I didn't know my great grandpa Ed. My dad didn't know his grandpa Ed. His mom didn't know her father Ed. Ed was only the stuff of family lore to all of us.
When thinking of Edward, I try to think of the young innocent he must have once been, just as my great grandmother must have been as well. She was a pretty blue-eyed blonde, he was nice looking too, and he later earned his living with his skills of persuasion. They were young and out in the country, it was the end of summer, 1902... and things happen.
Born in Kelly Township, Union County PA, Edward A. Meckley was a son of Isaac W. Meckley and Sarah A. Meckley. Both Ed and his intended bride, my great grandma, were from large families where their elder siblings had been moving out, and they were at the tail ends of their respective tribes. He married Susan Mabel Schell on November 4, 1902 in Lewisburg. Because both of the couple were age 19 and legally underage, their parents had to sign permission which they did in the orphans court on November 1, three days prior. Though probably hotly discussed, it likely wasn't long debated; in all probability, parental consent was given because the young couple's daughter Fay, my grandma, would be born six months later.
Edward was my great grandpa. We did not know it at the time, but he died before I was born. None of my family knew him. All we had ever heard about "Ed" or "Mr. Meckley" as we sometimes called him, was that not long after his daughter Fay was born in May of 1903, "he took his guitar and left". The 1910 census shows that my great grandma Susan and her daughter Fay have moved back to Susan's parents' farm. Some years later, they would leave the area entirely, moving to Lehigh County where they would continue their lives, which means all of us family who came after never had the chance to know Ed, not even chancing to pass him on a street.
In 2006, I located some of Ed's family, who shared bits and pieces of Ed's appearance, character and life. If this bio seems disjointed... you're right, it is. I am weaving a patchwork of a man I did not know through the memories of others, and censuses and newspaper clippings as best I can.
One of Ed's nephews said Ed was relatively short "as are most Meckley men" (though Ed was a little taller than his little brother Jacob, who was next in line and closest to him). Ed was, the nephew said, "Nice looking, with regular features". He continued humorously, "Then again, all Meckleys are good looking." He said Ed was full-bodied, not terribly heavy, but he loved to eat. The nephew used the words "witty" and "jovial" to describe Ed. Continuing, he said "Everybody liked him" and "He never had a bad word for anybody, he was a fine gentleman." This nephew had once chatted with his attorney in Williamsport who had asked him "Do you know Ed Meckley?" and the lawyer was pleased that Ed was his uncle, because the lawyer held Ed in good esteem.
Another nephew recalls him as "a peach of a man". He told me he had a TV table that his Uncle Ed and his father had made, and on it was a picture of the two brothers. I asked him what Ed looked like, and he said "Just like my father." He went on to say Ed and his father were built similarly, both small fellows, and noted that his father had taken a size 6 and 1/2 shoe. He speculated that they were like their mother, Sarah, who was a tiny woman. He did not recall if Ed spoke Pennsylvania Dutch (which I suspect Ed did, as his first wife, my great grandmother did, fluently). He concluded that Ed was a good person, and that anyone could get along with him.
Some of the family also told me a soul-rattling story about Ed and Susan's marriage. They said when the couple was first married, a lady in town would go by the house and rap on the windows to let Ed know she was around. Thinking of my great grandma as a young married teen mother, hearing that worrisome rapping makes me ache for her. How she must have stewed, after getting rapidly married, having a child, and then knowing someone was pursuing her husband. It is not known exactly when Ed left; it is only known by my family that Fay did not know her father, and that his leaving was "not long" after her birth.
One never knows what goes on behind closed doors, but the marriage did not last, and the window-rapping lady became Ed's next wife. He was apparently in no hurry, as it happened years later in 1913. The census makes clear that while Ed's daughter Fay was born in 1903, by 1910 she and her mother have moved to Susan's parents' home, and probably had done so much earlier. Susan and Ed's divorce was granted January 18, 1913, and he married his new wife in March of that year. Once remarried, he would have no more children.
Though Ed's family was from Union County, they later moved to Lycoming County. The pay was better there in the area's booming furniture trade in Montoursville and Williamsport. Ed's little brother Jacob, as an example, had the opportunity to move and increase his pay from $1 an hour to $1.25 an hour, and if that sounds like peanuts by today's standards, ask yourself how you'd feel about getting a 25% raise.
World War I Draft Registration Cards reveal the following: On Sept 12, 1918, Edward Aaron Meckley registered. From Montoursville at the time, he was born June 2, 1883, and age 35 years old. He was employed as a woodworker at the Nelson (or Wilson?) Chair Company. He listed his closest relative as his wife, Mrs Edward A Meckley, Montoursville, which refers to his second wife. This occupation jibes with the the 1920 census where he's listed as a sander at a chair factory, and with a wife. One nephew recalled that Ed also had worked at the Montoursville Furniture Company.
Also early in his career, Ed owned and operated a grocery and penny candy store. His nephews remember going there as kids. He is remembered as jolly, kind hearted.
Ed was very close with his father, with whom he'd smoke cigars. After Ed's second marriage, his father Isaac would visit his son Ed and vice-versa, but no more, as their wives did not get along.
Ed loved cars and ended up doing sales and financing in that industry. A nephew recalls taking a picture of Ed in the back yard of a frame house in Montoursville with a 1937 Chevy in the garage.
When he got into car sales, Ed sold one of his nephews his first car; it was a used 1930 Model A Ford. The nephew got it in 1937 when he graduated school, and it was the first car in his immediate family.
Ed spent the bulk of his automobile career with Gilbert Brothers in Montoursville which opened 1927. It was right across the street from his grocery and candy store so perhaps that's how the connection was made. The company was initially a Ford dealership, and later switched to Chevrolet. Ed was both a salesman and a bookkeeper for the firm. The Williamsport Gazette and Bulletin reported in 1952 that Ed had been with Gilbert Brothers 24 years, the longest of any employee there, but noted that Ed retired from fulltime service in May of 1951. That means (based on another found article) that two months before his retirement was when Ed qualified for the 100 Car Club, a sales organization of Chevrolet for which only six area salesmen qualified. It also means, doing the math, that Ed must have been one of Gilbert Brothers' first employees.
