Stone Family Association

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b 1735
RECORD: Christ Lutheran Church, York, PA m 22 Aug 1758
NOTE: there is indication that the surname Gunther or Gunder becomes Kinder in some areas. This could be the Conrad Kinder family in Lincoln NC Lorena Shell Eaker GSP

Donnie Krippendorf dkrippendorf@hotmail.com

Erica Mungle Clark Cooper ericasfamilytree@yahoo.com
Conrad Kinder was born 1735 in Penn., and died UNKNOWN. He married Mary Kinder. He married Maria Caroline Ursula Kastner 22 AUG 1758 in York Co PA, daughter of George Adam Kastner and Anna Maria Kraus. She was born 25 SEP 1740 in Edenkoben, Germany, and died UNKNOWN.

Nancy Langston nancylangston@cableone.net
Maria Ursula KASTNER (Georg Adam KASTNER4, Andreas KASTNER3, Johannes KASTNER2, Andreas KASTNER1) was born 25 Sep 1740 in Edenkoben, Germany. She married Conrad (Guenther) KINDER 22 Aug 1758 in York Co., PA. He was born Abt 1738 in Germany.

Robert bobmpond@optonline.net
Conrad (Guenther) Kinder was born ABT. 1738 in Germany. He married Maria Ursula Kastner 22 AUG 1758 in York Co., PA, daughter of Georg Adam Kastner and Marie Anna Kraus. She was born 25 SEP 1740 in Edenkoben, Germany. 
Kinder, Conrad (I7507)
 
2

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Barbara (Guenther) KINDER
Barbara Kinder was born ABT 1776 in Lincoln, North Carolina, and died in Cape Girardeau, Mo.. 
Kinder, Barbara Maria (I7509)
 
3

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Conrad (Guenther) KINDER 
Kinder, Conrad (I7511)
 
4

Costner, James Edwin, b. 08/08/1890, d. 01/23/1948, PFC MED DEPT WWI, Plot: 1 126, bur. 8/1948, Nashville National Cemetery, Madison, Davidson County, Tennessee, 1420 Gallatin Road, South Madison, TN 37115-4619, (615) 736-2839

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Lived in South Carolina in December of 1933. 
Costner, James Edward (I20673)
 
5
9-16-1864, 'Head Quarters U.S. Forces, Special Order, private HKS, 2nd Michigan Cavalry will proceed by railroad to Nashville and report to Surgeon Brunnell in charge post hospital at Nashville.'

10-22-1867, HKS discharged from the service of the U.S. after 3 years of service at Nashville by reason of expiration of term of duty. 'Said Henry Smith was born in Cass County in the State of Michigan, is 21 years of age, is 5'8' high, fair complected, hazel eyes, black hair, and by occupation, when enrolled, a farmer.' 
Smith, Henry K. (I12468)
 
6
According to Art and Helen, 9-14-96...

Win was born in St. Paul and attended Central High School and the University of Minnesota. She was somewhat of a professional student, attending for many years. Eventually she taught English at both the University of Minn and at Macalaster College. She was known as a soft touch for athletes so many of them would sign up for her English class. Eventually she got sick of being a soft touch so she got a position at the International Institute in St. Paul. She was the head of the immigrants and cultural association and responsible for organizing the annual international festival. Win met her husband, Werner Wartenburg over the phone during work. He lived in New York and was also employed by the International Institute. Eventually she married and moved to New York. There she worked in the New York public library. Werner was a great guy, a German Jew, whose parents were driven out of Germany by Nazis. They fled to South America. Werner was very bright and very nice. He loved the Swartz Dept Store, a toy store.

Win came to visit us in Austin, Mn. once or twice. She was a bubbly, outgoing person, talked a lot about her Flannagan cousins (Tom's dad and brothers), and with her stories really made their personalities come alive. She said their father was much more strict than hers, but their big home in St. Anthony park was a very fun place to be when she was little because there was so much going on. She talked about TWF's extensive library and their hired help. 
Flannagan, Jessie Winifred (I12466)
 
7
According to data from cousin Linda, he moved to Portland, Oregon prior to 1901 
Crewson, William Andrew (I1)
 
8
According to Samuel's marriage certificate, his occupation was clerk and he lived at 20 Chestnut Street in the County of Lancaster in England. His father's name was Valentine and his occupation was Lamplighter.

Samuel Flannagan and his wife, Ellen Odell, raised 5 sons in England, the youngest of which was Thomas William from whom our family descends.

On his death certificate, we learn that he died at age 62 and at that time his Rank or Profession was Manchester Warehouseman. the Cause of Death says hepatic cirrhosis ascipes. His son, A. Flannagan was present at his death at his home at Woodbine Terrace, Moorside Road, Flicston, County of Lancaster.

As stated in Samuel's Last Will and Testament, he left all of his possessions to his wife, Ellen Odell, as long as she remain single and unmarried. In the event that she marry, whatever remained of his possessions should be divided equally among his sons, Arthur, Harry and Samuel. Among his possessions in his will he mentioned his harmonium, a small keyboard/organ which produces tones through metal reeds. 
Flannagan, Samuel (I12475)
 
9
Ada Moon's oldest sister Zoe lived in State College, PA, 3 or 4 hours north 
Moon, Zoebeida (I862)
 
10
After her husband died, Effie earned her living working in her brother-in-law G.M. Burford's general store (see photo), believed to be in East Liverpool or New Cumberland, OH. Burford was husband to her sister Harriet 'Hattie'. - Ann Crewson Flannagan 
Fisher, Effie Afton (I145)
 
11 At least one living or private individual is linked to this note - Details withheld. Crewson, Alison Elizabeth (I8799)
 
12
All four children died before maturity. 
Morely, Esther (I12362)
 
13
Ancestry of Ione may be found in the Wardian and Abeln family trees.


By AMCF, daughter:

Ione Rose Wardian was the 5th of Edward and Monica Wardian's 12 children, born at home in Holdingford, Minnesota on August 31, 1915. At the age of 2, Ione moved to Avon, Minnesota with her family when her father and his brother opened a general store a block away from their home.

In the Avon house there was a large coal stove in the living room and a wood cook stove in the kitchen, outdoor biffy and portable pots for bathrooming at night. It was sometimes so cold in the winter in the upstairs of the house where they all slept, that the chamber pots would be frozen in the morning. They heated water for baths once a week, taking turns, adding hot water as needed.

They had a large car with 2 big seats facing each other. Sometimes they would put folding chairs in between the seats so a couple more kids could sit; other times Pa (Mom's father) would put a board between the seats so they could all fit at once. Instead of windows, their car had side-curtains of "Izinglass" so you could see out when the windows were buttoned down. Mom thinks the car was a Studebaker.

They had a large garden where they would plant a variety of vegetables, California poppies and Nasturtiums. Pa would plant and weed the garden and the kids and Ma (Mom's mother) would do the picking and canning. They also had a cow that Pa would milk everyday for milk, cream and cottage cheese.

Mom remembers the day she got sick with pneumonia. She couldn't hold her head up in school because she felt so tired. She walked home from school and was sick for 6 weeks after that. Two of her classmates were also sick with the same thing; one of them died. She recalls returning to school, wearing her younger sister Rita's dress, and barely able to carry her school bag. Not too long after that she had Scarlet Fever. Ma put a "quarantined" sign on their front door and handed meals out the window to Pa. He had to stay in the store overnight. The circus came to Avon that year, but Ione wasn't able to go because she was still 'peeling' and considered contagious. Ione only weighed 60 pounds in 8th grade.

Ione was both president of her graduating class and valedictorian. She was painfully bashful, but made it through the commencement address just fine...'We the Class of 1933...' She wore a green organdy dress, handmade by her mother.

That year, the store was barely surviving. It was during the Depression and the farmers would come in to the store and get the things they needed, but they were not able to pay their bills. Pa went further and further into debt. So in 1933, hearing about job opportunities where there were 3 factories, the family moved to Cloquet. They rented an apartment in a large house and an extra room in the front of the house for a general store.

Mom was first hired as a nanny by the Calbrenners. She cooked, cleaned, washed clothes and took care of their little boy, all for $1.50 per week. When they ate dinner she ate in the kitchen and when they wanted her to wait on them, they rang a bell. Since she was still living at home, she gave Pa a dollar and kept 50 cents. After that she heard about a lady in a wheelchair who paid $6.00 a week for cooking meals and doing her laundry so she applied and got that job. After doing that she heard about Mr. Wold needing someone in the drug store for $8.00 a week. She went over to the drug store and was hired there. In time her wages were increased to $10.00 a week.

Mom was powerfully influenced by Father LeMire and Jesuit priests during this time in her life. She went to weekly instructions with Father L; he was an inspirational speaker and stressed, 'Dare to be Different.' Week long religious retreats in St. Paul were also very moving and she said she felt strongly committed to her Catholic faith from this time on.

During this time, Ione's sister Rita was working for Dr. Eppard. They decided to buy a second hand car together. They paid $33.00 for the car and shared it for several years after that.

During their courtship, Dad returned to Buffalo for a visit and asked Mom to come with, to meet his parents. Mom wanted to meet them and to visit her sister Lauretta who was in a convent in New York at the time. She took a bus out there by herself. Ione drove back to Cloquet with Al in his mother's cute little car with a rumble seat in the back.

Dad accused Mom of running away when she answered an ad to work in a drug store in Stillwater. She said she really could not see her kids going to a Lutheran or Methodist church... 'Oh, come on!' She drove over there for an interview and having been hired, rented a room in a boarding house. Dad and friends of theirs came to visit on weekends to go dancing and to the orchestra. One time he came to Stillwater, he picked her up at the drug store and proposed over dinner at a restaurant.

After they were married, Mom and Dad rented an apartment in Cloquet. Even though they had a fenced in yard, Tom who was born in January of 1943, would run away. One day they found him on the opposite side of the busy street in front of their apartment. They decided to look for something to rent in the country. They moved to Big Lake in 1944, soon after I was born. At first they rented, then decided to buy the house we lived in. Mark, Sue and Joan were all born while we lived in the same house. Dad and our neighbor Ollie Parenteau converted our garage to a den, and added on 2 bedrooms and a double garage.

Mom was too busy taking care of all of us to have an extracurricular career. At one time she said 'I should have been a kindergarten teacher. I was supposed to go to Miss Woods School in the cities, but Virginia usurped the tuition money. See, Lauretta paid Pa back for nursing school and Virginia got that money for Normal School in St. Cloud.' Her loss, our gain. We always had a stay-at-home-mom.

Living out at the lake was a busy and hard time for Ione. It wasn't easy keeping track of 5 kids. Dad worked full time at Wood Conversion and they liked to go out or entertain often on weekends so all of the everyday home routines, shopping and discipline were Mom's responsibility. She sewed a lot of our clothes including winter coats with matching hats. She made bread, pies and cookies from scratch, played golf with lady friends, Bridge with neighbors and couples, put on parties, taught catechism, was in charge of Brownies and Girl Scouts, would reupholster our furniture, make sleeping bags, curtains, paint and wallpaper, bring our outgrown clothes and toys to the Indians, run us to piano and dance lessons...she did it all and we ran her ragged. With all of us getting older, and more trips back and forth to Cloquet, she decided that it would be much more convenient to move into town.

When her dream house came up on the market, they put in a bid and got it. What an amazing house it was: 46 6th street: (Mark's birthday house, since his birthday was 6-6-46) 4 floors counting the full basement, 3 fireplaces, 6 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms. We all had our own rooms and we were a block away from church and the high school. We still had our cabin at the lake so we were out there daily in the summer. Mom had even more to maintain, with the big house and the cabin and us getting sassier by the day. The same year we moved to Cloquet, 1959, Michael John was born. In a way he seemed like all of our baby. He was incredibly cute and learned to talk, argue and get his way early.

We all had our demands and our teen crises. One by one, we left for college, relieving our parents of daily responsibility, but adding stresses with our various difficulties. Sometimes I wonder how they stayed sane through it all. Mom would threaten to lose it and have to be locked up at Moose lake. She would frequently say 'I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired!' Thanks to their financial and emotional support we all managed to graduate from college and settle in to independent life styles.

Dad was at the brink of retirement when he died suddenly of cancer in 1981 so they didn't have the opportunity to enjoy that peaceful time of life. Mom picked up the pieces very quickly, impressing us all with her confidence and bravery. She sold the house in 1982, gave us most of their belongings, and drove off to visit family and friends, not knowing where she would settle. Being out in Seattle with several of her brothers and sisters close by seemed like the best situation so she bought a town house in Kent, Washington, a suburb of Seattle. Her sister, Rita, moved in next door. They are there still, after 15 years. At age 81 my mother is still able to manage independently. She hits the beauty shop and has a housekeeper once a week, still attends church regularly, belongs to Bridge clubs and drives her car when she absolutely has to. Her biggest problem is osteoporosis. She has to be careful not to lift or move anything for fear of fractures and has lost some inches of height.

Mom has continued to provide emotional support for all of us. In 1987 she provided La Vacacion de La Vida in Mazatlan, Mexico, treating 19 of us (including our spouses/girl friends/boy friends and our children), plane fare and hotel for a week. She has supported grandchildren in their educational pursuits and shares her home with us when we visit. At least once a year, she flies east to visit us girls, depending on where the family is congregating at the time. My little mother is a hard act to follow. I hesitate to make the comparison because I know I don't measure up.

o---------------------------------------------------------o

Reflections About Ione, by: Mona Clare Wardian Guillaume, youngest sister...

Ione Rose Wardian met Allen Morse Crewson on a cold and blustery day in Cloquet, Minnesota in the year 1939. Heralded by the bell attached to the front door of Wold Drug on the west end of town, Al strode in, tall, handsome and somehow regal in the way he held himself. (Once I overheard a perception-impaired person imply that Al Crewson had an excessively high opinion of himself. Actually he was often deep in thought on some subject that the average mediocre person could not possibly comprehend.) That day however his thought processes were not so much on some lofty intellectual theory, but how best to approach asking Ione out on a date. He'd had his eye on her and although he was 22 years old, he may have been a little shy. He was new in town, having just graduated from the University of Michigan and landed a job at Cloquet's biggest local industry, the Wood Conversion Plant of the Weyerhauser Corp.

Besides the owner/pharmacist, Ione was the only person who worked at the drugstore. Hers was the cheerful voice on the phone who took prescription orders from the local doctors and waited on the customers. She was a cute, tiny little thing with a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose and a shy smile that would light up her brown eyes.

Al courted her with gallantry and respect and then there was love - a love that lasted a lifetime. Ione, a deepy religious and devout Catholic was troubled. She saw their diverse religious backgrounds as a barrier which could be overcome only if Al converted to Catholicism. For personal reasons, known only to him, he could not or would not do so. They parted when Ione fled town to stay with a distant relative. He pursued her relentlessly and she finally agreed to marry him with the stipulation that they be married by a Catholic priest and that their children be brought up in the Catholic faith.

They exchanged their vows in the rectory of the Good Shepherd church in West Duluth, June 14th, l941.

There was something missing in my young life (I was six or seven when they were married) and no doubt they were aware of it because inexplicably they became my surrogate parents. This arrangement lasted on and off, depending on my need, for much of my growing up years. I was comfortable being with them and there was never a question that I was welcome in their home. Ione taught me to bake a cake from scratch and Al helped me master Plane Geometry. They both discussed books with me and I helped myself to their extensive library. Ione surprised me with a birthday party, inviting all my third grade friends, when I was 9 and they were both there for me to advise and comfort during adolescent crises.

In retrospect, Ione and Al Crewson probably had more influence on my life than they or I realized - what I believe in, how I have loved and what I have accomplished.' 
Wardian, Ione Rose (I132)
 
14
Art and Helen used to go to Edith and Harry's home for New Year's Day dinners. She was an excellent cook and they were usually a bit hung over from the night before, but they didn't mention that because of Edith's firm religious convictions. When Edith first came over to this country, she was so lonesome that she would have physical fits that resembled seizures. In time she became a Christian Scientist. She used her faith to overcome this sickness. She did not believe in calling a doctor, but would rather rely on church people. She died with a cancerous growth above her eye and her husband Harry had stomach cancer and was in a lot of pain. After Harry died, Win and Werner talked about how they poured out all of the alcohol because Edith was so strongly opposed to it. 
Whitenall, Edith (I12465)
 
15
Arthur died shortly after his wedding. 
Flannagan, Arthur (I12240)
 
16
Arthur was born August 6, 1913 to Thomas William Flannagan and Clara May Smith, the 6th of 7 children. Arthur attended Murray Jr. High and St. Paul High School. In high school Art used a sculpture to win a scholarship to the Chicago Art Institute. He "couldn't see being a starving artist" so he took classes in accounting and finance at the University of Minnesota.

