there passed away just forty years after her first entrance to the city.
In August, 1880, Mr. Schneider married, in Texarkana, Mrs. Maggie M. Lynch, nee Martin, whose father came to Texas from Illinois. Mrs. Schneider was born in Illinois in 1853 and by her first husband has a son, William Lynch, of Bowie. The union of Mr. and Mrs. Schneider has been without issue.
Mr. Schneider is a stockholder in the First National Bank of Bowie, is a Knight of Pythias and a Democrat. His career has been purely one of business and the integrity with which he has conducted his personal affairs has placed him in high esteem among a wide circle of the citizenship about Bowie.
Source: B. B. Paddock, History and Biographical Record of North and West Texas, (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., 1906), Vol. I, p. 678.