University of Virginia Library

IRA JACOB MEALS

Ira Jacob Meals, a leading clothing merchant of
Roanoke, was born near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania,
being a son of Samuel and Elizabeth (Rice) Meals.
As a boy he attended
the public schools and
afterwards. Mapleton
Seminary, near
Gettysburg.

His first business experience
was in connection
with his father,
who was a partner in
the nursery and florist
firm of Meals & Burkholder.
Later he
entered a general store
where he gained two
years' experience as a
salesman. In 1885 he
came to Roanoke and
accepted a position in
the Norfolk & Western
Shops; later he resigned
and became a clerk in a Roanoke clothing
store. Two years later with Thomas J. Burke he
formed a copartnership and opened a clothing store in
a little frame building on Salem Avenue. This was
in 1887.

After a few years, the business of the firm grew to
such proportions that more room was needed and they
moved to the Salem Avenue and Henry Street corner.
In 1902 another move was made into the property
owned by the Temple Investment Company at the
corner of Jefferson Street and Campbell Avenue. This
property was purchased by this firm in 1898 and last
year the ground site was sold to the National Exchange
Bank for $110,000 in cash.

Mr. Meals is Treasurer of the Temple Investment
Company and has been most successful in trading in
real estate of this kind in Roanoke. He is a director
of the National Exchange Bank and is President of
the Meals & Burke Clothing Company which was
incorporated in 1894. This firm will relinquish
possession of the building they now occupy next year
and will temporarily occupy the Amuzu Theater building
until such time that a new and commodious store
building can be erected at the corner of Jefferson
Street and Luck Avenue.

Fraternally Mr. Meals is a Mason and a Pythian.
Religiously he is a member of the Greene Memorial
Methodist Episcopal Church, South.

He was married in 1889 to Edith Grace Houck,
daughter of Phillip and Alice Houck of near Gettysburg,
Pennsylvania. Four children have been born to
this union; namely, Irene Virginia, married A. D.
Pettijohn of Lynchburg, Virginia, Helen Guy, Alice
Elizabeth and Ruth Houck, the three last named residing
with their parents on Church Avenue, Southwest.