In his youth, being a cocky and aggressive young man, he fancied himself a boxer. He admitted however to losing interest in boxing after running into the "wrong guy" one evening. He said it was a very brief encounter and did not end in his favor.

Arthur sold insurance for New York Life for one year and served in the U.S. Navy for 3 years. In 1933 he landed a job with IDS as a messenger. After several promotions, he was eventually Vice President of Customer Relations until he retired in l978 after 45 years.

Arthur married Helen Louise Schwab May 27, 1939. In 1950 they adopted Mary Helen and saw to the completion of the construction of their magnificent home in Golden Valley where they have lived ever since.

Arthur was active in the political and community scene, serving 9 years on the Golden Valley City Council, being head of the Suburban Gas Agency and on the Board of Zoning Appeal. When asked about his interests in general, he said, "Helen is my main interest." In addition to Helen, Art has invested his time and energy into landscaping and gardening on his property in Golden Valley. His artfully sculpted acreage borders a woods and wetlands. Wildlife is commonly observed there: woodchucks munch acorns on the driveway, deer stroll through the grass and a duck nests in a perennial bed by the side door. Arthur's hobbies include fishing and hunting, and skeet and clay pigeon shooting.

Arthur passed away Sunday, June 11, 2000 in his home with Helen and Mary at his side. 
Flannagan, Arthur Walter (I12418)
 
17
b. [NJ] 2 Oct 1782; d. [Greenwood, Steuben Co., NY] 20Sep 1835; m. 2 June 1803 NANCY ENGLE, b. 30 June 1780, d. 4 Sep 1828(Bible Records of Bernidine (Crusen) Waldorf); resided in IndependenceTownship, Warren Co., NJ in 1830; perhaps he was named after hisotherwise unknown maternal grandfather.
Children, surname Crusen: 1. Jane, b. 28 Oct 1805; d. 20 Sep 1852.2. John, b. Aug 1807; d. 15 March 1851. 3. Mary, b. 30 June 1810; d.Aug 1832. 4. Francis K., b. NJ 6 Feb 1804; d. 20 Sep 1893; m. CatherineGroundyke, b. NJ ca. 1810; settled in Greenwood, NY after 1830; two oftheir sons, Abram and Andrew Jackson "Jackson," resided as farm laborerswith my great-great-great-grandparents, Thomas2 and Elizabeth "Betsey"(Burleson) Streeter, in 1855 and 1860 respectively. 
Crusen, Jasper (I14620)
 
18
Biographical note for:
My great grandmother, by Molly Flannagan
Family History Project, 1-24-1989

Waneta Wentworth was born January 9, 1892. Her family lived on a farm in Hastings, Minnesota. Both of her parents were born in Minnesota. Her father's father was from England. Both her grandfather and her father's brother had to fight in the Civil War. When they left, her father, who was then 14 years old, was in charge of the family. Neta had 8 sisters and 2 brothers and was second to the youngest, Vera, who was 5 years younger than she.

When Neta was 5 or 6 years old they moved to Spooner, Wisconsin. They were poor and when it snowed, flakes came through the ceiling of the house. They kept the milk cold in the basement where the rainwater collected and from it got typhoid fever in the spring. She, her brother Charlie and their father had typhoid and were nursed by her mother who had to take a job as a railroad cook. Her brother John left to work at mills and logging camps in Minnesota, and Charlie left (as soon as he was well) home and went to Canada. From Canada he went to Oregon to work as a contractor and wasn't seen again for 20 years or more. As soon as her father was well, he packed his things and went west. The trees she planted with him at Spooner are about 90 years old now. Her mother couldn't pay for the farm and it was lost. The railroad threatened to take her mother's job if she didn't take a job as a different lunchroom in Iowa, so she packed up Vera, the youngest, and left.

From here on Neta's story is more unclear. First she was "parked out" to one of her older sisters to work, clean and babysit, for her keep. She was no older than 7. When that sister died of tuberculosis, she was sent to another sister who lived on a farm near St. Paul. She tells of living with/working for many other families.

She only had the opportunity to finish the 8th grade; she needed money to live on. She met her future husband when she was 18 years old. She met Billy, her husband at a roller rink. On dates he took her to picture shows. She got married after a few months.

Neta was the 6th in her family to get TB, and all of those before her died. She attributes her success to her own common sense, bed rest and self discipline.

On politics: Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt were her favorite presidents. She gives them credit for the National park system, getting jobs and having "far vision". Neta favors capital punishment: "The amount of men that are out raping and murdering these women should be strung right up by their neck the minute they lay a hand on them." So much for due process. She lays the blame on "that dope business" and "sex maniacs", and thinks the money spent on prisons should be spent on education and welfare.

The best inventions in her life time were all the labor saving appliances (like the automatic washer) because "work is easier now."

Disclaimer: It was hard to filter details out of my great grandmother's history, becasue she has bad hearing and a selective memory. I deleted much of her bitterness and the things that I knew were untrue and was left with a scrappy summary of a long and interesting life.

o---------------------------------------------------------o

Biographical note for:
My grandmother-in-law by Ann Crewson Flannagan 1-16-97

I first met Tom's grandmother when she was 75 years old at his farm house in Mankato in 1966. She was saving the day over there, cooking and cleaning and giving counsel to the boys. She talked alot about her back pain and her difficult life. At the same time, she was ordering up truck loads of manure from the neighbors to get a decent garden going.

We were married in 1968 and lived in Austin, Minnesota where Gram and George would frequently show up on a Saturday morning, often when we were all still in bed. She would have a big roast under her arm and was ready to work in the garden. In spite of having a lot of back pain, she would work for hours at a time, digging and even swinging the grub hoe.

She loved the boys and would do anything for them. She would alternate between what seemed like possessive love and hate for Tom. She seemed jealous of me and my place in the family and at the same time was my advocate and confidant. She seemed depressed both times when we told her we were going to have a baby. In fact, she stayed away from us during my pregnancies and during those times was not communicating. As soon as the babies were born, she was fine and very doting, in fact, possessive again.

Gram shared many very sad stories about her past, about her helplessness as a little child when her father would come home drunk and abuse her mother and her brothers. They worked so hard to raise rutabagas and berries and pigs and there were many times when he would take the produce or pig to town to sell and instead of coming back with the supplies that they needed, would come home in the back of the horse drawn wagon, drunk and broke. Some school years she had only 2 dresses to alternate between for the whole year. She said that she made her mind up when she was little that she would not bring children into this world that she could not feed and clothe. At times she said that her last year in school was 4th grade (rather than 8th) because she was working for her keep.

Neta would talk about her frustration and hardship when she was pregnant and gave birth to Bernice. She had no information at the time; years later she learned and understood what had happened. She had her baby at home, with the help of a neighbor. After that, the bleeding didn't stop so she had a hysterectomy. She said that Bernice was a sweet child, but when she hit teenage, she wanted to run wild and was impossible. When she married and had Tom she still wanted to run around, so Gram made up her mind to keep Tom for her own. She got Billy to back her up and verbally disowned her daughter and threatened to take her to court to prove she was an unfit mother if she even came to visit. Gram said she came back several times, but each time she turned her out. When she got the letter about Bernice dying of cancer she seemed sad and said she wished they had been able to get along.

Gram had an interesting and sometimes destructive communication style. She would talk at people instead of with them: reminiscing, bragging about her life accomplishments, defending her actions and criticizing others, most often family members closest to her. She was particularly lethal towards other women. She had a way of talking out a scenerio in such detail that I would find myself agreeing with her. I was agreeing with her understanding of the situation rather than the content itself, but that positive reinforcement seemed to give her fuel to dig deeper. It was interesting listening to her, but I would often feel bad in retrospect. Trying to talk WITH her and present a different perspective was to no avail, and became less so as she aged and lost her hearing. She would talk with anyone who would listen, telling her stories with an added negative twist, which at times was far from factual.

Gram was good at everything. She would make donuts, pies, biscuits, frostings, puddings and bread from scratch that we've never been able to duplicate. She'd always say, you just need to know the ingredients and then if it doesn't taste right, fix it. She could get anything to grow. Her house plants were luxurious and her roof garden was amazing, with flower boxes full of roses, babies breath, petunias and pansies. People driving by on the street below would come up to get a closer look. She lived above a funeral home and would take us down there to get things and there would be bodies in open caskets. She didn't bat an eye.

Oh, how she could sew. Her mother earned money doing dressmaking and would have Neta help her baste and do the trim including button holes. She prided herself on mending with the thread that matched the material so well that you couldn't see the patch. She made many outfits for the girls with matching panties and bonnets, a little fake fur coat. For the boys she made wool shirts and fixed all their worn jeans. She made all of her own clothes and was still sewing her own and mending for others at the St. Paul Nursing Home when she was in her 90s. She loved the fabric store even when she was 103 years old and would still buy a yard of this and that, planning blouses and skirts. After she died by default I inherited her Featherweight Singer sewing machine and a wealth of material, lace, thread and other sewing supplies.

Gram loved old dishes, had an amazing collection and never lost her interest in china patterns and colored glass. She said it started when she was little and bought her mother a little strawberry pitcher. Then some of the only things that survived from their family were the dishes, such as the story about the very large stoneware platter that she remembered from home and found one day in an antique shop in Hastings. When she and Billy were young and poor, they rented a place where there was a dump and dug up several precious pieces. Then after Billy died she supported herself by cooking for wealthy people in their homes. Sometimes she was paid with dishes or glassware and other times she simply "cathauled" things, figuring she deserved to have the things. We treasure many of her things today including the strawberry pitcher and the Audubon plates that we reserve for special occasions.

In 1945 to 49 or 50 she was went to Philadelphia while working for Harold Stassen and his family. He was nominated as a presidential candidate. Gram fit right in with her classy suits and huge feather hats.

Neta lived in Philadelphia, PA, Florida and Oregon for temporary periods of time, always returning to Minnesota, most likely to be nearer to Tom.

After 12 years in the St. Paul Church Home, Gram moved to the Aftenro Home in Duluth to be closer to us. During those 8 months she visited often and spent many weekends home with us. She would let me help her with her hair and baths. Finally she had lost her need to compete. Even her back pain seemed to be mellowed. A bowel obstruction crept up on her. She only suffered a few days before she died at St. Mary's Hospital on July 8th. The night she died, fireworks were exploding in Duluth. They had been delayed due to rain on the 4th. In retrospect, they seemed a fitting tribute to Gram. She donated her body to the U of M so arrangements were made with Bell Brothers funeral home to transfer her body to Minneapolis. We called our children home for a weekend of remembrance to a great lady that none of us will ever forget.

o---------------------------------------------------------o

A letter from Tom to his Grandma Nan 1-8-91

Dear Gram,

Our best wishes to you, and for you, on your 100th birthday. You have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that you're a survivor in a pretty tough world.

I'm sure your best recollections center around the time spent living by Onamia. Mine too. Since we were both younger then it follows that those times would be looked back on as the best of times.

I know that I certainly have not forgotten:

Swimming in Mille Lacs Lake
Peach and Barney
Art and Jenny Blythe
the raspberry patch
chickens, turkeys,geese, swans, ducks etc
The Anderson kids
Deer hunting with Billy, fishing walleyes
bullheads at the Onamia (Rum River) dam
woods picnics (sugar cookies, doughnuts)
ponds, hunting garter snakes
selling worms and frogs
Movies at the Onamia theater
Hahn's little lake. Patrin's pasture
Mushroom picking and canning
All the canning: venison, vegetables, fruits, pickles
My basketball net on the garage
My Montgomery Wards "Champion" bicycle
Ice skating
trapping weasels and skinning them
Ping pong table in the basement
carrying, splitting wood
Bringing the two BIG northerns home
drowning rats in the barn
The cyclone while sleeping in the new shed
Aunt Vera visiting - and Mattsons, McAlpines, Bert/Bea Miller etc.
Running over the bridge between the ponds
Hauling sap and cooking maple syrup
Helen the cow
the unfortunate castration of the pig
Homemade ham on Easter
The plum tree and the Wealthy apples
Selling sign space in the spring for Billy's Directory of Resorts
Sam Vivant's (actually Bill Vivant's) deer decoy in our corn field
The snake eating the baby rabbit
Elmer Gave enlarging the basement and eating peas with his knife at dinner
Pearl and Denzel Thayer
The jewelry shop and collecting millet?
Barney getting into a fight with Flannagan's big Irish setter, Denny
Hauling a steam engine up a hill by Casson's cabin
Catching frogs along the lakeshore by flashlite
the 1941 grey and black Buick
Hauling slab wood and the snakes that sunbathed on the wood pile
Ice cold water from the pump
firecrackers on the 4th of July
The bus to school. Driver:Manifred Hyam
the church at Cove Bay
Raymond Dean for dinner
sauerkraut and apple pies
Delphiniums, peonies, Iris,Poppies, Tiger lilies
Trilliums, lilacs, buttercups, jack in the pulpits
The front (guest) bedroom with all the windows
Jack Armstrong (All American Boy) on the radio
cutting corn for canning. Boiling the jars
Homemade bread. angel food cakes
Reading with "The Cavalier" watching over me
The BIG zap of lightning that jarred us
The cement pan boat in the pond
Hunting Anderson's cat and the trophy tail
Tents under the basswood tree
Plinking with Billy's 22 rifle
2 cokes - 2Baby Ruths from Harrington's on a hot day
Geese migrating in October. roof top high
Chicken noodle soup when down sick
Tonsils out - fat doctor forget his name
Cove school and the cut over my eye
Shirley Jucke (teacher) for dinner - beat her at ping pong on the basement table
Monopoly with Chuck Anderson on a long winter day
the grey Ford sedan. Couldn't drive over 40 mph
The handmade garden tiller, power lawn mower and sawmill
Cedar boats hand made
Your unwilling trip to Spirit Island during a big storm
The green box with change for treats
Bear grease for boots and the Rug
Making sumac spigots for tapping
Your feather hats and lunches at the Nanking

...and if I sat here a little while longer I could remember countless other things as I know you can. Thank you for the 1/2 dozen years by Mille Lacs and the many good memories were a decent foundation from which to go on through life.

I imagine the boys will be by today. Enclosed some birthday fun.
Love, Tom, Ann, Molly, Sue 
Wentworth, Waneta Cecilia (I12450)
 
19 At least one living or private individual is linked to this note - Details withheld. Crewson, Charles Roy Jr. (I8820)
 
20
Biography by AMCF, daughter

I've decided this would be a good day to write about my Father since this would have been his 80th birthday, had he lived another 16 years!


Allen M. Crewson was born in Tottenville, New York (New York City) February 7th, 1917, 2nd in a family of 5 children born to George and Ada Crewson. I regret not talking with Dad about his childhood memories. We do know that he was a Boy Scout and that he played a Xylophone. He attended the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and fortunately for us, wrote a diary during those years which we sneaked and savored readings from during our growing up years at Big Lake. He was not pleased when he realized what we were reading. At the time he put it in the garbage, but we were nosy and retrieved pieces of it and have some of it to this day. He wrote about sloughing off on his studies and worrying about his father's admonishings. He played a lot of Bridge during those years and seemed to be going with several 'smooth' girls at a time.

Dad graduated from college in 1938 with a degree in Chemical Engineering and was hired by the Wood Conversion Company (later, Conwed) in Cloquet as a Junior Technologist in 1939. He was promoted to Quality Control Supervisor in 1947, Quality and Process Control in 1960, Manager of Plant Engineering Services in 1965 and Manager of Process/Industrial Engineering and Quality Control in 1971.

