The image above depicts Edward Lescallet Alexander (1889-1959) who was born in the District of Columbia to Clarence Lee Alexander (1865-) and Esther Ellen “Nellie” Oertly (1869-1955). Clarence seems to have disappeared. He was enumerated with the family in the Census of 1900, but the Census of 1910 records Nellie’s surname as Larson. There is no death date on Clarence’s tombstone. The section where his father’s name should be is “Unknown” on Edward’s death certificate. Clarence and Nellie had two other children, Pauline Elizabeth Alexander (1891-1896) and David Lee Alexander (1896-1957). I was unable to figure out who Larson was, but Nellie later married Romeo Tate Perry (1871-1931) and outlived him by 24 years.
Update: Nellie married Arthur H. Larson (1876-1907) in 1903 but he died of TB in his home state of Wisconsin in 1907.
Edward married Susie “Sue” Minerva Timmerman (1893-1957) of Illinois in 1911. They had one son, Ralph Valden Alexander (1911-1960) who married Eva Valline McDonald (1917-1995) in 1942. Edward worked as a fleet mechanic, as a gas station manager, and, after 1942, for the Timber Engineering Company-Southwest in the Houston area. Edward died of heart disease and cirrhosis of the liver.
I might not have been able to identify the subject of the photograph had his mother’s maiden name not been unusual. Nellie’s father, Bartholome Oertli (1827-1878), an architect and inventor, was born in Switzerland. Edward’s middle name was the surname of a husband of one of Nellie’s paternal aunts: John William Lescallett (d. 1901) was married to Elizabeth Wilhelmina Oertly Lescallett Miller (1869-1956).
The beautiful people above are Albert Charles Fredrick Reuschlein (1875-1948) and Bessie M. Wolfe (1875-1967).
Albert was the son of George Reuschlein (1847-1936) and Anna Margaret Schneider (1847-1892). All four of Albert’s grandparents were born in Germany. Bessie was the daughter of Samuel Y. Wolfe (1847-??) and Susan Carlin (1847-??) who were born in Pennsylvania as were all four of her grandparents.
Albert and Bessie grew up in Cumberland, MD and married there in circa 1900. They both performed in vocal ensembles of various configurations at the First Presbyterian Church on Washington Street and at the Y.M.C.A. Albert worked as a clerk, timekeeper, and statistician for the B&O Railroad and retired on 3 July 1940 after 43 years of service. Bessie worked as a dressmaker and stenographer. Albert was a member of Ohr Lodge No. 131, A. L. & A. M for 35 years. They had one daughter, Elizabeth Carlin Reuschlein (1903-1977). She married Clinton Leroy Ewing, Sr. (1898-1989) and they had one son, Clinton Leroy Ewing, Jr. (1925-1983).
Bessie and Albert moved from Cumberland to Baltimore around 1920. They were buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in plot which is also the final resting place of Carlin and her husband (findagrave.com memorials 157268103-6).
Bessie and Albert were great hat people. Below they’re posing with Carlin.
Here is Carlin and an unidentified man:
I bought these photographs at an antique store on The Avenue in the Baltimore neighborhood of Hampden.
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The above photograph depicts Carrie May Feete (1869-1962) according to the inscription on its back:
Carrie was the only daughter of Henry Calvin Feete (1838-1924), a constable and undertaker in Middletown, MD, and Mary Elizabeth Null (1841-1907). Carrie’s six siblings were all brothers.
Carrie married William Hamilton Leatherman (1868-1928). William was a farmer who died on the farm where he was born. William was the son of George Leatherman (1827-1907) and Rebecca Elizabeth Johnson (1827-1908). George was known as Elder George Leatherman and was a farmer and a minister in the Dunkers church, also known as the German Baptists or Church of the Brethren. There is much material about the Leathermans of central and western Maryland available on the Internet and in libraries, so I won’t go into a lot of detail here. If you want more dope just ask me. Generally, there were two Leatherman clans which intermingled together and with the Harshman and Warrenfeltz families. Below is William:
Carrie and William had four children. Two of them, Carroll Feete Leatherman, Sr. (1898-1977) and Leslie Daniel Leatherman (1900-1940) are pictured below:
Carroll married Eleanor Martha Hedges (1901-1988) and they had one child, Carroll Feete Leatherman, Jr. (1933-2014).
Leslie Married Pearl Elizabeth Harshman (1901-1923) in 1922 and she died suddenly the next year. In 1924 Leslie married Nellie May Leatherman (1898-1975) and they had one son, Richard Lee Leatherman (1926-2010).
Carrie’s brother Alva Daniel Feete (1873-1942) married Lulu K. Welton (1876-1932) and they had no children:
Carrie’s brother Charles Henry Feete (1867-1947) started his professional life as a telegrapher for the Mutual Union Telegraph Company offices in Ellicott City and Rockville, MD. After bookkeeping in Chicago for about two years he returned to Frederick County in 1899 and, following in his father’s footsteps, established the C. H. Feete and Brother “ambulance and undertaking” business in Brunswick in partnership with is brother, William ((Null)) Feete (1873-1906). Charles’ obituary says he was “long considered Brunswick’s ‘first citizen.'” When he died he left the business to his sons who are pictured below, Charles Floyd Feete (1894-1954) and Bernard Lee Feete (1899-1963). The stamped name “Carroll H. Feete” refers to another of Carrie’s brothers, Carroll Hoffmeyer Feete (1878-1924).
I bought these photographs from an antique dealer in the Hampden neighborhood of Baltimore in March 2017. It came with a number of other photographs of more distant family members and associates which you will see in these pages at some point down the road.
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Pictured above is William Pepper Haney (1899-1954) in 1919. He is identified as Bill on the back of three of the subject photographs so that’s how we will refer to him. In the Census of 1920 he was living with his parents, John P. Haney (1866-1927) and Sarah P. Oakley (1876-??) at 540 Brunswick Street in southwest Baltimore, MD. I cannot place this photograph, possibly he is posing on breakwater (another photo in the same location is coming up). In 1920 Bill was a sign painter and his father was a printer. Bill served in the U.S. Navy during World War I and was assigned to U. S. Ships Emeline, Corona, Pretoria, and Eagle. We’ll see him (probably) again posing with a 3/4 aspect.
Bill married Luetta Jeanette Walper (1899-1991) in 1922. Luetta was the daughter of John M. Walper (1865-1926), a butcher, and Katherine “Katie” Lang (1865-1952). All four of Luetta’s grandparents were born in Germany.
The above photograph depicts Luetta and daughter Madlyn Eileen Haney (1925-2016) in 1925. Madlyn married Melbourne Donald Gourley (1925-1996) in 1952. She graduated from Western High School and he graduated from Baltimore Polytechnic Institute in 1943. They had four sons. Melbourne was a submariner during WWII, a torpedoman’s mate, and a member of Plumbers and Steamfitters Local Union No. 486 AFL-CIO when he died. Madlyn was an athlete, participating in varsity softball and ice skating in high school and in Senior Olympics later in life. Below is her senior portrait.
Here’s a detail which is too good to pass up: Madlyn’s high school portrait is behind the kid on the left in the below photograph. I am not certain who these people are but the date “1950” is written on the back.
Here is an undated photograph of Madlyn standing in front of Western High School. I’m guessing this was taken on her graduation day and that these are her parents, Bill and Luetta.
I cannot resist posting this photograph of Madlyn in this beautiful carriage, also dated 1925:
As previously mentioned, Bill was a sign painter. In the two photographs which follow, Bill is pictured with his colleague Frederick John Prediger (1896-1966), one of the four children of German-born parents, Casper Prediger (1866) and Freidarick Trutle (1873). Fred married German-born Elizabeth Baumeister and they had three children.
Morton Outdoor Advertising, as written on the truck, was a Baltimore company owned by Henry Morton and his son Lawrence A. Morton until it was sold in 1948.
This batch of material was purchased from an antique store on The Avenue in the Baltimore neighborhood of Hampden in early 2017. Also included are several letters and cards, including a beautiful Christmas card Bill sent to Luetta in 1920.
Note that the large format photographs were very curled, something I mention to explain the crookedness of some of the photographs as scanned.
I purchased the above photograph from Whatnots Antiques on The Avenue in the Baltimore neighborhood of Hampden. The photograph was in a beautiful frame which I now regret not buying. The name of the photograph’s subject was on the back plate of the frame, not on the photograph itself, but I took a photograph of the back plate before leaving the store.
The subject is Clara Beall Taylor (1881-1972). She was the daughter of Charles Wood Taylor (1849-1934) and Mary Frances Beall (1851-1939).
She married Hunter Boyd Gainor (1859-1928), 22 years her senior, in 1901. [I have thought for years that the given name Hunter was a recent phenomenon, but not so.] Hunter had a son named Hunter Fountain Gainor (1890-1949) when they married and he was groomsman at their wedding. The two of them produced Clara Boyd Gainor (1905-1988) and John Loughran Gainor (1907-1992). The name Loughran apparently comes from a friend of Hunter’s named John B. Loughran of Norfolk, VA.
After Hunter died in 1928, Clara married Frank Abbott Magruder (1882-1949) in 1930. Magruder was the widowed husband of Clara’s sister, Louise Southgate Taylor (1885-1929). Clara, aunt of Mary Elizabeth Magruder (1923) and Margaret L. Magruder (1924), became their step-mother. Frank was a PhD professor of political science who graduated from Johns Hopkins and taught at Princeton University. When they married he was at Oregon State College in Corvalis. Magruder was a writer of textbooks, one of which, American Government (1917) was banned by the Houston, TX school board a month before he died. It is said that Frank chose to live on his salary and used all of his income from books to support charitable causes such as Camp Magruder which was named for him.
Clara returned to Baltimore after Frank died and lived in the Park-Lynn Apartments in the Roland Park neighborhood.
The above photograph contains the following inscription on the back:
Charles William Leydecker (1863-1930) lived at 2544 McHenry Street in Baltimore in 1910 and 2550 McHenry Street in 1920, according the U.S. Census for those years. I think both addresses refer to the same property, that commonly known as 2550 McHenry Street.
Charles was the first child of Philip Louis Leydecker, Sr (1839-1911) and Julia A. Gempp (1842-1906). Philip “Leidecker” arrived from Biedenkopf, Marburg-Biedenkopf, Hesse, Germany in 1853. In 1860 he was enumerated as a butcher and living in the household of the well-to-do butcher Theodore Ludwick and his wife Margaret, both also born in Germany. Philip’s obituaries described him as the “Nestor of Butchers” and “one of the best known butchers in Lexington Market. Julia was the daughter of George F. Gempp (1808-1862) and his wife Margaret B UNKN (1808-1868), both of whom were born in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. If George’s middle name is Frederick, as I suspect, he arrived to the USA in 1833 and was naturalized in 1840. Philip, Julia, George, and Margaret are buried in the Leydecker plot in Loudon Park Cemetery in Baltimore (findagrave.com memorials 139637111, 139643584, 139626765 and 139631587).
Charles, who was a butcher like his father, married Catherine Anna “Katie” Uhl (1864-1935) in 1886. She was the daughter of German-born Louis Charles Uhl (1844-1912), also in the meat business as a “commission merchant and stock dealer” and Elizabeth Heiner (1846-1918) who was born in Maryland. They had one child, Philip Louis Leydecker, Sr. (1887-1955). Charles’ son Philip was a hotelier and owned racehorses. A successful thoroughbred named “Charlie Leydecker” was active from 1917 to 1923 but I was unable to discover the horse’s connection to the family.
Charles’ brother Fred apparently inherited Philip’s stall in Lexington market. Here is an ad which appeared in the 23 April 1912 edition of The Baltimore Sun:
The mansion at 2550 McHenry Street is long gone but the Internet is full of information about it. Known as the Shipley-Lydecker (sic) house, it is situated in the Baltimore neighborhood of Shipley Hill. According to a Shipley family website, the house was built by Nicholas Carroll in circa 1803; bought by Charles Shipley (1814-1904) in 1851-2, sold to Philip in circa 1906, bought by the VFW to be used as a memorial to the dead of WWI in 1947, and demolished to make room for a public housing development in 1947. It even has its own Facebook page. Here and here you can learn that the house was the model for Disneyland’s “Haunted Mansion” ride.
There are several mistakes in the online information about the mansion, an important one being the incorrect rendering of the name Leydecker which leaves out the “e”. All available information, including the version chiseled on the obelisk in the family cemetery plot, confirms the spelling is Leydecker.
This Sanborn Insurance map from 1901 shows the stables and tree depicted in the subject photographs.
This Sanborn Insurance map from 1952 shows the block after row houses were built. The stables and the tree are gone and the house is labeled “V.F.W. Club.” By this time S. Garrison Lane had been renamed Franklintown Road.
Here is another photograph of the same scene, only with one more pony and one less Charles, followed by the inscription on its back:
I assume that the stamped “18-2” on the back of each photograph indicates they were developed in February 1918.
After many hours searching without success, I posted on Hemmings Motor News’ Facebook page asking for help in identifying the truck and got two responses. Mister Wilhelm informed me that, until 1924, various 3d party companies produced truck bodies for installation on a Ford Model-T chassis. Mister Coutinho speculated that the truck was a late 1910’s Maxwell 1.5 ton. For comparison a 1917 model Maxwell truck is pictured here, and a 1920 model is pictured here.
This was great fun and there is more to say about the family and the mansion, but material is stacking up around here and it is time to move on.
The above photograph depicts a group of children living in Germantown, a neighborhood of Annapolis, the capital city of Maryland. I am not yet sure of the occasion for this photograph, or its exact date and location, but perhaps these details will become known as I write about the more of the children. Please feel free to chime in with theories.
The detail photographs below depict children of Harold Burton Herty (1891-1978) and Margaret H. McClure (1896-1971). Harold was a career U.S. Navy officer who retired as a Captain (O-6) in 1947. He began his seagoing life circa 1913 as a wireless operator aboard the SS Marowijne, a vessel operated by the Tropical Fruit S. S. (Steamship) Company sailing between New Orleans and Central America. He apparently joined the Naval Reserve circa 1917. By 1918 he was an ensign stationed at Naval Station New Orleans where the first two of their three children were born. He was transferred to temporary duty at the Naval Experimental Station at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis in 1922 and their third child, Charles Samuel Herty (1922-2004) was born there.
The girl in the detail to the right is Mona Lois Herty (1918-1992). She was born in New Orleans, LA. In 1940 she was living with her mother in San Diego, CA and owned her own beauty parlor. Mona married Karl Lischeid, a native of Germany, in September 1943 and they had one daughter. After they divorced in 1949, Mona married Culver Salisbury Bostwick (1922-2010) and they had one son.
To the right is Harold Burton “Buster” Herty, Jr. (1919-1943) who was born in Annapolis, MD. While living in Vallejo, CA in 1941 he was the the first person to have his name inscribed on a plaque commemorating the selection of the outstanding cadet at the Long Beach (CA) Naval Reserve Aviation Base. Lieutenant (JG) Herty was killed in an aircraft accident in Pensacola, FL in December 1943. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery (49203142).
Both siblings were members of the June 1937 Senior Class of Herbert Hoover High School in San Diego.
The above photograph depicts Wilmer Brown Ziegler, Sr. The name Ziegler is frequently misspelled Zeigler as it is on the back of the photograph. I believe the Wilmer Ziegler in the photograph is Wilmer Brown Ziegler because Pottstown is centrally located to where Wilmer Brown Ziegler spent his life among a flourishing Ziegler clan, because I can find no other suitable Wilmers, and because Wilmer Brown Ziegler’s WWI draft registration card describes his hair as light-colored. The style of the “stamp box” on the back of the photograph indicates it was produced using Kodak Professional AZO Paper between 1904-1918. Go here and here to learn more about identifying Real Photograph Postcards, also known as RPPCs. I could find no information about the Alamo Studio, 208 High Street, Pottstown, PA.
Wilmer (1894-1987) was the son of John Conner Ziegler (1867-1954) and Sarah Ann Brown (1868-1934). The Ziegler genealogist is fortunate if she is aware that Wilmer’s grandfather, Daniel Peiffer Ziegler (1823-1908) assisted Jesse Ziegler in publishing The Ziegler Family Record in 1906 (download: here or here). The story begins with Philip Ziegler who was born in Bern, Switzerland in 1734, died in Berks County, PA in 1803, and is buried in Rehresburg Mennonite Cemetery (findagrave.com memorial #48047687).
Wilmer married Sadie S. Hibshman on 22 April 1916 in Frystown, PA. The couple produced three children. At the time of their 50th wedding anniversary in 1966 they had ten grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. They farmed in the vicinity of Bethel, PA before moving to a house on Oak Street in Palmyra, PA where they lived until they sold the house in 1973. Wilmer retired from the Hershey Chocolate Corporation which still has distribution center in Palmyra. Sadie was a prominent leader of the Society of Farm Women, a civic organization founded by Flora Black in 1914. They were members of the Church of the Brethren.
I purchased the photograph at an antique store in the Baltimore neighborhood of Hampden.
The above postcard, postmarked six P.M., 10 August 1909, contains a cryptic message from S.S.H. to Miss Julia Fowler of 1310 Myrtle Avenue, Baltimore MD.
Hear’s one for
luck hoping that
you have changed
your mind about
a certain subject
Will see you to-
morrow night.
S.S.H
We may happily assume Julia did change her mind “about a certain subject” because she married Samuel Stewart Hoopper (1884-1972) on 7 June 1910. The wedding took place at the Third Reformed Church in Baltimore with the Reverend Clayton H. Ranck officiating.
In the 1910 Census Julia Leas Fowler (1886-1974) was unemployed and living at 1310 Myrtle Avenue, Baltimore, with her father, Isaac Fowler (1853-1922) , her mother, Julia Amelia Leas (1857-1932), and her sister, Lotta A. Fowler (1882-1938). She graduated from Western High School in 1905 and probably followed in her mother’s footsteps by attending Western Maryland College (McDaniel College).
Stewart, as he was known, was the son of Samuel James Hoopper (1861-1862) and Susan Lee Stewart (1862-1943). Stewart was an accountant by trade and a Mason. He served on the board of the Baltimore Coin Club. He was an amateur photographer and cache of his photographs from the early 20th Century was donated to the Maryland Historical Society in 1978.
Julia and Stewart had one child, Julia Fowler Hoopper (1913-2004). She never married and lived with her parents until they died. A graduate of the Maryland Normal School (Towson University), she was a teacher and librarian in Baltimore City public schools.
Stewart, Julia, and Julia were modest people who lived quiet lives. That doesn’t mean they had no impact. The esteemed newspaperman Jacques Kelly of The Baltimore Sun lived next door to the Hoopper family when he was a boy and occasionally mentioned them in his columns. In 1999 he wrote about Julia Fowler Hoopper’s Easter rituals and you can read that here. In September 2004 he wrote a lovely memorial to Julia Fowler Hoopper and I highly recommend you go here to read it.
Below is the front of Stewart’s postcard. I purchased the postcard at an antique store on The Avenue in Hampden, the coolest neighborhood in Baltimore.
The inscription on the back of this photograph reads, “Charles Britcher (neighbor of Ruth Wilkinsburg)”. I know what you’re thinking. I thought the same thing: How do I find a Charles Britcher and a Ruth Wilkinsburg who are neighbors?
It turns out that, according to the Census of 1920, Charles Albert Britcher, Jr. (1915-1984) and Ada Ruth Tonkin (1914-1992) were neighbors on McClure Avenue in Swissvale, PA.
The note says they were neighbors in Wilkinsberg, but Swissvale is nearby, one township over.
Charles’ family lived in 7244 McClure Avenue and Ruth’s family lived in 7244 1/2 McClure Avenue. In the below image we see that the lattice work behind little Charles is still a feature of this dwelling, though mostly covered by plants:
Charles was the only child of Charles, Sr. (1884-1965) and Margaret Elizabeth Yentsch (1887-1964). He married Dorothy Elizabeth Lind (1919-2005) and they had three children. Here is Charles’ portrait in the Allderdice High School yearbook, “The Allderdice,” from 1933:
Ruth, as she was known, and the order of her given names was often confused, is not the subject of our found photograph, but aren’t you a little bit interested in her? Ruth was the daughter of Ellsworth NMI Tonkin (1883-1944) and Ada May Quick (1888-1969). She married William Digby Cecil, Sr, in 1947 and they had one son. Ruth went to Edgewood High School which closed in the 1980’s. Edgewood is the little township tucked in between Swissvale and Wilkinsburg. It would be great to have a photograph of Ruth and Charles together, and perhaps one is out there somewhere. We’ll have to settle for this image of Ruth from her University of Pittsburgh yearbook, “The Owl,” when she was a senior in 1936:
