“Life asked death, ‘Why do people love me but hate you?’ Death responded, ‘Because you are a beautiful lie and I am a painful truth.’”—Author Unknown
Lavada May Dermott, postmortem albumen print on cardboard, 1904. Ann Longmore-Etheridge Collection.
Lavada May Dermott, seen above laid out in her parents’ home, surrounded by funeral flowers, was born 9 May, 1888, in Goshen, Belmont County, Ohio, to Charles Evans Dermott (1849-1907) and his wife, Sarah Jane Stewart (1853-1936). Sarah was the daughter of Eleazar Evan Stewart (1834-1910) and Honor Brown (1835-1914).
Lavada’s parents married in Goshen 26 January, 1871. They first make an appearance as a family unit on the 1880 Census of that township. Evans Dermott—he went by his middle name—listed his occupation as “huxter.” His father, Irish-born farmer William Dermott (1811-1896) was also a part of the household—his wife, Eliza Kelly (1813-1879), having died the year before.
Evans and Sarah had together four children: William Wilber (1871-1947), Charles E. Dermott (19 June, 1881-23 September, 1944), Lavada, and Lillie F. Dermott (1895-1987). On 20 May, 1900, the eldest son, William, married Grace Stanley King. William spelled the family name as Der Mott and is buried thusly in Forest Rose Cemetery, Lancaster, Ohio. By 1910, the Der Motts lived in Cleveland, Ohio. William became a garment cutter for a clothing company and eventually was the manager of a clothing store. He worked in that position as late as 1940. They had two children: Neil (b. 1902) and William P. (b. 1903).
“I was standing by my window,
On one cold and cloudy day
When I saw that hearse come rolling
For to carry my mother away
Will the circle be unbroken
By and by, lord, by and by?
There’s a better home a-waiting
In the sky, lord, in the sky?”
From left: Silas, Milo, and Nellie Fay Helton, a modern copy of a vintage albumen print, circa November 1902. Print: Ann Longmore-Etheridge Collection.
I do not own the original of this photograph, but I purchased this copy from the purported owner, so I reproduce it here with the caveat that the original is not in my collection copyright, but the research is solely my own.
According to the seller, the photo, taken in Monticello, Indiana, bears the inscription “Nellie Fay, Milo, and Silas.” It shows a trio of children stood before a late 1880s or early 1890s cabinet card that almost certainly portrayed their parents. The photograph was propped against a desiccated funeral floral arrangement of a broken wheel, which signified that the family circle was compromised. There was a note attached to the arrangement, but the writing is too small to read.
A search through public records led me to Nellie Fay Helton (b. April, 1891), Milo Charles Helton (b. 24 June, 1895), and Silas Warren Helton (b. June 1893), the children of farmer Charles Milo Helton, born 19 November, 1859, in Whittier, Indiana, and his wife Emma Florence Hart, born November 1867 in Cass County, Indiana. The pair married 20 March, 1887.
Charles’s parents were John Helton (b. 18 Nov., 1825)—also recorded as Hilton—and Susan Vernon (b. 1828). Both originally from Ohio, they married in Indiana 2 March, 1848. Charles, who was the third son and fifth of seven children, grew up on the family farm in the township of Washington.
Charles’s father died at age 40 on 10 June, 1865, but he does not appear to be a Civil War casualty. He was laid to rest in Miller Cemetery, Deacon, Indiana. By the enumeration of the 1870 census, Charles’s brother William had assumed the family patriarchy. The situation remained unchanged in 1880.
Silas W. Hart was 5’10”, blue-eyed, and white-haired. He was of the Protestant faith, could supposedly neither read nor write, and received an annual Civil War pension of $72.
Emma Hart Helton was the daughter of Silas W. Hart and South Carolina-born America Rodabaugh (1838-1880). Silas Hart came into life in Fayette County, Indiana, 6 November, 1836, the son of John Hart and Indiana R. Baldwin (13 June, 1815-18 Dec., 1880).
At age 26, on 16 August, 1862, Hart enlisted as a private in Company G, 73rd Indiana Infantry. “The [regiment] was mustered in at South Bend on 16 August 1862, with Gilbert Hathaway as colonel. Its men came from all over the northern part of the state, with sizable contingents from LaPorte, Valparaiso, Crown Point, Michigan City, Plymouth, Calumet, and Logansport,” wrote W. H. H. Terrell, in the Report of Adjutant General, Indiana, Vols. II and VI. “The regiment went immediately to Kentucky, where its first assignment was to chase Bragg’s forces south into Tennessee. By 20 November the regiment was at Nashville. For several days at the end of December 1862 and the beginning of January 1863 [there] was in heavy fighting at Stone River.
“In April 1863 the 73rd was assigned to Colonel A. D. Streight’s Independent Provisional Brigade, which had the mission of penetrating the enemy’s territory and cutting its communications. Embarking at Nashville, the regiment sailed down the Cumberland and up the Tennessee, landing at Eastport, Mississippi. From 30 April to 2 May they were in heavy engagements at Day’s Gap, Crooked Creek, and Blount’s Farm, all in Alabama. Colonel Hathaway was killed at this last engagement, and five days later Colonel Streight himself surrendered. The enlisted men in the regiment were soon paroled and returned to Nashville while the officers were sent to Confederate prison camps.”
In 1864, the regiment served picket duty along the Tennessee River. “In September they were ordered to Decatur, Alabama, where they held off an attack on 1 October. On 26 October, Hood with 35,000 men besieged Decatur, but was held off. In the winter of 1864-1865 the 73rd moved to Stevenson, Alabama, then to Huntsville, then to guard the Mobile and Charleston Railroad with headquarters at Larkinsville.”
On 1 July, 1865, the regiment was mustered out at Nashville. Silas Hart left the infantry as a full corporal and returned his wife America and his children in Indiana. After America’s death on 4 December, 1880, Silas married twice more. A 2 August, 1911, Richmond Item story about his third and very “winter marriage” to Ellen Donhower is left.
Silas served as post master in Galveston, Indiana, and later was a jeweler in Richmond, Indiana. He ended his days in the National Military Home in Dayton, Ohio. From the admission records of 20 April, 1922, we know that at age 86, Silas was 5’10”, blue-eyed, and white-haired. He was of the Protestant faith, supposedly could neither read nor write, received an annual Civil War pension of $72, and was suffering from severe dementia. His stay at the home was brief: Silas Hart died 24 May, 1922, of chronic cardiac dilation. This is not the last time readers of this article will encounter fatal medical conditions of the heart.
“Mrs. Helton suddenly sank on the shoulders of her husband and expired before she could be gotten out of the vehicle.”
The Helton children’s parents can be seen in this closeup.
The loss of the 1890 Census to a 1921 conflagration prevents a glimpse of the young Helton family in the first years after Charles and Emma wed. (A comprehensive article on the 1890 census and its near total destruction can be read at Prologue.) The enumeration would have shown Charles and Emma’s firstborn children, twins Earl Dick and Pearl, who arrived safely on 21 June, 1888. Next came Flossie Fern, born in January 1890.
(An interesting aside: according to Isaac Blickenstein and Louis G. Keith’s book Multiple Pregnancy: Epidemiology, Gestation, and Perinatal Outcome, “One recently reviewed historical account from a rural German community during the 18th and 19th centuries showed that maternal mortality during the first 42 days postpartum was not significantly different among mothers of twins compared with mothers of singletons. On the other hand, mothers of twins who delivered twins a second time were almost four times more likely to die, compared with mothers of twins who later delivered singletons.” Other more recent studies show multiple gestations associated with a two-fold increase of risk of death.)
Charles and Emma would have seven children in total including Silas, Nellie Fay, Milo, and a final boy, Harold, who arrived in March 1898. The farm on which all were born was six miles southwest of Logansport, rented from E. G. Wilson. Years later, the Logansport Pharos-Tribune would note that Charles Helton was “one of the most successful farmers and well-known residents of the county.” (Backing up this claim, the 12 November, 1891, Logansport Reporter stated that an expensive horse was stolen from Charles.)
Unexpectedly, stunningly, the children lost their mother on 2 November, 1901. The Elwood Daily Record of 11 November describes what happened: “Mrs. Charles Helton, a sister of C. N. Hart of [Kokomo, Indiana], died in a buggy while coming here on a visit from her home near Monticello. She was accompanied by her husband, and when about half way here, and while they were eating a cold lunch, Mrs. Helton suddenly sank on the shoulders of her husband and expired before she could be gotten out of the vehicle. Heart trouble was the cause…. Mr. Helton turned around and returned home with the corpse of his wife.”