In June, 1977, he received an Outstanding Staff Support Award at Conwed. At that time his picture and the following articles were in the Cloquet Pine Knot (daily paper) and in the Conwed Newsletter.


"Al Crewson had served as Engineering Consultant since 1973. In this position he had major authority and responsibility for process technology and quality for selected manufacturing operations, and consulted on major changes, expansions, and problem resolution.

"Crewson was appointed to serve as energy and technology consultant to the Fiber Manufacturing Technology Committee in 1975, and as manufacturing representative on the Board Manufacturing and Fiber Manufacturing Technology Committee in 1977. He provided leadership in energy conservation and cost reduction as Director of Energy Conservation at Conwed, and was creative in finding technical solutions to problems and making improvements in manufacturing processes.

"Positioned near the top of the technical ladder, Al Crewson has packed a variety of experience into his 38 years with Conwed Corporation. During that period, Al has been associated with process development, quality control and energy conservation. 'Now I'm sort of a free lancer,' Al said recently. 'I go where there is a problem and do what I can to help.' While the approach may sound unsystematic, the result of Al's leadership has been just short of spectacular.

"According to Bob Greenhalgh, Al's knowledge of making mineral wool as well as board products is a tremendous resource for the company. 'In 1976,' Bob explained, 'under Al Crewson's leadership, the reduction of steam used in mineral board production saved Conwed over half a million dollars.'

"Recently Al shifted his attention to making Red Wing production more efficient. (Manufacturers have for years accepted the fact that considerable raw material is lost in the process.) The results of Al's leadership so far this year show promise of increasing production at Red Wing substantially while utilizing the same amount of raw material.

"One of Al's greatest assets is his technical, inquiring mind and his ability to synthesize solutions to problems that confront him. Al sinks his teeth deep into a problem and hangs on until and answer is found. This capability has paid off regularly for the company.

"Five scientists currently hold upper level positions in Conwed's technical ladder. On the engineering side, Al Crewson, Engineering Consultant, is the companies top-ranked engineer."


Dad arrived in Cloquet from New York in the midst of a winter blizzard. Owen Johnson, who later was Dad's best man at his wedding, picked him up at the train station in Carlton. They happened to stop at the Wold drug store where Mom, Ione Rose Wardian, was working that day. Owen introduced them and Mom said it was love at first sight. Dad lived at "Mom" Watkins' big house for room and board with several other young Cloquet new comers. One of the Watkins boys invited Mom to a party at their house to help the new people get acquainted. All of the guys' names were put in a hat and Mom drew Dad's name so he was her partner for the evening. Watkins continued to have parties once a month including scavenger hunts and bowling.

Dad's 2 year courtship included dancing, picnics, skiing, and lots of Bridge playing and a close call for tennis. When Dad first proposed to Mom, she turned him down because he resisted the promise to raise any children they might have in the Catholic faith. Dad pursued Mom and finally agreed.

They were married on Flag Day, June 14th, 1941. Dad more than lived up to his agreement. He supported us through our Catholic education, putting all of us through Sacred Heart Elementary, and me through 3 years at Stanbrook Hall (private Catholic girls high school), helping us memorize the Latin Mass responses and our catechism questions. He always respected our religion and attended church whenever we were involved in anything special. Mom always hoped he would convert, but he never did. Dad had high moral standards. He never preached to us in a repetitive fashion, but used real life circumstances to quietly demonstrate honesty. For example, he would never lie about our ages or allow us to do so, in order to get a cheaper ticket. He said one lie would lead to another and the best policy would be to speak the truth always. I never heard him swear or use foul language.

Dad read to us, taught us card games and helped us with our homework. He taught me how to tell time and how to understand fractions. He encouraged all of us to learn foreign languages and join organizations. He took us out in the woods when he was grouse hunting and pointed out amazing things like a bear up in a tree and the differences in the kinds of trees. Dad was a Boy Scout leader, liked to fish, work with wood, and plant a garden. He bought us a water ski boat and barrels of gas, took us swimming and camping. To play in our yard, he constructed a high wire swing and a circular teetertotter. All the years we lived at Big Lake we had a dog and a horse and for the winter he made us a sleigh with a bench seat that faced both front and back to accommodate all of our neighbor friends.

We were showered with gifts at Christmas: bikes, skis, skates, dolls, radios, clocks, crafts, games.... After Christmas, Dad would call us together and spread the US map out onto the table and ask us where we wanted to go for Easter vacation. We would pick Buffalo New York ( Crewson Grandparents) one year, Spokane, Washington (Wardian Grandparents) the next, then Florida, Texas other Gulf states and California. They would drive for the first day and night until we were far enough south to camp out. We even brought our dog, Rusty, along on one trip. In 1958 we drove all the way to Acapulco, Mexico and camped in the parking lot of a luxury hotel.

Dad and Mom were avid Bridge players. They both received the ACBL's Life Master Award. He was also active in Rotary, Chamber of Commerce, Cloquet Gold Club and the American Chemical Society.

Dad encouraged us all to get a college education by inviting us to apply for college anywhere we wanted to go. We had automatic summer and vacation jobs at the Wood Conversion Company during our college years and handed our earnings over to our parents to contribute toward our education, but they took responsibility for our tuition, books and living expenses. Thanks to this parental support, all 6 of us earned a 4 year degree. He always accepted my grades without pressing me for better, offered to help when I would say I needed it.

Dad was generally an optimist, never a complainer and seldom judged anyone; when he did he would say, 'Now, that is ridiculous' and label the questionable character as 'phony or a goof ball.' He had a rip roaring laugh and loved a party. Dad enjoyed excellent health until his liver cancer diagnosis in August of 1981. He lived one month after that, deteriorating rapidly, dying September 2, l981 in the den of our Cloquet house with Mom, his sister Hap, and all of us taking turns being with him. Dad was only 64 years old when he died, a year away from his retirement from Conwed. I have a habit of bringing him back to our family in my dreams, where we are often on vacation together, usually in a boat, laughing. 
Crewson, Allen Morse (I133)
 
21
Biography by AMCF, niece, from a visit to his home in Pittsburgh, PA.

Charles "Chuck" Roy Crewson was born at home, 97 Huntington Avenue, Buffalo, New York on January 2nd, 1924. He lived at the same house with his parents, grandmother Effie, and older brothers and sisters during his growing up years. He was closest to his brother Allen "Bud". He remembers the house and growing up there fondly. They had a pool table that he couldn't use until he was 10 years old. A pet alligator was kept in an outside pen close to the house. He remembers making popcorn in a long fryer with a metal basket top and making taffy with Grandma, stretching it across the room onto a meat hook. In high school he played trumpet in the band. His brother Bud had a whole drum set at the house and his sisters played the piano. Chuck graduated from Bennet High School.

He didn't feel ready to go to college right after high school so in 1942 at age 18 he enrolled in the US Army Air Corp. Eleanor Roosevelt was at his swearing in ceremony. He really wanted to be a pursuit pilot in the war. After basic training, he went to pilot school 6 days a week, learning everything from taking orders to using a parachute. They would practice jumping from a parachute tower, 1000 feet from the ground. Parachutes at that time needed 1000 feet to have time to open, any less than that and you would be out of luck.

Chuck took his actual training in the plane from a civilian instructor who was a stunt man and taught him all kinds of stunt maneuvers, speeding down from high heights in order to have the power to go back up and loop back. They were in a small open plane, noisy, 2 person plane, sitting one in back of the other. Other cadets did not have the same training. When it came time for their tests, he did poorly because he wasn't familiar with some of the required procedures. After that he was sent to Tennessee for Navigator training. The Navigator tells the pilot what to do, when to turn L or R, up or down, watches the sky, knows the stars... Chuck became an officer, First Lieutenant, when he graduated from Navigator School. His parents came to the ceremony in New Orleans by train and brought his high school sweetheart, Sue McCabe with them. Sue and Chuck were married in California and made their home on the base where he was in training.

Chuck was then sent to Panama City, Florida for Gunnery school; he had never fired a gun before. After 8 weeks, he got his first set of wings for Aerial Gunner. Chuck wanted to get into the big planes, but was asked to stay as a Navigator Instructor, teaching cadets. After that he was transferred to Roswell, New Mexico to Bombardier school. He was the first person to be a Navigator Bombardier. While he was in New Mexico, he had a problem with infected wisdom teeth and had to be hospitalized for 1- 2 weeks. Even in the hospital he had to get up early, make his bed etc. The Bombardier sits in the front of the plane, big planes like the B17 and B24. The B29 was the new plane. It was never used in Germany, was going to be used in Japan. He got a second set of wings when he finished Bombardier school. Then he was sent to California for Bombardier Instructor training. When he finished that he was sent to Briefing Officer Training. The Briefing Officer lets the pilot know what the weather will be and the other instructions about the mission. Chuck was one of 5 people to be picked to learn secret radar equipment to increase the accuracy of bombing. The radar was never used in the Air Corps bombing. The bomber planes would fly in formation. When the lead bomber would drop the bomb, the rest of the planes would follow suit. You had to drop your bomb before landing or it might go off when you landed.

From Victorville, CA, Chuck went to Bakersfield, CA. In Spite of a tempting offer, he decided to leave the military. He had the choice to be discharged from CA or from Buffalo, NY. Baby Bob was only 2 weeks old at the time. Chuck sent his father $90.00 to have his Model A roadster sent to CA on a flatbed car of a train. The Air Corp paid both he and Sue mileage to return to Buffalo. It was a precarious trip across country in December. The Model A had celluloid windows and a leather roof. They sealed out the cold by attaching hammocks around the outside leaving only the drivers side door open. The trip took 5 days, maximum speed 50 MPH. They only stopped to sleep 2 times. Chuck went into the inactive Air Corp reserves for 5 years. The 5 years was extended to 6 and then indefinitely. He never did get an official discharge so by rights in still on 24 hour call!

Chuck arrived in Buffalo in December and started college at the University of Buffalo (now called NW State University) in January. Chuck and his family lived in the upper half of the house he grew up in at 97 Huntington Avenue. Grandad had remodeled the house, making it into a duplex and adding an enclosed porch. Chuck found the math classes easy after all of his training in the military, took every math class they offered, and graduated in Electrical Engineering in 1949. He enjoyed customizing his cars. At one time he added 8 switches to the dash board ...to tell him if the gas cap was on or off, to indicate turn signals, to indicate all four lights flashing, and to let him know if the battery was low on water. He added an ooga horn, a Model A horn, to all of his cars just for fun, to operate by pressing a button on the floor.

Chuck lived and worked in Philadelphia for 13 years, Detroit for 4 years, and has been in Pittsburgh at the same house in 2425 Upper Wood Drive in Upper St. Clair ever since. He worked for ITE Electric, General Electric, Multi Amp in heavy industrial electrical sales engineering. After working for the large electrical companies, Chuck went into the hearing aide business, licensed by the Pennsylvania Department of Health and in 1986 started his own home based hearing aide company, Crewson's Home Hearing Aide Service. His son, Bill, also worked in this business with him for awhile. He still has the equipment for testing and occasionally helps people with their hearing problems.

Chuck and his whole family have enjoyed playing golf. 30 years ago he and Sue bought 5 sets of clubs and joined a country club and the whole family played. They also are beer can collectors. They have 4000+ cans in their basement. Their collection includes other beer papaphernalia such as lights; the ceiling is covered with beer trays. They would go to collectors shows and belonged to US and world beer can collecting groups.

Now that Aunt Sue and Uncle Chuck are retired, they enjoy peace and quiet and traveling to visit their sons and families. At this time, Bob, his wife Cathy and sons, George and Daniel live in Florida; Charlie, his wife Kathy and their children, Marjory and Chuck Jr live in California; Bill, wife Linda and daughter, Sara live in Pittsburgh; Steve and wife Eileen live in Japan, and JR and his wife Kim are in Maryland.


Uncle Chuck died at home with his wife, Sue and son, Billy present. He was receiving Hospice care for many months before his passing. Medical issues were lung cancer, a heart condition, and alzheimers. 
Crewson, Charles Roy (I143)
 
22
Biography by AMCF, niece, interview at our Crewson family reunion.


Susan Virginia McCabe was born with the assistance of a midwife November 10th, 1925 in Buffalo, New York in her parents home. Susan was the 7th of 10 children who grew up in the same house. Susan attended Mount St. Joseph Academy for 13 years. She graduated in 1943.

Sue and her future husband lived on the same street in Buffalo but they didn't know each other until a girlfriend broke up with her boyfriend and needed a date for the prom. Sue's date asked Chuck to go out with Sue's girlfriend. Soon after that, Chuck called Sue to ask her out...

They were married July 1, 1944 despite being of different religions (she, Catholic, he, Methodist). Soon after marrying they moved to Victorville, California where he was in the Army Air Corp. Sue and Chuck had 5 boys: Bob, Charles Jr., Billy, Steven, and JR.

Sue was a stay-at-home mother, did lots of volunteer work, such as teachers aide, Cub Scout den mother, chairwoman of every organization. Sue and Chuck played Bridge both as a couple and singly and also enjoyed golf. She loves football, baseball and hockey. They have always lived in a big league town.

Sue has not had any medical problems other than a skull fracture and 36 stitches due to JR's wayward golf stroke. Her only eye correction is for reading.

Sue says she is Proud to be Irish and characterizes her personality easy going, never hysterical, very calm, Sue says she doesn't take life too seriously.

Sue's parents both died by the time she was 20 years old. She was very close to Chuck's parents. She says she has a soft spot for boys and still seems to be enjoying mothering her ever growing crew. 
McCabe, Susan Virginia (I664)
 
23 At least one living or private individual is linked to this note - Details withheld. Flannagan, William Thomas (I8792)
 
24 At least one living or private individual is linked to this note - Details withheld. Flannagan, Daniel Patrick (I8791)
 
25
Biography by daughter, Linda Ann Crewson Somsak, for her father's memorial book for his funeral.

George Grant Crewson Jr. was born June 13, 1914, in Tottenville, Staten Island, New York, the first child of George Grant Crewson and Ada Moon Crewson.

He attended grade school in Buffalo, New York, where he graduated from high school in 1932. He attended the University of Buffalo for a year and transferred to the University of Michigan where he graduated with a BSEE in 1936.

He worked for the following companies as an engineer:

1936-1940 - Crane Company, Chicago, Illinois
1940-1946 - Philadelphia Gear Works, Philadelphia, PA.
1946-1957 - self-employed, Consulting Engineer for Automatic Temp Control, Davis Emergency Equipment Co in Chicago, Illinois
1957-1958 - International Corporation Adm. Washington DC, Electrical and Mechanical Engineering Advisor to the Ministry of Industries, Karachi, Pakistan
1958 - General Controls Co. Glendale, CA
1959- 1962 - Elgin National Watch Company, Burbank, CA, Sales Engineer for the Controls Division
1962 - Techno-Components Corp, Northridge, CA
1963 - Hermatic Seal corp, Rosemead, CA
1964- 1974 Crewson's Appliance Service, Youngtown, AZ, managed his father's appliance business, sales and service.

He was married on July 1, 1937, to Pearl Irene Kidwiler, In Buffalo, New York. They had 2 daughters, Linda Ann, born August 16, 1947 and Joyce Elaine, born August 5, 1952 in Berwyn, Illinois. He was divorced from Pearl in 1964. She passed away on April 18, 1966.

In 1964 he married Marian Evelyn Nielsen and moved to Sun City, AZ. This marriage ended in divorce in 1976.

He moved to Santa Ana, CA so he could be closer to his daughters, Joyce in Long Beach and Linda in Westminster.

He passed away March 16, 1977, at UCI Medical Center Hospital, Orange, CA. 
Crewson, George Grant Jr (I141)
 
26 At least one living or private individual is linked to this note - Details withheld. Crewson, Bret Louis (I8796)
 
27
Buried in Crystal Cemetery, Robinsdale, Minnesota 
Russ, Nathan F. (I12349)
 
28
Caroline was the youngest of 7 children and was born February 26, l904 in Ashland, Nebraska to John and Caroline Anderson. Her father attended the University of Stockholm, Sweden, before immigrating to Nebraska. Her mother, Caroline, came to Nebraska from Sweden. Carol's mother died when she was 10 years old, so her father and older brothers and sisters continued to raise her.

Carol attended school in Ashland. After her graduation, she began working for the Lincoln Telephone and Telegraph Company. She worked as chief operator for 23 years in the Ashland, Lincoln, Nebraska City and Wahoo offices.

While in Wahoo, she met John Flannagan. They married in 1943 shortly before he entered the service in WWII. After John returned, they moved to Omaha and she worked for Brandeis as a clerk in a furniture delivery department. When John accepted a salesman position for Hinkle and Joyce, they moved to Ainsworth where they lived for 20 years. In 1970 they moved back to Ashland. When John passed away in 1985, Carol lived alone 9 months before entering the Bethesda Nursing Home in June of 1986 where she resided until she died on January 12, l996. Services were held at the United Methodist Church in Ashland. Carol is buried in the Ashland Cemetery. 
Anderson, Carolyn Hildegard (I12451)
 
29
Cause of death: A heart condition Walter had suffered for three years


Source: e-mails from grandson, Walter F.J. Crewson, 11-13-2000 and granddaughter, Kay Butler

Walter Samuel Crewson was born in 1876 to Sarah Jane Kimball and Alexander Burris Crewson, in Steubenville, Ohio. He left school at 11 years of age and worked in a nail factory in Steubenville until he was 18 years old. At that time he moved to East Liverpool to work in a pottery factory for James Rigby. He returned to Steubenville in 1895 but in 1897 returned to East Liverpool until April 26, 1898 when he left with his company to the Spanish American War. After the war he returned to East Liverpool to work in the pottery factory. On October 16, 1899 he went to Sebring, Ohio to a new pottery factory and took up an aprenticeship in dishmaking.

On December 26, 1899, Walter married Lillie Rigby, daughter of his pottery boss in East Liverpool.
Walter and Lillie became pioneer residents of Sebring. He built the house that they lived in at 175 East Indiana Avenue in Sebring, Ohio. All 13 of their children were born in this house.

Early in life Walter and his wife both worked in the Sebring pottery factory where he said he had back side scars from walking down the narrow rows between the pottery kilns. In 1907 he left the pottery business and started a bowling business, The Sebring Recreation, which he owned and operated from 1908 to 1930. Walter was a championship level bowler. He and his son, also named Walter Samuel, bowled in the national championships where Walter Sr, bowled a perfect 300 game.

Walter's wife, Lillie Mae, was adamantly opposed to alcohol so when another bowling alley which served beer opened up in Sebring, Walter lost his business. After that he opened up a billiard hall and shooting gallery but one night a drunk came in and shot up the place with one of the guns. This is most likely when he retired.

He was chairman of the Sebring school board for a number of years, a charter member of the Church of Christ, first clerk of the village in 1900, a member of the Rotary Club and kept himself busy with civic activities. He was an inveterate pipe smoker, a full head of silver white hair, piercing blue eyes, tall, very lean and athletic. He walked from one end of Sebring to the other every day, was gregarious and had a lot of friends. 
Crewson, Walter Samuel (I676)
 
30
Cause of death: Beloved Grandmother Ada had breast cancer, had a lumpectomy. After that her arm swelled and she had to cut the sleeves of her dresses open. She never complained, worried about scaring the kids. She died peacefully in the hospital after having a heart attack at night. Grandad and Effie had visited her that day. - Info from her daughter-in-law Sue Crewson, 2000


Following are more assorted notes by or about Ada Moon:

1. Biography by granddaughter Ann Crewson
2. Commencement speech "The Ideal Girl"
3. College Rhetoric class "Washington's Birthday"
4. College English "Ascension of Christ"
5. College English "Romola"

o---------------------------------------------------------o

Biography by AMCF, granddaughter

Ada Moon was born in Ohiopyle, PA 1-28-1887. Her father, Cornelious Moon, was a carpenter. She had 2 sisters, Zoe and Betty and one brother, Charles. She grew up in Morgantown, West Virginia where her family lived at 23 Cobun Avenue. Her mother, Ida Bell Tissue Moon, died when she was just 6 years old. Her father remarried Harriet J. (1865-1903) Ada graduated from Morgantown High School and went to West Virginia University in Morgantown. After college she taught Latin and English in high school in Cameron, West Virginia. Ada met her future spouse, George G. Crewson, in college. When he proposed he wanted to marry her in 3 years. At that time she was 26 years old and had been offered the position of principal of the school where she was teaching. If she took the position she would have had to sign a 5 year contract. Since women at that time could not teach and be married, she resigned from her position to marry George in September, 1931. Once he finished college, they moved to Tottenville, NY and then to Buffalo, NY.

At that time George was supporting his mother, Effie Fischer and her sister, Adda. Adda had graduated from the University of NY School of Music, piano. They went on a honeymoon to Atlantic City, New Jersey with his mother and aunt! Ada once told her daughter-in-law, Sue Crewson, that the only time they were alone was when they were in bed. Grandad's mother lived with them until 1938. At that time she died and the aunt moved to a home called "Home for the Friendless".

Ada was a loving and gentle grandmother. She was thoughtful and generous and an exceptional communicator with all members of the family. We always felt most welcome and important in her home.

Grandma Crewson valued education and encouraged all of her grandchildren to go to college by creating an endowment which we all accessed every year that we were in college. She traveled extensively throughout the world with her husband, George G. Crewson and retired with him in Sun City, Arizona.

Ada was blessed with good health all of her life until she reached 70 years. Due to breast cancer, she had a lumpectomy. Her arm continued to swell from affected lymph glands. She had a mild heart attack and was in the hospital, seemingly recovering, when she died peacefully one night in her sleep, assumably from another heart attack, March 28, 1968 at the age of 71. Ada Moon Crewson is buried alongside her husband, George G. Crewson, in Buffalo, New York in the Masonic Cemetery, just outside Acadia Park.

o---------------------------------------------------------o

THE IDEAL GIRL
By Ada Moon
High School Commencement, 1905

An ideal is the image which the mind forms of the most perfect state of an object. Unless the workman conceives this ideal in advance, no work is ever brought to perfection. An architect would never succeed in erecting the beautiful building without first making a plan. He sees it completed in fancy long before the first stone of the foundation is laid.

The importance of an ideal for girls is questioned by no one; for the girls of today are the women of tomorrow. Girlhood is both a present and a future. An ideal girl, then, is one who can fulfill the duties of the present and best prepare for the duties of the future - for the larger life for the womanhood beyond. All through our student life we have read or listened to people's opinions of the ideal girl. From so many points of view have these statements been heard that we are almost bewildered. We have been told in the words of the poet, "Do noble deeds, not dream them all day long," and then we have read some commonplace article where the chief aim of the ideal is - not to be late for breakfast. Now on this our graduation day when we stand at the threshold of the future of which we have long dreamed. The subject comes to us with special interest and we long for wisdom to portray the ideal girl.

One very popular ideal is that which Tennyson gave in his "Dream of Fair Women":

"Divinely tall and most divinely fair
A daughter of the Gods."

This brings to our minds a beautiful picture but not an ideal for all girls. Not everyone can be tall neither can one by wish or will be "divinely fair." Beauty and magnificent proportions may not be for all. To each one, however, is given an individual grace and charm. Physical health itself is closely related to physical beauty.

I read a fable of a king who gave an artist two wonderful gifts. One was the gift of brushes and colors with which he could paint the most beautiful scenes on canvas. The other gift was sculptor's tools with which he could chisel beauty from marble. These gifts if destroyed could never be replaced; if injured could never be repaired. The artist at first made good use of his gifts and wrought many beautiful pictures and statues. After a time he lost interest in his work and became careless. He neglected brushes and tools. One day the king sent for him to paint a picture of his palace. When the artist collected his forgotten brushes he found that through neglect many of them were damaged, others were completely ruined. There were none like them to buy or to borrow. Finding it impossible to paint the picture under these conditions, he sent word to the king that he could not carry out his commands. Then the king bade him make a statue. Upon examining his neglected tools he found that they too, were useless. Some were badly rusted, others were blunted, many were lost. So he found it impossible to comply with this request of the kind also.

What the author intended to teach I do not know. But are not our health and intellect two such gifts from The King to each of us? - gifts impossible to replace, and ruined by carelessness and neglect? Let me quote an exhortation that Grace Dodge has given to girls "Strong, healthy, wise, let us go to womanhood with bodies prepared by no ill use or forgetfulness to meet the strains that will come to us."

As we think further of the ideal girl, we recall that advice Kingsly gave:"Be good sweet maid, let who will be clever." There seems about this something unsatisfactory and condescending. Is "goodness" alone essential? Is a girl "to be simply good" and not "good for something"? Surely a girl's talents were given to be used. Noone however denies that "goodness" or character or womanliness - call it what we may - is the very basis of an ideal girl. It is beauty of character that "doeth little kindnesses most leave undone or else despise." It is beauty of character that enables a girl to fill her place in the home, in the school, and among her friends. Beauty of form or of features, or strength of body or of intellect will not do it. Someone has written:

"I cannot tell so much that womanliness is in girls as what it does. It lies mostly in the little acts they perform - those things which are so often done that we neglect to speak of their worth. The humblest deeds - the oft-repeated ones - from the beauty of character and faces. They put beautiful lights into girl's eyes, softness into their cheeks, and winsomeness into the whole face.

If we were to study the points of character that have made women celebrated, we should find them within the power of any earnest girl to obtain through great strength of womanhood. I mean those women who have been the bravest, truest, tenderest, most beloved by the world. Phillippa pleading with bended knee before Edward III to spare the lives of the men of Calais; Florence Nightingale in her work with the wounded soldiers; the Puritan Priscilla in the Plymouth Colony - all furnish vivid pictures of what strength of womanliness will do. Simple traits caused their noblest actions - love, sympathy, tenderness, purity, bravery, resolution, endurance; but these qualities grown to their utmost make these women dear to us. It was not intellect, it was not pride, it was not position; but it was womanhood perfected in them that enabled them to do their work, and enables us to love and to follow them."

o---------------------------------------------------------o

A COMMEMORATIVE ADDRESS ON WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY
By Ada Moon
Rhetoric
Feb. 20, 1905

We are met today to celebrate the birthday of "the Father of our Country," the noble Washington who is loved and honored by all Americans and whose name is on every tongue. With pride we turn our hearts to him and pay honor to his memory. How splendid it is to live so that your deeds are remembered and recounted long after you are gone!

The illustrious life of Washington had often been set up as a model for the youths of our land. How fitting it is that it shall be! Washington was a devout Christian, liberal to the poor and needy; kind to those in distress. He was loyal to his friends, had a strong sense of duty, and was always actuated by worthy motives.

The character of his mind was unfolded in both his public and private life; and the proofs of his greatness are seen almost as much in the one as in the other. The same qualities which raised him to the authority of president, and commander-in-chief of the armies, caused him to be loved and respected as an individual. His ambition was of that noble kind which aims to gain a power over men by promoting their happiness and winning their affections.

He had both physical and moral courage; and in battle he was fearless of danger. His courage was shown when, a young man of twenty-one, he made the long journey through the wilderness to the French forts bearing Lieutenant-Governor Dinwiddie's message. The winter in Valley Forge, the time which "tried men's souls", showed his fortitude: for he endured the perils of want and famine like the true soldier that he was.

He loved his country passionately and was ever ready to answer her call. He never for an instant, either in thought or in deed, swerved from the faithful discharge of his duties.

These are some of the traits of Washington's character that have won for him the love and veneration of his countrymen. The immortal name of Washington will be enshrined in the hearts of men as long as liberty lasts and

"Amid the wreck of thrones shall live
Unmarred, undimmed, our hero's fame;
And years succeeding, years shall give an
Increase of honors to his name."

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REPORT OF A SERMON: "THE ASCENSION OF CHRIST"
By Ada Moon
English 11

"The Ascension of Christ" was the topic of Dr. Compton's sermon at the First Methodist Episcopal Church last Sunday morning. (Note: Photo of Dr. Compton with original document: M.F. Compton, D.D., Pastor at Morgantown, W. Va.) In the introduction he spoke of the different ways in which the ascension of Christ has been observed in different ages and by different nations. Taking for his text, Romans 8:34, "It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intersession for us", Dr. Compton said that the text opened three doors: Christ died for humanity and thus opened the door of redemption and mercy; he arose from the dead and opened the door of death, or really the door of life; he ascended into heaven , thus opening the door to the celestial city, to the spiritual life. There are three facts which we should keep in mind in connection with the Ascension of Christ: his earthly life, long foretold by prophets, began at Bethlehem; his wonderful work and life culminated and ended at Calvary; his spiritual reign began at Olivet. How solemnly impressive must have been that farewell scene where he blessed his disciples for the last time and took his departure from there!

There are three lessons to be derived for us from this theme of ascension: first, Christ is alive today - he has only gone home; second, Christ is at work today as our advocate with the Father; third, he is gloriously and wondrously exalted. While other names great in the history of the world are gradually dying out, the name of Christ is becoming more widely known. In conclusion, Dr. Compton said that the Scriptures say Christ is coming in like manner as he left. We do not know when or how, but we are to watch and work drawing inspiration in our toil from the beauty around us.

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ROMOLA
By Ada Moon
Rhetoric 10
November 13, 1905

Romola is one of George Elliot's greatest works. It describes Florentine life and manners in the time of Savonarola, and tells of his influence upon the Italian people. It is intended to teach a great moral lesson which is best expressed in the author's own words, _ "There are so many things wrong or difficult in the world that no man can be great - he can hardly keep himself from wickedness - unless he gives up thinking about pleasures or rewards, and gets strength to endure what is hard and painful." This book contains some of George Eliot's best original characters, and by their development this lesson is brought out.

This style is rather heavy at times on account of the close psychological analysis of character made. The street scene in the first chapter and the revelation of Baldassarre's secret to Romola are both graphically described. Intense feeling is expressed in chapter thirty eight when Baldassarre finds that his lost memory is restored.

My greatest criticism of the book is on the plot. It seems as if the "setting is too large for the picture", yet, everything seems to bring out the final unity of the book after all. To the ordinary reader who is not acquainted with the Italian History in the fifteenth century, much of the book may seem tiresome. The plot moves along slowly, in order that time may be given for the characters to develop. The place unity is well kept, the scene never changes far from Florence. Each event logically leads up to the next. From Tito's first sin, his downfall is traced step by step. The characters are developed by contrast. Thus Tito's selfishness is contrasted with the self-denial of Savonarola.

The pathos is not abundant, but it is touching. To me, the most pathetic scene is in chapter thirty nine at the supper in the Rucellai gardens, when Baldassarre attempts to expose Tito, but is prevented by the loss of his mind. Even Tito himself is touched with compassion for Baldassarre and regrets the past.

The humor is rich and refined, never repulsive. Like the pathos from the author herself, but belongs to the characters. In chapter fifty one, there is rather a humorous account of the white robed boys despoiling Monna Brigida of her "vanities." Nello, the barber, is full of humor. In chapter four, he tells Tito in speaking of Messer Domenico, that "he was born under the constellation that gives a man skill, riches and integrity, whatever that constellation may be, which is of less consequence because babies can't choose their own horoscopes and indeed if they could there might be an inconvenient rush of babies at particular epochs." Again, in chapter twenty nine, when Nello and Piero are talking of Tito being so easily frightened, and Nello says that Piero ought to be able to understand such terror because "he hides himself with the rats as soon as a storm comes on," Piero replies, "That is because I have a particular sensibility to loud sounds; it has nothing to do with my courage or conscience."

The characters are drawn with great skill, even the very ordinary ones are interesting. Romola is the great character in the book. She was not an ordinary woman. To understand her fully, we must know that she spent her early life in close companionship with her father, who taught her to look upon the world and worldly things as beneath her. With her stern moral nature, duty was sacred to her, and helped her to endure many trials. I do not think anyone would blame her when she left Tito, yet how much we respect her for coming back, ready to do her duty however hard it might be. It seems a little unnatural that her heart never relents toward Tito; she gives him up so easily, never feeling a pang of regret.

Tito represents a man of the world, handsome, educated, impetuous, just the kind of man to win the heart of a girl like Romola, and in fact, of everyone he met. At first we like the handsome young stranger, but soon we feel the deepest contempt for him. He is a moral coward, living for himself alone. His good-nature and the absence of pride only heighten his guilt, instead of being a set off to his wickedness. He deceived Romola, betrayed and wronged poor innocent Tessa, but worst of all was his treatment of Baldassarre, his foster-father..

Baldassarre is a character with whom we sympathize most deeply. He belongs to a type that is hard to portray, but the author has been very successful in his delineation. When he tried to recall his lost knowledge, his mind is blank. He can think of one thing only - revenge. He is determined to kill Tito, come what may. Contrasted with the weak Tito is the noble Savonarola. He is perhaps not so lifelike as Tito, but is a true type of a priest, a real martyr. His powerful personality, the mighty tones with which he controlled hundreds of people are clearly portrayed. His history however is not entered into fully enough to give us a complete understanding of him and his work.

Romola's father is a typical scholar who devotes himself wholly to the study of the great literature of the past. He asserts his "right to be remembered", and bitterly laments the fact that he will be forgotten while someone else receives the honor that rightfully belongs to him as writer and translator.

Dino represents the type of fanatical monk who had starved and worked until unnatural visions came to him.

Bernardo Del Nero was harsh and stern, yet a noble man. Of him, it might be said, "He was the noblest Roman of them all." He was plotted against and led to his death by the faithless Tito.

The material in the book for the most part is old, but the treatment new. The story of an ungrateful child is very old, but Tito is a new creation. Many times has the story been told of a wife ho has lost all confidence in her husband, but George Eliot alone has given us Romola. The romance and beauty of the life of Savonarola have often been portrayed, but the story has never lost its charm.

The descriptions are interesting, the scenes vivid, the characters lifelike. The book makes a deep impression on your mind, and causes you to think about it a great deal. I think it would be hard to forget Romola. You have lived and suffered with her and you are glad to leave her at peace, loved and revered by all as the "Madonna Romola."

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Moon, Ada Jane (I140)
 
31
Cause of death: Bladder cancer 
MacAlpine, Malcolm James III (I661)
 
32
Cause of death: Congestive heart failure 
Bissonnette, Richard Harold (I660)
 
33
Cause of death: Hodgkin's disease


Biography by Ann Flannagan 1-2001
Sources: Tom Flannagan, husband, Dorothy Wubben, mother, Jim Wubben, brother, Rosemary Wubben, sister-in-law and Josephine's own life story as a high school senior in May of 1953.

Josephine Ida Wubben was Dorothy Backstrom Wubben and Lawrence Wubben's first born child. She arrived April 9, l935. She was named after her maternal grandmother, Anna Josephina, and her paternal grandmother, Ida.

Josephine was baptized 2 weeks later, on Easter Sunday and went to elementary school at Nativity Catholic Elementary School in St. Paul. Dorothy recalled that Joey was a playful happy child with a bubbly outgoing personality, brown naturally curly hair and blue eyes. Josephine took first place in a Perfect Baby contest when she was one year old and was awarded a little silver cup. It was sponsored by a group that her next door neighbor and godmother belonged to. As a little girl, 2 and 3 years old, people would stop her mother on the street and tell her that Josephine looked like Shirley Temple.

Josephine had one younger brother, James, "Jim" and one younger sister, Kathleen, "Bunny." Jim said that he was particularly close to Josephine when he was in high school, that she was working and would make sure that he had spending money.

While in elementary school, Josephine was a Girl Scout and was in plays at the Edith Bush Theater in Highland Village. She also took dancing lessons; she had both tap and ballet and participated in several dance recitals.

Josephine attended Derham Hall High School, a prestigious school, located at the College of St. Catherine which only admitted 30 girls each year. In high school she took piano lessons and loved school dances. She had a blond streak in her hair and at one time got in trouble with the nuns because they thought she was bleaching her hair. She liked cross stitch and was patient enough to complete several large table cloths. She graduated from Derham Hall in June of 1953.

After high school, Josephine pursued nurses training at St. Mary's Hospital in Rochester. While working as a nurse at St. Luke's Hospital in St. Paul, she met Tom Flannagan who was an orderly there and attending the University of Minnesota. They were married at the Nativity parish house by Father Steiner in St. Paul in l956.

Tom and Josephine had three boy babies in a row: Daniel Patrick on February 26th, l957, William Thomas on August 9th, l958 and John Arthur, October 18th, l959. While raising babies and working as a nurse, she was also sharing the caretaking responsibilities in the apartment building with Tom.

According to Tom, Josephine was easy going, good humored, a good sport and even tempered. She enjoyed grouse and pheasant hunting with Tom, sometimes staying with Backstrom grandparents in Fairmont, Minnesota. They would also occasionally take in a movie and get together with friends and play 500 Rummy. Josephine was a good cook and liked to make up recipes.

Sadly, at the age of only 25 years old, she found out that she had Hodgkins disease and died a year and a half later on July 18th, l961. Josephine was buried at the Fort Snelling Cemetery in St. Paul. 
Wubben, Josephine Ida R. N. (I8790)
 
34
Cause of death: Ovarian cancer metastasized to colon


Harriet Jane 'Hap' Crewson Bissonnette by Ann Crewson Flannagan, niece from an interview with Aunt Hap at our family reunion June 14, 1997 in Seattle

Harriet Jane 'Hap' Crewson was born in Buffalo, New York May 17th, 1932. Hap was born earlier than expected and had the distinction of not being born in the same room with her mother! Her mother developed a tumor on her lower left side during the pregnancy. At 7-7 1/2 months, her mother's uterus was removed including the baby and was taken to another operating room. Hap weighed a little over 3 and 1/2 pounds at birth.

Hap started piano lessons at about age 5 with her mother's dear friend. She doesn't remember birthday parties, probably due to being the 5th child. She remembered going to college with her sister at age 6 for the weekend; her 2 older brothers and sister were living away from home. Her brother Chuck was 8 years older than her.

She went to Public School #22 across the street from their home. Mother talked the K teacher into admitting Hap to K at age 4. The family moved to Snyder, New York at the time she started 5th grade at Public School #18 on Harlem Road. At that time Hap was 10 years old. Her first pet was a wired-haired terrier, 'Rascal.' Her junior high school was #789 and she went on to Amherst High School in Sydney.

During her teen years Hap reported that she felt closer to her sister Effie since her mother couldn't talk about personal things. She had slumber parties at Effie's house which was a mile away. Other people's parents were Effie's age.

After high school, Hap wanted to get a job, but her father insisted that she go to college, so against her will, she went to Stevens girls' college, a 2 year college where she earned an Associated of Arts degree with specialty in Airline Traffic because she wanted to be a stewardess. Having gotten married, she had to give up her plans to be a stewardess. Her first job was with American Airlines in Buffalo in reservations.

Hap met Malcolm MacAlpine 'Mel' in high school. They were engaged after going together for a year and were married in Buffalo in December of 1952. In February of 1953, they moved to Biloxi, Mississippi where he was stationed at an Air Force base. They lived in an old house right on the beach. Rent was $50.00 a month plus utilites. Hap worked on the base at the JAMTO, Joint Airline Military Ticket Office, where she booked the guys for leave until Christmas. Malcolm James MacAlpine IV 'Jim' was born at the base hospital February 1 1954, 6 pounds and 8 oz.

In the spring of 1955, Mel was transferred to Ipsilante, Michigan to be a radar instructor. At that time Hap was 5 months pregnant with her second child. The day Cynthia Beth MacAlpine 'Cyndi' was born, Hap woke up at 7a not feeling well, called the base and a doctor came out at 9a. Her mother and Mel and neighbors were all there. Cyndi was born in the bedroom at 10:20a. Due to hemorrhaging, Hap was taken by ambulance to a hospital in Wayne , Michigan. Her mother had a new baby to take care of.

Mel was discharged in August 1956. They moved to Glendora, California, where Mel went to work for Howard (Hap's sister Effie's husband) as a service manager in Howard's and Dad's (Hap's father's) business, Haefner Chrysler Plymouth. The next year Mel's Baptist parents moved there and that's when the trouble started. They objected to Methodist Sunday School. Mel was an only child and included his mother in everything. There were several separations and eventually Hap and Mel divorced with no hard feelings.

In 1961 Hap met Dick Bissonnette and finally married him in June of 1963. They honeymooned for 2 days in Palm Springs and then camped with 4 kids.

Hap had several secretarial jobs, was in the travel department at Aerojet where Dick also worked, and also with General Dynamics travel department for 20 years, again where Dick also worked as a Standards Lab Inspector. Dick retired in 1980. Once Hap retired, anxious to leave California, they moved to Arizona February 1, 1993.

Hap's # 1 interest is golf which she enjoys at least 3 times a week. # 2 would be crossword puzzles. Math has always been easy for her and she loves logic problems. Her # 3 interest is reading. She has a piano but hasn't played much in 30 years. She loves shopping, Indian things, pottery, cross-stitch, machine sewing, tailoring, crochet and knitting. She hates antiques!

Due to problems with thyroid and skin cancer, Hap gets physical examiniations every year. She misses contact with her sister Effie and brother Al who died 2 years apart. .......................................................................... .............. After several months of gradual decline, in the company of her husband, Dick, with the assistance of her children Jim and Cyndi, and with the support of Hospice, Harriet Jane Crewson Bissonnette passed away at ------------ on -----------.

I will personally always remember and revere Aunt Hap for her spunk, her optimism and her warmth. She was our Dad's little sister, perky and pretty, upbeat and intelligent. When our Dad was sick with cancer she came to assist us like a light in the darkness. I didn't have the opportunity to spend a lot of time with Aunt Hap, but appreciated the few times we had together. 
Crewson, Harriet Jane (I144)
 
35
Cause of death: Pneumonia at 18 mos old, 11 mos after her father died 
Crewson, Nellie May (I148)
 
36
Clara May was a farmer's daughter. Thomas William met her while staying at a nearby farm a couple miles away when the railroad business was shut down for the winter months. They were married in Robinsdale (now Crystal) in 1896 and had a lovely home in St. Anthony Park where they had 7 children. In addition to raising her children and maintaining the home, Clara May was an avid reader and was very active in the American Legion, being in charge of large banquets. She was also a volunteer at the Veteran's Hospital,helping various vets get into business so that they could make a living and restore their independence.

Her son Art tried to teach her how to drive, to no avail. She died of kidney failure at age 63 and was buried at Hillside Cemetery in Minneapolis, MN. 
Smith, Clara May (I12404)
 
37
Dick helped his younger brother Arthur out of some scrapes when they both were younger. He went into the Army and achieved the rank of Captain in WWII in the North African Campaign. He was an expert in the construction of rail lines to forward the military supplies to the front lines during the war. His field promotion to Captain testifies to his valuable work in the military. He started drinking there and never seemed to be able to control it after that.

After his military service, Dick worked for the Soo Line, as an Assistant Manager in the Storage Department. He married Patricia Sherry and they had one daughter. He liked children and would take his niece, Mary, to ball games and to the park. Due to his alcoholism, he lost his job and his family. Twice he went through alcohol treatment in Willmar, but was not able to stop the dependency. His brother, Art tried to intervene with him on many occasions, but each time he would return to drinking. A psychologist once told Art that he thought Dick was an overachiever. He lived in a rooming house in Minneapolis and was sober for 6 months before he died at the age of 53.

Dick was buried at Fort Snelling. 
Flannagan, Richard James (I12419)
 
38 At least one living or private individual is linked to this note - Details withheld. MacAlpine, Malcolm James IV (I8829)
 
39 At least one living or private individual is linked to this note - Details withheld. Crewson, Linda Ann (I4141)
 
40
Elizabeth died at only 6 months old due to a flu epidemic. 
Flannagan, Elizabeth May (I12421)
 
41
Ellen Odell was 3 years older than her husband, Samuel, and she lived 20 years longer than he. At the time she married Samuel she was a bonnet-maker and lived at 23 Worsley Street in the County of Lancaster.

In her Will, she includes Myrtle Flannagan, widow of her deceased son Samuel, and Jessie, widow of her deceased son Arthur, and notes that the remainder should be divided equally between her sons, Harry and Thomas William. Harry is executor of the will and administrator of the estate. 
Odell, Ellen (I12486)
 
42 At least one living or private individual is linked to this note - Details withheld. Family F3444
 
43 At least one living or private individual is linked to this note - Details withheld. Jorgenson, Emily Ann (I8800)
 
44
Evelyn was trained as a nurse at St. Luke's Hospital in St. Paul. Because she was expecting a child from a relationship with a married man, C. Harris Judd, and did not want to give the child up for adoption, she went out to California. She raised her daughter, Marjorie, without support from her family. Later in life she met and married Nate Steinhart. He was a shrimper and later became totally blind. She went back to work and lived to be 75 years old. 
Flannagan, Evelyn Ellen (I12414)
 
45
Following are assorted notes and treatises by or about George Grant Crewson. One may jump between documents by searching/finding "o--" in Explorer or Firefox browser etc.

1. WVU Thesis
2. First car
3. Biography by Ann Crewson Flannagan
4. What Do The Germans Think, from typewritten 8pp 1945
5. Impressions of Germany, from typewritten 7pp 1945
6. News article re Masonic installation, 1945
7. Personal letter re marriage to Bess, from handwritten 10pp 1970

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Thesis,referenced in the West Virginia University library card catalogue, Books by author, G.G.Crewson,W378.7541, Eng 'g, "The variation of Tensile Strength with Percent Carbon in Iron-Carbon Alloys".

The staff was unable to locate a copy. Ann Crewson Flannagan, 2000

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Grandad bought his first car, a big seven-passenger Franklin, air cooled, big ornament on the front. He paid cash for the car. The dealer asked him if he knew how to drive. He had never driven before so they went around a few streets to learn how to drive. No car licenses were required at the time.

Info from GGCrewson's son, Chuck Crewson, 2000.

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George Grant Crewson By Ann Crewson Flannagan, granddaughter February 15, 1997, edited May 2008

George Grant Crewson was named George Rehard Crewson when he was born June 21, 1887 in Steubenville, Ohio. He changed his name to George Grant Crewson in later years in honor of his father, Grant Rehard Crewson. George was only 3-1/2 years old when his father died. At that time, he, his baby sister and his 22-year-old widowed mother, moved back home with her parents in East Liverpool, Ohio.

George graduated from high school in 1905 in New Cumberland, West Virginia where he was encouraged by the principal to go to college. He told his uncle that he would like to go to college. His uncle knew a state senator and at that time senators had the authority to give what we now call scholarships. It was a military cadet appointment. George went to college in Morgantown, West Virginia at WVU, starting in 1906 with $50.00, 1 pair of pants, 1 jacket, 1 pair of extra shoes and a small suitcase. He worked as a table waiter and any other odd jobs he could find. During his college years he met and fell in love with Ada Moon, a local girl who was in the class ahead of him, studying to be an English teacher. He graduated from the University of West Virginia in 1910 with a degree in Mechanical Engineering.

George was married to Ada on 3 Sep 1913 in the Methodist Church in Morgantown, West Virginia, her parents' home town. They moved to Tottenville, Staten Island, New York City and for the next 11 years he worked at the Eastern Steel Company, Roessler, Hasslacher and Dupont in many phases of engineering, research and development. This work took him to Peru, Chile and Cuba, as well as to many parts of the United States. He was then made Plant Manager at Quigley Company, manufacturers of refractory cements, and later Project Engineer at National Aniline and Chemical Company.

In 1924, at the age of 37, he went into business for himself as Sales Engineering Representative for such well-known chemical equipment companies as Swenson, Whiting Corporation, Duriron, Labour, General Ceramics, Swortout Company, Schutte and Koerting. One very interesting job during this period was his designing and supplying the special casting and annealing table on which Corning made the 200'' mirror for the world's largest reflecting telescope at Mt. Palomar. During this period his efforts were outstanding in concentrating electrolytic caustic soda and in drying chlorine. When defense mobilization restricted availability of special materials, he helped speed the magnesium program by working out the concentration of magnesium chloride for available wartime equipment.

