Good Deeds: Lillias Jane Alston ~ 52 Ancestors #51

My third great aunt Lillias Jane Alston was born in January 1838 to John Alston and Lillias Johnston, their third child, second child born in Pennsylvania, and first daughter. Her youngest sister, Marion Helen Alston, is my second great-grandmother.

In about 1877, Lillias Jane married her first cousin Archibald Alston as his second wife. He was a widower with several children. Archibald and Lillias Jane had one son, Walter McHendry Alston, born in June 1879.

Archibald died in 1905 and Lillias Jane (Alston) Alston died in Pittsburgh (North Side, the former Allegheny City) on June 25, 1911. I found a lovely obituary for her in The Pittsburgh Press.

"Mrs. Lillias Jane Alston," Pittsburgh Press (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania),  26 June 1911, p. 7, col. 1; digital image, Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com/image/142716948/ : accessed 15 December 2024).

Fun: The Hunter Sisters ~ 52 Ancestors #48

I have quite a few fun (and funny) photographs of my grandmother, Helen Lysle Hunter, and her four older sisters from very early in the 20th century. See My Grandmother and Her Sisters.

Since I originally shared photos of the Hunter sisters, MyHeritage has made their enhanced and colorized photos available.

Here is one I previously shared and two more that I don't believe I have shared before. I believe these photos are taken at the home on Perrysville Avenue in Allegheny City, where their paternal grandparents lived and where they lived after their grandparents died in 1902.

The sisters look like they're having fun in these photos. All three have been enhanced and colorized by MyHeritage.

Caption: MUD PIES; sisters from left: Marion, Mary, Caroline, Margaret, and Helen

Full House: James Hunter's Family ~ 52 Ancestors #42

My second great grandfather, James Hunter, was in construction. He fathered ten children with his wife Mary Freeland.

Because of his construction business, he was very involved in building his home on Perrysville Avenue in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, where the Hunter family moved by 1890-1891 (based on city directories).

Undated photo

Fall 1905

Fall 1905

Fall 1905

The 1900 U.S. Census shows that it was a full house:

1900 U.S. census, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, population schedule, Allegheny Ward 10,
ED 82, p. 15A, dwelling 270, family 306, record for James Hunter.

James Hunter, Head, age 55
Mary S. F. Hunter, Wife, age 50
James F. Hunter, Son, age 24
Samuel K. Hunter, Son, age 21
John R. Hunter, Son, age 18
Chester A. Hunter, Son, age 16
Helen R. Hunter, Daughter, age 13
Mary Lois Hunter, Daughter, age 11
Curtis C. Hunter, Son, age 8

The household included three servants: Mary Coyne, age 21, Katie Malley, age 20, and John Jones, age 17. Mary and Katie were born in Ireland and John Jones was born in Virginia.

Sadly, Mary died in March 1902, at age 52. Her husband, James died about seven months later at age 58. I believe that his second son (and my great-grandfather) Percy Hunter, became guardian for his underage siblings and moved back into the family home with his growing family. 

Twelve Children of George and Margaret Lysle ~ 52 Ancestors #41

I was looking for the most children in one family for this week's theme and without going back to colonial New England, I think that my third great-grandparents, George Lysle and Margaret McIlwaine had the most children of any ancestor in the past 200 years or so.

George Lysle, Sr.

Margaret (McIlwaine) Lysle

The very basic information about the family comes from a printed family tree from the late 1930s that has been passed down in the family which I shared in May 2013.

Mechanical Bank Collectors of America ~ 52 Ancestors #34

I have written about the sisters of my grandmother many times. Great Aunt Margie was a favorite of her nieces and grand nieces and grand nephews. Great Aunt Mary not so much. Together with their sister Caroline, both aunts fought Standard Oil in 1952, protecting their and their neighbors' farms north of Pittsburgh.

In my post about Aunt Margie, I mentioned her membership in the Mechanical Bank Collectors of America (MBCA). In fact, both Aunt Margie and Aunt Mary were longtime members. Aunt Mary collected so many mechanical banks that she was written up in a Pittsburgh newspaper in 1947.

Girl Skipping Rope bank

Maiden Aunts Carrie and Eliza Lysle ~ 52 Ancestors #26

A newspaper's social column in newspapers a hundred years ago was how you knew who was in town and who was traveling to visit family.