Marshall County Independent (Plymouth, Indiana), 15 November, 1901.
The Marshall County Independent reported a slightly different tale: “Her husband, thinking she had fallen asleep, drove several miles not knowing she was dead.”
The eldest children’s shock and horror at the sight of their dead mother in the buggy may have left lasting scars. Conversely, the youngest children, Milo and Harold, probably could not recall the incident, or even their mother, in later years. But no matter how much they remembered, did not care to remember, or could not remember about their mother and her death, the Helton children had inherited from her a genetic propensity toward heart disease, attacks, and failure. As the decades went by, many clan members would die from these medical causes.
On 4 November, Emma Hart Helton was buried, according to her death certificate, in the “IOOF cem,”—presumably the International Order of Odd Fellows Lodge 107 Riverview Cemetery in Monticello, although her grave is unmarked. I think it highly likely that three of the youngest Heltons—Nelly, Milo, and Silas—posed for the photo with their mother’s dried funeral flowers on the first anniversary of her passing in November 1902.
Unlike many widowers with young children, Charles Helton did not remarry and the eldest daughters, Pearl and Flossie, probably took on the mother’s role vacated by Emma’s death. However, Pearl and Flossie did not abandon their education to care for younger siblings. The two girls and brother Earl graduated from Monticello High School in 1908 and Pearl would eventually leave the family farm to study in Chicago.
The White County Court House, Monticello, Indiana, as the Heltons would have known it. Colored postcard, circa 1910.
The Helton family can be found on the 1910 Census of White County, with all surviving members accounted for. On Christmas Eve of that year, Earl married Hazel Vera Eads (1888-1960). Their first child, a boy named after his paternal grandfather, was born in 1911.
Death blighted the family circle once again in 1914. Pearl Helton died in Chicago on 13 January. I cannot locate her death certificate, but it is highly likely she died of a fatal heart condition such as myocardial insufficiency. Her body was returned to her family and she was buried in Monticello, perhaps beside her mother at Riverview. Her grave is also unmarked.
In the Pharos-Tribune of 21 November, 1918, reported that “Charles Helton, with his daughter, Miss Flossie Helton, left Tuesday for Wausaukee, Wisconsin, where they will reside permanently. A son, Milo Helton, is already there and they will be joined at Hammond by another son, Earl Helton, who with his family will also go there to make it his home…. They will live on a large farm which they have purchased near Wausaukee.”
Earl and Hazel did not pull up roots and follow. They would settle in Hammond, Lake County, Indiana, where Earl worked as a crane operator in a car shop and later as a machinist. Earl and Hazel and had six children after Charles Milo: Harry Thomas (b. 1914); Robert James (b. 1917); Joy Mae (b. 1918), George Dick (b. 1922), Gladys Dee (b. 1926) and Richard Earl (b. 1929).
While searching for newspaper articles that mentioned Earl and Hazel, I came across the one at right, from the 28 December, 1935, issue of the Hammond Times, and other issues throughout the 1930s. Hazel Helton was a Spiritualist, as is my own father and are my own paternal grandparents, great-grandparents, and great-great grandparents. I was both christened and married at the Spiritualist Church of Two Worlds in Georgetown, Washington, D.C.
There is much misunderstanding of Spiritualism, but the clearest explanation is that its adherents believe in life after death and that the dead can contact the living in numerous ways. One way is through mediums such as Fred Sundling and Ruth Coyle, mentioned in the article. At the end of every Spiritualist service several mediums take turns giving messages from departed loved ones and spirit guides. If Earl attended the church with Hazel, he may have received regular communications from his long-lost mother and sister Pearl. To hear more from their dear departed, the Heltons may also have visited Camp Chesterfield, Indiana, a Spiritualist summer retreat that opened in 1891 and is still in service today. There, the messages, readings, table-tipping, and séances were a comfort and an assurance that, to quote the famous hymn, the circle would be unbroken, by and by.
At age 71, from acute coronary occlusion, Hazel’s earthly chair was vacated 11 May, 1960. Earl Helton lived on for another four years, dying 30 August, 1964, of coronary myocardial infarction in Crown Point, Indiana. He is buried with his wife at Oak Hill Cemetery, Lake County.
Earl and Hazel Helton. Photo courtesy of Kathleen Faye Helton Lane and Linda Lane Hedges.
Flossie Helton married Malvin Christ Monsen. He was born 2 June, 1890, in Marinette, Wisconsin, to Norwegan immigrants Olaf Monsen and Hansine Anderson. Malvin came to his long-time home in Dunbar, Michigan, as a child and attended the Dunbar School. His 1917 draft registration describes him as short, of a medium complexion, with blue eyes and light-brown hair, and partly bald. (We know from his 1942 draft registration that he was 5’5″ tall, 150 pounds, and was by then completely bald.) He served with the United States Army during World War I from 1917 to 1919. In France, he was shot in the thigh of his left leg and received the Purple Heart.
Malvin and Flossie Monsen from the book “Dunbar Remembered Centennial 1888-1988.”
After the war, Malvin farmed, and in 1922, he became the first rural mail carrier for the area, a position he kept until in 1957. On September 25, 1925, he married Flossie Helton, and by the enumeration of the 1930 Census, the couple had an infant son Wayne (1929-2011), who was known throughout his life as “Swede.” Flossie’s father Charles Helton also lived with them. The old man passed away 30 July, 1934. The Pharos-Tribune of 2 August reported his last journey: “The body of Charles H. Helton, who died at his house In Goodland, Wis., was brought here this morning to the Prevo and Son funeral home, where services were held…. Burial was in Riverview Cemetery.”
Malvin died in Iron Mountain, Dickinson County, Michigan, on 15 November, 1975. Flossie lived for a little more than a year, dying on Christmas Day, 1976, in Kingsford, Michigan. Both are buried in Dunbar Memorial Gardens.
Swede Monsen “graduated from Pembine High School in 1948. After graduation, he proudly served his country in the United States Air Force as a flight engineer including missions in the Berlin Air Lift, Korean War, and Vietnam. After 23 years of service, he and [his wife] Betty moved to Peshtigo [Wisconsin] where he owned and operated Swede’s Standard Station,” recounted his obituary after his death on 20 February, 2011.
Wayne “Swede” Monsen
“Years later, Betty and Wayne moved to Pembine, Wisconsin, and owned Swede’s Place Bar and Restaurant and Swede’s Garage. They relocated to Milwaukee and worked for Doug Rohde Grading Co. for 17 years, finally coming home to his boyhood family farm in Dunbar.”
Swede was buried in Dunbar Memorial Gardens. But this branch of the Heltons live on, with two daughters, seven grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren surviving him.
The informant—Nellie’s daughter Aleatha—did not know the full name of her grandmother, filling in the blank line with “unk. Hart.”
Nellie Fay Helton married Harley Ward Phebus (b. 1891) on 2 May, 1914. The 1920 Census placed the couple and their daughters, two-year-old Agatha and six-month-old Aleatha living in a lodging house in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
In 1930, the Phebuses had a home in North Arsenal Avenue, Indianapolis. Harley worked as a salesman and Nellie as a waitress in a restaurant. By 1936, he had changed his job career to watchman. Sometime shortly afterward, Phebus returned to an earlier career—auctioneering, eventually joining the company Ace Liquidators, as his obituary (left) detailed. Harley was sometimes referred to in newspaper advertising as “Col. Harley Phebus.” He indeed served in World War I, but I can obtain no more information on his service than his draft registration, which described him as short, with brown hair, blue eyes, and a pale complexion.
Harley Phebus was buried in Crown Hill Cemetery, Indianapolis on 15 January, 1962. Nellie died in a retirement home in Zionsville, Indiana, in May 1972, aged 81, of cerebral arteriosclerosis. She was buried 30 May in Crown Hill Cemetery, Indianapolis.
As I read her death certificate, it saddened me to note that while the informant—Nellie’s daughter Aleatha—knew the name of her grandfather Charles Helton, she did not know the full name of her grandmother, filling in the line with “unk. Hart.” It is speculation whether this spoke of Nellie’s trauma on that long-ago November day when a buggy containing her dead mother arrived at the door.
The registrar reported Milo was missing his right eye and his left index finger at the first joint.