During the war, he served as Chemical Engineering Consultant to the Chemical Warfare Service and helped solve many of the problems in the manufacture of Lewisite. In 1943 he came to Buffalo Electro-Chemical Co. and directed the program for more efficient production of hydrogen peroxide in that company's expanding facilities. He was particularly responsible for this country's early production of highly concentrated hydogen peroxide, independent of foreign developments. He was a member of the three-man team which the US government sent to survey the German hydrogen peroxide industry, entering on the heels of our advancing armies in 1945.

August 20, l953, George G. Crewson was selected by the executive committee of the Western New York Section of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers to receive their 2nd annual Professional Achievement Award. The award was given in recognition of outstanding services to the local section and the national organization for contributions to the chemical engineering profession as a whole. The award was presented at a dinner where GGC was the speaker. At the time, according to a clip from Vol.49, No.10 of Chemical Engineering Progress (P.77), George G. Crewson was Chief Engineer/Director of Engineering and a director of Buffalo Electro-Chemical Co., Inc. He was also engineering consultant on the staff of the vice president of the Chemical Division of Food Machinery & Chemical Corp.

In addition to his employment, George was a member of the Masonic Temple or Knights Templar, and as their representative, he traveled internationally giving speeches about friendship, loyalty, ambition, humor, the Holy Grail etc. He held the post of Grand Commander of the Knights Templar in New York State in 1938.

George's mother, Effie Fisher Crewson and her sister, Adda Fisher, lived with them while they raised their family of five children: Grant, Effie, Allen, Charles and Harriet in Buffalo, New York. One of George's hobbies was photography. He took 16 mm movies and slides during his extensive worldwide travels. He traveled in every state of the United States, every province of Canada, the Far East including Japan and China, every country in South America and all of the European countries except the communist countries.

He went to Germany for the US Department of War with the ranking of colonel to investigate chemical warfare weapons used. The main concern was the use of high concentrate hydrogen peroxide. When he retired at the age of 67, and for approximately 10 years, George worked as an engineering consultant for FMC (Food Machinery Corporation), traveling all over the world with his wife, Ada, investigating specific companies.

George and Ada were generous both materially and spiritually. Special gifts from them included sweaters from Norway, watches from Switzerland and pearls from Japan. They set up a college endowment fund for all of their grandchildren. George and Ada eventually sold their Buffalo home and moved to Sun City, Arizona. After Ada died in 1968, George's health started to fail.

One year he used Ada's Christmas card list to send greetings to friends and family members. An old high school girl friend of his, Bess Wehner, was on the list from several years past when she had visited George in his Buffalo home. Bess wrote to him to express her sympathy for his loss of Ada and a correspondence struck up and continued until George proposed. George and Bess were married in June of 1971 in East Liverpool, Ohio at the Methodist church at the ages of 83. George's physical health improved after that, however, as the years went by, he became more and more forgetful and confused. George died in August of 1977 at the age of 90 in Sun City, Arizona. Bess's relatives were unscrupulous in their claims to George's assets, both his money and belongings. A bank was set up as his trustee so that George's own sons and daughters had no control or legal ability to challenge the handling of the funds.

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From Personal Notes of
G.G. Crewson
- 1945 -

WHAT DO THE GERMANS THINK?

It has been my fortune, good or bad, to have visited many countries and localities, and in so doing I have been as much interested in trying to understand the people as in the sights and new experiences. After all, there is no subject quite so interesting as people.

But people cannot be understood merely by evaluating what they say or how they act. Most of us are actors on the stage of life, and we wear the costumes and masks of the parts we aim to play. But as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. And it is not always easy to penetrate the mask and see the real man beneath it.

The German problem is one which can never be understood until we understand the average German. What does he think? That question is all important. And that question was uppermost in my mind as I traveled through Germany and talked to all classes of the native population.

The mission upon which I went across was one that afforded opportunity to learn to know the people. Its purpose was to quickly obtain detailed information with respect to certain phases of German Chemicals manufacture and required visiting a number of plants in widely scattered areas.

We flew to London, via Labrador and Scotland, and after a few days there after making necessary arrangements, flew to Frankfurt. Frankfurt was the headquarters of the American Army of Occupation and was our headquarters while in Germany. As from the hub of a wheel we went out from and returned to Frankfurt on our various trips of investigation. Now these trips were no pleasure jaunts. Remember, Germany had not merely been defeated - it had been wrecked. Every city of any importance was in ruins. There was no railroad transportation whatsoever. There was no communication system, mail, telephone, or telegraph except of army type and between army posts. So if our target was a German plant 300 miles away, we went there over wretched and bombed out roads in a jeep, command car, or weapons carrier.

In five weeks in Germany I traveled over 2,000 miles by such type of conveyance until my aging body was so wracked that I questioned if the parts would ever again fit properly together. We covered most of the American, British, and French Zones.

Now this type of traveling around brings you close to people. You see their mode of life in city, village, and countryside. You talk to the rank and file. Your audiences are not picked for you. In the course of our work we talked to millionaires and to paupers, managers, owners, technicians, skilled workmen and common laborers. And because I was so interested in trying to discover "What does a German Think?", I was always attempting to understand the mental process of the man to whom I talked. Also it was a part of our duty to report our impressions as to the trustworthiness of those whom we interviewed. So what I have to say on what the German thinks is my impression from first-hand contact.

There is one other thing that I must impress upon you in order not to be misunderstood. When you speak of a group or of a nation of people, you are or should be talking in terms of averages. It is of the mass psychology of the German people that I speak. If I give the impression that the Germans of a given age group are immoral, don't interpret that to mean that there are no good people in that age group. I met individual Germans last summer in Germany whom I am convinced are as upright and honest as the best of any other group.

With this understanding, let us review for a moment the background which has shaped the mass thinking of the German people. Nations, like individuals, have their mental processes fixed in their training and education. For many generations the German has had inculcated into his thinking certain fundamentals which govern his reasoning today. Among these were:

(a) The Germans are a superior people. Their scientists are the best, their artists are the best, and above all, their soldiers are the best. Now I don't think much of a man who is not sold on America nor the Briton who does not love Britain most, nor the German who does not in his heart, think that his country is God's own, but carry that preachment to excess where the citizen of every other country is deemed to be an inferior, and you have the foundation of fearful consequences. I am not so sure that American arrogance at times does not approach that of the prewar German.

(b) They have been trained to unquestioned obedience of those in authority, whether that be the father in the home, the foreman in the factory, the Burgermeister of the village, or the head of the nation. To a certain extent that obedience is a virtue; carried too far and it becomes dangerous, for the individual escapes personal responsibility. Most of the war criminals, some of whom I talked to, cannot understand why they are being held responsible for heinous crimes when they were but obeying the directions of their superiors.

(c) They were taught that warfare is a glorious and honorable activity. The German no more likes to kill nor to be shot at than does any other man, but warfare was glorified. The German Military Officer was on a level above his fellowman regardless of his individual character or ability.

It is a natural characteristic of the German, and they are proud of it, that each man tries to be the best in his field whether he be a scientist, carpenter, soldier or farmer, but takes essentially no interest in affairs except his own specialty. Thus, they lacked general knowledge or even interest in affairs in general. A good example of this was shown in the attitude of a chemist with whom I talked. He had an international reputation in his particular field and was indeed brilliant. He was also a quiet, courteous and likeable chap. I said to him, "Dr. A., I cannot understand why a thinker such as you are - could have ever been in agreement with so unsound a philosophy as Naziism." His reply was typically German, "I am a chemist. Politics is for the politicians, I am not interested. I only want to be left alone with my own research." So I am convinced that great masses of the German people simply didn't concern themselves with their internal affairs.

Now I am not going to discuss the merits or demerits of the Versailles Treaty. The fact remains that like all nations who exhaust their resources in manpower via warfare, the Germans were in a desperate situation following the 1st World War and desperate people grab at straws. If it had not been Hitler, it would have been someone else. The military was lost without an anchor; the industrialist had to have a government behind him, so they supported one not necessarily with whom they agreed, but in hope that his personal magnetism could mold a broken people together again.

Because Hitler, the military behind him and other elements who named him to power, were personally corrupt, such was the type of government which evolved. Having gained authority, that very spirit of the people - obedience to authority and lack of interest in affairs outside their family and vocation, gave full reign to Naziism in its most vicious form. There began an indoctrination of a people through education of the young of a most terrible type.

The old doctrine of German superiority was exploited to the point of teaching that being superior they had the same rights over other people that man has over the lower animals; to take their possessions, to take their lives if need be. Now to us, that seems horrible, but we must not be too self satisfied. Slavery flourished not too many years ago in this country and industrial slavery at a still later date. The heroes of our frontiers 100 years ago hunted the Indian, another human being, for sport - as others find sport today in slaughtering the wild life. The German creed of Hitler seems horrible but we are not too far removed from it to be smug.

The State was extolled to the extent that no crime, as we define it, was a crime if it were committed in the interest of the State. Stealing was stealing only if one stole from a German. If a man disagreed with the Nazi policies, to kill him was not murder. No promise was meant to be kept, even a treaty, if it conflicted with the interests of the State. Germany was to conquer the world and war needs manpower, hence to produce children was a duty and commendable; marriage was a nonessential. To prepare a nation for war, particularly one whose citizens love their homes and their jobs, required stimulating a war of nationalistic fervor. Hatred prepares for war, so some group or groups must be selected as outlet for teaching the people to hate. And they were all too successful. But hatred and the new philosophies were incompatible with Christianity, and the German people were fundamentally religious. Therefore Christianity must be - and was destroyed at least in the minds and hearts of this new generation ... and so Germany was prepared for conquest.

War came, and with it came the most terrible retribution ever visited upon a nation who had forsaken God. I will not dwell upon the destruction of the country - that is the subject of a discourse in itself. The people were left dumbfounded. They even believed in what those in authority told them. To lose was beyond their conception; the older people today go about in a daze. With the physical destruction came also terror and grief that has disturbed the mental equilibrium of many of the citizenry.

But I cannot help but emphasize that the tragedy of Germany today is not in the destruction of its cities, not in the loss of irreplaceable works of architecture and art, not in the loss of 5 million of its ablest manpower, not in the loss to science and industry, of its laboratories and libraries. Terrible as these are, the great tragedy of Germany is not in these. It is in the loss of the morality of its people. As in the individual, so it is with a nation. The all important thing is the integrity and morality of the man, not what he possesses.

Germany in defeat has not changed its moral and mental attitude. To the German he is still a superior being. Misfortune has come but another day is yet to come. To him, their crime was not to make war, to oppress their neighbor - it was to have lost the war. They have no sense today of having done wrong. They only criticize their military for having underestimated their enemy - and we are still the enemy.

In evaluating what the German thinks today, I must divide them into three general classes:

First the elderly - these people are groping helplessly. They cannot understand what it is all about. They did nothing wrong. They never hated us. Why did we bomb their cities and occupy their country? Yes, Germany did that to other countries but they had to do so for self-preservation. Those people were bad people, but Germany never did anything to make us hate them so. These people are courteous to us - even are cooperative. Accustomed to obeying authority, they attempt even to anticipate our wishes - we are the bosses. We stop our car in a village to ask an old man the proper road to take - he removes his hat and smiles friendly as he tries to instruct us most fully.

They welcome us into their homes, if they have homes. On the bomb-riddled street if there is but room for one, he will scramble up on the rubble to let us pass. We are the bosses. He obeys and does so cheerfully but he grieves for his losses not for his errors.

Our heart is touched. We know they are simpleminded, not vicious. One early morning from my room window, I looked out over the ruins of what had been beautiful buildings across the street. An elderly man and woman were walking heads down along the street. Suddenly she stopped - climbed a few feet into the rubble and stared into the ruins of a building. The man who was with her came back, took her by the arm and dragged her weeping away. I do not know what had caused her grief. Perhaps they had had a store there - Perhaps even one of their children still lay beneath that pile of stone and mortar. One cannot be too harsh with such as these.

Then there is that large mass of the population from 10 to 40 years of age. These are the ones upon whom the Nazi government concentrated in its educational system. These are the ones who were taught to hate and any crime associated with hatred. Now deceit is one of the traits they were taught. It is to their advantage today to pretend to be friendly, but you can see hatred in their eyes even behind the smiles. They are opportunists without moral sense. Fraternization is a word of subtle meaning, and as applied to our soldiers means only their friendliness with the fräuleins. A candy bar is sufficient bribe to purchase any favor from them. We were stopped by a curb in a small town - a girl about 20 came along the sidewalk, paused close to our car and smiled most interestingly as she passed on. We joked with our good looking driver over his having made an impression, when I glanced back just in time to see the girl stopped, facing us, her tongue out and face almost livid with hatred. These people, with moral sense destroyed, will be the dominating group in Germany for the next generation. Just imagine what danger to peace they constitute.

Then I would speak of the small children. The streets swarm with them - begging, stealing, quarreling - their education had already begun in learning to hate and to fight. One day in Frankfurt, I saw a gang of 6-8 year olds milling around in Hindenburg Square. I walked over and found that five or six of them had one youngster down - kicking and pounding him - but the significant thing is that they were shouting "du Osterreicher" (you Austrian). Pure hatred among these tots of 6-8 years old. There are the children in the street 2-4 years old - little blonde, blue-eyed, dirty ragamuffins. I could not be unkind to them. Babies are babies whatever their parents might have been. I was criticized on occasions by American Officers for giving the "brats" candy bars, but they were not my enemies. Who are these children? Most of them never knew a father. Many of them never knew a mother... placed in the Institutions for State Babies after birth , they escaped when the buildings were leveled and their superiors fled. No one was concerned about them now. Banded together like our city slum kids, they crawl into basements or cans under the rubble at night and come out during daylight to beg or steal in order to live.

Our Military is primarily concerned with controlling the elders. Means for taking care of the homeless children are far from complete. I think I shall never forget the sacrifice of these innocents.

The older people are too dazed to think at all. The younger more active people hate as they have been taught hatred, are hypocritical to the degree of fooling most of our soldiers, and indoctrinated to the degree that there is no moral responsibility among them.

With such a situation, Germany must long be a threat to the peace of the world. There seems to be no answer but to maintain control by force until these people, whose mental processes have clearly been fixed, are no longer the predominant group. This new generation must be taught that peace, not war, is glorious - that truth and morality are virtues, not weaknesses.

Not until those so trained have grown to be the predominant group, can Germany be trusted, and over this period their educational system must be clearly supervised, and the bad fallacies rooted out.

Such programs will cost us much. Out time must be taken to police them. We must make many sacrifices, but peace and the reclamation of a great people are worth the cost.

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IMPRESSIONS OF GERMANY

After one month of travel through the American, British and French occupied zones in Germany, under conditions which brought us in close contact with all strata of the native population, certain impressions with respect to the past, present and future of the German people became very definite in my mind. In order to fix such impressions and to organize my thinking logically on this highly important subject, I did, on my last evening in Germany, record the same. What I then wrote was under some emotional stress for I had been deeply affected and, being close to the situation, it was much more real than were I merely trying to visualize it from reports by others. The following is, therefore, a transcript of my attempt, at that time and under such motional tension, to put my thoughts on paper.

WHAT OF THE GERMAN PEOPLE?

Germany is the most defeated nation the modern world has known. The destruction of their cities is indescribable. Means of transportation and communication for the civilian population simply do not exist. There is insufficient food, fuel and clothing for even the most stringent necessities except as may appear from hidden stores. To provide housing for the homeless will require fifty years of rebuilding with all available resources utilized to that end. In the meantime the population will lack homes and industries.

The dead run into millions and the civilian dead, men, women and children, must be at least equal to their military losses. In one town, Kassel, about the size of Syracuse, N.Y., it is estimated that there must yet be 30,000 or more buried beneath the rubble that was once a prosperous city. Every city of importance, from an industrial or transportation standpoint, has its business and industrial areas not merely damaged, but demolished. Both to earn a living and to find a place, of any sort, to live, the people must go to the villages and countrysides, yet they swarm around the ruins of the city, many of them living like rats in caves, dugouts, leantos, etc., among the rubble.

The population balance has been greatly disturbed. So many of the younger men have been killed or disabled that there are, in some areas, three women to one man in the 20-30 year old group. Thus, two generations will be required to restore the balance in population.

