MAYER, EDWIN S. (1896-1963). Edwin S. Mayer, politician and leader in the Republican party,^qv son of Sol and Ernestine E. Mayer, was born in San Antonio, Texas, on August 1, 1896. He attended grade schools in Fort Worth, Kansas City, and Denver and graduated from high school at Lake Forest Academy in Illinois. He studied business administration at the University of Denver. From 1924 he made his living by raising sheep and goats. He was the president and manager of the Lone Star Wool and Mohair Cooperative Association during the 1930s, as well as director of the San Angelo National Bank. For two years Mayer served as vice president of the National Wool Growers Association and presided over the Texas Sheep and Goat Raisers Association. He was a Thirty-second-degree Mason, president of the San Angelo Community Concert Association, president of the Rotary Club, a member of the Concho Valley Council of the Boy Scouts, and a member of the American Legion.^qv He served for twenty-seven months in World War I^qv and four years in World War II,^qv in which he was a lieutenant colonel in the air force. Mayer was a member of the state Republican Executive Committee beginning in 1953. He was an elector three times, twice for Dwight D. Eisenhower^qv and once for Wendell Willkie. He ran for governor in 1958 but was defeated seven-to-one by Marion Price Daniel, Sr.^qv Meyer then went on to become the Republican county chairman for Sutton County. In 1960 he attended the Republican national convention as a member of the Texas delegation. He received national attention when he was the lone delegate to abstain from the vote electing Henry Cabot Lodge as Nixon's running mate. Mayer married Minnie Hirsh on February 15, 1926, and they had four sons and one daughter. The family was active in the First Church of Christ, Scientist, in San Angelo. Mayer died on March 26, 1963, in San Francisco at the Christian Science Benevolent Association after being ill for several months.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Paul D. Casdorph, A History of the Republican Party in Texas, 1865-1965 (Austin: Pemberton Press, 1965). Sheep and Goat Raisers' Magazine, April 1963. Vertical Files, Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas at Austin.

Robin Dutton