Ed was active in his community. In 1937 he served as a Team Captain for fundraising for the Community Chest. The newspapers have multiple mentions of his donations to the Red Cross. He also served on the township board for many years as an auditor. The local papers are full of public announcements on budget issues, bearing his sign off. I have found such notices as late as 1957, only two years before his death.
In April of 1942, at age 58, Ed had to register for the so-called "Old Man's Draft" for World War II. The registration shows that Ed then lived at 614 Broad St. in Montoursville, while his employer, Gilbert Brothers, was just down the street at 443, suggesting that the man whose professional life was spent in cars may have walked to work. On this card, Ed is described as 5 ft, 6 and 1/2 inches tall, 152 pounds, blue eyes, gray hair, with a ruddy complexion.
Ed suffered from very bad headaches. He used to laugh them off and joke about them, sometimes saying he had lain down for a nap to sleep off the headache, and woken to find his second wife staring at him, three inches from his nose.
When Ed remarried, the families did not have a lot of contact. Ed and his wife didn't come by his brother's homes and vice versa. After Ed's death, no one stayed in touch with his second wife, Matilda Jane.
It gives me no pleasure to note that Ed's family did not much seem to take to his new wife; indeed, they relate that he himself seemed to have found his choice regrettable but was unwilling to act on that. Possibly one failed marriage was more than enough. It is also possible that Jane had some problems and leaving her would have been cruel or unseemly - when Ed died in 1959, his wife was in the hospital. I remarked to one of his nephews, "It must have been difficult to tell a sick woman that her husband had died" and the reply I received was that she "wouldn't have known the difference". Whatever the case, there is no denying that Ed's leaving his first wife and daughter (my great grandmother and grandmother) was not a good thing, but he was still my great grandfather, and I wish him no ill. I hope his life was a happy one in most respects.
Ed did not live to be a very old man, about 76. Many men in his family had heart issues- bypasses and attacks, the latter of which seems to have gotten Ed.
Shortly before his death, Ed's wife was in the hospital. One of his family members was to pick him up and take him there for a visit. That person came inside and found him passed away in the living room. Ed died on June 27, 1959 and was buried the next day.
In this life, Ed would never know, but after he would die of an apparent heart attack and presumably advance to the great beyond, he would be meeting his daughter Fay who preceded him by five years, passing of scleroderma in 1954. I would have liked to have been the proverbial fly on the wall for that meeting, and you'll understand if you see Fay's memorial.
I am indebted to the members of the Meckley family who took the time to speak with me about Ed. As we put the pieces together and refreshed older memories, they painted a vivid picture for me of a man who had been but a ghost to my family. It is one of my biggest regrets that I did not pursue this search while my father was alive so he could have heard about his grandpa, but hopefully they too have met on the other side. One of the Meckleys kindly sent a picture to me of Ed, and it truly rattled me. Ed and my father were very different body types, but in the photo, Ed is receiving an award and has a shy smile on his face that looks very much like my dear dad's - the smile is slightly, charmingly crooked, the mouth a little open. It's the smile my dad had when he was a little overwhelmed in a good way, and a little embarrassed, like when you gave him a really good gift. It doesn't matter who did what back in the early 1900's; I'm just sorry we missed each other in this life. Ed's youthful mishap ended up giving me my father a generation later, and that's reason enough to love him.
_____________________________________
On the couples' early lives: Rev. I H McLaine performed the cememony. The handwriting on the marriage certificate is difficult here, and no one of this name appears on the census in Union County, though there is a McLane family.
At the time of the marriage, Ed lived in Red Top in Kelly Township. Red Top (or Redtop) doesn't show up on modern maps, but it did exist, appearing in older agricultural reports as a place the state did fertilizer testing. "Red top" seems to be a type of clover offered as animal feed, so perhaps that was grown there. The census taken in 1900, two years before the wedding shows young Ed at home with the last of the boys left in the household (which is misindexed as "Meckler"). Ed is 16 and working, like his father and elder brother Robert, as a day laborer. Just five years behind him is his little brother Jacob age 11. The family owns the home free and clear (without mortgage) and while it's categorized as a farm, perhaps it was not used as one, as no one in the home is shown as doing farm work on the census, but they may have farmed while pursuing other occupations too. The father, Mr. Meckley is shown as a laborer but in the 1910 census he is farming. Mrs. Sarah Meckley had had eight children of whom seven were alive at this census, and only three remain at home. Ed and Robert seem to be done with school, having not attended in the past year, while little brother Jacob has gone seven months.
Where the Meckleys lived, Kelly Township, is about 17 square miles, all land, and is located to the extreme east central part of the county. Susan's family lived there too, but in Laurelton when she and Ed were married. She and her family were newcomers to Kelly Township. Two years before the marriage, the 1900 census shows them in Limestone Township, which is south central in the county. Her father rented his home and was a farmer, and though what type of farming is unknown to us, Union County generally was heavy with dairy farming. Like Ed's family, Susan's siblings had been moving out. Susan's mother had had 13 children, of whom 12 were alive for the census, and only four were still at home, the tail end remaining- Susan's elder brother Daniel, herself, and younger siblings James and Maude. Her father, brother Daniel and herself are all listed as working on the farm. Susan has attended school two months in the past year, while little Maude and James have gone seven. Laurelton is still there today, now most famous for the annual Union County West End Fair that began in 1925, but back then, probably pretty quiet.
The state index confirms the date and place of death I had, and his death certificate tells us more. The family heart condition spoken of may not have been at play for Ed. His immediate cause of death was arterio sclerotic cardiovascular disease, better known as "hardening of the arteries." Contributing were a cerebral thrombosis (blood clot in the brain) that happened 14 months earlier, and chronic cholecystitis (inflammation of the gallbladder that interferes with its emptying) he'd had for 10 years. One thing may be noted: one of the most common symptoms of cerebral thrombosis is headache, and Ed's were said to be major.
