Lizzie Foutz’s Lonely Life

The home where Sherman Foutz lived out his last years, at 135 N. Summit St. in Harrisburg, Pa. His widow, Elizabeth, would relocate through a succession of residences in her final 30 years without Sherman.

Sherman Foutz Widow Stays in Harrisburg

The life of my great-great aunt Lizzie Foutz is one I’ve puzzled over for some time, and probably more than that of her well-known husband, Sherman Foutz.

Great-great Uncle Sherman’s life — and early death — after all, is more easily navigable for its documented rise and development and the decisive, tragic final chapter.

But the family left in the wake of Sherman’s losing fight with tuberculosis, at just 47, is harder to trace and understand. Cast out of the spotlight trained upon Sherman for his U.S. Treasury Department appointment, then leadership of the Knights of the Maccabees, then prominent fire insurance business in first Reading then Harrisburg, Pa., the family splits up in the decade after his death.

Earlier posts in this series, gathering new insights from a recent research binge on newspapers.com, have shed light on a few longstanding mysteries about Sherman’s descendants, including:

• the business circumstances that brought Sherman Foutz from Reading to Harrisburg, Pa. about 1909, even after his family had acquired history-book status in Berks County
• the omission in Sherman’s 1915 obituary and other circumstantial evidence that seemed to indicate his oldest child, Oscar, preceded him in death, when in fact, as revealed by Sherman’s death announcement (and other documentation we’ll get to), Oscar survived him, though he lived in faraway Arizona as one of his two sons — what happened to the other, and to Oscar’s wife? — lived for a time in Lizzie’s care.
• the most complete tracing of what happened to Sherman’s family following his death can be found in the 1970 obituary of daughter Grace Foutz Chaney, and a 1969 feature on her life and teaching career in Ohio, though some of the facts are wrong, and mysteries still surround Grace’s childlessness, her choice to live 300 miles from her widowed mother and nieces and nephews, her sporadic but forgotten visits to my great-grandfather Vance (her uncle just 3 years her senior), and her habit of fudging her age, which ended up etched into her tombstone’s incorrect birthdate.

But it is the fate of Sherman’s widow, Elizabeth Wilson Foutz — Lizzie in census records and on personal possessions — that holds even greater intrigue than what we’ve picked through so far.

From Harrison County to Harrisburg, Pa.

According to a history of Berks County published in the first decade of the 1900s, Elizabeth Wilson was the daughter of John Wilson and grew up, like Sherman Foutz, in Harrison County, Ohio.

Born in October 1866, according to census records, Elizabeth Wilson grew up in a family of a dozen or so children. Unlike eldest child Sherman, born in September 1867 on a nearby farm to Jonathan and Rebecca Foutz, Elizabeth was second-youngest of that big brood.

Her parents, John and Mary, were Irish immigrants. They were married in Pittsburgh, Pa. about 1839, and their first children were born in Pennsylvania. By the time Jane “Jennie” Wilson was born in 1843, they were living and farming in Harrison County, Ohio.

The 1880 census is the last to catch Elizabeth Wilson and Sherman Foutz before their marriage, kids and move to Washington D.C. (The 1890 federal census was almost entirely destroyed in a fire.) At the time, Elizabeth is 16 and attending school; Sherman, at 13, also goes to school and his household includes sisters Lila, Rachel and Ida, and younger brother John. The family spells their name Pfoutz.

After graduating from the Harrison County public schools, Sherman attends New Hagerstown Academy in nearby Carroll County, an unprecedented level of education not only for the farming Foutzes as a clan, but for Sherman’s younger siblings as well.

On August 11, 1887, Sherman and Elizabeth are married. He is 19; she is two months shy of 21. Son Oscar will be born 15 months later in December 1888. Daughter Grace follows on Sept. 5, 1890, her birthday two days after her father’s. The family makes their home in Bowerston, where Sherman works in the fire insurance business. Sometime in the 1890s, he is appointed to a clerkship with the U.S. Treasury, during the second presidency of Grover Cleveland.