"The Misses Lysle Visit Here," Pittsburgh Post Gazette (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania),
2 April 1913, p. 16, col. 3; digital images, Newspapers.com.

The Misses Lysle Visit Here

   Miss Caroline and Miss Eliza Lysle, of Washington, D. C., are at the Hotel Schenley. The Misses Lysle have spent the winter at the Chalfonte, Atlantic City, and are in Pittsburgh for a fortnight, before returning to Washington to re-open their apartments for the spring season.

Nickname: Townsend Toby Lowell ~ 52 Ancestors #21

My grandfather was born Lowell Townsend Copeland on December 21, 1900, to Lowell Copeland and Ethel May Greeley. This is his Cook County, Illinois, birth certificate.

He was called Townsend, to differentiate himself from his father. He is Townsend in census records, on the back of photographs, and in school yearbooks.

In this labeled photograph, Grandfather was 2 years, 9 months old. His nurse / nanny was Elvira and he was very fond of her. This was likely taken at his home or his maternal grandfather's home in Winnetka, Illinois.

For Aunt Ruth [Ruth Lyman Wells, 1862-1943]
Townsend and his Elvira
Sept 1902

Preserve: Mary Lois Hunter ~ 52 Ancestors #19

This week's theme is Preserve. I have so many items that have been saved and handed down to me as the family historian, so it was hard (but fun) to choose one item to share.

My second great-grandparents, James Hunter and Mary (Freeland) Hunter, had ten children. Their ninth child (my great great aunt) died at age 22.

Pennsylvania, U..S., Death Certificates, 1906-1970, courtesy Ancestry.com

Her death certificate reports that she died on April 14, 1911, at Allegheny General Hospital, of "General Peritonitis following operation for appendicitis & floating kidney." Interestingly, her oldest brother, H.L. Hunter, of Cincinnati, Ohio, was the informant. Her parents both died in 1902.

What is the preserved item here? I have a copy of her original will, written about three weeks before her death.

Worship: Margot Was Not a Methodist ~ 52 Ancestors #13

... in fact, she was never particularly religious.

After graduating from college in 1956, my mother moved to Boston where she met my father when they both worked at the Boston Safe Deposit & Trust Company. Over the course of several years, they fell in love and wished to marry.

In the spring of 1963, my grandmother, Helen (Hunter) Copeland, a devoted Presbyterian, contacted several ministers in the Pittsburgh area (where she lived and where my mother grew up) to ask if they were available to marry her daughter and fiancé in the late summer or early fall of 1963. When a minister would say yes, he was available, he would begin to collect information about Helen's daughter and her intended. 

At this point, Helen would let him know that the wedding would have to wait until her future son-in-law's divorce was final. According to the story, this horrified several ministers that Helen spoke with and they refused to officiate at the wedding of a woman to a man who had just been divorced. I believe some were willing to marry the couple, but told Helen that the couple had to wait a year after the divorce to marry.

My parents didn't want to wait.

Helen was able to find a young Methodist minister who was willing to marry my parents in September. My father's divorce decree was final on August 13, less than seven weeks before his wedding to my mother.

Technology: George Lysle Had an Early Telephone ~ 52 Ancestors #12

My second great-grandfather, George Lysle, was a coal merchant in Pittsburgh. A family story says that in the 1880s, George Lysle's office had one of the earliest telephones in Pittsburgh.

This is either George Lysle, Jr. (1845-1900) or his father George Lysle (1800-1877)

 

George's daughter, Marguerite, was born in 1876 and was not quite nine years old when her mother, Marion, died in 1885. At some point in the 1880s, her father George, who was the owner of George Lysle & Sons Coal Merchants and was briefly on the Pittsburgh School Committee, had a telephone installed in his office. 

Marguerite remembered visiting her father's office and seeing this new contraption and being fascinated by it and by watching her father speak into the device to another person in another location. This was a significant enough memory for her that she shared it with her granddaughter (my mother) sixty-some years later. And thirty or thirty-five years after that, my mother shared this story with me.

Achievement: Margot Wins Able Youth Award ~ 52 Ancestors #11

In 1952, my mother, a senior in high school, took an achievement test sponsored by the Civic Club of Allegheny County (Pennsylvania), the Exceptionally Able Youth Spring Competition.