When thinking of Edward, I try to think of the young innocent he must have once been, just as my great grandmother must have been as well. She was a pretty blue-eyed blonde, he was nice looking too, and he later earned his living with his skills of persuasion. They were young and out in the country, it was the end of summer, 1902... and things happen.
Born in Kelly Township, Union County PA, Edward A. Meckley was a son of Isaac W. Meckley and Sarah A. Meckley. Both Ed and his intended bride, my great grandma, were from large families where their elder siblings had been moving out, and they were at the tail ends of their respective tribes. He married Susan Mabel Schell on November 4, 1902 in Lewisburg. Because both of the couple were age 19 and legally underage, their parents had to sign permission which they did in the orphans court on November 1, three days prior. Though probably hotly discussed, it likely wasn't long debated; in all probability, parental consent was given because the young couple's daughter Fay, my grandma, would be born six months later.
Edward was my great grandpa. We did not know it at the time, but he died before I was born. None of my family knew him. All we had ever heard about "Ed" or "Mr. Meckley" as we sometimes called him, was that not long after his daughter Fay was born in May of 1903, "he took his guitar and left". The 1910 census shows that my great grandma Susan and her daughter Fay have moved back to Susan's parents' farm. Some years later, they would leave the area entirely, moving to Lehigh County where they would continue their lives, which means all of us family who came after never had the chance to know Ed, not even chancing to pass him on a street.
In 2006, I located some of Ed's family, who shared bits and pieces of Ed's appearance, character and life. If this bio seems disjointed... you're right, it is. I am weaving a patchwork of a man I did not know through the memories of others, and censuses and newspaper clippings as best I can.
One of Ed's nephews said Ed was relatively short "as are most Meckley men" (though Ed was a little taller than his little brother Jacob, who was next in line and closest to him). Ed was, the nephew said, "Nice looking, with regular features". He continued humorously, "Then again, all Meckleys are good looking." He said Ed was full-bodied, not terribly heavy, but he loved to eat. The nephew used the words "witty" and "jovial" to describe Ed. Continuing, he said "Everybody liked him" and "He never had a bad word for anybody, he was a fine gentleman." This nephew had once chatted with his attorney in Williamsport who had asked him "Do you know Ed Meckley?" and the lawyer was pleased that Ed was his uncle, because the lawyer held Ed in good esteem.
Another nephew recalls him as "a peach of a man". He told me he had a TV table that his Uncle Ed and his father had made, and on it was a picture of the two brothers. I asked him what Ed looked like, and he said "Just like my father." He went on to say Ed and his father were built similarly, both small fellows, and noted that his father had taken a size 6 and 1/2 shoe. He speculated that they were like their mother, Sarah, who was a tiny woman. He did not recall if Ed spoke Pennsylvania Dutch (which I suspect Ed did, as his first wife, my great grandmother did, fluently). He concluded that Ed was a good person, and that anyone could get along with him.
Some of the family also told me a soul-rattling story about Ed and Susan's marriage. They said when the couple was first married, a lady in town would go by the house and rap on the windows to let Ed know she was around. Thinking of my great grandma as a young married teen mother, hearing that worrisome rapping makes me ache for her. How she must have stewed, after getting rapidly married, having a child, and then knowing someone was pursuing her husband. It is not known exactly when Ed left; it is only known by my family that Fay did not know her father, and that his leaving was "not long" after her birth.
One never knows what goes on behind closed doors, but the marriage did not last, and the window-rapping lady became Ed's next wife. He was apparently in no hurry, as it happened years later in 1913. The census makes clear that while Ed's daughter Fay was born in 1903, by 1910 she and her mother have moved to Susan's parents' home, and probably had done so much earlier. Susan and Ed's divorce was granted January 18, 1913, and he married his new wife in March of that year. Once remarried, he would have no more children.
Though Ed's family was from Union County, they later moved to Lycoming County. The pay was better there in the area's booming furniture trade in Montoursville and Williamsport. Ed's little brother Jacob, as an example, had the opportunity to move and increase his pay from $1 an hour to $1.25 an hour, and if that sounds like peanuts by today's standards, ask yourself how you'd feel about getting a 25% raise.
World War I Draft Registration Cards reveal the following: On Sept 12, 1918, Edward Aaron Meckley registered. From Montoursville at the time, he was born June 2, 1883, and age 35 years old. He was employed as a woodworker at the Nelson (or Wilson?) Chair Company. He listed his closest relative as his wife, Mrs Edward A Meckley, Montoursville, which refers to his second wife. This occupation jibes with the the 1920 census where he's listed as a sander at a chair factory, and with a wife. One nephew recalled that Ed also had worked at the Montoursville Furniture Company.
Also early in his career, Ed owned and operated a grocery and penny candy store. His nephews remember going there as kids. He is remembered as jolly, kind hearted.
Ed was very close with his father, with whom he'd smoke cigars. After Ed's second marriage, his father Isaac would visit his son Ed and vice-versa, but no more, as their wives did not get along.
Ed loved cars and ended up doing sales and financing in that industry. A nephew recalls taking a picture of Ed in the back yard of a frame house in Montoursville with a 1937 Chevy in the garage.
When he got into car sales, Ed sold one of his nephews his first car; it was a used 1930 Model A Ford. The nephew got it in 1937 when he graduated school, and it was the first car in his immediate family.
Ed spent the bulk of his automobile career with Gilbert Brothers in Montoursville which opened 1927. It was right across the street from his grocery and candy store so perhaps that's how the connection was made. The company was initially a Ford dealership, and later switched to Chevrolet. Ed was both a salesman and a bookkeeper for the firm. The Williamsport Gazette and Bulletin reported in 1952 that Ed had been with Gilbert Brothers 24 years, the longest of any employee there, but noted that Ed retired from fulltime service in May of 1951. That means (based on another found article) that two months before his retirement was when Ed qualified for the 100 Car Club, a sales organization of Chevrolet for which only six area salesmen qualified. It also means, doing the math, that Ed must have been one of Gilbert Brothers' first employees.
Ed was active in his community. In 1937 he served as a Team Captain for fundraising for the Community Chest. The newspapers have multiple mentions of his donations to the Red Cross. He also served on the township board for many years as an auditor. The local papers are full of public announcements on budget issues, bearing his sign off. I have found such notices as late as 1957, only two years before his death.
In April of 1942, at age 58, Ed had to register for the so-called "Old Man's Draft" for World War II. The registration shows that Ed then lived at 614 Broad St. in Montoursville, while his employer, Gilbert Brothers, was just down the street at 443, suggesting that the man whose professional life was spent in cars may have walked to work. On this card, Ed is described as 5 ft, 6 and 1/2 inches tall, 152 pounds, blue eyes, gray hair, with a ruddy complexion.
Ed suffered from very bad headaches. He used to laugh them off and joke about them, sometimes saying he had lain down for a nap to sleep off the headache, and woken to find his second wife staring at him, three inches from his nose.
When Ed remarried, the families did not have a lot of contact. Ed and his wife didn't come by his brother's homes and vice versa. After Ed's death, no one stayed in touch with his second wife, Matilda Jane.
It gives me no pleasure to note that Ed's family did not much seem to take to his new wife; indeed, they relate that he himself seemed to have found his choice regrettable but was unwilling to act on that. Possibly one failed marriage was more than enough. It is also possible that Jane had some problems and leaving her would have been cruel or unseemly - when Ed died in 1959, his wife was in the hospital. I remarked to one of his nephews, "It must have been difficult to tell a sick woman that her husband had died" and the reply I received was that she "wouldn't have known the difference". Whatever the case, there is no denying that Ed's leaving his first wife and daughter (my great grandmother and grandmother) was not a good thing, but he was still my great grandfather, and I wish him no ill. I hope his life was a happy one in most respects.
Ed did not live to be a very old man, about 76. Many men in his family had heart issues- bypasses and attacks, the latter of which seems to have gotten Ed.
Shortly before his death, Ed's wife was in the hospital. One of his family members was to pick him up and take him there for a visit. That person came inside and found him passed away in the living room. Ed died on June 27, 1959 and was buried the next day.
In this life, Ed would never know, but after he would die of an apparent heart attack and presumably advance to the great beyond, he would be meeting his daughter Fay who preceded him by five years, passing of scleroderma in 1954. I would have liked to have been the proverbial fly on the wall for that meeting, and you'll understand if you see Fay's memorial.
I am indebted to the members of the Meckley family who took the time to speak with me about Ed. As we put the pieces together and refreshed older memories, they painted a vivid picture for me of a man who had been but a ghost to my family. It is one of my biggest regrets that I did not pursue this search while my father was alive so he could have heard about his grandpa, but hopefully they too have met on the other side. One of the Meckleys kindly sent a picture to me of Ed, and it truly rattled me. Ed and my father were very different body types, but in the photo, Ed is receiving an award and has a shy smile on his face that looks very much like my dear dad's - the smile is slightly, charmingly crooked, the mouth a little open. It's the smile my dad had when he was a little overwhelmed in a good way, and a little embarrassed, like when you gave him a really good gift. It doesn't matter who did what back in the early 1900's; I'm just sorry we missed each other in this life. Ed's youthful mishap ended up giving me my father a generation later, and that's reason enough to love him.
_____________________________________
On the couples' early lives: Rev. I H McLaine performed the cememony. The handwriting on the marriage certificate is difficult here, and no one of this name appears on the census in Union County, though there is a McLane family.
At the time of the marriage, Ed lived in Red Top in Kelly Township. Red Top (or Redtop) doesn't show up on modern maps, but it did exist, appearing in older agricultural reports as a place the state did fertilizer testing. "Red top" seems to be a type of clover offered as animal feed, so perhaps that was grown there. The census taken in 1900, two years before the wedding shows young Ed at home with the last of the boys left in the household (which is misindexed as "Meckler"). Ed is 16 and working, like his father and elder brother Robert, as a day laborer. Just five years behind him is his little brother Jacob age 11. The family owns the home free and clear (without mortgage) and while it's categorized as a farm, perhaps it was not used as one, as no one in the home is shown as doing farm work on the census, but they may have farmed while pursuing other occupations too. The father, Mr. Meckley is shown as a laborer but in the 1910 census he is farming. Mrs. Sarah Meckley had had eight children of whom seven were alive at this census, and only three remain at home. Ed and Robert seem to be done with school, having not attended in the past year, while little brother Jacob has gone seven months.
Where the Meckleys lived, Kelly Township, is about 17 square miles, all land, and is located to the extreme east central part of the county. Susan's family lived there too, but in Laurelton when she and Ed were married. She and her family were newcomers to Kelly Township. Two years before the marriage, the 1900 census shows them in Limestone Township, which is south central in the county. Her father rented his home and was a farmer, and though what type of farming is unknown to us, Union County generally was heavy with dairy farming. Like Ed's family, Susan's siblings had been moving out. Susan's mother had had 13 children, of whom 12 were alive for the census, and only four were still at home, the tail end remaining- Susan's elder brother Daniel, herself, and younger siblings James and Maude. Her father, brother Daniel and herself are all listed as working on the farm. Susan has attended school two months in the past year, while little Maude and James have gone seven. Laurelton is still there today, now most famous for the annual Union County West End Fair that began in 1925, but back then, probably pretty quiet.
The state index confirms the date and place of death I had, and his death certificate tells us more. The family heart condition spoken of may not have been at play for Ed. His immediate cause of death was arterio sclerotic cardiovascular disease, better known as "hardening of the arteries." Contributing were a cerebral thrombosis (blood clot in the brain) that happened 14 months earlier, and chronic cholecystitis (inflammation of the gallbladder that interferes with its emptying) he'd had for 10 years. One thing may be noted: one of the most common symptoms of cerebral thrombosis is headache, and Ed's were said to be major.
I didn't know my great grandpa Ed. My dad didn't know his grandpa Ed. His mom didn't know her father Ed. Ed was only the stuff of family lore to all of us.
When thinking of Edward, I try to think of the young innocent he must have once been, just as my great grandmother must have been as well. She was a pretty blue-eyed blonde, he was nice looking too, and he later earned his living with his skills of persuasion. They were young and out in the country, it was the end of summer, 1902... and things happen.
Born in Kelly Township, Union County PA, Edward A. Meckley was a son of Isaac W. Meckley and Sarah A. Meckley. Both Ed and his intended bride, my great grandma, were from large families where their elder siblings had been moving out, and they were at the tail ends of their respective tribes. He married Susan Mabel Schell on November 4, 1902 in Lewisburg. Because both of the couple were age 19 and legally underage, their parents had to sign permission which they did in the orphans court on November 1, three days prior. Though probably hotly discussed, it likely wasn't long debated; in all probability, parental consent was given because the young couple's daughter Fay, my grandma, would be born six months later.
Edward was my great grandpa. We did not know it at the time, but he died before I was born. None of my family knew him. All we had ever heard about "Ed" or "Mr. Meckley" as we sometimes called him, was that not long after his daughter Fay was born in May of 1903, "he took his guitar and left". The 1910 census shows that my great grandma Susan and her daughter Fay have moved back to Susan's parents' farm. Some years later, they would leave the area entirely, moving to Lehigh County where they would continue their lives, which means all of us family who came after never had the chance to know Ed, not even chancing to pass him on a street.
In 2006, I located some of Ed's family, who shared bits and pieces of Ed's appearance, character and life. If this bio seems disjointed... you're right, it is. I am weaving a patchwork of a man I did not know through the memories of others, and censuses and newspaper clippings as best I can.
One of Ed's nephews said Ed was relatively short "as are most Meckley men" (though Ed was a little taller than his little brother Jacob, who was next in line and closest to him). Ed was, the nephew said, "Nice looking, with regular features". He continued humorously, "Then again, all Meckleys are good looking." He said Ed was full-bodied, not terribly heavy, but he loved to eat. The nephew used the words "witty" and "jovial" to describe Ed. Continuing, he said "Everybody liked him" and "He never had a bad word for anybody, he was a fine gentleman." This nephew had once chatted with his attorney in Williamsport who had asked him "Do you know Ed Meckley?" and the lawyer was pleased that Ed was his uncle, because the lawyer held Ed in good esteem.
Another nephew recalls him as "a peach of a man". He told me he had a TV table that his Uncle Ed and his father had made, and on it was a picture of the two brothers. I asked him what Ed looked like, and he said "Just like my father." He went on to say Ed and his father were built similarly, both small fellows, and noted that his father had taken a size 6 and 1/2 shoe. He speculated that they were like their mother, Sarah, who was a tiny woman. He did not recall if Ed spoke Pennsylvania Dutch (which I suspect Ed did, as his first wife, my great grandmother did, fluently). He concluded that Ed was a good person, and that anyone could get along with him.
Some of the family also told me a soul-rattling story about Ed and Susan's marriage. They said when the couple was first married, a lady in town would go by the house and rap on the windows to let Ed know she was around. Thinking of my great grandma as a young married teen mother, hearing that worrisome rapping makes me ache for her. How she must have stewed, after getting rapidly married, having a child, and then knowing someone was pursuing her husband. It is not known exactly when Ed left; it is only known by my family that Fay did not know her father, and that his leaving was "not long" after her birth.
One never knows what goes on behind closed doors, but the marriage did not last, and the window-rapping lady became Ed's next wife. He was apparently in no hurry, as it happened years later in 1913. The census makes clear that while Ed's daughter Fay was born in 1903, by 1910 she and her mother have moved to Susan's parents' home, and probably had done so much earlier. Susan and Ed's divorce was granted January 18, 1913, and he married his new wife in March of that year. Once remarried, he would have no more children.
Though Ed's family was from Union County, they later moved to Lycoming County. The pay was better there in the area's booming furniture trade in Montoursville and Williamsport. Ed's little brother Jacob, as an example, had the opportunity to move and increase his pay from $1 an hour to $1.25 an hour, and if that sounds like peanuts by today's standards, ask yourself how you'd feel about getting a 25% raise.
World War I Draft Registration Cards reveal the following: On Sept 12, 1918, Edward Aaron Meckley registered. From Montoursville at the time, he was born June 2, 1883, and age 35 years old. He was employed as a woodworker at the Nelson (or Wilson?) Chair Company. He listed his closest relative as his wife, Mrs Edward A Meckley, Montoursville, which refers to his second wife. This occupation jibes with the the 1920 census where he's listed as a sander at a chair factory, and with a wife. One nephew recalled that Ed also had worked at the Montoursville Furniture Company.
Also early in his career, Ed owned and operated a grocery and penny candy store. His nephews remember going there as kids. He is remembered as jolly, kind hearted.
Ed was very close with his father, with whom he'd smoke cigars. After Ed's second marriage, his father Isaac would visit his son Ed and vice-versa, but no more, as their wives did not get along.
Ed loved cars and ended up doing sales and financing in that industry. A nephew recalls taking a picture of Ed in the back yard of a frame house in Montoursville with a 1937 Chevy in the garage.
When he got into car sales, Ed sold one of his nephews his first car; it was a used 1930 Model A Ford. The nephew got it in 1937 when he graduated school, and it was the first car in his immediate family.
Ed spent the bulk of his automobile career with Gilbert Brothers in Montoursville which opened 1927. It was right across the street from his grocery and candy store so perhaps that's how the connection was made. The company was initially a Ford dealership, and later switched to Chevrolet. Ed was both a salesman and a bookkeeper for the firm. The Williamsport Gazette and Bulletin reported in 1952 that Ed had been with Gilbert Brothers 24 years, the longest of any employee there, but noted that Ed retired from fulltime service in May of 1951. That means (based on another found article) that two months before his retirement was when Ed qualified for the 100 Car Club, a sales organization of Chevrolet for which only six area salesmen qualified. It also means, doing the math, that Ed must have been one of Gilbert Brothers' first employees.
Ed was active in his community. In 1937 he served as a Team Captain for fundraising for the Community Chest. The newspapers have multiple mentions of his donations to the Red Cross. He also served on the township board for many years as an auditor. The local papers are full of public announcements on budget issues, bearing his sign off. I have found such notices as late as 1957, only two years before his death.
In April of 1942, at age 58, Ed had to register for the so-called "Old Man's Draft" for World War II. The registration shows that Ed then lived at 614 Broad St. in Montoursville, while his employer, Gilbert Brothers, was just down the street at 443, suggesting that the man whose professional life was spent in cars may have walked to work. On this card, Ed is described as 5 ft, 6 and 1/2 inches tall, 152 pounds, blue eyes, gray hair, with a ruddy complexion.
Ed suffered from very bad headaches. He used to laugh them off and joke about them, sometimes saying he had lain down for a nap to sleep off the headache, and woken to find his second wife staring at him, three inches from his nose.
When Ed remarried, the families did not have a lot of contact. Ed and his wife didn't come by his brother's homes and vice versa. After Ed's death, no one stayed in touch with his second wife, Matilda Jane.
It gives me no pleasure to note that Ed's family did not much seem to take to his new wife; indeed, they relate that he himself seemed to have found his choice regrettable but was unwilling to act on that. Possibly one failed marriage was more than enough. It is also possible that Jane had some problems and leaving her would have been cruel or unseemly - when Ed died in 1959, his wife was in the hospital. I remarked to one of his nephews, "It must have been difficult to tell a sick woman that her husband had died" and the reply I received was that she "wouldn't have known the difference". Whatever the case, there is no denying that Ed's leaving his first wife and daughter (my great grandmother and grandmother) was not a good thing, but he was still my great grandfather, and I wish him no ill. I hope his life was a happy one in most respects.
Ed did not live to be a very old man, about 76. Many men in his family had heart issues- bypasses and attacks, the latter of which seems to have gotten Ed.
Shortly before his death, Ed's wife was in the hospital. One of his family members was to pick him up and take him there for a visit. That person came inside and found him passed away in the living room. Ed died on June 27, 1959 and was buried the next day.
In this life, Ed would never know, but after he would die of an apparent heart attack and presumably advance to the great beyond, he would be meeting his daughter Fay who preceded him by five years, passing of scleroderma in 1954. I would have liked to have been the proverbial fly on the wall for that meeting, and you'll understand if you see Fay's memorial.
I am indebted to the members of the Meckley family who took the time to speak with me about Ed. As we put the pieces together and refreshed older memories, they painted a vivid picture for me of a man who had been but a ghost to my family. It is one of my biggest regrets that I did not pursue this search while my father was alive so he could have heard about his grandpa, but hopefully they too have met on the other side. One of the Meckleys kindly sent a picture to me of Ed, and it truly rattled me. Ed and my father were very different body types, but in the photo, Ed is receiving an award and has a shy smile on his face that looks very much like my dear dad's - the smile is slightly, charmingly crooked, the mouth a little open. It's the smile my dad had when he was a little overwhelmed in a good way, and a little embarrassed, like when you gave him a really good gift. It doesn't matter who did what back in the early 1900's; I'm just sorry we missed each other in this life. Ed's youthful mishap ended up giving me my father a generation later, and that's reason enough to love him.
_____________________________________
On the couples' early lives: Rev. I H McLaine performed the cememony. The handwriting on the marriage certificate is difficult here, and no one of this name appears on the census in Union County, though there is a McLane family.
At the time of the marriage, Ed lived in Red Top in Kelly Township. Red Top (or Redtop) doesn't show up on modern maps, but it did exist, appearing in older agricultural reports as a place the state did fertilizer testing. "Red top" seems to be a type of clover offered as animal feed, so perhaps that was grown there. The census taken in 1900, two years before the wedding shows young Ed at home with the last of the boys left in the household (which is misindexed as "Meckler"). Ed is 16 and working, like his father and elder brother Robert, as a day laborer. Just five years behind him is his little brother Jacob age 11. The family owns the home free and clear (without mortgage) and while it's categorized as a farm, perhaps it was not used as one, as no one in the home is shown as doing farm work on the census, but they may have farmed while pursuing other occupations too. The father, Mr. Meckley is shown as a laborer but in the 1910 census he is farming. Mrs. Sarah Meckley had had eight children of whom seven were alive at this census, and only three remain at home. Ed and Robert seem to be done with school, having not attended in the past year, while little brother Jacob has gone seven months.
Where the Meckleys lived, Kelly Township, is about 17 square miles, all land, and is located to the extreme east central part of the county. Susan's family lived there too, but in Laurelton when she and Ed were married. She and her family were newcomers to Kelly Township. Two years before the marriage, the 1900 census shows them in Limestone Township, which is south central in the county. Her father rented his home and was a farmer, and though what type of farming is unknown to us, Union County generally was heavy with dairy farming. Like Ed's family, Susan's siblings had been moving out. Susan's mother had had 13 children, of whom 12 were alive for the census, and only four were still at home, the tail end remaining- Susan's elder brother Daniel, herself, and younger siblings James and Maude. Her father, brother Daniel and herself are all listed as working on the farm. Susan has attended school two months in the past year, while little Maude and James have gone seven. Laurelton is still there today, now most famous for the annual Union County West End Fair that began in 1925, but back then, probably pretty quiet.
The state index confirms the date and place of death I had, and his death certificate tells us more. The family heart condition spoken of may not have been at play for Ed. His immediate cause of death was arterio sclerotic cardiovascular disease, better known as "hardening of the arteries." Contributing were a cerebral thrombosis (blood clot in the brain) that happened 14 months earlier, and chronic cholecystitis (inflammation of the gallbladder that interferes with its emptying) he'd had for 10 years. One thing may be noted: one of the most common symptoms of cerebral thrombosis is headache, and Ed's were said to be major.
When thinking of Edward, I try to think of the young innocent he must have once been, just as my great grandmother must have been as well. She was a pretty blue-eyed blonde, he was nice looking too, and he later earned his living with his skills of persuasion. They were young and out in the country, it was the end of summer, 1902... and things happen.
Born in Kelly Township, Union County PA, Edward A. Meckley was a son of Isaac W. Meckley and Sarah A. Meckley. Both Ed and his intended bride, my great grandma, were from large families where their elder siblings had been moving out, and they were at the tail ends of their respective tribes. He married Susan Mabel Schell on November 4, 1902 in Lewisburg. Because both of the couple were age 19 and legally underage, their parents had to sign permission which they did in the orphans court on November 1, three days prior. Though probably hotly discussed, it likely wasn't long debated; in all probability, parental consent was given because the young couple's daughter Fay, my grandma, would be born six months later.
Edward was my great grandpa. We did not know it at the time, but he died before I was born. None of my family knew him. All we had ever heard about "Ed" or "Mr. Meckley" as we sometimes called him, was that not long after his daughter Fay was born in May of 1903, "he took his guitar and left". The 1910 census shows that my great grandma Susan and her daughter Fay have moved back to Susan's parents' farm. Some years later, they would leave the area entirely, moving to Lehigh County where they would continue their lives, which means all of us family who came after never had the chance to know Ed, not even chancing to pass him on a street.
In 2006, I located some of Ed's family, who shared bits and pieces of Ed's appearance, character and life. If this bio seems disjointed... you're right, it is. I am weaving a patchwork of a man I did not know through the memories of others, and censuses and newspaper clippings as best I can.
One of Ed's nephews said Ed was relatively short "as are most Meckley men" (though Ed was a little taller than his little brother Jacob, who was next in line and closest to him). Ed was, the nephew said, "Nice looking, with regular features". He continued humorously, "Then again, all Meckleys are good looking." He said Ed was full-bodied, not terribly heavy, but he loved to eat. The nephew used the words "witty" and "jovial" to describe Ed. Continuing, he said "Everybody liked him" and "He never had a bad word for anybody, he was a fine gentleman." This nephew had once chatted with his attorney in Williamsport who had asked him "Do you know Ed Meckley?" and the lawyer was pleased that Ed was his uncle, because the lawyer held Ed in good esteem.
Another nephew recalls him as "a peach of a man". He told me he had a TV table that his Uncle Ed and his father had made, and on it was a picture of the two brothers. I asked him what Ed looked like, and he said "Just like my father." He went on to say Ed and his father were built similarly, both small fellows, and noted that his father had taken a size 6 and 1/2 shoe. He speculated that they were like their mother, Sarah, who was a tiny woman. He did not recall if Ed spoke Pennsylvania Dutch (which I suspect Ed did, as his first wife, my great grandmother did, fluently). He concluded that Ed was a good person, and that anyone could get along with him.
Some of the family also told me a soul-rattling story about Ed and Susan's marriage. They said when the couple was first married, a lady in town would go by the house and rap on the windows to let Ed know she was around. Thinking of my great grandma as a young married teen mother, hearing that worrisome rapping makes me ache for her. How she must have stewed, after getting rapidly married, having a child, and then knowing someone was pursuing her husband. It is not known exactly when Ed left; it is only known by my family that Fay did not know her father, and that his leaving was "not long" after her birth.
One never knows what goes on behind closed doors, but the marriage did not last, and the window-rapping lady became Ed's next wife. He was apparently in no hurry, as it happened years later in 1913. The census makes clear that while Ed's daughter Fay was born in 1903, by 1910 she and her mother have moved to Susan's parents' home, and probably had done so much earlier. Susan and Ed's divorce was granted January 18, 1913, and he married his new wife in March of that year. Once remarried, he would have no more children.
Though Ed's family was from Union County, they later moved to Lycoming County. The pay was better there in the area's booming furniture trade in Montoursville and Williamsport. Ed's little brother Jacob, as an example, had the opportunity to move and increase his pay from $1 an hour to $1.25 an hour, and if that sounds like peanuts by today's standards, ask yourself how you'd feel about getting a 25% raise.
World War I Draft Registration Cards reveal the following: On Sept 12, 1918, Edward Aaron Meckley registered. From Montoursville at the time, he was born June 2, 1883, and age 35 years old. He was employed as a woodworker at the Nelson (or Wilson?) Chair Company. He listed his closest relative as his wife, Mrs Edward A Meckley, Montoursville, which refers to his second wife. This occupation jibes with the the 1920 census where he's listed as a sander at a chair factory, and with a wife. One nephew recalled that Ed also had worked at the Montoursville Furniture Company.
Also early in his career, Ed owned and operated a grocery and penny candy store. His nephews remember going there as kids. He is remembered as jolly, kind hearted.
Ed was very close with his father, with whom he'd smoke cigars. After Ed's second marriage, his father Isaac would visit his son Ed and vice-versa, but no more, as their wives did not get along.
Ed loved cars and ended up doing sales and financing in that industry. A nephew recalls taking a picture of Ed in the back yard of a frame house in Montoursville with a 1937 Chevy in the garage.
When he got into car sales, Ed sold one of his nephews his first car; it was a used 1930 Model A Ford. The nephew got it in 1937 when he graduated school, and it was the first car in his immediate family.
Ed spent the bulk of his automobile career with Gilbert Brothers in Montoursville which opened 1927. It was right across the street from his grocery and candy store so perhaps that's how the connection was made. The company was initially a Ford dealership, and later switched to Chevrolet. Ed was both a salesman and a bookkeeper for the firm. The Williamsport Gazette and Bulletin reported in 1952 that Ed had been with Gilbert Brothers 24 years, the longest of any employee there, but noted that Ed retired from fulltime service in May of 1951. That means (based on another found article) that two months before his retirement was when Ed qualified for the 100 Car Club, a sales organization of Chevrolet for which only six area salesmen qualified. It also means, doing the math, that Ed must have been one of Gilbert Brothers' first employees.
Ed was active in his community. In 1937 he served as a Team Captain for fundraising for the Community Chest. The newspapers have multiple mentions of his donations to the Red Cross. He also served on the township board for many years as an auditor. The local papers are full of public announcements on budget issues, bearing his sign off. I have found such notices as late as 1957, only two years before his death.
In April of 1942, at age 58, Ed had to register for the so-called "Old Man's Draft" for World War II. The registration shows that Ed then lived at 614 Broad St. in Montoursville, while his employer, Gilbert Brothers, was just down the street at 443, suggesting that the man whose professional life was spent in cars may have walked to work. On this card, Ed is described as 5 ft, 6 and 1/2 inches tall, 152 pounds, blue eyes, gray hair, with a ruddy complexion.
Ed suffered from very bad headaches. He used to laugh them off and joke about them, sometimes saying he had lain down for a nap to sleep off the headache, and woken to find his second wife staring at him, three inches from his nose.
When Ed remarried, the families did not have a lot of contact. Ed and his wife didn't come by his brother's homes and vice versa. After Ed's death, no one stayed in touch with his second wife, Matilda Jane.
It gives me no pleasure to note that Ed's family did not much seem to take to his new wife; indeed, they relate that he himself seemed to have found his choice regrettable but was unwilling to act on that. Possibly one failed marriage was more than enough. It is also possible that Jane had some problems and leaving her would have been cruel or unseemly - when Ed died in 1959, his wife was in the hospital. I remarked to one of his nephews, "It must have been difficult to tell a sick woman that her husband had died" and the reply I received was that she "wouldn't have known the difference". Whatever the case, there is no denying that Ed's leaving his first wife and daughter (my great grandmother and grandmother) was not a good thing, but he was still my great grandfather, and I wish him no ill. I hope his life was a happy one in most respects.
Ed did not live to be a very old man, about 76. Many men in his family had heart issues- bypasses and attacks, the latter of which seems to have gotten Ed.
Shortly before his death, Ed's wife was in the hospital. One of his family members was to pick him up and take him there for a visit. That person came inside and found him passed away in the living room. Ed died on June 27, 1959 and was buried the next day.
In this life, Ed would never know, but after he would die of an apparent heart attack and presumably advance to the great beyond, he would be meeting his daughter Fay who preceded him by five years, passing of scleroderma in 1954. I would have liked to have been the proverbial fly on the wall for that meeting, and you'll understand if you see Fay's memorial.
I am indebted to the members of the Meckley family who took the time to speak with me about Ed. As we put the pieces together and refreshed older memories, they painted a vivid picture for me of a man who had been but a ghost to my family. It is one of my biggest regrets that I did not pursue this search while my father was alive so he could have heard about his grandpa, but hopefully they too have met on the other side. One of the Meckleys kindly sent a picture to me of Ed, and it truly rattled me. Ed and my father were very different body types, but in the photo, Ed is receiving an award and has a shy smile on his face that looks very much like my dear dad's - the smile is slightly, charmingly crooked, the mouth a little open. It's the smile my dad had when he was a little overwhelmed in a good way, and a little embarrassed, like when you gave him a really good gift. It doesn't matter who did what back in the early 1900's; I'm just sorry we missed each other in this life. Ed's youthful mishap ended up giving me my father a generation later, and that's reason enough to love him.
_____________________________________
On the couples' early lives: Rev. I H McLaine performed the cememony. The handwriting on the marriage certificate is difficult here, and no one of this name appears on the census in Union County, though there is a McLane family.
At the time of the marriage, Ed lived in Red Top in Kelly Township. Red Top (or Redtop) doesn't show up on modern maps, but it did exist, appearing in older agricultural reports as a place the state did fertilizer testing. "Red top" seems to be a type of clover offered as animal feed, so perhaps that was grown there. The census taken in 1900, two years before the wedding shows young Ed at home with the last of the boys left in the household (which is misindexed as "Meckler"). Ed is 16 and working, like his father and elder brother Robert, as a day laborer. Just five years behind him is his little brother Jacob age 11. The family owns the home free and clear (without mortgage) and while it's categorized as a farm, perhaps it was not used as one, as no one in the home is shown as doing farm work on the census, but they may have farmed while pursuing other occupations too. The father, Mr. Meckley is shown as a laborer but in the 1910 census he is farming. Mrs. Sarah Meckley had had eight children of whom seven were alive at this census, and only three remain at home. Ed and Robert seem to be done with school, having not attended in the past year, while little brother Jacob has gone seven months.
Where the Meckleys lived, Kelly Township, is about 17 square miles, all land, and is located to the extreme east central part of the county. Susan's family lived there too, but in Laurelton when she and Ed were married. She and her family were newcomers to Kelly Township. Two years before the marriage, the 1900 census shows them in Limestone Township, which is south central in the county. Her father rented his home and was a farmer, and though what type of farming is unknown to us, Union County generally was heavy with dairy farming. Like Ed's family, Susan's siblings had been moving out. Susan's mother had had 13 children, of whom 12 were alive for the census, and only four were still at home, the tail end remaining- Susan's elder brother Daniel, herself, and younger siblings James and Maude. Her father, brother Daniel and herself are all listed as working on the farm. Susan has attended school two months in the past year, while little Maude and James have gone seven. Laurelton is still there today, now most famous for the annual Union County West End Fair that began in 1925, but back then, probably pretty quiet.
The state index confirms the date and place of death I had, and his death certificate tells us more. The family heart condition spoken of may not have been at play for Ed. His immediate cause of death was arterio sclerotic cardiovascular disease, better known as "hardening of the arteries." Contributing were a cerebral thrombosis (blood clot in the brain) that happened 14 months earlier, and chronic cholecystitis (inflammation of the gallbladder that interferes with its emptying) he'd had for 10 years. One thing may be noted: one of the most common symptoms of cerebral thrombosis is headache, and Ed's were said to be major.
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