The 1900 census finds Sherman and Elizabeth and family sharing a house at 732 Flint St. in Washington D.C. with Jonathan, Rebecca and their youngest sons Charles and (Colt’s great-grandfather) Vance. The census catches them in June, just months before Jonathan and Rebecca would return home to Harrison County, where Jonathan would die of Bright’s Disease, a kidney ailment, in September at age 55.

According to the Berks County history, in April 1902 Sherman accepts a role as supervising deputy for the Knights of the Maccabees’ eastern Pennsylvania district. The family moves to Reading, where Sherman succeeds in growing the membership base from 92 to more than 3,500 over the course of the decade.

Property sales records show the Foutzes selling their Reading home in 1909 and moving 60-some miles west to the capital city of Harrisburg, where Sherman continues his Maccabees leadership for a few more years before taking charge of the Protective Home Circle, an insurance collective, in 1913.

About that time, the family moves into a brand new house at 135 N. Summit St. in Harrisburg. Not far from Sherman’s insurance offices on 2nd Street, the red brick home abuts North Terrace Park and boasts 4 bedrooms and 1,900 square feet, according to Trulia stats. A pretty piece of real estate at the time, the family would not stay there long during a tumultuous conclusion to the 1910s.

A ruby glass uncovered in 2013 at an Ohio auction bears the name of Great-Great Aunt Lizzie Foutz and seems to date from a Modern Woodmen of America benefit in 1910.

Rare Foutz Find: Glass an Artifact of Happier Times

In the years I’ve researched Sherman Foutz’s family and descendants, I’ve turned up numerous photos of Sherman, in portraits and official Maccabees invitations, even newspaper caricatures. Thanks to the Morelands (family of sister Ida), we’ve got a four generations portrait of Grace and her father about 1910 with grandma Rebecca Foutz and great-grandma Rachel Caldwell.

No portrait or picture of mom Lizzie B. (Wilson) Foutz exists, that I’ve found. Same for son Oscar.

We’ve got obituaries to bracket the lives and lend order to the stories of Sherman and Grace. But Oscar comes up missing ink. And until recently, Lizzie did, too. The only clues were census records, and even those were incomplete.

We know that, following Sherman’s death in 1915, Lizzie turns up in 1920 and 1930 still living in Harrisburg.

In 1920, grandson Ralph, 11, is the only carryover from her 1910 household. Sherman, Grace and Oscar are gone. A new addition is 14-year-old foster daughter Catherine, whose birthplace is listed as Pennsylvania and whose parents are listed as born in the United States. Not listed in their house in 1910, and not mentioned in Sherman’s death announcement or obituary, interestingly, Catherine was probably adopted after Lizzie was widowed, when she was as old as 9 or 10.

Never having been listed as employed before, through her 20s and 30s, Lizzie, at 45, now works as a cook in the Elks home. She also hosts two roomers at the family’s rented house at 59 N. Tenth St. — 44-year-old widow Lydia Farber, a cook at a factory restaurant, and her 14-year-old daughter Helen Farber.

By 1930, Lizzie and Catherine Foutz are the sole members of their household, renting an apartment with dozens of other families (in the building, I’m presuming) at 412 Briggs St., about where the State Museum of Pennsylvania stands today, though their address is also listed in a 1930 city directory as 910 N. Third, right around the corner. Their ages are reported, erroneously, as 52 and 20. They should be 55 and 24.

Elizabeth doesn’t work according to the 1930 census, while Catherine is employed as a stitcher in a shoe factory. (The city directory says she is a folder.)

We know from the 1940 census that Catherine is living in Lititz, Pa., about halfway between Harrisburg and Reading. She is married to John Roy Rutt, a cutter in an asbestos factory. Catherine is not employed.

Lizzie vanishes from the public record at this point. Though I have scoured census records in Harrisburg, going neighborhood by neighborhood, I can’t find her. She doesn’t live with Grace in Ohio or Catherine in Lititz, or grandson Ralph in Harrisburg; nor does she show up in the residences of her two surviving siblings. And aside from knowing her death year — 1945 — for a time, I had no inkling of where she was after 1930.

But there, in the newspaper archives of the Harrisburg Telegraph, was her obituary. I try not to take such sudden revelations as a personal judgment on all the hours I’d sunk in prior to that moment. I’ll take it as a stroke of luck instead.

From Dec. 13, 1945:

From this snippet, we learn that Lizzie was still living in Harrisburg up until her hospitalization in Lancaster (down the river from Harrisburg and south of Lititz). The place is a grassy lot today.

We learn that Oscar may be still alive — and living in Charlotte, N.C. Her obit also confirms just two grandsons  (from Oscar and Florence) — and that Ralph and Sherman are still living. The five great-grandchildren are probably all from Ralph and wife Virginia (Henson) Foutz: Nicholas, Charles, Catherine, Arthur and newborn Grace, not yet a month old when her great-grandmother Elizabeth died.

Lizzie’s body would be returned to Bowerston for burial. She is laid to rest in Longview Cemetery, across from Sherman.

And that’s her story, as much as we can piece together. Still, there are sudden connections that surprise.

Late last spring, around the time of my son Caleb’s birth (a busy time, and part of the reason for the delay in sharing), I was emailed by Nancy Dionne. She was hunting auctions in Zanesville, Ohio and came across a ruby shot glass with a crystal bottom, inscribed “Lizzie Foutz” and “M.W. of A.” with the date 1910.

The glass was thrown in as an “add-on” to a piece of pottery Nancy wanted. Curious about its origins, though, Nancy and fellow treasure hunters chatting in collectors weekly’s forums searched online and found this blog. M.W. of A, Nancy and company found out, was likely Modern Woodmen of America (one of Sherman Foutz’s many affiliations), and the 1910 event may have been a function at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1910.

Nancy was kind enough to mail the glass to me. Now this relic of my great-great aunt Lizzie Foutz’s mysterious life sits atop a bookshelf on the right side of our fireplace and mantle full of family photographs. Here’s hoping that continued piecing together of our family’s past, and sharing in this space, can lead to even more illuminating connections.

Another view of the Lizzie Foutz glass uncovered by Nancy Dionne in a Zanesville, Ohio auction. M.W. of A. likely stands for Modern Woodmen of America, one of Sherman Foutz’s many affiliations.

In Good Countenance #9 – Ralph Foutz

Virginia (Henson) Foutz and Ralph Francis Foutz, in an undated photo.

Ralph & Virginia Foutz | Deepening the Sherman Foutz Connection

Enough digital ink has been spilled in this blog on Sherman S. Foutz, oldest brother to my great-grandfather Vance Cleveland Foutz, that I’ll spare you the extended recap and cut to the news at hand.

The last breakthrough I blogged about was the discovery, through Pennsylvania church records on Ancestry.com, of baptismal logs listing Ralph Francis Foutz and Harry Sherman Foutz as sons to Oscar W. Foutz and Florence Hartman Foutz.

Those documents firmed up a lot of information, including:

• reaffirming Oscar and Florence as a couple and parents
• confirming their residency in Reading, Pa. in the first decade of the 20th century
• confirming their church affiliation, like most Foutzes, as Lutheran
• confirming birth dates for Ralph and Harry
• revealing the young couple had a second son, Harry, a problematic revelation, since neither he, nor parents Oscar and Florence, appear in any records I’ve uncovered since the time of patriarch Sherman Foutz’s death from tuberculosis in 1915

That was always the core mystery behind these Foutzes. Sherman was beloved as first-born, prominent, successful son of Jonathan and Rebecca Foutz, and certainly admired by his youngest sibling, my great-grandfather Vance, as evidenced by the clippings and photos that remained in his possession and were eventually passed down to my father, Fred. But his early death seemed to cut off the rest of that family from my own.

Oh, it seemed as if Sherman’s daughter, Grace, would show up from time to time, as evidenced by my great-aunt Doris (Foutz) Waddington’s memories, and Grace’s surprising signature in Vance’s 1968 funeral registry (Grace herself was just two years from death). But Grace (Foutz) Chaney died childless. Her 1970 obituary mentions a foster-sister, Catherine Rutt, of Lititz, Pa., and several nieces and nephews — what became of them? What became of her brother, Oscar, who isn’t mentioned in her 1970 obituary, and his own children and descendants?

Tracking Down Ralph Foutz

The pieces started to fill in, where Ralph Foutz is concerned, in connections I made through several Harrisburg, Pa. city directory entries of the 1930s and 1940s. Same name, same city as where he grew up in the care of grandma Lizzie Foutz (Sherman’s wife), according to the 1910 and 1920 censuses. Seems a likely connection.

Next, the 1987 Harrisburg Patriot-News obituary for Virginia Henson Foutz names Ralph F. Foutz as her husband, preceding her in death. The obit mentions Virginia as retired from the L. Wohl Children’s Dress Factory. In Lizzie Foutz’s 1930 census entry, foster daughter Catherine is listed as a dress-stitcher. Same employer? Again, a possible connection.

Through the website FindAGrave.com — ridiculously named, but deeper and deeper by day in its breadth: I cannot overstate how helpful this is as a primary source — I located entries for Ralph and Virginia Foutz in Woodlawn Memorial Gardens (named in Virginia’s obit) in Dauphin County. I submitted a photo request — another helpful feature of FindAGrave — and a man named Karl Fox was kind enough to photograph these relatives’ final resting places. From those photos, I could confirm birth and death years. Incalculably helpful.

So from the information in the obituary, backed up by the confirmation from documents listed above, I was able to start branching out in my search for what happened to Oscar and his descendants. This led me to connect with third cousins once removed Henry Foutz, Kathy Allen and Sandi (don’t know your last name yet, dear).

As often happens — it’s true of me, too, of course — Henry, Kathy and Sandi were curious about their family’s origins as well, and beginning to coax info from parents and aunts and uncles, Ralph’s and Virginia’s kids, Nick Sr., Charles, Catherine, Arthur, Grace, Agnes and Frances. I shared the info I had, on our connection through Sherman, Oscar and Ralph, as well as the Foutz/Pfouts family story all the way back to Michael and Wuerttemberg, Germany.

Kathy and Sandi kindly shared the photo of their grandparents that is featured in this blog. (BIG THANKS!)

As for their Foutzes, Henry was been instrumental in putting together a big Pennsylvania Foutz reunion the last few years. From the photos he’s shared on Facebook, looks like it was a lot of fun. Maybe we can see that expand to include Ohio and other far-flung Foutzes?

As for filling in the details on Ralph, Oscar and the rest, what we still don’t know:

• What happened to Lizzie Foutz (Sherman’s wife) after the 1930 census? We know she dies in 1945 and is buried with Sherman in Longview Cemetery near Bowerston, Ohio. What was she doing in 1940? She wasn’t living with Ralph or foster daughter Catherine? Where then?
• What happened to Catherine (Foutz) Rutt, husband John Roy Rutt and their descendants?
• What became of Ralph’s parents, Oscar and Florence, and his brother, Harry Sherman Foutz? Again, the last record I have of them is from a 1911 Reading Eagle article reporting Florence’s visit to Oscar at National Guard Camp Thomas Potter Jr. in Mt. Gretna.

I’m looking forward to working with newfound extend family to discover these stories together.

Honoring Our Family’s Veterans | Robert Earl Ley, Sr.

A very young Robert Earl Ley Jr. and his father, Robert Sr. My grandpa would sometimes accompany his father as they worked their bird dogs in the Ohio prairie country.

Places of Rest & Remembrance #5 | Robert Earl Ley, Sr.

An interesting genealogical artifact available for most males in my family of my great-grandparents’ generation is the draft card each able-bodied man was required to submit to for each of the world wars.

Since most of my great-grandparents were alive for both World War I and World War II, the information entered by the draft board provides a snapshot of these ancestors at two different points in their lives, some 25 years apart.

Great-Grandpa Robert Earl Ley is the only one, though, with any official acknowledgment of service in the Great War.

Robert Earl Ley was born Aug. 17, 1893, in Port Washington, Ohio, the third son of parents Charles Henry Ley and Minnie Eillene (Hammersley) Ley. Robert’s father had followed his own father, Augustus Ley, into the dry goods business of a fashion — rather than anchoring himself to a store the way Augustus set up shop on the canal in old Port Washington, Charles traveled the country, first in the employ of the J.B. Haynes Co. of Pittsburgh, and later the Pittsburg Dry Goods Co.

But also like Augustus, and his immigrant grandparents Karl and Susanna Ley, Charles had a taste for political life. Not long after Robert was born, he moved the family to New Philadelphia, Ohio and won election as treasurer of Tuscarawas County, a role in which he served two terms.

His father’s successful career as merchant and civic leader afforded Robert Earl Ley the best education to be had in the early 20th century. He graduated from New Philadelphia High School, then studied at Western Reserve University, earning a dental degree in 1915.

Robert had just set up shop as dentist in neighboring Dover, Ohio, in 1916 when war broke out and he was called to serve.

Robert Earl Ley, Sr. – World War I Service

Great-Grandpa Ley’s obituary indicates he served in the war, and his grave in Evergreen Burial Park in New Philadelphia bears the star marker indicating service.

However, I have been unable to locate his name or his record of service in the Ohio soldiers index for World War I. So we cobble part of the story together through his draft record.

Robert Ley reported to the World War I draft board June 5, 1917. Like all the local draft records from that war, the writing is nearly illegible. But we can make out that he was single, with no dependents, employed as a doctor of dental surgery. There are none of the physical details noted that make later draft cards interesting to researchers. But there is a curious notation — barely legible:

* some remark referring to his career or training as a dentist, and that he would “make an efficient officer.”

We know not how or where Great-Grandpa Ley served during World War I. But we do know he returned home and soon made a life with New Philadelphia girl and local teacher Zula Lucrece Fisher, whom he married June 27, 1917. Son Robert Earl Jr. would follow in September 1918.

Zula was pregnant with the family’s second child, a daughter, when she and the baby tragically died of complications due to influenza and pneumonia in February 1920. Robert sent his son to live with Zula’s parents as he cobbled together a new life, marrying Florence Jones in the 1920s. She bore him a second son, Richard Earl, in 1927. Tragedy would again touch their lives, though, as Dickie suffered a strange ailment and died just weeks before his sixth birthday in 1933.

Robert, Florence and Robert Jr. pressed on, however. The younger Ley graduated from Dover High School in 1936 and through a long stretch of studies at Ohio Northern, then Baldwin Wallace and finally The Ohio State University earned his doctoral degree in dentistry, intending to follow his father into the practice. They were again interrupted by war.

In Robert Earl Ley Sr.’s 1942 draft record he is 48 years old, lives in Dover, works in Dover on the third floor of the Reeves Bank Building, and counts Florence Ley as a dependent. The card notes his height and weight — 5’11 and 185 pounds — his light complexion and dark brown hair. No mention of previous service is recorded, but the examiner does note the “scar over left eye.”

We know that Robert is not called to serve this time, and instead his son serves as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy, working as a dentist aboard battleships.

After the war, the younger Ley would rejoin his father and they would practice dentistry side by side in a new office on the corner of Second and Walnut streets in Dover. Robert Sr. died in 1959 while at work; his widow, Florence, lived above the dental office her stepson kept until her own death in the summer of 1984.

The Robert Earl Ley plot in Evergreen Burial Park in New Philadelphia, Ohio, is a serene tableau, with dual planters and a bench beneath the pines. Buried there are Great-Grandfather Robert, wife Florence, son Dickie and sister Irma Haines Murphy.

The star indicating Robert Earl Ley Sr.’s service in World War I, 1917-1918.

Headstone for Dr. Robert Earl Ley Sr. in Evergreen Burial Park, New Philadelphia, Ohio.

In Good Countenance #8 – Jannett Louise (Reese) Morgan

Great-Great-Grandmother Jannett Louise (Reese) Morgan, a native of Wales, made her home in Carnegie, Pa. for decades after immigrating through Philadelphia in 1870. But she made at least one trip back home to Wales, and lived in Dover, Ohio for a time — the place her youngest daughter, and descendants, still call home a century later.

Jannett Louise Morgan | Weible Family History

Picking up our series on Vintage Visages earlier this week, we came face to face with Great-Great Grandfather Thomas Morgan for the first time. We followed his life and times as we know them (so far) in America, from emigration from Wales in 1870, to marriage in 1872 in Philadelphia, through work in the mills of western Pennsylvania as a heater.

After establishing a foothold in America, the family really settled down in Carnegie, Pa., northwest of Pittsburgh. It was there that Thomas made a name for himself in local political life, and in his final years ran the Hotel Morgan.

Sadly, those golden years were cut short. Thomas died in 1897 at age 49 of unknown causes — at least to this one of his descendants 115 years later. His Post-Gazette obituary follows the same tight stylistic constraints the paper stayed with for generations of Thomas’ descendants, revealing no details about his parentage or place of birth in Wales, not even the names of surviving relatives.

Fortunately, we know a bit more about his wife, my great-great grandmother, Jannett Louise Morgan. And we pick up the family’s story after Thomas’s death, where interestingly enough, their journey westward continues to the hometown of several branches of my family for several generations back — Dover, Ohio.

A Two-Year Stay in Dover, Ohio – With Relatives Remaining

Following her husband’s death, Jannett Morgan keeps a lively household in Carnegie.

Residing with her in 1900 and most of the decade leading up  to 1910 are oldest sons William and Thomas, who were already working, as well as younger sons David and Glenn. Daughter Sarah would be married by 1910. Rounding out the household are younger daughters Janet and (my great-grandmother) Beatrice.

But sometime before the next census in 1920 — and more importantly, before Janet’s death in 1914 — part of the family moves to Dover, Ohio. We know this because of the descendants who remain — son Glenn, who married Salina Belle Rudge, died in Dover in 1956, and is buried in Dover Burial Park; daughter, Janet May, who married Howard Richardson, and moved from Dover to Warren, Ohio in the 1930s, dying there in 1978; and my great-grandmother Beatrice, who married Dover native Robert Ohio Weible three months after her mother’s death in February 1914, and made her home in Dover for 60 years until her death in 1974.

Great-great-grandmother Jannett Morgan’s Post-Gazette obituary is again vague about anything other than the basic details. But her death was front page news in Dover, Ohio, with the obituary recounting her two-year residence in the city, where she was reportedly “well known here,” but had returned to Carnegie in June 1913. An article the previous day noted that daughter Janet Richardson had been called to Carnegie due to her mother’s illness.

None of the articles memorializing Jannett’s final days outline her origins in Wales. What we’re left with, then, are breadcrumbs. Some definitive — like the  Pennsylvania death certificate that identifies her father as Daniel Rees, and her mother “unknown.” Or anecdotal clues from family, including Aunt Pinny Ley’s remembering her grandmother, Beatrice (Morgan) Weible telling her that Thomas and Jannett hailed from Cardiff, Wales.

Summer Voyages to Wales

One nice bit of family lore I will present in this blog for the first time is a note from Elizabeth (Betty) Curtis Neely — Jannett’s granddaughter — to my mother Janet Louise (Ley) Foutz in the 1970s. It is Betty Neely’s daughter, Sally, who graciously shared the portraits of Thomas and Jannett Morgan.

In the note, Betty shares some remarkable details of family members, among these:

* Thomas and Jannett had a daughter, Edith, who died in infancy at just more than a month old. Edith is memorialized with a little stone lamb on her grave in the family plot in Chartiers Cemetery, Carnegie.

* My great-grandmother — “Aunt Beece,” as Betty calls her — was so tiny that for months the family carried her around on a pillow.

* William Morgan — “Uncle Bill” — went to the Yukon during the Great Gold Rush. And was there at the time his mother died, traveling back for her funeral.

* William, Thomas and David were all bachelors.

* the family name of Jannett, at least back in Wales, was Rhys

Perhaps most remarkable in Betty’s note is her remembrance of the trips Jannett and her older daughters would take back to Wales in the late 19th century, something my mom discovered as she tracked entrances and exits from Ellis Island. Betty Neely writes:

I do know that for some years their Mother took the two girls, Mother and Aunt Jen, back to Wales for a summer vacation — usually a month. Mother said it took seven days by boat and she was seasick every minute of the way.

Can you imagine packing bags and trunks for 3 women for that length of time — leg o’ mutton sleeves, bustles, etc. — and hats.

What this note indicates, with the Wales trips and also the remembrance of visiting cousins, is that the Reese/Morgans maintained links with family, both in Wales and probably stateside, too. That these connections have faded with time is perhaps inevitable — but reason enough for the genealogical quest to continue.

In Good Countenance #7 – Thomas W. Morgan

Great-Great-Grandfather Thomas W. Morgan was well-known in 1890s Carnegie, Pa. as the owner and proprietor of the Morgan Hotel.

Thomas Morgan | Weible Family History

The Morgan branch of our family has long been a fascination for me. A lot of it has to do with my personal association with their stomping grounds near Pittsburgh.

While on a college visitation trip, I had the pleasure of visiting one of my mom’s namesake relatives, Janet Louise Curtis. We’d gotten sidetracked, somehow, in all those hills surrounding the city, and Mom navigated by memory down Shady Lane in Mt. Lebanon, where we dropped in on an aging Janet.

She had been a graduate of Westminster College and, later, Penn State, and had taught for years in the Carnegie and Mt. Lebanon school districts. At 84, she was still a lively conversationalist, recalling, among other things, her fondness for the football exploits of the Steelers’ Terry Bradshaw, related in her Pittsburgh accent.

Later, during the April of my freshman year at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, I had the bittersweet privilege of attending Janet’s funeral and connecting with extended family. She is buried in the cemetery of her ancestors, Chartiers, in Carnegie.

Mom (Janet Louise (Ley) Foutz) had always enjoyed staying in touch with another Janet Louise, a niece of her favorite grandmother, Beatrice Ethel (Morgan) Weible. And that was the main connection for me — Mom’s beloved grandmother and confidante. I’d heard much about that branch’s Welsh ancestry, which ran through the namesake of all namesakes, Great-Great-Grandmother Jannett Louise Reese and her husband, Thomas W. Morgan.

So when I started digging into family history in August 2008, chipping away at the Morgan connection was an engrossing, and — as it has turned out — slow-going endeavor.

Marriage in Philadelphia, Family Life Near Pittsburgh

I won’t be sharing any new information on Great-Great-Grandfather Thomas W. Morgan in this post, except to recap what’s already been pieced together.

Oh, yeah — and share his portrait for the first time! This remarkable keepsake was graciously shared a month or so ago by Sarah Neely — niece of Janet Louise Curtis, daughter of Elizabeth Curtis Neely, granddaughter of Sarah Elizabeth Morgan Curtis and great-granddaughter of Jannett Louise Morgan. We’ll get to the matriarch Jannett Louise in the next post.

As for Thomas, we still don’t know anything of his origins, other than that he, too, hailed from Wales. What we do know:

* He came to America about 1870, marrying Jannett Louise Morgan in 1872, in Philadelphia, Pa.

* In 1880, we next find the family in Apollo, Pa., in Armstrong County, where Thomas Morgan works as a heater, probably in a mill or factory. The young couple has three children: William, Thomas and 1-year-old Sarah (Sally Neely’s grandmother).

* In 1884, the family moves to Carnegie, where Thomas finds iron work in the rolling mill there. He is elected to two terms as councilman, and in February 1895 begins running the Hotel Morgan.

* Sadly, Thomas dies at a young 50 years old in October, 1897. We don’t know the cause, we don’t gain any information as to his parentage or family, since the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette obituary is stiflingly brief:

PITTSBURGH POST GAZETTE – OCTOBER 18, 1897 – PAGE 5
MORGAN-On Sunday, October 17, 1897 at 5:10 a. m., Thomas W. Morgan in his 50th year.
Funeral services from his late residence, Hotel Morgan, corner of Fourth Ave. and Chartiers St., Carnegie, Pa. on Tuesday, October 19 at 2:30 p. m. Friends of the family are respectfully invited to attend.
[New Castle, Pa. papers pls. copy]

Now, there could be a clue to his origins in the instruction to copy the New Castle papers. But the number of Thomas Morgans who emigrated from Wales in the 1800s is staggering. And records at Ancestry.com which show his presence in Wales in 1871, 1901 and 1911 aren’t really helpful.

Probably an international records search or a detailed conversation with other branches of the family can help fill in the missing details. In the next post, I’ll pick up the Morgan story with Jannett Louise — and share her portrait.