Milo Helton, as previously mentioned, removed to Wausaukee, Wisconsin, by 1918 when his father and Flossie joined him. The year previous, he filled out a Word War I draft registration that stated he was of medium height, a medium build, and had brown eyes and brown hair. It does not appear that he served during the war.
The date of Milo’s marriage remains elusive, but his wife was Maud E. Woosencraft (b. 1900), the daughter of Welsh immigrants. They had four children: Thomas C. (b. 1933), Gwendolyn M. (b. 1934), Dorothy L. (b. 1935), and Donald M. (b. 1938).
In 1942, Milo Helton filled out a World War II draft registration card. At some point between the two wars, he suffered a serious accident. The registrar recorded that Milo was missing his right eye and his left index finger at the first joint. I suspect that this trauma was caused during his employment as an electrician at a lumbar mill in the 1920s. Milo died only a few years after the World War II draft, on 14 March, 1946, and is buried in Dunbar Memorial Gardens, Dunbar, Wisconsin. Maud did not follow until 25 January, 1961, but today she lies beside him.
The headstone of Milo and Maud Helton at Dunbar Memorial Gardens. Photo by Accidental Genealogist.
Silas Helton, the other brother who would not move to Wisconsin in 1918, married Velda Scott Eldridge on 2 June, 1915. (His wife was born in August 1897 to Oregon and Bertha Scott Eldridge.) Their daughter, Pequetti Marge, arrived 11 June, 1917, and Velda was pregnant again when the United States entered into the first World War. Silas was either conscripted or voluntarily joined the fight. According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, he served from 8 July, 1918, to 8 February, 1919.
Pequetti Helton in 1937. Her resemblance to her father Silas when a child is striking.
Silas returned safely to Monticello, where he met his son Paige Hart Helton, born 9 September, 1918. Silas took up work as slate cutter and later as an insurance salesman.
Wrenchingly, nine-year-old Paige died of Myocardial insufficiency at Methodist Hospital, Indianapolis, 22 August, 1927. He joined his grandmother, aunt, and others of his clan at Riverview Cemetery. Pequetti did not inherit the Heltons’ heart disease. She thrived and grew into an exceptionally beautiful and talented woman. Silas and Velda must have been both relieved and proud.
By 1930, the Heltons were decamped to Crawfordsville, Indiana, where Pequetti attended the town high school, playing the bassoon and marching in a new band uniform of “dark blue, trimmed in gold [with a] Sam Browne belt and Pershing hat,” according to the 1932 yearbook. Shortly thereafter, Pequetti won an MGM screen test and enrolled in the Arthur Jordan Conservatory of Music at Indianapolis’s Butler University. On 19 May, 1940, as she was about to graduate, the “blonde, blue-eyed senior from Lafayette will rule as queen on the annual Butler University Day May celebration…in the formal gardens of the fairview campus,” gushed the Indianapolis Star. The day included folk dancing, a Woman’s League ball, a concert, the play Robin Hood, and a feast.
Pequetti Helton’s engagement announcement.
For the next several years, Pequetti’s life was a round of dramatic performances, social gatherings, and weddings in which she was maid of honor or a bride’s maid. Then on 18 July, 1943, the Star reported her engagement to U.S. Navy Ensign Anthony J. Marra with a large photo of the bride-to-be (right).
After their marriage on 7 August, 1944, the couple lived for a time in San Pedro, California, and later made their home in Indianapolis, where Anthony Marra operated a construction company. They had three sons: Ronan Scott (b. 1947), Anthony J. (b. 1949), and Steven C. Marra (b. 1954).
In 1942, her father Silas registered for the World War II draft from Lafayette, Tippecanoe County, Indiana. He was 5’6″, 145 pounds, with brown hair, blue eyes, and a light complexion. From this time until the late 1960s, I can find nothing to elucidate his life. Silas passed away on Christmas Eve, 1968, of cardiac arrest, in Home Hospital, Lafayette. He was buried on 27 December with his family at Riverview Cemetery in Monticello. Velda, who worked as a clothing seamstress and fitter, died in June 1989 of an acute cerebral hemorrhage and also rests at Riverview.
Pequetti in February 1967, pictured with the famous Dr. Joyce Brothers.
In the 1950s, Pequetti took up charitable work. She was for some time the president or other officer of the Benefe Guild, which undertook good deeds such as raising money for needy families, buying books for hospitals, and making donations causes such as restoring Philadelphia’s Independence Hall. “To raise finds for their work the guild sponsors an annual card party and a style show, and a rummage sale at the Coffee Street Branch of the Center. The membership sews an extensive doll wardrobe during the year for the Dress-a-Doll-at-Christmastime-to-Help-a-Child Project,” reported the Star on 25 October, 1959.
One must wonder, however, whether Pequetti found the life of a mid-century housewife satisfying, no matter how socially prominent she was and how much charitable work she did outside the home. She may have intended to become a Hollywood starlet, a stage actress, or something else entirely. It is tempting from my own 21st Century position to ascribe boredom and frustration to a life lived dressing dolls and holding teas or card parties. I hope she felt fulfilled and never dwelt on chances lost to her.
The Marras were often mentioned in the society pages of Indianapolis newspapers, such as the article (left) on a spectacular open house during the Christmas season of 1968. Another item in the Star discussed the party the Marras threw at their golf and country club after Ronan graduated from Wabash College on 7 June, 1970.
During the 1970s, Pequetti was still frequently in the Society pages. She was a member of the Sunnyside Guild, which sponsored lectures by noted female speakers, and Pequetti was often pictured with them.
Pequetti died of basal cell carcinoma at 3:45 a.m., 10 June, 2001, at St. Vincent Hospital. She was survived by her sons, her husband, and 10 grandchildren. She is buried in Washington Park North Cemetery, Indianapolis.
The youngest Helton, Harold, never married. In 1920, he lived in Zero, Adams County, Nebraska, working as hired hand on a farm. The 1930 census placed Harold in Alameda, California, rooming and working as a vacuum salesman. In 1940, he lived in Pittsburg, Contra Costa County, California, in a boarding house, working as a carpenter. Harold Helton died 5 September, 1967, in Napa, California. Ω
Will the Circle be Unbroken?
Lyrics written in 1907 by Ada R. Habershon with music by Charles H. Gabriel. The song was later rewritten by A. P. Carter and includes the lyrics quoted at the top of this article.
There are loved ones in the glory, Whose dear forms you often miss When you close your earthly story, Will you join them in their bliss?
Will the circle be unbroken By and by, by and by? In a better home awaiting In the sky, in the sky?
In the joyous days of childhood, Oft they told of wondrous love, Pointed to the dying Savior Now they dwell with Him above.
Will the circle be unbroken By and by, by and by? In a better home awaiting In the sky, in the sky?
You remember songs of heaven Which you sang with childish voice, Do you love the hymns they taught you, Or are songs of earth your choice?
Will the circle be unbroken By and by, by and by? In a better home awaiting In the sky, in the sky?
You can picture happy gatherings Round the fireside long ago, And you think of tearful partings, When they left you here below
Will the circle be unbroken By and by, by and by? In a better home awaiting In the sky, in the sky?
One by one their seats were emptied, One by one they went away; Here the circle has been broken Will it be complete one day?
At the start of the decade, she lived in a bustling family with every indication of prosperity, as her exuberant mid-1860s teenage fashion shows.
Written on reverse: “Louisa Linebaugh, Myersville, Maryland,” albumen carte de visite, circa 1963. Ann Longmore-Etheridge Collection.
Louisa Caroline Linebaugh was a distant cousin of mine through several of my maternal lines (Dutrow and Summers). She was born 11 September, 1846, in the small rural town of Myersville, Frederick County, Maryland, the daughter of wagonmaker, wheelwright, and farmer Jonathan Linebaugh (1807-1864) and his wife Catharine Shank (1813-1871), whom he married 10 April, 1835. Catharine was the daughter of Jacob Shank (1781-1867) and Catharine Dutrow (1785-1839).
Myersville, Maryland, has been my home for more than 20 years and was also that of my grandfather, Roy Cyrus Garnand, and many generations before him. Until the 21st Century, it was a contentedly rural place—and still remains mostly so, despite the growth of Frederick City and Myersville’s inclusion amongst the bedroom communities of both Washington, D.C., and Baltimore.
An early 20th Century topographical ode says of the town: “I turn away a moment to a landscape lovelier still, Where bloom the fields that circle ’round historic Myersville, And far beyond the village fair the mountains lift again, The blue peaks rising high above the rich and fruitful plain.” (Middletown Valley in Song and Story by Thomas C. Harbaugh, 1910.)
Some of my maternal ancestors were Swiss and Germans who came to Maryland in the 1700s. In 1707, the Swiss explorer Franz-Louis Michel traveled through the area, drew up a map, then went back to Switzerland. Hard on his trail was another Swiss explorer, Christoph von Graffenreid, who also mapped parts of the region. The activities of both these adventurers and their positive descriptions of the fertile land may have directly influenced my Swiss fourth-great-grandfather Georg Gernandt to set sail in late 1737 from Rotterdam to Philadelphia on the ship St. Andrew Galley. After landing on 24 September, Georg took the oath of allegiance and made his way through Pennsylvania to what is now Myersville, knowing that Lord Baltimore had officially thrown open the area for settlement in 1732. Another Swiss fourth-great-grandfather, Johann Jacob Werenfels, was born in Basel 28 January, 1731. He came alone to Philadelphia in 1749 aboard The Crown, which docked in Philadelphia on 30 August, 1749. Werenfels lived for a while in Berks County, Pennsylvania, where he met his bride Hannah Hartman. They later came to Frederick County. Jacob and Hannah Werenfels were the parents of 11 children and are buried in the middle of a wheat field on their farm south of modern-day Wolfsville.
An antique postcard of the Moravian Church in Oley where the Leinbachs worshipped.
The Linebaughs can be traced to Germany, where they generally used the spelling Leinbach. Johannes Leinbach was born in today’s Langenselbold, Isenberg, Hessen—then the princedom of the Count of Isenburg-Birstein—on 9 March, 1674, and is believed to have emigrated to America in 1723. By his death on 27 November, 1747, he was in Oley Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania—the father of at least seven children and a respected member of the Moravian Christian sect with its five guiding principles of simplicity, happiness, unintrusiveness, fellowship, and service. Leinbach’s eldest son, Friedrich Johan, was born July 15, 1703, in Germany, before his family emigrated, and died 6 July, 1784 in Graceham, Frederick County. John Linebaugh, as he became known, was the Linebaughs’ first ancestor in Maryland.
Alice America Linebaugh (1852-1926), circa 1870.
Louisa was one of nine children, all born in Myersville. The others were Sarah Ann (1836-1908), John Henry (1837-1911), Mary Elizabeth (1839-?), Ann Rebecca (1842-1843), Catherine Magdalena (1844-1889), Charlotte Maria (1849-1938), Alice America (1852-1926), and Howard Newton (1856-1900).
The years between 1860 an 1870 altered everything Louisa knew. At the start of the decade, she lived in a bustling family with every indication of prosperity—even in wartime, as her exuberant mid-1860s teenage fashion shows. But shortly after this carte de visite (CDV) was taken, on 26 December, 1864, her father died at the age of 57, and the family in Myersville rapidly dispersed.
The home of the Linebaugh family in Myersville, courtesy of the Frederick County Historical Society.
One of those who left Maryland behind was Louisa’s eldest brother, John Henry. When the Civil War began, the young man was attending Dickenson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in hope of becoming a teacher. He may be the Henry Linebaugh who served in the 7th Maryland Infantry. Or the truth may be that he was a reporter during the war, which was proposed by his descendant Pat Mulso, the executive director of the Freeborn County Historical Museum in Albert Lea, Minnesota.
“The story passed down is that John was a reporter during the war and unpopular in his version of journalism and his death had to be staged to save his life. Whether this is true or not, he did serve in the Civil War and he did leave his native state of Maryland after the war and moved to Ohio where he married my great-grandmother, Margaret Jane Patten. He taught school in Richmond, Ind., and walked home to Liberty, Ohio, on the weekends to be with his family,” wrote Mulso in a 10 April, 2010, article in the Albert Lea Tribune. “After getting established, he built a home in Ellerton, Ohio, located a few miles south of Liberty. He became a justice of the peace, a wagon maker, a funeral director, a steam mill sawmill owner, and operator and owned many farms in the area. He employed several workers and kept a daily journal of the daily events involving his business and life in general. I guess you could say that he was quite an entrepreneur in his time, but he had no success in collecting the debts owed him so my great-grandmother would have to hitch up the buggy and go collect the debts, of course, for a percentage of the money collected as her pay. They raised a large family with many tragedies occurring during the times, but were a very close and hard-working family.”
Back in Myersville, by 1870, only widowed mother Catharine and Louisa remained in the family home. Within a year of the 1870 census’s enumeration, her mother was dead, aged 58. Catharine Shank Linebaugh was buried beside her husband in the cemetery of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, directly across the street from my present home.
A section of Myersville’s Main Street, in which the Linebaughs lived, taken circa 1910 from the belfry of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church. Louisa would have known the pictured houses well, as they all date from her years as a town resident.
Apparently feeling no personal or financial reason to stay in Myersville, Louisa chose to emigrate to Ohio to join John Henry and his family. Once there, she met and married Henry Benton Getter (1850-1935). Henry was the son of George Getter (1805–1875) and his wife Mary Elizabeth Wertz (1808-1901). Getter was born 9 Oct 1850, in Ellerton, Ohio.
The young couple established a family farm in Jefferson, Ohio, and had the following children: Cora May (1875-1911), Florence Estella, (1877-1951), Ida Kate (1879-1964), Bessie Olive (1881-1958), Herman Cleveland (1884-1955), Carrie Effie (1888-1973), and Carl Victor (1890-1967).
After loading this CDV to my Flickr photostream, I connected with another Linebaugh relation who provided a transcript of a letter by Louisa’s son, Reverend Herman Getter of Emmanuel Lutheran Church, New Philadelphia, Ohio. It reads, in part: “Thru the kind Providence of God these two families became friends and grandfather George Getter married Mary Wertz about the year 1828. To their union were born 13 children—11 boys and two girls. Henry, being the next to the youngest, is my father. He was born on the old Getter homestead 7 miles south-west of Dayton, 4 miles South of National Soldiers home, in the year 1850…. My mother’s father [Jonathan Linebaugh] was a very pious man, having preached in the Church of the Brethren for a number of years. After the death of my mother’s parents [she came] to Ohio and made her home with her brother in Montgomery Co. not far distant from my father’s home. They afterward became acquainted and were married in the year 1874. Seven children were born to them 5 girls and two boys. I being the fifth oldest.
“My father’s people have always been a thrifty agriculture people…. Thru hard labor, they drained the swamps and cleared the forests, and made them to blossom like the rose. Surely God has given to none more noble ancestors, and finer [illegible] parents, than are mine. Happy and grateful am I that they are both living and enjoying the best of health. They reside on the old Getter homestead, having purchased it some years ago.
Louisa Linebaugh Getter in middle age.
“It was near this place where I was born on September 18, 1884. My parents being staunch Lutherans, I was baptized in infancy by the Sainted Rev. Albright who was at that time preaching in Salem’s Lutheran Church in the village of Ellerton. Early in life, I was taught to love the church and her teachings and was a regular attendant at Sunday School and Church Services. Many a time I would rather have gone fishing and swimming than attend church on a hot Summer’s day, but knew better than even suggest going, for Father was very rigid in this respect.”
The flavor of what Louisa’s Ellerton farm life was like can be glimpsed in a letter in the collection of the University of Alabama sent in April 1895 from Ellerton resident Amanda Donatien to her sister Bell Cahill in Dayton. “We will not come over Easter. The horses has [sic] been working hard the last two weeks and besides, I think it your turn to come see me…. I have a lot of work to do right now. I am making soap this week,” Amanda noted. “Bell, I will come as soon as I can and when I do I will bring you some sewing to do. Now you must be ready to do it. Get your thimble ready. If I had any chance to send you some fresh eggs before Easter, I would do so.” Amanda concluded by saying that she must stop writing because her son was waiting to take the pencil to school.
Louisa Linebaugh Getter died 22 April, 1923, age 75 years, seven months, and 11 days, in Ellerton. She was buried 25 April, 1923, at Ellerton Cemetery. On her death certificate, the cause given is hyperthyroidism (Graves Disease), in which the thyroid kicks into overproduction causing weight loss, trembling hands, extreme tachycardia, anxiety, muscle weakness, and—worst of all—insomnia. The sufferers of Graves Disease can die, literally, of exhaustion, or can pass away suddenly from heart failure. How horrible the disease can be is something I understand, for I suffered from it when I was in my mid-twenties. Today there is a cure. In Louisa’s time, there was not.