But sad as it is, the great tragedy of Germany lies not in the destruction of its cities, the loss of irreplaceable monuments of architectural, historic, or artistic value nor even in the destitution of its people, but rather in the loss of moral sense on the part of the masses. I do not mean to say that all Germans are evil; one can never generalize so far. Doubtless there are many who hold to the old tenets of honesty, truth, industry and religion that characterized that people in years gone by. This is particularly true of the older folk and of those who lived in the villages and rural districts. But for a generation there has been a sinister and planned indoctrination which has broken down the ideals of virtue on the part of the masses of the people, to the extent that as a nation, Germany has lost its moral sense.

The leaders have mostly been killed, have committed suicide or imprisoned. But the German masses are accustomed only to follow leaders and, therefore, lack independence of thought and action natural to ourselves. Thus, unless the Allies furnish the leadership, the people will be like lost sheep, ready to follow any unscrupulous person who may assume the lead. The enigma seems to be almost without solution except by jurisdiction of the Allied nations and even that part in such jurisdiction as may be the lot of the Russians holds great danger. But control by the Allies means that thousands of our young men and millions of our dollars must be devoted to such cause and I wonder if America will be willing to make such sacrifice to save a remnant of Germany.

I have little patience with the politicians who come over here for a tour and then go back home to preach a solution of these problems. I have seen such groups. They ride from place to place in a comfortable automobile, stop at specially prepared quarters, talk to a few high ranking officers and rush on again. They never reach the masses, not even our doughboys who know the people as does no desk chair general. Even most of the commentators who come here get only a superficial view. For that matter, we ourselves, only touched the surface. Anyone to obtain a trustworthy understanding must spend months here, devoted to a study of the people and particularly as to their psychology and mental attitudes.

To me it seems that there are three basic reasons for Germany being a threat to world peace and to their downfall. For some time I was inclined to agree with many that wars, including this last one, were the result of economic and political competition and that Great Britain, in particular, was almost in much to blame as was Germany. Unfortunately, many of our soldiers, especially the lower ranking officers, hold that view today. But I am now convinced that the disease is even deeper rooted. I referred to three causes; they are

(1) The existence of a very strong element in Germany, frequently referred to as the Prussian military clique, to whom war was a profession, who are trained for it from birth, who inherit their right to be so trained and become officers, and who, through generations, have been bred into the doctrine that war is the most honorable instead of the foulest of all activities.

(2) That the German educational system his glorified the state, as represented by its government rather than by the achievements of its people. Thus, the state his superseded religion and even morality as a motif in life and with the inevitable corollary that to be a German is to be of a superior race.

(3) That the German people, that is the masses, have for generations been trained to obey those in authority until it has become a universal characteristic. With such training the moral justification for such authority is not questioned, nor is the justice of the rule a matter for consideration. Except in the narrow field, in which an individual may specialize, he exercises little judgment of his own.

As a result of these three conditions it is not difficult for any person who gains authority, whether rightly or wrongly, and who uses that authority either justly or unjustly, to indoctrinate a generation in any mode of thinking he desires, and to obtain, from the masses, a passive obedience. Nothing could be further apart than the theories of government as propounded by the Kaiser's and by the Nazi regime. Yet a people, trained to follow leadership rather than exercise it, could, at least for a time, subscribe first to one and then to the other. That is so apparent now in their attitude toward us. With a few exceptions, to prove the rule, they have not changed their attitudes, only their rulers. To us they are subservient, sometimes almost disgustingly so. Sincerity is not a factor in governing their attitude. We are now the bosses so they not only obey but do so with apparent anxiety to please.

But their education has been vicious. Nazism is not merely a form of government but has become a system of ideologies. As such it cannot be wiped out by command or even supervision but only by a new system of education. But ideals are formed, moral standards developed, and character shaped in the formative years, Rarely can an adult be changed in these respects.

I can see no hope for Germany as a safe and peaceful neighbor in the community of nations unless, for two generations, their education has been supervised and they are taught that war is evil and peace honorable, that honesty, truth and religion are the true virtues. And those who are too old to be taught new ideals, must be supervised or policed to restrain their influence.

It is hard to describe the immorality of Nazism. I do not just mean some immoral practices but the cancerous condition of the people, as a whole, that this curse has left. Twice on a Sunday we have been driving through the countryside and in the small villages have seen a few people, particularly the older ones, going to church. But on Sunday in the cities we have not seen nor heard of any religious services. Even in the countryside the activities on Sunday seem to be the same as on any other day. Religious thinking is a rare exception except in rural areas of the Catholic South.

The young women seem to have, with so few exceptions, lost their sense of morality. Again I must guard against too much generalization. Unquestionably there are many virtuous young women in Germany but they are the exception rather than the rule if one is to judge by appearances. But consider what their education has been with respect to morality. They have been trained to believe that sexual immorality, as we term it, is to be commended. Marriage is but incidental. Awards were given to those who bore children for the state. In one small town of approximately 1,000 inhabitants, we were told that sixty Hitler medals (the mother of pearl medal given to mothers who produced children outside of wedlock) were collected. Promiscuity became general. And now, that the nationality of the available men has changed makes little difference to them. The streets are full at night. A soldier can choose almost any girl at will, from those on the streets, with little likelihood of being repulsed. Yet, one cannot say that they are friendly. On the other hand, the sullen attitude on the part of many of them reflects their inner hatred for their conquerors. But they are opportunists and they have been trained to obey. Their present moral standards permit them to practice any hypocrisy if it serves them, and to sell anything, even their ideals for the sake of temporary gain.

The same if true of the men. To lie, to cheat, to kill, to be cruel; all these to them are not to be condemned if advantage is to be gained thereby.

In other words, Germany has a deep seated disease, the destruction of their moral consciousness. There are two methods of treating disease; that of the physician and that of the surgeon. The latter is the more severe and drastic and is used when the former fails but can effect cures when no milder treatment will suffice. The surgical method of treating Germany's disease is by stern authority, the dismembering of the nation, the liquidation of their former leaders and all who are in agreement with them, the destruction of their industries and the reduction of most of the people to destitution. That was their program with the peoples they conquered. Such seems to be what our Russian allies would insist on. From such treatment there would probably arise a new and healthy German people. But to do this, unless there is no other way, would be lowering ourselves to the level of the Nazis. A tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye was discarded as a righteous doctrine some 2,000 years ago.

The pathological treatment is less sure of success but is the humane way. It would be to hold the present generations in restraint, requiring them to work for their subsistence at jobs dictated by us. You cannot change the way of thinking of an adult though he may pretend to change, hence, I fear that those of 12-40 years of age, generally, are not subject to conversion.

But the younger children, and those to come, can be taught the ways of humanity, democracy, morality and peaceful living with their neighbors. And it is with them that a new Germany should be built. It will take 50 years and cost us much but I am becoming more and more convinced that this would be the way of the Great Physician.

Not for two generations can Germany be trusted; not until those who have been so thoroughly indoctrinated have lost their influence and been superseded; not until by work and sweat they have rebuilt their homes and established an industrial system dedicated to ways of peace instead of war.

If the Physician's method is to be used, we must use it with the Physicians antiseptic precautions. With all the evil there is in Germany, there are also tens of thousands of men and women who are sound and trustworthy, who have merely been confused by the kaleidoscope of the past years. When one organ of the body no longer performs its functions, the Physician attempts to encourage the other undeceased organs to assume added duty. But these then must be guarded against contamination.

War lowers the morality of all who engage in it, even those who may fight in the cause of righteousness. I do not mean to imply that the American soldiers, en mass, have become degenerate. On the other hand, I am very proud that the average American boy in Germany has proven to be not merely a grand warrior but has retained his standards of decency.

But men cannot be engaged in killing, burning, and conquering, even in self defense, without having their standards lowered and their souls coarsened. Those who have any tendency toward licentiousness; and such always are present in any body of peoples; have had a free rein to exercise it. Those who would not degrade themselves, and they are the great majority, are embittered and impatient of their former enemies and allies alike. They are weary and homesick. These men should go home and be replaced with those who have been specially trained in the humanities while restraining even a degraded people. The military service is a poor education in such respect. Policemen are essential but these should be men who have not been taught to hate those they are to police.

If a people who have produced many of the world's most brilliant minds and greatest artists, and who have a great record of achievement in the past are to be saved for the benefit of future generations, then the physicians method of treatment must be used. It will cost the rest of the world much but anything else would be lowering ourselves to the moral level which we now condemn, instead of raising them to ours and to their former greatness.

I cannot prescribe the treatment. I am not a physician. That is why I am confused as to the ways and means of its accomplishment. I only hope that there are those, wiser than I, who can accomplish it and hope that the American and British peoples still have sufficient humanity in them that they will insist that it be done.


GGC:mp George G. Crewson
Written Aug. 10, 1945
Copied Jan. 2, 1946






HITLER'S CHILDREN

I have always had a soft spot in my heart for small children, regardless of their race or creed, and am firmly convinced that environment has the greatest effect in shaping one's moral attitude. So it has been difficult for me to look upon the children her, in Germany, as other than the children at home. Yet they are different - so different.

The streets swarm with them; even late at night; girls and boys and from toddlers up. Those 7-10 years seem to be in predominance. Whining, begging, scowling, fighting among themselves, they hunt in packs like young wild animals. Who are they? Nobody knows.

Most of them never knew a father, many of them remember no mother. Products of a vicious doctrine that it is good for any girl or woman to produce a child for the state, many were turned over to the government at birth to be brought up in institutions established for that purpose. Others merely lost their homes and parent, or parents, in the terrible air raids and were left to shift for themselves.

Their indoctrination in Nazism began with their first speech; and by Nazism I do not mean merely a theory of government. They were taught that might makes right, that war is a glorious aim, that belligerency denotes manhood and that cruelty, theft and crime are justifiable to attain one's purpose.

When destruction came, these children were alert to get to the air raid shelters. Many are scarred or crippled. Afterwards they came out with no homes, institutional or otherwise, no supervision, and to live by their wits. Housed (?) now in dugouts or corners among the rubble, travelling in groups like our older city gangs, they constitute one of the major menaces to a stable Germany for their present education is one in criminality. For they have been thoroughly indoctrinated. Even at 12 years old, their case may be hopeless. Some of the social workers here say that the need for a generation of Germans is primarily that which necessitates physical labor, rebuilding, agriculture etc. rather that education, and that it will be safer to make laborers of all these children now 10 years of age or older. Their way of thinking and their character has already been shaped by the teachings they now have.

Swarming in the streets, boys and girls, they pounce on anything discarded or unguarded.

Cigarette snipes are their principal aim regardless how small. They do not smoke them but carefully recover the bits of tobacco, hoarding it in small boxes or pouches. This they sell or trade. K-Rations have been stolen by the boys swarming over our car, in from of our eyes but unseen. Frequently two will go for the same snipe and a fight results. With all their pleading and begging, you can see the hatred in their eyes and frequently a derisive motion when they think they are unobserved.

There are other children to be seen also; little tots 3-6 years old, mostly tow-heads, who smile trustingly and friendly to everyone. Babies are babies regardless of their parentage and one cannot condemn them. To these only I give candy and gum. I gave one such toddler a piece of compressed sugar from a K-Ration. He did not know what it was until told, then ran off excitedly to deliver it to his mother.

It is these small children who must be taught the true way of life in order to remake Germany.


GGC:mp George G. Crewson
Written Aug. 30, 1945
Copied Jan. 2, 1946

o---------------------------------------------------------o

Transcribed from Highland Light newsletter p.4, January 1945, titled
"Impressive Installation". Regarding G.G. Crewson's installation as Masons Lodge Master.

On January 5th, Wor. George G. Crewson was installed Master of Highland Lodge for the year 1945.

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF OUR NEW MASTER

Born - Steubenville, Ohio, June 21, 1887
Parents - One male, one female Both white

Ancestry - Welsh, Scotch, Irish, English, German, Dutch, French, in other words a mongrel.

As a baby was reported to be good looking and of a happy disposition, both characteristics having been subject to extreme changes as I matured.

After death of my father, when I was 3 years old, my mother moved to the home of my grandparents in West Virginia. I trailed along, thereafter grew up a hillbilly.

Education - The usual system of grade school, high school and college, graduating from West Virginia University in 1910 as a presumptive engineer.

Masonic Record - Initiated, passed and raised in Huguenot Lodge, Staten Island, N. Y. in 1914. Affiliated with Highland Lodge in 1927.

Member of - Summit-Triangle Lodge, R.A.M. - High Priest in 1942. Buffalo Keystone Council, R. - S.M. Tancred Commandery, Knights Templar - Commander in 1938. Ismalia Temple, A.A.O.N.M.S.

Other Affiliations - Confirmed joiner being a member of five technical societies. Chemists Club, New York City.

Employment - Like most engineers have been a floater. After various periods of employment with several chemical companies, I operated my own engineering sales office in Buffalo from 1924- 42, incl. Was a technical consultant in the office of Chemical Warfare Service during 1943. During 1944 and at present Chief Engineer of Buffalo Electric Chemical Co., Buffalo, N.Y.

Travels - By requirements of employment and by personal inclination have been a hobo. Have visited every state of the Union, all provinces of Canada and thirteen other foreign countries. Have visited Masonic Lodges in fifteen Grand Jurisdictions.

Family - Married in 1913 to Ada Moon of Morgantown, W. Va. We have three sons and two daughters, ranging in age from 30 to 12 years. Have never been sued for divorce or non-support. Also have three grandchildren.

Hobbies - Masonry, sports, primarily as a spectator, and amateur motion photographer, a reader of heterogeneous literature, generally of poor literary taste except for a penchant toward Masonic History and Philosophy.

o---------------------------------------------------------o

This is a transcription of a 10-page letter that Grandad wrote to his son, Chuck, and daughter-in-law, Sue, in his old age. He refers to it as an autobiography. It is highly personal, shared by permission of Chuck and Sue.
Typed by granddaughter: Ann Crewson Flannagan

George G. Crewson Letterhead
12418 West St. Andrew Drive
Sun City, Arizona 85351
PH 802/933-3180

Sunday- Mar 28 (assume 1971)

Dear Chuck and Sue,

This is going to be the most unusual letter I have ever written. Rather than write I do wish I could sit down and talk with you, and I hope your two can read it together. Then together or both of you write to me.

I think you both know me well enough to know that after the past 65 years experiences, I have developed a habit of thinking things out before making decisions and also the necessity and wisdom of changing decisions once made when they turn out to be wrong or ill advised. So much for the prologue, I just want you to know and believe that what I am to say is not a _____ of thought but has been mentally reviewed from every angle - so here goes - the basic message first - the defense of it following - to wit,

I am going to marry again - Hopefully on June 5th or thereabouts - place - East Liverpool- wife to be my boyhood sweetheart 65 years ago. Explanations follow.

My life has become almost unbearable Constant despondency and lonesomeness. Everyone of my children and their mates show me their affection at every opportunity and make me happier by doing so. But I see two of them almost 3 times a year and 2 once a year - getting less and less as I become less able to travel and their own home duties or financial demands limit them. I have been ill enough to be hospitalized three times since your mother died - three years - each time under skillful medical care I fully recovered - as I now have from the last experience. But each time I have been left weaker and with less desire to live. On strict analysis (you see my scientific training still shows) I live in the past, have little desire to live in the future and am dropping one by one the activities that once interested me but now do not because I have no one to be interested in them with me. I don't go out at all at night.

I will be 84 on the 21st of June , an age that less that one adult out of 50 can hope to reach. I had a very full, productive, rewarding and until the last three years - a happy life despite some very severe problems to be faced and overcome. Without your Mother, Chuck, and her remarkable wisdom and understanding - yes and patience - patience with me, patience with you, your brothers and sisters and patience with conditions that she those memories and I can say that I know better than I can express that for years, I have been not just supported but motivated by her love for me and mine for her and of both of us for our families. That, in truth, is much of the reason that we lived to the age we have in affection even in times of separations or discouraging circumstances. I hope I have made clear to both of you my undying love of Ada My Wife.

