Representative Homer E. Abele

Homer E. “Pete” Abele (November 21, 1916 – May 12, 2000) was an American lobbyist, lawyer, jurist, and Republican politician who was active in Ohio politics for several decades. He served one term as a United States Representative from Ohio from 1963 to 1965, and later became a long‑serving judge on the Ohio Court of Appeals. Over the course of his career, he also worked in law enforcement, served in the military during World War II, and held a variety of party and public offices at the local and state levels.

Abele was born in Wellston, Jackson County, Ohio, where he attended the public schools and graduated from Wellston High School in 1934. In the midst of the Great Depression, he joined the Civilian Conservation Corps, serving from 1935 to 1936. In the late 1930s he lived in Lancaster and McArthur, Ohio, working in private industry for the Anchor Hocking Glass Corporation and the Austin Powder Company between 1938 and 1941. These early experiences in small-town and industrial Ohio helped shape his familiarity with the economic and social concerns of the region he would later represent.

In 1941, Abele joined the Ohio State Highway Patrol and served as a state trooper from 1941 to 1946. During World War II, he entered the United States Army Air Corps, serving from 1943 to 1946 before returning to his patrol duties. After the war, he pursued higher education, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in pre‑law from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, in 1948. He continued his legal studies at the Moritz College of Law at The Ohio State University in Columbus, receiving his Juris Doctor in 1953. While completing his legal education, he began to enter public life and electoral politics.

Abele’s formal political career began when he was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives in 1948, taking office in 1949 and serving through 1952. While still a law student, he thus combined legislative service with his legal training. In 1952 he participated in national politics as part of the unsuccessful presidential campaign of Senator Robert A. Taft and attended the 1952 Republican National Convention. After admission to the bar, he worked from 1953 to 1957 as a lobbyist for railroad interests, gaining experience in legislative advocacy. He was active in local government and party affairs, serving as solicitor of the village of McArthur, Ohio, beginning in 1956, and as chairman of the Vinton County Republican Executive Committee from 1954 to 1957. He was again involved in national party activities as a delegate to the 1956 Republican National Convention.

Abele first sought a seat in the United States House of Representatives in 1958 as the Republican nominee from Ohio’s 10th congressional district, but was defeated by the Democratic incumbent, Walter H. Moeller. He ran again in 1962 and this time unseated Moeller, winning election to the 88th Congress. A member of the Republican Party, he served as a United States Representative from Ohio from January 3, 1963, to January 3, 1965. His single term in Congress coincided with a significant period in American history marked by the civil rights movement and major domestic legislation. During his tenure, he participated in the legislative process and represented the interests of his constituents in the House of Representatives. Notably, Abele voted in favor of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In the 1964 election, Moeller defeated him and regained the seat, bringing Abele’s congressional service to a close after one term.

Following his departure from Congress, Abele continued his public service in the judiciary. In 1966 he was elected judge of the Ohio Court of Appeals for the Fourth District. He was re‑elected to that court in 1972, 1978, and 1984, serving until his retirement at the end of his fourth term in 1991. During his long tenure on the appellate bench, he held several leadership roles: he served as presiding judge from 1977 to 1978 and again from 1983 to 1984, and in 1978 he was chief justice of the Ohio Court of Appeals. He also occasionally sat by designation as a visiting judge on the Supreme Court of Ohio, extending his influence within the state’s judicial system.

Abele maintained a lifelong connection to law enforcement through the Ohio State Highway Patrol Auxiliary, in which he held the rank of major. From 1967 to 1991, every graduating class of the Ohio State Highway Patrol Academy took its oath of office from him, reflecting both his early career as a trooper and his later status as a respected jurist. His family also continued his tradition of public service; his son, Peter B. Abele, became a judge on the Fourth District Court of Appeals, serving on the same court where his father had long sat.

Homer E. “Pete” Abele died on May 12, 2000, in Hamden, Ohio, at the age of 83, after suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. His career encompassed service as a state trooper, wartime military service, legislative work at the state and federal levels, lobbying, and a distinguished quarter‑century on the appellate bench, marking him as a significant figure in twentieth‑century Ohio public life.