Twelve years after his mother’s passing, the New Philadelphia Daily Times of 16 August, 1935, carried an item notifying parishioners that Rev. Getter had gone to Dayton to be at the bedside of his critically ill father. After a fortnight, on 29 August, Getter died in Dayton Hospital. Rev. Getter’s father was laid to rest beside his mother in Ellerton. Ω
When this daguerreotype image was captured, Annie and Harry Sourbeck had been fatherless for most of their lives.
Sarah Ann and William Henry Harrison Sourbeck, Scoville 1/6th-plate daguerreotype, circa 1850. Ann Longmore-Etheridge Collection.
Daguerreotypes were the earliest form of photography – little wood-encased miracles of light and the long exposure of silvered copper plates. Sometimes the exposures lasted more than a minute, especially in the 1840s, which were the early days of the art form. A note in the case of this image reads “Sarah Ann Sauerbeck, Henry Sauerbeck, 1850?” This guesstimate accords well with the case design, with the simple brass mat that framed the image beneath its glass cover, as well as the clothing of the Sourbeck siblings. The two would have had to be very still, looking into the empty black eye of an alien, unnerving camera for at least 30 seconds. It was almost certainly their first photograph.
Sourbeck is the correct spelling of the family name, or at least that which they used the majority of the time. Even as late as the mid-nineteenth century, spelling could be fluid with both given and surnames. Sarah Ann Sourbeck, recorded in various public records as “Annie” and sometimes “Anna” (she will be Annie within this article, to distinguish her from her mother), was born in March 1841 in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. Her younger brother, William Henry Harrison Sourbeck, came along four years later, on 11 August, 1845, in Harrisburg, Dauphin (now Lebanon) County, Pennsylvania, a small city located on the banks of the Susquehanna River. The boy, named after the ninth president of the United States who had died the previous April, would be known by all as Harry. They were the children of Sarah Ann Collier (1804-1886) and her second husband John Sourbeck (1786-1847). When this daguerreotype was captured, they were aged about eight and five and had been fatherless for much of their lives.
Sarah Ann’s father eventually lost the hotel after using it as collateral for the bail of a friend, who promptly fled.
Sarah Ann Collier was the daughter of Jonathan (1780-1828) and Catherine Tice Collier (d. 1809). She was born in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, to a father who was a hotelier in Upper Paxton Township. According to a descendant, he had used his children’s inheritance from their maternal grandfather to build the Millersburg Hotel, which still was operating as late as 1996. Sarah Ann’s father eventually lost the hotel after using it as collateral for the bail of a friend, who promptly fled. Collier was dead by the age of 48, passing away in March 1828 in Buffalo Township.
Sarah Collier first married Dr. Samuel Fahnestock (1803-1829). According to a letter by H. S. Bickel, pastor of the Church of God in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, which was preserved by the family, “Mrs. Ann Nicholas of Camp Hill…said that Dr. Samuel Fahnestock’s mother was a member of the Seven Day Baptist faith, and lived at Oysters Point…. She was the mother of two boys, both physicians.” Pastor Bickel noted two daughters born to Samuel and Sarah Ann: Catherine Fahnestock, who may not have survived childhood, and Susanna (1830-1915). One of the girls, “I was told was a mute,” the Pastor wrote.
Dr. Fahnestock died of unknown causes at age 26 in 1829. His widow Sarah Ann was enumerated on the 1830 Census of East Pennsboro, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, as heading a household three – two of whom females under the age of five. In his letter, Pastor Bickel wrote that Catherine and Susanna Fahnestock were raised by Fahnestock’s mother, but it is not known whether they were eventually sent to their grandmother out of duress or because their mother remarried and her new husband was not interested in raising step-children.
If the cause was the latter, Sarah Ann’s suitor, John Sourbeck, had reason enough. The widowed Sourbeck had 10 offspring by his marriage to Lydia Hemphill (b. 1791): Dorcas (1810-aft. 1840); Daniel E. (1812-1883); Margaret (1816-1852); Jane (1818-1841); Joseph S. (1822-1857); John (1823-1864); Adeline (1824-aft. 1900); James W. (1829-1873); and twins Elizabeth (1831-1889) and Mary (1831-1901), whose birth may have lead to Lydia’s death at the age of 42 years. Whilst his older children were married and established, in 1832 Sourbeck needed a mother for his infant twins, as well as three-year-old James, eight-year-old Adeline, nine-year-old John, 10-year-old Joseph, and 12-year-old Jane.
There may have been a connection between Sarah Ann’s father, Jonathan Collier, and John Sourbeck, who were close in age and both hoteliers, which drew the couple together. However they met, Sarah Ann Collier Fahnestock, age 28, married forty-six-year-old Sourbeck, on 2 August, 1832, and took up the position of mother to his brood. Pastor Bickel wrote that “Sourbeck kept a hotel in Camp Hill,” and a commodious inn would have provided the space the growing Sourbeck clan needed. The couple’s first child, Caroline, was born in 1834. Next came George Washington Sourbeck, born 26 February, 1837, then Annie in 1841.
Paster Bickel concluded his letter with an intriguing and somewhat snide side note: “Mrs. Nicholas doesn’t know anything of them after they removed from Camp Hill. She said that it is hardly likely that John Sourbeck’s children were baptized while they were in Camp Hill.” Whether Mrs. Nicholas referred to Sourbeck’s children by his first marriage, his second, or both, is unknown.
“His table shall be furnished with all the varieties of the season – his Bar, Beds, and every thing connected with the establishment, shall not be excelled by any in the borough.”
The family decamped from Camp Hill before 1842, when theHarrisburg City Directorycontained this notice from Sourbeck: “The undersigned respectfully announces to his friends and the public, that he has taken that well-known tavern stand, in the borough of Harrisburg, known as Franklin House, in Walnut-st., formerly kept by B. Hale. His table shall be furnished with all the varieties of the season – his Bar, Beds, and everything connected with the establishment, shall not be excelled by any in the borough. The Carriage house and Stabling are extensive and convenient, and sufficiently large to accommodate drovers. The house being situated in the centre of businesses, renders it a desirable stopping place for those having business at the Capitol of the State, as well as Jurors attending Courts; and having long been known as the keeper of several public houses in Cumberland County, he flatters himself that his old friends and customers will favor him with a call. No pains will be spared to minister to the comfort of his guests during their stay with him – he therefore respectfully solicits a share of public patronage.”
While John and Sarah Ann Sourbeck operated Franklin House, Matilda Georgia was born 21 February, 1843, and Harry was born in 1845. The pub and inn, sitting on the busy corner of Walnut and Raspberry Alley, seems to have been a bustling establishment, however, the 1844 tax rates list Sourbeck as tenant taverner – not an owner – who possessed one horse and cow. TheHarrisburg Business Directorynotes that in 1845, a baker named John O. Austin was either employed by or worked out of Franklin House; others listed in residence at the property were boot and shoemaker J. M. Awl and Jacob Brua, a printer.
“Mr. Sourbeck, who could not swim, immediately sank.”
The Sourbecks’ lives changed dramatically on 10 July, 1847. The 13 July issue of theHarrisburg Telegraph, tells the tale:
“On Saturday afternoon last, Messrs. John Sourbeck, Christian Kendig, Jonathan Novinger, and a Mr. Graham went fishing in the Susquehanna, at Dauphin, in a skiff. They had not got far into the river before the skiff ran upon a rock. In getting it off, three – Messrs. Sourbeck, Kendig, and Graham – got upon the rock, where Mr. Graham slipped, and in his endeavor to save himself, he caught hold of Mr. Sourbeck, and pulled him into the water. A struggle ensued to save themselves by the boat, which was upset in the attempt when all three were obliged to save themselves in the best way they could. Mr. Sourbeck, who could not swim, immediately sank. Mr. Graham could swim and made for shore, but sunk before he reached it. Mr. Novinger clung to the boat until he was rescued. Mr. Kendig remained on the rock until he was taken off the rock by a boat from shore. Two of the four were thus suddenly launched into eternity within a few moments after they had left their friends on an excursion, more of an amusement than a utility. Mr. Sourbeck was a man of over fifty years age, extensively known; he was keeping a public tavern at Dauphin at the time of his death. Mr. Graham, who was from Perry County, near Newport, we are informed and attached to the Engineer Corps engaged in locating the Pennsylvania Rail Road. They both left families to lament their loss.”
On 14 July, theDemocratic Unioncarried this item: “Two Men Drowned – On Saturday last, John Sourbeck of Dauphin, and Thomas Graham of Newport, Perry County, were drowned in the river at Dauphin, whilst on a fishing excursion. Sourbeck leaves a wife and fourteen children to mourn his untimely end. Graham has left a wife and three children to regret his loss. The bodies of the drowned men have been recovered.”
John Sourbeck was buried in Dauphin Cemetery, where his gravestone stands today. Inscribed upon it is this verse: “Ye friends that weep around my grave, Compose your minds to rest, Prepare with me for sudden death, And live forever blessed.”
“He was early in life necessitated to do for himself.”
After losing their paterfamilias, life immediately became difficult for the family. Just how difficult is evidenced within the 1881 History of Stark County, Ohio, edited by William Henry Perrin, which contains a short biography of George Washington Sourbeck (known as Washington or Wash), John and Sarah Ann’s eldest son.
“He was early in life necessitated to do for himself and began his career as a driver on the canal from Harrisburg to Nanticoke and Wilkesbarre. This he followed one season, when he went to Mechanicsburg and apprenticed himself in the boot and shoe trade, and remained there six years.” (The 1850 Census places Wash with Irish immigrant shoemaker Edward Lamant, his family, and apprentices.)
Sarah Ann and her youngest children also moved to Mechanicsburg. A document preserved by the family states, “Sarah Ann Sourbeck the bearer, has been an acceptable member of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Mechanicsburg, Carlisle Circuit, Baltimore Conference. Given under my hand this 11th day of September, 1849. James Watts, Preacher in charge.” If Mrs. Nicholas of Camp Hill thought there had been an earlier issue with the Sourbecks and religion, it seems to have been rectified.
It was during the family’s years in Mechanicsburg that the daguerreotype of Annie and Harry Sourbeck was made, most likely by Andrew B. Tubbs, who was active in Harrisburg in 1850, although the velvet liner of the case is not embossed with Tubbs’ name as in other surviving examples. There is no question that John Plumbe, Jr. – who was one of the earliest daguerreotypists in America, and who established galleries bearing his name in cities such as Frederick, Maryland; Portland, Maine; Ontario, Canada; and Louisville, Kentucky – operated a daguerreotype franchise in Harrisburg in the 1840s. Tubbs may have taken over the studio late in that decade.
The rarity and wonder of photographic images, even some two decades after the introduction of the daguerreotype, is evidenced in a surviving letter of 5 February, 1865, from Sarah Ann’s nephew, Emanuel H. Salada, to his aunt. His mother was Elizabeth Collier (1831-1867). (I have lightly edited this excerpt to increase readability.)
“I would inform you that I received the photograph you sent and further I was pleased very well to have it…. When I showed it to sister Amanda Hoffman, she kissed it and said, ‘She looks like mother did.’…. I would like to have my family taken and send it to you all but our place will not afford [a photographer] to stop here. But if I live till next summer I will take them to Harrisburg and have them taken. Further, I am sorry to say to you that I can’t fulfill your wish in regard of sending my mother’s picture. She never had it taken as far as I know,” Salada concluded mournfully. “I would give 20 Dollars myself for one likeness of my mother.”
“I came west with my parents in 1851 or 1852, when the Pennsylvania Railroad was not yet completed.”
Sarah Ann Sourbeck, circa 1865.
Harry Sourbeck, the tow-headed boy who looks at us suspiciously through the daguerreotype’s photographic hole in time, shared an early memory with the Alliance Weekly Review, which published a biographical item about him on 3 April, 1914. “I came west with my parents in 1851 or 1852, when the Pennsylvania Railroad was not yet completed…. I remember well the conductor calling out the first through train to Pittsburgh. It was at a place where they were loading canal boats on cars to take them over the mountains by rail.”
What seems at first to be misremembering – that Harry traveled with both parents when his father was dead – resolves with the understanding that it was Daniel, Harry’s eldest brother, more than 30 years his senior, who led the party west. Their destination was a triumvirate of villages sprung up around the Cleveland & Wellsville and Ohio & Pennsylvania railroads that would later unify into a town called Alliance.
According to Amtrak’s Great American Stations website, “At Alliance, the two railroads crossed, and to this day, any map of the area prominently displays the graceful ‘X’ that the rails create upon the landscape.”
The site continues, “In 1853 the first depot in town was constructed on the north side of the rail crossing near E. Main Street and Webb Avenue; Main Street was laid out to lead directly to the station, as city leaders recognized the potential impact that the railroad would have on their community. Old photographs show it to be … an octagonal two-story central section with a low tent roof. This portion of the station was flanked by one-story wings that featured large dormer gables trimmed in fancy bargeboard. The building appeared to be wood frame and covered in clapboard, while the windows were crowned by Tudor inspired window hoods that were in keeping with the eclectic nature of the overall design. Also on the north side adjoining the depot was a hotel and dining hall.”
Sourbeck House with a steam train at the platform.
On 12 May, 1852, Daniel Sourbeck arrived to take charge of the latter, which “became noted for famous meals throughout the length of these great thoroughfares and their connections…. Sourbeck came here at the solicitation of members of that company especially to take charge of their house. He had been engaged up to that time, in the Dry Goods trade and hotel business for a number of years in New Brighton, Pa. To the Sourbeck House, Alliance owes greatly her early fame; for the excellent manner in which the house has been managed in all its departments from his installation therein, has caused it to be spoken of far and near, and always has it been associated with the name of Alliance,” explains Stuart McKees’ Directory of 1868.
During the years in which Daniel ran the establishment it burned down once and was rebuilt of brick, and “Many noted individuals stopped at Sourbeck House, among them Louis Kossuth, the leader of the Hungarian revolution, [who] was received with honor and made a brief address in 1852, also in the same year, Gen. Winfield Scott on his way to Cleveland where he made the historic speech which lost the presidency to the Whig party in the fall,” notes The Alliance Review, published by the Alliance Historical Society.
The Review also allows us a glimpse of an age that was ugly with racism: “Mr. J. H. Sharer in his history of early Alliance tells of listening to the speeches of these men and also relates the incident when ‘Fred Douglass in company with two hundred delegates to a Free Soil convention, had stopped at the Sourbeck House in 1852 for a dinner previously ordered. Mr. Sourbeck, seeing the colored man in the dining room and not knowing he was one of the party, took steps to eject him whereupon all present arose from their seats and marched in a body to the roundhouse which stood nearby on the north side of the track and adopted a series of stinging resolutions, rebuking Mr. Sourbeck for the indignity he had heaped upon them.’”
Sourbeck House was rebuilt in brick after a fire destroyed the old wooden hotel and station.
Daniel Sourbeck’s prospering business attracted other members of the clan such as brothers John, who would shortly move on to Youngstown; James, who died in Alliance in 1873; and Wash, who rejoined his family in 1855 after a sojourn working on the rails. “[Wash] came to Alliance, and was engaged in his brother’s dining hall at the railroad depot for about one and a half years,” notes the History of Stark County, Ohio. Afterward, “He went to Youngstown and engaged at his trade for a short time when he accepted a clerkship in the Union Hotel, where he remained for two years. He purchased the passenger dining-rooms on Liberty Street, Pittsburgh, which he conducted about a year, sold out and returned to Youngstown, Ohio.”
“I glanced over my shoulder just in time to see the rear coach leaving the track.”
In 1855, Daniel Sourbeck was nearly the victim of a horrific train wreck that was widely reported in the eastern United States. According to the Friday, 31 August, Baltimore Sun, a train of five passenger cars “left Philadelphia at 10 o’clock…reached Burlington before 11 o’clock. It then stopped, waiting for the arrival of the 8 o’clock New York train from Jersey City…. After waiting for from five to ten minutes, and the New York train not appearing, the Philadelphia train went forward slowly, watching for the approach of the downward train. It had gone forward about a mile and a quarter when the New York train came in sight.” The Philadelphia train began to back up. The engineer did so at speed, not knowing that a “light pleasure wagon driven by Dr. Hannigan of Columbus, N.J., had attempted to cross the track.” The last passenger car, which at the train’s reversal became the leading car, crashed into the wagon, jumped the track, and rolled down an embankment dragging other cars with it and crushing some together.
Sourbeck was traveling on the train with a friend named Kelly from Philadelphia to New York. The engineer, Mr. Kelly claimed years later in a Pittsburgh Daily Post article, “pulled the throttle wide open, sending the light train flying backward over the road. Mr. Sourbeck remarked about the high speed and swaying motion of the cars. I glanced over my shoulder just in time to see the rear coach leaving the track and rolling over. I was just reaching for the bell cord when our own car lurched over…. When I regained my senses, I was lying beneath the body of a dead man.”
Dozens were killed and severely injured. Daniel Sourbeck was reported by the Sun to have a scalp wound. Mr. Kelly recalled that Sourbeck was “badly hurt and suffered for some time.”
Even so, Sourbeck could count himself amongst the lucky. A female passenger, Mrs. Benjamin Harvey, described the terrible scene to the Sunbury American: “She says that portions of bodies were scattered over the ground, while wounded men and women, bleeding, and some dying, were lying upon the bank, exposed to the hot sun. The leg of a man was thrown some distance from the body, while his heart and other small particles of flesh and bones were found in other directions.”
Less than a year later, on 6 December, 1856, another tragic train accident occurred, this time, literally, too close to home. There was a “collision in which the train on the C. & P. crashed into the train on the Ohio & Penn, which had not yet cleared the crossing. It was rushing along at such speed and hit with such force that the cars were pushed into the wooden station house that stood on the north side of the track and where the platform and waiting room was filled with people. Eleven were killed and twenty seriously hurt,” reported the Alliance Weekly Review.
Sourbeck House and depot around the time of the accident.
The 12 December issue of the Freemont Weekly Journal includes more details. “One of the passenger cars was thrown into the rotunda of the depot, and another into the sitting room of the Sourbeck Hotel, in which several persons were sitting. Both of these rooms were torn to pieces, and the inmates either killed or wounded.”
William H. Vincent, who was a clerk at Sourbeck House, later described the scene in a handwritten autobiography: “After coming into the public room we found one of the Pennsylvania cars – two trucks of it were in the room, four doorways were all broken down. On going outside, the platform was all broken and the bodies of seven persons were lying dead.” Vincent saw the dead bodies of his doctor and the doctor’s wife, as well. “The doctor’s body was found with his clothing around and between the front wheels of the locomotive, which was still on the track except for the two front wheels,” he wrote.
It does not appear that any of the Sourbecks were injured during this incident. The damage to the property was quickly repaired, and within a few years, Albert, Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), would be a noted guest, as would President Abraham Lincoln whilst on his way to Washington, D.C., for his inauguration. A few years after this auspicious visit, the same rail lines would transport wounded and ill soldiers through Alliance as the Civil War raged. Amongst these soldiers would be one of the Sourbecks’ own.
“At the time of his enlistment said Sourbeck was a sound able-bodied man and free from all chills and fever.”
During the Civil War, brother John Sourbeck enlisted, fought, and ultimately died. Sourbeck joined up on 26 May, 1862, becoming a first lieutenant with the 84th Regiment, Ohio Infantry. But it was neither bullets nor cannon shot that took out John – it was tiny, hungry mosquitos.
In a pension case filed by John’s widow, Jane Griffith Sourbeck, she produced the sworn testimony of Third Sergeant Levellette Battelle of the 84th Ohio who said he was “personally acquainted with Lt. John Sourbeck when enlisted, prior to, and during his service in said organization. At the time of his enlistment said Sourbeck was a sound able-bodied man and free from all chills and fever. In Cumberland, MD, in July 1862, said Sourbeck took sick with chills and fever caused by being exposed…to a malarial climate. During the rest of his service, he had several attacks of chills and fever and was at the time disabled from service on that account.”
An affidavit filed by Dr. Frederick Whistler concludes John’s story: “[He was] discharged from service in the fall of 1862 …. He continued to suffer with chills and fever until he died of a congestive chill April 30, 1864. From the time of his discharge until his death, I saw him frequently each month, knew he suffered from said disability during that time by observing his symptoms and hearing his complaints. I was with him and saw him about two hours before he died.”
John Sourbeck was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Youngstown, Mahoning County, Ohio. Much like his father before him, John left many children behind, including an infant not yet one year old. His wife Jane never remarried. During her final years, she lived on Oak Street in Youngstown, dying 5 January, 1901.
“He was of a wandering disposition and has not been heard from since 1896.”
Unlike some of her male relatives, little exists to fill out the character of Annie Sourbeck Gray. We have a photo of her taken in the 1870s and we know the Grays would have three children together: Mary E. (b.1857); Louis Henry (1859-1945); and Margaret Anna (1864-1927). By 1861, they had left Alliance for Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and remained there through the 1870 Census. They lived in Brewster, Barnstable County, Massachusetts, by 1900, when they were enumerated in the household of Annie’s sister Matilda Sourbeck Crosby. At that time, Theodore Gray stated his occupation as “day laborer” – surely a harsh job for a 65-year-old man. It was in Brewster with his wife and in-laws that Theodore died at age 67 on 2 August, 1902.
Annie Sourbeck Gray, circa 1872.
On 17 February, 1887, Annie’s daughter Margaret married Edwards Cranston Brooks (8 November 1860-12 January, 1922), who was a West Point graduate and commissioned cavalry officer. In 1898, he was sent to Santiago, Cuba, for the duration of the Spanish-American War, and because of meritorious service received a brevet U.S. Army captainship. In 1900, he served as auditor for the Island of Cuba. This information comes from Genealogies of Rhode Island Families, Vol. I, which also includes this amusing comment about one of Brooks’ cousins, George Williams: “He went to Oregon with his father and other members of his family in 1851, but he was of a wandering disposition and has not been heard from since 1896.”
Annie and Theodore Gray’s son, Louis, became the president of the L. H. Gray Steamship Company and later the head of Associate Charters, a railroad freight shipping venture. He was a successful businessman who married Halcon L. Robertson on 4 October, 1893, in Cook, Illinois. In 1900, the census places him in Seattle, Washington, where he remained for the rest of his life, dying at age 85. The couple had no children.
After Theodore Gray’s death, Annie Sourbeck appears on the 1910 Census in Ward 3 of the District of Columbia, dwelling with her daughter Margaret Gray Brooks and two granddaughters. She lived until 1920, dying in East Brewster, Massachusetts, in August of that year.
“Happy, oh happy may you ever be, And be you blessed in Immortality.”
Sarah Ann in the 1870s.
By 1870, Sarah Ann Sourbeck had moved to Chicago’s 4th Ward. A picture exists of her in taken that decade in which she appears a relatively well-heeled, silver-haired widow. That her sons and stepsons provided for her is certain if the discretionary income of Daniel Sourbeck is any evidence. The Stark County Democrat reported on 7 August, 1873, that he had gone to New York and “bought a fine Specimen of Darwin’s ancestry which came duly to hand, in a fit condition for burial, accompanied by $10.00 express charges. If [Sourbeck] were not a Christian, we would expect to hear that he had become profane. The Express Company has not got the ten dollars, but then it can have the monkey.”
Sarah Ann Sourbeck remained in Chicago until her death, 9 April, 1886, aged 82 years, one month. The funeral took place at the home of her son Wash on 11 April, followed by her burial in Alliance City Cemetery. Wash would follow her to the family plot on 26 June, 1891.
There exists an acrostic dated 23 July, 1838, which proclaims itself as “a token of respect” to Sarah Ann from soi-disant poet James Fitzpatrick of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. The lines that Fitzpatrick wrote to match her first name are apt by which to bid her farewell:
“Sweetest of bliss shall thy pure bosom know; And flowers of Beauty on thy pathway grow; Refulgent jewels shall thy brow adorn, As pure and radiant as the star of morn; Happy, oh happy may you ever be, And be you blessed in Immortality, Ne’er fading flowers on thy path shall grow, Nor ever sorrow will thy bosom know….”
Funeral notice for Sarah Ann Sourbeck.
His wife’s surname was Reeves, and a family story says she came from a banking family, but her first name remains stubbornly unknown.
Harry Sourbeck was schooled in Alliance “until I was 14 years of age, and started firing when not quite 15,” Harry told the Alliance Review in 1913. “I was promoted to engineer at the age of 19, in the year 1864. The first thing I did was on a steam car, built on Massillion, Ohio, and the first engine I ran was an 18-ton engine, with one pair of drivers and a wood burner, the cylinders set halfway back of the boiler.”
Harry did not join up during the Civil War, possibly because his railway position was considered essential by the Union. Near the end of the war, in 1865, he told the Review, “I was transferred to New Castle, PA, to run a construction train in building the Lawrence Branch Road from New Castle to Youngstown on the Pennsylvania Lines.” According to the Locomotive Engineer’ Monthly Journal, “He ran the first engine that ever went into Youngstown of the Pennsylvania lines.”
Harry Sourbeck married for the first time in the late 1860s. His wife’s surname was Reeves, and a family story says she came from a banking family, but her first name remains stubbornly unknown. Harry had by her a son, Franklin William, born 25 September, 1869, in Sharpsville, Mercer County, Pennsylvania, and who died 21 November, 1917, in the State Epileptic Hospital in Gallipolis, Ohio, after spending a lifetime in Alliance as a telegraph operator for the Pennsylvania Railway Company.
Frank Sourbeck married an Alliance native, Laura May Moyer (1874-1961), on 17 December, 1890, and with her, he gave his father four grandchildren: Harry Lloyd (1891-1964), Pearl Marie (1892-1983), Floyd Maurice (1897-1978), and Margaret May Sourbeck (1903-1986).
Frank and Laura Sourbeck
In addition to his railway career, Harry Sourbeck also co-owned several retail shops. He and his brother-in-law Thomas Clark Moore ran a business together at Irving House, located at Conneaut Lake Park, northwest of Pittsburgh. The building housed Sourbeck & Clark, probably a hardware store, according to an interview with a relative. There was also Sourbeck & Moore, also probably a hardware store, in Alliance. In addition, Harry owned the lots on what is now Wayne Street, Alliance, upon which he built homes, including his own dwelling at number 231.
After the breakup of his first marriage or the death of his spouse – we don’t know which of these occurred –Harry Sourbeck married Lydia D. Robinson (1861–1912) on 1 May, 1878, in Alliance at the home of the bride’s father, George Robinson. They went on to have three daughters: Bertha Eliza (1874 – 1963), Flora E. (1879 – 1919), and Fannie Helen Crosby Sourbeck (1895 – 1973).
Willie Donovan was frequently sent upstairs to have Mrs. Sourbeck cash large bills for the barkeep.
While this article may stand perilously close to being retitled “Daniel Sourbeck, Man Around Town,” there is one anecdote left to share about this colorful chap in his old age. In 1882, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported, “The community was startled on Friday night on becoming aware that Dan Sourbeck had been robbed of $600…. Some years ago, Mr. Sourbeck lost $10,000 in the Alliance Bank, since which time he, and especially Mrs. Sourbeck, lost confidence in banks and concluded to be their own bankers, and hoarded their surplus cash in a trunk in Mrs. Sourbeck’s private room.”
A boy named Willie Donovan, who was employed by the Sourbecks, was frequently sent upstairs to have Mrs. Sourbeck cash large bills for the barkeep and thusly “became aware that there was a handsome depository in the house.” One day, Donovan was sent to Mrs. Sourbeck’s room to light a fire and stayed longer than usual. He told his employers that this was because the fire would not properly light. A few days later, the Sourbeck’s granddaughter Sophia discovered that money had been taken from the trunk. Unfortunately for Donovan, it had already been noticed that he was “quite flash with cash” and had bought a new suit, a watch, and other valuables. When questioned by the police and Sourbeck, he convinced them that he had been put up to the theft by Sourbeck’s neighbor, Olie Clark. Both Donovan and Clark were arrested for the crime.
The article concludes with Sourbeck reflecting that one of the two keys to his money drawer had gone missing some time before “and on several occasions [he] missed money from the drawer. A number of cigars were also stolen out of a case, all of which he attributes to the faithlessness of the boy in hoc.”
Sourbeck died 14 November, 1883, at 71 years of age, leaving the entirety of his estate, minus small bequeaths, to his wife Eliza, who outlived him by only a year. Both are buried at Grove Cemetery, New Brighton, Pennsylvania.
“Engineer W. H. Sourbeck was not at his post nor on the engine.”
On 6 November, 1898, a newspaper of no less gravitas than The New York Times ran the following story: “Joseph Desmond, Fireman on a Pittsburg, Fort Wayne and Chicago locomotive, drawing a fast passenger train last night near Columbiana, Ohio, suddenly discovered that Engineer W. H. Sourbeck was not at his post or on the engine. The train was running at a high rate of speed at the time. The fireman promptly shut off steam and stopped the train. Conductor Holloway ordered the train run back, and Engineer Sourbeck was found lying unconscious beside the track with his skull badly fractured. His injuries will likely prove fatal. It is thought that he climbed out on the running board and, losing his balance, fell to the ground.”
The Pittsburgh Press’s article ran on page one under the headline “He May Recover.” It reported that after Fireman Desmond had stopped the train and calmed the passengers, a search party was organized to find Sourbeck. “For several hours the mystery remained unsolved, but finally the crew of a freight train found the missing engineer among some trees, 50 yards from the railroad track.”
Harry Sourbeck in the 1890s.
Sourbeck suffered a fractured skull, a broken breastbone, and an injured spine. After a period of unconsciousness, he awoke, but could not explain what happened. Later, his memory returned and he told the Press reporter that he was leaning from his cab window, oiling machinery when he lost his balance and tumbled from the train.
Years later, the Locomotive Engineer’ Monthly of January 1914 would write that the accident “did not amount to much.” It certainly did not dim his love of the railroad. The Journal noted that when Harry retired he was the oldest engineer on the lines west of Pittsburgh and that there was no one left in any department who had been there when he had begun. He received a pension in January 1914, by which time he had a permanently injured hand and impaired hearing. But when interviewed, he “still appeared fit, agile, and strong…and would like to live until he was 100 years old to see the great changes to come on the railroads.”
Harry’s wife, Lydia Robinson Sourbeck, passed away a few years before his retirement, on 6 September, 1912, in the 34th year of their marriage. Harry, now a stately silver-haired man, would live on in the city with his youngest daughter, Fanny. He continued to travel to by rail, telling the Journal that “‘By sand, it’s the happiest day of life; it’s just like going out on a lark…. [A]fter riding in the cab for over a century I’m going to ride the velvet instead of the leather.’” That publication notes that he had recently returned from a rail trip to Florida, where he had made the short crossing by boat to Havana, Cuba.
Harry Sourbeck died at Suburban General Hospital on 13 September, 1930, of pneumonia, age 85. He was buried on 15 September at Union Dale Cemetery, Allegheny County. Ω
Harry Sourbeck in the 1910s.
This article would not have been possible without the research of Dale Alan Sourbeck into his family’s history. I also thank him humbly for allowing me to use the photos of the family he has has meticulously collected.
On 1 July, 1865, the regiment was mustered out at Nashville. Silas Hart left the infantry as a full corporal and returned his wife America and his children in Indiana. After America’s death on 4 December, 1880, Silas married twice more. A 2 August, 1911, Richmond Item story about his third and very “winter marriage” to Ellen Donhower is left.
While searching for newspaper articles that mentioned Earl and Hazel, I came across the one at right, from the 28 December, 1935, issue of the Hammond Times, and other issues throughout the 1930s. Hazel Helton was a Spiritualist, as is my own father and are my own paternal grandparents, great-grandparents, and great-great grandparents. I was both christened and married at the Spiritualist Church of Two Worlds in Georgetown, Washington, D.C.
Nellie Fay Helton married Harley Ward Phebus (b. 1891) on 2 May, 1914. The 1920 Census placed the couple and their daughters, two-year-old Agatha and six-month-old Aleatha living in a lodging house in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The Marras were often mentioned in the society pages of Indianapolis newspapers, such as the article (left) on a spectacular open house during the Christmas season of 1968. Another item in the Star discussed the party the Marras threw at their golf and country club after Ronan graduated from Wabash College on 7 June, 1970.
Louisa Linebaugh Getter died 22 April, 1923, age 75 years, seven months, and 11 days, in Ellerton. She was buried 25 April, 1923, at Ellerton Cemetery. On her death certificate, the cause given is hyperthyroidism (Graves Disease), in which the thyroid kicks into overproduction causing weight loss, trembling hands, extreme tachycardia, anxiety, muscle weakness, and—worst of all—insomnia. The sufferers of Graves Disease can die, literally, of exhaustion, or can pass away suddenly from heart failure. How horrible the disease can be is something I understand, for I suffered from it when I was in my mid-twenties. Today there is a cure. In Louisa’s time, there was not.
"Your Dying Charlotte" 