This is a case where I'm glad I have the original newspaper clippings; they scanned better than the images I found on my favorite subscription newspaper website.

Margot Copeland, of Allison Park, won first place in this achievement test. My grandfather noted the date of this Pittsburgh Press article.

 

Tied for second place were John Trimble and Hugh Pendleton. Suzanne Collins came in fourth.

And here is another photo from the May 29, 1952, Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph of the top four winners.

Earning a Living: Firefighter John Hunter ~ 52 Ancestors #6

This week's theme is Earning a Living.

 

There is one firefighter in my family tree of about 6,900 individuals. Great-great-great uncle John Kirk Hunter, third child and second son of my third great-grandparents, Samuel Hunter and Catherine (Carr) Hunter, was born December 1, 1845, in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania (later known as Old Allegheny or North Side Pittsburgh).

He held a few odd jobs before joining the Allegheny City fire department in the 1860s, after serving in the Civil War. He lived and worked in Allegheny City (later Pittsburgh) for the rest of his life.

In 1870, he was living with his mother and working as Engineer, but I'm guessing that it was as an engineer for the local fire company. He was living with his widowed mother. (See Catherine Carr Hunter for more information about her.)

1870 U.S. Census Catherine Hunter household

Sometime in the very early 1870s, he married Emma Bailey and they had three or four children, only two living to adulthood. The 1880 census shows his household with two children (and a sister-in-law) and his occupation as a "City Fire Man."

1880 U.S. Census John K. Hunter household

Newspapers tell much more of the story than census records and city directories (which I'm not sharing here due to the already long post).

Influencer: Percy Hunter and Bridge Safety ~ 52 Ancestors #5

This week's theme is Influencer.

 

A very early post on this blog was about my great-grandfather, Percy Earle Hunter (1873-1937) and his occupation as a civil engineer. 

Percy E. Hunter, 1895

For many years, he was president of the Independent Bridge Company in Pittsburgh, a company that literally built one of the bridges over the Monongahela River in Pittsburgh (the Liberty Bridge), among many other bridges.

Between 1915 and 1937, Percy obtained several patents for annealing boxes, welding apparatuses, bridge structures, and other manufacturing tools.

It appears that he influenced the development of safety railing for bridges and other structures.

Percy E. Hunter has 29 patents to his name, discovered at the Patent Public Search (searching for Applicant Name = Percy AND Applicant Name = Hunter).  (You can also search for patents at Google Patent Search by entering Percy Hunter in the Google Search box provided.)

Favorite Photo: For Jack From Mama ~ 52 Ancestors #3

This week's theme for this year's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is "Favorite Photo."

I have many photos that I have previously shared under the Wordless Wednesday prompt. Here are a couple that I haven't previously shared.

This is a tiny envelope, about 2.5" x 3.5". On the front is written: "For Jack from Mama."

And on the back is my mother's handwriting identifying the individuals in the photos as James Hunter and Mary (Freeland) Hunter, who are my second great-grandparents. This suggests that the handwriting on the front is my second great-grandmother's, Mary (Freeland) Hunter. Inside this small envelope are four tiny pictures.

I previously shared portraits of them when they were younger.

Stories From the 1950 Census ~ Census Number 10 For Aunt Claude

My second great grand aunt, Anna Claudine Freeland, lived long enough to be enumerated in ten federal censuses!

I have previously written about Great Aunt Claudine Freeland. I have also shared her brief obituary. (She outlived her four siblings by several decades.)

Sadly, as genealogists know, the 1890 federal census didn't survive a fire in 1921, with most of the damage coming from water used to put out the fire. Following is a summary of what I have found for "Aunt Claude" in all the other federal census records.

Year      Name                                Age      Occupation            Head of Household                  
1860     Hannah E. Freeland             5            -                         her parents, James and Nancy
1870     Clara Freeland                   15         at school               her widowed mother, Nancy
1880     Claude A. Freeland            25        School Teacher     her widowed mother, Nancy
1900     Anna C. Freeland               43        School Teacher     her widowed mother, Nancy
1910     Claudie Freeland                41        School Teacher     her (unmarried) brother, William
1920     Glaudine Freeland              50        School Teacher     lodger living in a boarding house
1930     Anna Claudine Freeland    75        None                      roomer living in Orlando, Florida
1940     Claudine Freeland              85        None                     lodger living in a boarding house

Stories From the 1950 Census ~ My Great Aunts Were Farmers

I previously shared that my mother remembers walking (quite a distance) to visit her grandmother Marguerite when she was growing up outside of Pittsburgh. She was supposedly her grandmother's favorite grandchild and even spent three months living with her when she was eight years old and recovering from (possibly) rheumatic fever, which left her with a lifetime heart murmur.