And she always understood so well. Because of my health deterioration and her apparent greater vitality both physically and mentally, we seemed to have taken for granted that she would be left alone - not me. We had the courage to face it as I have found that I have not. We used to talk, without it being emotional, about what we would do if left alone. I remember that not long before she died she suddenly asked me one night (with her arms around me) what would you do or try to do if I should have to leave you alive? My answer after thought was that home had always meant most of all things to us and I would keep and maintain it so long as I had the strength to do so. And when and if something happened to you at night when you are all alone and no one to help? Of course I realized that she had in mind was like a stroke. I answered if it were fatal that would be fine I could go to you without pain or worry. Otherwise I would be able to reach a phone and call for help.

Her reply came slowly and thoughtfully for she said - "I am glad you said that for it is what I would want to do if I were left alone. Now lets be contented just to be together so many years." She died with less than 10 minutes after a happy visit with Effie and me - she said she was coming home the next day. They had made all their tests and found nothing wrong with her. the Doctor assured me that it was so sudden that she felt no pain or fear, an instantaneous heart failure caused by a large blood clot completely blocking the exit artery from the heart shutting off all blood supply to the brain. That is how she wanted to go out though it left me this intense loneliness, it answered my prayers that she would never suffer.

Her affection for me was evidenced by something even greater. When she first showed me the lump in her breast, I was badly frightened. I rushed her to the Dr. When he examined her he said he knew she wanted the truth and would be frank. He said it was a tumor and probably a malignant one. Removal must be prompt. Than Dr.: "This is not something that has just come. How long has it been since you first noticed it?" Ada- "Oh, six months or maybe longer." Dr. "Why didn't you do something about it then or in all this intervening time?" Ada "Oh I didn't want to worry Dad. He has not been well as you know. "

To my mind comes the words of Christ "Greater love hath no man than that he lay down his life for another." I am totally convinced that the blood clot that took her life came from that source. They went deep into her body to get it all. It was large and was malignant. Her arm swelled up to an unsightly degree and that could only have been from blood clots interfering with circulation. One of them reached that critical part in the heart - she gave up her life rather than worry me.

Now do you doubt her love for me and mine for her. I cannot yet write of these things because of the tears. But all of this is not the information I set out to write. It is only the prelude that you may have best understanding.

Now I am going to go back some 65 years. I graduated from high school in 1905. For the last two years in high school, a girl, one year younger and one year behind me in school, and I developed a deep affection for each other. Yes, it was "kid love" but evidently despite our years, I 17-18 and she, 16-17, it was grounded in real affection and not desire. For about two years we were devoted to each other. I graduated from high school and got a job. The only outlook for me as a life's vocation was skilled or unskilled labor. I never even thought about the possibility of college. When Bess (the girl's name) and I talked of the future, we were sure that we would marry when I could earn enough to support the two of us, as well as my mother who had had a paralytic stroke when I was 11 years old and could not long be self supporting if ever. All these things Bess and I discussed like adults, which we were not, as well our discussing our desire to be together permanently.

But there was, I am sure, never a thought by either of us as to the premature love in its deepest sense. To begin with we were both unbelievably immature as to the facts of life, never mentioned or intimated by word or act any thought of such. I was raised by a grandmother and mother - no other males in my family not least close to me. I worked every hour since the age of 12 to earn all I could for the common support of the family. So I had no boyhood friends between whom certain information and misinformation is passed along. Bess was raised in a religious atmosphere at home and no doubt was equally uninformed. So our affection for each other was certainly without any physical significance.

One evening, one of the very few, when we were left alone as she stayed with a neighbor woman for the night who told her I could visit her there we were together in a large chair I sitting in the arm of it. She looked so sweet I leaned over and kissed her. In doing so my hands accidentally (I today insist as I know no different) caressed her in a suggestive (as generally interpreted) manner. She burst into tears, told me to leave her and never try to see her again. I took her entirely to her word. To indicate how naive I was, I can tell you that it was many months after when working and listening to remarks of older men that I came to realize what the offense was for which I was abandoned . Soon I knew as I know today that it was her purity of mind and spirit together with her strict upbringing that had armed her against any undue familiarity. I took her literally. I avoided seeing her even accidentally as she had said she wanted it that way. After a while I heard and a few times over that she had become the "girl of" a, as we then expressed it, of a man several years older and, or some of my friends delighted in telling me, more experienced than me. I couldn't take it and wanted to get away where I would never see them together.

A school principal told me that he thought I would do well in college if I could make it. I told my uncle I would like to go and he said he knew our state senator quite well and the senator had the authority to give what we now call scholarships. Then I was military cadet appointments and I could earn my living as he could keep my mother working in his store to earn her living. Remember how ignorant of the world I was, I went away to college in the fall of 1906 with my appointment and $50.00 which, which I had saved, in my pocket. I had just one pair of pants and one jacket - one pair of shoes all in one small suitcase, I didn't have sense enough to know that it couldn't be done. But I registered and within 24 hours I had a job - table waiting - that paid my meals and other small jobs for the extras as required. I didn't know I was poor for that is all the life I had known. I also found that I was deficient in entrance requirements but in those days one could make up deficiencies in the 1st year of college so I had what today we would call a 21 hr school program instead of the prescribed 15 hrs, some how or other I got through that year though was not in any good nervous shape at the end of it. I never so much walked around with a girl all that year - no desire to do so, no available time or money. But the emotional torture of Bess was still with me and I wept when someone wrote me that she had married.

At the fall term that 2nd year I was assigned a seat in a math class next to a girl who was very pretty, quiet and so reserved that I don't think I even spoke to her outside of class. On day unexpectedly and on her part timorously she quietly said that the young people of her church were having a student's evening on Saturday. She had seen me in church and thought that I might care to attend. I said I would like to and alter regretted it as for things like that those days, young folks dressed up somewhat for such affairs and my one pair of pants and a few shirts washed and rewashed repeatedly were not too impressive. But I went and in the course of the evening asked the girl if I could walk home with her and she graciously - though I think now largely from pity - said yes. The first girl in about 2 years that I was with alone. We saw each other more and more frequently though very little alone for her father a highly principled man didn't think that boy and girl affairs should share with educational efforts. But by the time summer vacation came we had agreed to correspond during the summer. The common sense, intellectuality and poise of her absolutely astounded and in the autumn we gradually grew to seeing each other more often.

As a by-line it is of interest in writing this autobiography - to think of another impediment that developed. Ada was popular and I was a nobody. I am sure that her earliest associations with me had a strong element of pity in them. But we came to like each other fix that we were. Her father in the meantime had remarried to an old maid school teacher who had neither understanding or sympathy for the younger element. She used her influence to try and break up our association so I no longer went to her home. We managed our schedule again us 15-20 in most days to see each other at the college library. Ada belonged to a popular college sorority. I of course could not afford a fraternity even had I been invited (as I was not). Her sorority and one of the fraternities were automatically associates. No Alpha X Delta girl could be dateless - a Sigma Na would see to that. I had a friend that I studied with quite a lot, who was a real friend, who told me that in one of these fraternity discussions it was mentioned that one of their Alpha Xi girls was getting too friendly with a non fraternity man and it was up to the Sigma Nas to date her and break up this other association. Ada later told me that on every occasion and Sigma Numen (?) would want to date her and she refused then she had a date. Her step mother gradually accepted me so I could call on her at home though impressed upon her that her father had put her through college to be a teacher and so she (Ada) used it to him to teach.

She graduated a year before me of course and went to Cameron(?) to teach. A year later I graduated and went east to work - I was ______at that to find a job. It was depression times much worse than any in your generation, we saw each other once a year when we manipulated vacations so that she would be at her sisters in Central Penn and I would come there for a week staying at the little country hotel and see her daily and each evening. I marvel today that our love for each other stayed so steadfast. Finally in the summer of 1913 she weepingly told me that she thought that our engagement (so considered by us, but unknown to others) should be broken off. Marriage was so distant. She had to make excuses that were misunderstood as other dates and refuse proposals without reasonable explanation. She could say - I don't love you to a suitor but she could not say that there is someone else. Well, we still loved each other as we had for years so we decided to gamble everything, disclose to family and friends, and to marry that autumn. She immediately resigned her teaching position, set Sept 3rd as her wedding date and we embarked on another great experience that had, by logical thinking, few prospects of success.

We married on Sept 3rd. She came east to Tottenville, New York and in due time our own family started to arrive. My mother lived with us until her death in 1936 (I think that is right) so that the first "our home" came 24 years after our marriage. She had a married life experience that very few could have endured but to her death she vowed that it was happiness and satisfaction. Have you ever known another person of such loyalty and affection and she had enough of those qualities(?) not only to hold me enthralled but to give liberally to all five of our children.

Of our discussions and closeness late in life I have already written, But why have I told you all this. I have for three years since she is gone been so bursting with memories that I have to tell someone who knew and loved me and who knew and loved her. Because.

In the first chapter of this book I have told you of my first experience in real love then of the 55 year experience as a lover and a father. I have also told you that in nervous stability and spirit I find myself breaking down. And now a peculiar, unexplained thing has happened. When I had just reached the part where I was really considering violation of my Christian belief by aiding or at least not trying to delay an early death, but actually welcome it, a new incentive to live, yes and be happy, has arrived.

I also told you of my early childhood love affair and the effect that had on shaping my life.

Well, your mother met Bess some years after we had been married. I had not remembered it though I did remember the frequent references Mother made to me about Bess. Mom knew little or nothing , nor did I in fact - about Bess's life after our parting although I had told her fully of that other early love.

But sometime when we lived in Buffalo Bess and another dear friend (and high school classmate of mine were taking a trip to Niagara Falls coming through Buffalo, Anna Cullen (the other friend also mention, over Bess' protest wrote mother that they were coming through Buffalo and hoped to see us. Bess has told me since that she was so embarrassed that she could hardly face us. She always was extremely sensitive. Ada wrote them a warm letter urging that they visit us and let us show them Niagara and other places of interest in Western N.Y. They did so and Bess has said that she never met a woman as kind and understanding as your mother (Chuck). As for mom's reaction I remember her saying to me that rather than jealousy as to the early love between Bess and me, she felt she should be, and was, grateful to Bess for having taught me the meaning of a real and pure love, But so much for that chapter. Now the next,

That our visit in Buffalo was the only time in our half a century that I have seen Bess or talked to her. Mother (Ada) sent her cards at Christmas each year and Bess says, sometimes added a little note about ourselves. I had my cards sent out this past Christmas by a woman who helps me sometimes with bookkeeping, filing and records, and she included me for Bess that I had not even known of.

I received shortly after a card from Bess with a short note saying that she was surprised and pleased to get a card from me and expressed her sympathy Yes and sorrow of knowing of Ada's death - she (Bess) said "one of the finest women I have ever met and I am so glad she made you happy all those years together."

That started a correspondence between Bess and I that has slowly grown on the past 4 months. I stirred up real unhappiness by asking her questions about her life her husband who I had heard died a long time ago etc. in a series of letters that have become more and more frequent she has at my inquisitiveness told me much more of her life.

The man she married deserted her, went away with another woman, he had become and alcoholic and she had three small children. She went to work to support them and worked for 35 years for Montgomery Ward until retired on a small pension which she has made do. Her children grew up and were married and the two daughters both had married children. She is a mother, grandmother and great grandmother and proud of them all.

After being separated for 17 years her husband (she had gotten a divorce at the insistence of her children in the meantime) her husband died of cancer probably brought on by the excessive use of alcohol. He never gave her any support.

Her son grew up and married. He soon afterwards developed a brain trouble (probably a tumor) became totally unable to take care of himself and was institutionalized. After a year, showing no improvement and unable to stand the expense of his hospitalization, Bess brought him home and took care of him while holding down her job and missing the two girls. He died about 10 years ago. fortunately her health has remained good for her age and her pension with social security has enabled her to live and raise her girls to womanhood and marriage. She is greatly pleased with their husbands and their good homelife. Her grand daughter who lives in E.L. , never misses a week of staying with her for a day. Her home is a so called two room apartment over a garage where she has lived the past 35 years.

Now I will ask you two questions, (1) What do you think of the character and courage of a woman like that? (2) Is it possible that she could make an old lonely man contented in his few remaining years.

For Yes, it has reached that point, I haven't even seen her or heard of her for 55 years. I don't know what she looks like today. Her spirit is inspiring and her understanding great. That which separated us says that she has understood to have had no thought __ she had supposed on should have told me so long ago had there been opportunity.

So that is the story my dears. Not only loving Bess does not change or weaken my love for your mother. It actually strengthens it for it transpires(?) that each of them had the same thoughts namely,

(1) There actually would not be anything wrong in what they would ______so. We were both uninformed immature teenagers.
(2) Only Bess is the one that was hurt. She did care for me and moreover still does and now she confesses that she always has in this 55 years interim.
(3) We bot 
Crewson, George Grant Sr (I139)
 
46
Graduated from the University of Rochester in New York with a degree in music/piano. 
Fisher, Adda Belle (I869)
 
47
Harry and Edith moved to Minnesota from England. They lived on Glenwood Street in St. Paul, 4 or 5 miles away from his brother, T.W. Flannagan. Harry always had a strong English accent.

He was a sales rep in charge of the railroad division for Johns Mannville.

Harry was executor and administrator of his mother's will. John Flannagan, Tom's father, kept a supportive letter from Uncle Harry from 11-30-1934 in a frame. He had perfect penmanship, was obviously well educated and kind. 
Flannagan, Harry (I12334)
 
48
Helen Schwab grew up in Minneapolis. Her 'main aim in life was to be a toe dancer.' She took lots of dance lessons and learned to play piano and organ. Helen's mother and father married when they were 16 and 19 years old. He was in real estate and and they had a home with 50 acres of land on Briggs Lake near Clear Lake, Minnesota.

Helen had one brother, 10 years older than her. Due to their difference in age, they 'were not very close' and he was asphyxiated in a fire in Oklahoma City at the age of 32. Helen's mother, Maude lived to be 79 years old, outliving her husband by 6 years. He died of chronic leukemia and she of pneumonia. She would not accept medical services because she was a devout Christian Scientist.

Helen went to West High School and the Minnesota School of Business. She worked for Arthur at IDS and they were married May 27, l939. They adopted Mary Helen and moved into their new home in Golden Valley in 1950.

Helen loves sports and hardly misses a baseball or football game. She is a gourmet cook, and judging from the interior of her home, could easily have made a fortune in interior decorating. She swims regularly, is an expert on wildlife identification and has a kind and gentle manner. 
Schwab, Helen Louise (I12456)
 
49
I think I see a physical trait being passed down, my ears from great grandmother Effie Fisher through uncle George Grant Crewson, me and grand niece Beatrice Chihak -Tom 2011


Biographical note by sister Ann c 1990:

Tom grew up at Big Lake near Cloquet, Minnesota. His favorite toy as a little child was a rocking horse. He loved to explore in the woods, disappearing for hours, causing a neighborhood search party to be organized. He had natural ability and excelled in every area: art, music, math, science,religion. He enjoyed water skiing, erector and chemistry sets. He would disappear into the Boundary Water Canoe Area for weeks at a time. His college placement tests scores were as high as they could be and he was accepted at MIT where he went to school for two-plus years. After a year's break, he returned to college at the University of Minnesota where he graduated with a degree in Electrical Engineering. Tom worked in Minneapolis until he decided to travel and ended up settling in Juneau, Alaska where he lived on the hillside and worked as an engineer for several years.

Tom traveled in Mexico and South America, visited family across the country and again settled in Seattle where he has been working since as an engineer.

Tom is exceptionally generous with brothers and sisters, spending time at their homes, assisting with child care and other needed tasks. He can fix anything or solve any problem because he has the resources and the interest. He is optimistic, never gives up, seldom shows any weariness or discouragement.

He can speak Portuguese fluently and volunteers for a cancer treatment center in Seattle where he meets families coming from Brazil and works as their personal interpreter while they are in Seattle. He has many friends in Brazil and travels there for months every year. 
Crewson, Thomas Allen (I135)
 
50
In the vicinity of Mill Run and Bear Run in the greater Pittsburgh area is located Frank Lloyd Wright house "Falling Water" 
Tissue, Ida Bell (I878)
 

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