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The Beautiful Woman in the Fantastic Hat

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52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Series


Week Three (January 15 – 21)


Favorite Photo Prompt


Hello, I have accepted the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks put forth by fellow genealogist and blogger, Amy Crow Johnson. I attempt to live up to this task as I am endeavoring to write more of my family history. Wish me luck! Thanks, for the call to stimulate my genealogical research, Amy!


 I am a lucky genealogist! I inherited a substantial amount of family photos from my parents and my aunt. In fact, I also have several photos of my husband’s family. As I searched through my ancestors’ pictures looking for the one that is my favorite, it became clear to me I have many pictures that I count among my favorites on both sides of my family tree and of my husband’s family tree. To whittle the task down a bit I asked myself four questions as to why those photos are my favorites.


Question 1: Does the photo lead me to interesting facts about my ancestors?

Question 2: Do I want to learn more about this ancestor?

Question 3: Why does the subject matter of the photo draw me in?

Question 4: Does it make me stop and wonder what was happening in the life or lives of the subject matter in the photo?


Once I reviewed the photos that are among my favorites, it became clear to me that the photo of my paternal grandmother was indeed the winner! In answer to my questions:


Yes, my research about her has led to interesting facts about her life.


Yes, I did want to learn more about my paternal grandmother’s life because of the 17 years that I had known her. Only twice did I meet her in person because she lived thousands of miles away on the other side of the continental United States.


Yes, the photo draws me in because of the beautiful, fashionable, yet simple attire that she wore on that day, and because of the wistful expression on her face, of course that fabulous hat!


And, finally, yes, it makes me wonder just what was happening in her life during that time and beyond. Researching her life led me down the proverbial rabbit hole of genealogy revealing to me things that I did not know about her, my grandfather, and about Williamsport, Pennsylvania which according to my father was our family’s ancestral home.


This picture of a composed, beautiful, fashionable, yet wistful young woman belies the often times difficult life of my paternal grandmother. It was taken about 1910 when she was 18 or 19 years old. Was the look of the beautiful young woman in the photograph one of hope or was it an omen of a life yet to be lived with struggles, daunting obstacles, and finally to a quiet, peaceful closure in the Western United States?





Her name was Ruth Naomi McGhee Allen, b. 1892 – d. 1969. She was my paternal grandmother. Please indulge me as I write a brief history depicting Williamsport, Pennsylvania that was my grandmother’s home as a young child, a teen, and a young woman. She was born in the city of Williamsport, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, United States known as the “Lumber Capital of the World” and the home of the famous Grit newspaper, popular in the 19th and 20th century. Williamsport also encompassed the famous “Millionaires Row” or Third Street, along which were constructed beautiful, large Victorian family mansions, some still exist to this day, although they are now used for different purposes. Most people will recognize Williamsport as the home of Little League Baseball, and indeed it was in 1939! But my roots there go back much farther.

 






On April 8, 1892, in Williamsport, Ruth was born to Isaac Ross McGhee, U.S. Civil War veteran, and Mary Jane Leinbach, whose family historically came from a famous Moravian religious sect. Both were also born in Pennsylvania.

Williamsport, Pennsylvania was a stop on the Underground Railroad during the 1850s and 1860s. Located on the West Branch of the Susquehanna River in north-central Pennsylvania the lumber industry grew up around this area as a river transportation mecca of the 1800s. The lumber was transported along the river from there to Havre de Grace, Maryland by barge and later, as the era of the railroad transportation grew in the United States, on the box cars pulled by the monstrous steam engines of the mid-to-late 19th century and into the early 20th century. As history books record, one of the barge owners that traversed the Pennsylvania Canal hid runaway slaves in the hold of his barge on the return trip up the Susquehanna River to Lycoming County where he provided shelter on his property near Loyalsock Township, a location bordering the city of Williamsport before moving them further north and to eventual freedom in Canada.




In 1871 a smaller Williamsport was devastated by a fire that caused more than $300,000 damage equivalent to $7,252, 497.74 today in 2024. It was the worst fire to ever hit the downtown of the city. However, The Great Fire of 1871 was far from the last fire to destroy parts of downtown Williamsport. The exact cause of the fire was never determined. All that is known is that it started in a stable on Black Horse Alley. Ruth’s father, Isaac, or Ross as he was more commonly known, was a saddler and a blacksmith who sometimes worked in and near the stables with his wife, Mary Jane lived in Williamsport at that time. The fire would have affected Ross McGhee’s livelihood.


By 1880 the McGhee family was living in Allison Township, Clinton County, Pennsylvania. It seems according to the records I researched about the years before, during, and after Ross’s death that the family relocated several times, but all the locations were close to Williamsport. In addition, through piecing together records, I surmised that the family was not among the well-heeled residents of Williamsport.

When Ruth was born in 1892, her two sisters Lucy and Lizzie, were quite a bit older than her. It also seems, through my research, there was third child, born before Ruth who did not survive for long. Ruth was the fourth child of Ross and Mary Jane.

As I researched more about Ruth’s younger life, I found her in the 1900 U.S. Census living at 241 Main Street, South Williamsport, which was across the Susquehanna River from the city of Williamsport. Listed as living in the home was Mary J. McGhee, age 50, Lulu McGhee (sometimes known as Lucy), age 28, and Ruth McGhee, age 8. Ruth also had another sister, Elizabeth Anna McGhee (sometimes known as Lizzie) who was 23 years old, married to Ocean W. Good, since 1895, with one child, Grace Good, age 3, and living at 60 Southern Avenue, South Williamsport.




Ruth’s father, Ross, had died in Howard Hospital and Infirmary for Incurables, a hospital providing charity medical assistance and clinically educating medical students at University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on June 29, 1899, of an aneurysm of the aorta, just nine days past his 50th birthday. Ruth was only seven years old, making Mary Jane a single mother.

Upon the death of my great-grandfather in 1899 the event seemed to cause financial difficulties for the McGhee family. Ruth’s mother, Mary Jane (some documents list her given name as Jennie or Mary J.) worked sporadically as a seamstress and took in boarders in the various residences in which she lived.





My maternal aunt had told me that my grandmother had been trained as a milliner. It makes sense as the wide-brimmed, plume decorated hat she wore in the photo may have been one of her creations.

By the early 1900s Ruth and her mother, Mary Jane, began living in Altoona, Pennsylvania, another town in central Pennsylvania presumably to live near Ruth’s sister. In 1910 Ruth and her mother, Mary Jane, were residing with Lucy (or Lulu) McGhee Schultz, Ruth’s sister and her husband, Alfred J. Schultz on 18th Avenue in Altoona. Ruth was 18 years old and was employed as a milliner for a department store. Lucy was a seamstress, Albert was a carpenter for a steam railroad, Mary Jane was not employed at the time. Next door to the family lived the Braillier and Knauer families, specifically Arthur Ayers Knauer, age 19, who was a clerk for the Pennsylvania Railroad Company.


On August 30, 1911, Ruth married Arthur Knauer in Altoona, Pennsylvania at the home of her

sister, Lucy. From that marriage a son, Harold McGhee Knauer was born on June 27, 1912. Through a family interview of my maternal aunt, I came to understand that the marriage of Ruth and Arthur was not a happy one. On November 18, 1913, according to the Altoona Times, a subpoena was filed on behalf of Ruth Naomi Knauer vs. Arthur Ayres Knauer on the grounds of desertion. My maternal aunt told me the family story leading up to the divorce, but I have deemed it not suitable for inclusion within this blog. The divorce was filed in Blair County, Pennsylvania on September 1, 1914, and granted in September of 1915. Later 1915 Ruth and her mother, Mary Jane had returned to living Williamsport at 943 W. 3rd Street with Ruth’s young son, Harold. Ruth was working as a clerk; Mary Jane was at home caring for Harold. Did Ruth marry at such a youthful age to relieve her single mother of a financial

strain? If so, I did not seem to work.





In addition, in 1915 another family tragedy occurred when Lucy C. McGhee Schultz, Ruth’s sister and Mary Jane’s daughter died in St. Francis Hospital, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania of “general paralysis of the insane.” She was only 43 years old. It is possible that these family upheavals led to their return to Williamsport.





Fast forward to Boston, Massachusetts on November 20, 1916, and Ruth marries Joseph Smith Allen, a handsome, charismatic, and work-driven man, also a former Williamsport, Pennsylvania resident. Recorded as Ruth’s second marriage and Joseph Allen’s second marriage; both having been divorced once, they co-habituated at 29 Bowdoin Street, Boston, Massachusetts at the time of filing for their marriage license.







Ruth’s son, Harold, was not living with Ruth and Joseph in Boston, he remained in residence with his grandmother, Mary Jane in Williamsport. On January 20, 1917, Florence Arline Allen, my maternal aunt, was born in Medford Hill, Massachusetts. By January 6, 1920, the Allen family was living in Cresent Hill, Lexington, Massachusetts, a historic town in Middlesex County known as the site of one of the first battles of the Revolutionary War, with their two children, Florence, 2 years and 11 months, and Ruth Elizabeth, age 3 months. Joseph’s occupation was recorded as the manager of a notions store and Ruth with no occupation. From 1916 until sometime in the 1940s my grandmother Ruth, my grandfather Joseph, my aunts, Florence, and Ruth, as well as my father, Joseph A. Allen, Jr. lived in this picturesque area of New England as my grandfather worked his way up the ladder in the S.S.Kresge chain of department stores, one of the 20th century’s largest discount retail organizations, it later


became the Kmart Corporation in 1977.


My father, Joseph S. Allen, Jr., Ruth’s fourth child, was born in Arlington Heights, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. Ruth had a difficult pregnancy with my father, and he was born as a premature infant weighing only 2.5 lbs. at birth on August 3, 1926. In the 1920s there was much less support for premature infants as there is today, yet my father survived, and enjoyed a childhood that included sailing his own small sailboat on Narraganset Bay, Rhode Island, which bordered their home at 677 Narragansett Parkway, Warwick, Rhode Island.

But there was also a darker side to grandmother’s life as she endured a life that included the overindulgence of alcohol by her husband. In fact, my father, as recounted by my aunt and later by mother, was at times dispatched to local drinking establishments to bring his father home. Yet, my grandfather continued to climb the ladder in the S.S. Kresge Corporation.

In 1923 my great-grandmother, Mary Jane, died in Williamsport, Pennsylvania of nephritis. She had cared for Harold, Ruth’s son, for a large part of his younger life. Harold then moved to live with his mother, Ruth, his stepfather, Joseph and his two stepsisters, and later his stepbrother, my father.


Ruth continued to live her life as the wife of an up-and-coming store manager as they moved from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and later to two locations in Pennsylvania, all the while dealing with her husband, the handsome, charismatic, yet functional alcoholic.

Ruth and her family briefly relocated to Berks County Pennsylvania in 1919 for one year and again in 1935, then returning to New England until sometime around 1943. In that year my grandparents moved to northeastern Pennsylvania, the United States had entered WWII in 1941, and my father, who was only seventeen years old enlisted in the US Army Air Force.



Her daughters, Florence, and Ruth were also members of the Women’s Army Corps, thus taking all her children far away from home. Ruth no longer had the support of her children to rescue her husband from the local high-end bars in Pennsylvania. Still my grandfather continued his upward climb in his company and the community, becoming a close friend of a Pennsylvania State House Representative and who later became a senator.

My parents, Joseph S. Allen, Jr. and mother, Lorraine Elizabeth Lord, met in 1944. Lorraine lived next door to my grandparents in northeastern Pennsylvania and they married in 1948 after my father’s honorable discharge from the service. The son of the Pennsylvania State House Representative was the best man at my parent’s wedding.



Sometime in the late 1940s a car accident occurred in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, on the street in front of the Luzerne County Courthouse, which included my grandfather. The circumstances surrounding the car accident have long been hidden or obscured, never appearing in local newspaper reports. But after that my grandmother Ruth and my grandfather Joseph relocated to the state of Wyoming in the town where their daughter Ruth, her husband, and their daughter lived. My grandfather obtained a position as a car salesperson. Gone were the days of working his way up the ladder in the S.S. Kresge organization for which he had worked all his adult life. Was his friend the state representative helpful in hiding the circumstances from the press? I will probably never know… but my grandparents were gone from Pennsylvania.

 

I was born in 1951. I did not meet my paternal grandparents until 1953, of which I have no memory. It was the only time I met my grandfather. He died in 1954 in Texas of a heart attack at 62 years of age. They lived near my paternal Aunt Florence and her husband. Birthday presents, Christmas presents and cards always appeared from grandmother, but I did not see her again until 1960 when my parents took my brothers and me on a cross country car trip to visit her in Arizona, and then again in 1967 when she lived in California.


As I remember her, she was a small woman…quiet, but behind her eyes I could see the vestiges of a life of difficulties, despair, and triumphs. She went on to live with my aunt and uncle until her death in 1969 when she came back to her final resting place in Wildwood Cemetery, Williamsport, Pennsylvania next to my grandfather, Joseph, and other Allen ancestors.

From one favorite photograph I was able to research and learn hidden truths about my paternal grandmother and my family history. What will your favorite family photograph reveal?


Note: This blog post is number three in the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks where I am challenging myself to write more of my family history.

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