My great-grandmother, Marguerite (Lysle) Hunter, was the first ancestor I found in the 1950 census when it became available on April 1 at the National Archives website. No, I didn't find her by searching for Marguerite Hunter (a relatively common first name combined with a very common surname in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania). I searched for her divorced daughter, Mary Gerken.

1950 U.S. census, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Hampton Township, ED 2-366, sheet 7, lines 17-19, household 55 (Marguerite Hunter & daughters); U.S. National Archives, 1950 Census (https://1950census.archives.gov/search/).

Stories From the Census ~ Copeland Family in 1950

The 1950 United States Census became available to the public on April 1, 72 years after its official date. It has been "kind of" indexed, using OCR and artificial intelligence technology. (I say "kind of" because, although the National Archives likes to say it's been indexed, I haven't had much luck just entering names and places into their search fields.)

See the National Archives FAQ page here and start searching here. Read the search tips before you start searching.

One of the first families I looked for was my mother's family in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. This was a challenge, even though I knew exactly where they lived: on Mount Royal Boulevard.

It turns out that they lived on the border of their enumeration district (ED), a defined region for a census taker (an enumerator) to collect information on the residents who lived there.

The red star indicates where my mother's family lived. The corner of Mount Royal Boulevard and Sample Road turns out to be at a corner of ED 2-365. The blue star indicates where my great-grandmother, Marguerite (Lysle) Hunter lived with her two daughters (in ED 2-366). They lived less than 3 miles from each other. My mother has told me that she and her sisters often walked to visit their grandmother and aunts.

Click on the following images to enlarge them.

1950 U.S. census, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Hampton Township, ED 2-365, sheet 39, line 30 & sheet 40, lines 1-4, household 555 (Lowell Copeland family).

Lowell Copeland, my grandfather, was the 48-year-old head of household. The house was not on a farm, but was on more than three acres of land. Lowell was born in Illinois and was working most of the previous week, a 40-hour workweek as a salesman in the industry "Mine Supply." I was able to ask my mother about his occupation and she tells me he sold industrial supplies.

His wife, Helen, age 43, was at the top of the next page and her primary work the previous week was "H" for home housework.

My mother was disappointed that her name was misspelled. (It should have been Margot, with the "t.") Unfortunately, we don't know who provided the information, but my mother believes that if her mother had provided it, she would have said my mother's name, then spelled it.

Everyone age 14 and older was asked about what they did during the previous week. My mother and her sister Ann were "OT" meaning "other." They were in school.

My grandmother, mother, and her sisters were all born in Pennsylvania.

The 1950 census includes six entries on each page for individuals who were asked additional questions. My aunt Ann was asked the additional questions, but all that provided was that she was living in the same house a year prior and was a student with the highest grade of school being 8th grade. (I know she was in 9th grade at this time, a year behind my mother; they were both young for their grades.)

I look forward to sharing more stories from the 1950 U.S. Census.

Tombstone Tuesday ~ Lysle Plot at Union Dale Cemetery Pittsburgh

The last plot we visited during our August 2017 visit to Union Dale Cemetery in Pittsburgh was the Lysle family plot, burial location for yet another pair of second-great-grandparents, a pair of third-great-grandparents, and a fourth-great-grandmother.

In the middle of the obelisk is the name Lysle:

The plot has nineteen gravestones.

Tombstone Tuesday ~ Alston Plot at Union Dale Cemetery Pittsburgh

And another set of third-great-grandparents buried at Union Dale Cemetery from my 2017 visit.

There are two long rows of burials. The first five stones, representing six burials, are on the left in the above photograph:

Tombstone Tuesday ~ Freeland Plot at Union Dale Cemetery Pittsburgh

A continuation of my August 2017 visit to Union Dale Cemetery in Pittsburgh brings us to the Freeland plot.

There are five burials in this plot: