Joseph's niece shares these memories. "Let me share some remembrances of Uncle Joe and his family. They were the ones that I saw most often because they lived in the Akron area. At the time of my earliest memories they had recently moved to a small farm in Copley, Ohio. That was a very small town, consisting of a circle and a few houses. No doubt it's a huge suburb now. It wasn't far from Akron and it was on our side of town, so it probably took 20 min. to get there, maybe a little more. They lived a few miles from that Circle on a little farm...25 acres I think....and Joe and Gertrude farmed every square inch of it. They also had chickens, cows, and Uncle Joe kept bees. I was scared to death of them. They had a huge strawberry patch and I would go with Mother to help pick the berries. Joe worked full time and still did all this farming. He grew wheat and I recall several threshing dinners at the farm. My dad would help Joe and 6-8 neighbors do the threshing. Mom and Gertrude cooked. I probably got in the way. The men would all come in for dinner after the work was done. On another day, Joe would go and help the other neighbors. I can recall that they ate mountains of food. I don't recall Don and Paul being in on the threshing.
Uncle Joe worked at the Goodrich plant for many, many years. He was a draftsman and I always had the impression that he was well liked and respected in his job. He told my husband once when we were chatting that he had originally gone to work for a new pioneer type rubber company, a small little start up place started by a man called Charles Goodyear. There were only a few employees and no profits. Chas. Goodyear wanted Joe to stay and offered him a lot of stock. Joe said no thanks and left. Years later, of course, when he was telling this story on himself, the Goodyear Co. was huge and wealthy and that stock would have made him very wealthy too.
He was a very dynamic person, quick in his movements and he talked very fast. I always think of him in motion and with a little circle of dust swirling around his feet...like a cartoon character. He was just the opposite of my mother who was very quiet and measured. Joe and Gertrude were always working. You might have thought they were poor, but they were not. I think it was just her nature to work like that.
The last time I saw Joe was just before he died. My husband and I went out to visit one time when we were in Ohio. Nora took me aside and said 'Take a last look at your uncle--you'll never see him again.' And then she cried, told us that he had terminal cancer and had 4 to 6 months. She said she didn't tell him what the doctor had told her. He was peppy and cheerful as always and she didn't want to spoil things for him. It was terminal, and she would tell him when the time came. I felt so sad...he was really such a nice guy. My son was in town last week and we were talking about that visit to Joe. My son who was maybe 3 or 4 at the time remembers a really old man who took him out to the apple orchard. I can't even remember an apple orchard, but they grew everything else, so I suppose there was such an orchard. And I don't recall that he looked so terribly old, but to a 3 year old, I guess everyone looked old."
I never had the pleasure of meeting Uncle Joe but have a few remarks to add. Joe was short in stature, medium build and had brown hair and brown eyes. He was baptized 30 Mar 1899 in St. Mary's Catholic Church, Crown, Pennsylvania. I have three pictures of him and in two of them he is reading a book that leads me to believe reading was a special hobby for him. There are several members of the family that are avid readers and they are all descendants of Joe's parents Joseph Black and Virginia Patterson. I have noticed a few similarities of different ancestors with their descendants and have linked the passionate reader gene to the Blacks or Pattersons. Joe and his wife Nora spent many of their later years in Connecticut where he met Nora after Gertrude died.
Uncle Joe worked at the Goodrich plant for many, many years. He was a draftsman and I always had the impression that he was well liked and respected in his job. He told my husband once when we were chatting that he had originally gone to work for a new pioneer type rubber company, a small little start up place started by a man called Charles Goodyear. There were only a few employees and no profits. Chas. Goodyear wanted Joe to stay and offered him a lot of stock. Joe said no thanks and left. Years later, of course, when he was telling this story on himself, the Goodyear Co. was huge and wealthy and that stock would have made him very wealthy too.
He was a very dynamic person, quick in his movements and he talked very fast. I always think of him in motion and with a little circle of dust swirling around his feet...like a cartoon character. He was just the opposite of my mother who was very quiet and measured. Joe and Gertrude were always working. You might have thought they were poor, but they were not. I think it was just her nature to work like that.
The last time I saw Joe was just before he died. My husband and I went out to visit one time when we were in Ohio. Nora took me aside and said 'Take a last look at your uncle--you'll never see him again.' And then she cried, told us that he had terminal cancer and had 4 to 6 months. She said she didn't tell him what the doctor had told her. He was peppy and cheerful as always and she didn't want to spoil things for him. It was terminal, and she would tell him when the time came. I felt so sad...he was really such a nice guy. My son was in town last week and we were talking about that visit to Joe. My son who was maybe 3 or 4 at the time remembers a really old man who took him out to the apple orchard. I can't even remember an apple orchard, but they grew everything else, so I suppose there was such an orchard. And I don't recall that he looked so terribly old, but to a 3 year old, I guess everyone looked old."
I never had the pleasure of meeting Uncle Joe but have a few remarks to add. Joe was short in stature, medium build and had brown hair and brown eyes. He was baptized 30 Mar 1899 in St. Mary's Catholic Church, Crown, Pennsylvania. I have three pictures of him and in two of them he is reading a book that leads me to believe reading was a special hobby for him. There are several members of the family that are avid readers and they are all descendants of Joe's parents Joseph Black and Virginia Patterson. I have noticed a few similarities of different ancestors with their descendants and have linked the passionate reader gene to the Blacks or Pattersons. Joe and his wife Nora spent many of their later years in Connecticut where he met Nora after Gertrude died.
Joseph's niece shares these memories. "Let me share some remembrances of Uncle Joe and his family. They were the ones that I saw most often because they lived in the Akron area. At the time of my earliest memories they had recently moved to a small farm in Copley, Ohio. That was a very small town, consisting of a circle and a few houses. No doubt it's a huge suburb now. It wasn't far from Akron and it was on our side of town, so it probably took 20 min. to get there, maybe a little more. They lived a few miles from that Circle on a little farm...25 acres I think....and Joe and Gertrude farmed every square inch of it. They also had chickens, cows, and Uncle Joe kept bees. I was scared to death of them. They had a huge strawberry patch and I would go with Mother to help pick the berries. Joe worked full time and still did all this farming. He grew wheat and I recall several threshing dinners at the farm. My dad would help Joe and 6-8 neighbors do the threshing. Mom and Gertrude cooked. I probably got in the way. The men would all come in for dinner after the work was done. On another day, Joe would go and help the other neighbors. I can recall that they ate mountains of food. I don't recall Don and Paul being in on the threshing.
Uncle Joe worked at the Goodrich plant for many, many years. He was a draftsman and I always had the impression that he was well liked and respected in his job. He told my husband once when we were chatting that he had originally gone to work for a new pioneer type rubber company, a small little start up place started by a man called Charles Goodyear. There were only a few employees and no profits. Chas. Goodyear wanted Joe to stay and offered him a lot of stock. Joe said no thanks and left. Years later, of course, when he was telling this story on himself, the Goodyear Co. was huge and wealthy and that stock would have made him very wealthy too.
He was a very dynamic person, quick in his movements and he talked very fast. I always think of him in motion and with a little circle of dust swirling around his feet...like a cartoon character. He was just the opposite of my mother who was very quiet and measured. Joe and Gertrude were always working. You might have thought they were poor, but they were not. I think it was just her nature to work like that.
The last time I saw Joe was just before he died. My husband and I went out to visit one time when we were in Ohio. Nora took me aside and said 'Take a last look at your uncle--you'll never see him again.' And then she cried, told us that he had terminal cancer and had 4 to 6 months. She said she didn't tell him what the doctor had told her. He was peppy and cheerful as always and she didn't want to spoil things for him. It was terminal, and she would tell him when the time came. I felt so sad...he was really such a nice guy. My son was in town last week and we were talking about that visit to Joe. My son who was maybe 3 or 4 at the time remembers a really old man who took him out to the apple orchard. I can't even remember an apple orchard, but they grew everything else, so I suppose there was such an orchard. And I don't recall that he looked so terribly old, but to a 3 year old, I guess everyone looked old."
I never had the pleasure of meeting Uncle Joe but have a few remarks to add. Joe was short in stature, medium build and had brown hair and brown eyes. He was baptized 30 Mar 1899 in St. Mary's Catholic Church, Crown, Pennsylvania. I have three pictures of him and in two of them he is reading a book that leads me to believe reading was a special hobby for him. There are several members of the family that are avid readers and they are all descendants of Joe's parents Joseph Black and Virginia Patterson. I have noticed a few similarities of different ancestors with their descendants and have linked the passionate reader gene to the Blacks or Pattersons. Joe and his wife Nora spent many of their later years in Connecticut where he met Nora after Gertrude died.
Uncle Joe worked at the Goodrich plant for many, many years. He was a draftsman and I always had the impression that he was well liked and respected in his job. He told my husband once when we were chatting that he had originally gone to work for a new pioneer type rubber company, a small little start up place started by a man called Charles Goodyear. There were only a few employees and no profits. Chas. Goodyear wanted Joe to stay and offered him a lot of stock. Joe said no thanks and left. Years later, of course, when he was telling this story on himself, the Goodyear Co. was huge and wealthy and that stock would have made him very wealthy too.
He was a very dynamic person, quick in his movements and he talked very fast. I always think of him in motion and with a little circle of dust swirling around his feet...like a cartoon character. He was just the opposite of my mother who was very quiet and measured. Joe and Gertrude were always working. You might have thought they were poor, but they were not. I think it was just her nature to work like that.
The last time I saw Joe was just before he died. My husband and I went out to visit one time when we were in Ohio. Nora took me aside and said 'Take a last look at your uncle--you'll never see him again.' And then she cried, told us that he had terminal cancer and had 4 to 6 months. She said she didn't tell him what the doctor had told her. He was peppy and cheerful as always and she didn't want to spoil things for him. It was terminal, and she would tell him when the time came. I felt so sad...he was really such a nice guy. My son was in town last week and we were talking about that visit to Joe. My son who was maybe 3 or 4 at the time remembers a really old man who took him out to the apple orchard. I can't even remember an apple orchard, but they grew everything else, so I suppose there was such an orchard. And I don't recall that he looked so terribly old, but to a 3 year old, I guess everyone looked old."
I never had the pleasure of meeting Uncle Joe but have a few remarks to add. Joe was short in stature, medium build and had brown hair and brown eyes. He was baptized 30 Mar 1899 in St. Mary's Catholic Church, Crown, Pennsylvania. I have three pictures of him and in two of them he is reading a book that leads me to believe reading was a special hobby for him. There are several members of the family that are avid readers and they are all descendants of Joe's parents Joseph Black and Virginia Patterson. I have noticed a few similarities of different ancestors with their descendants and have linked the passionate reader gene to the Blacks or Pattersons. Joe and his wife Nora spent many of their later years in Connecticut where he met Nora after Gertrude died.
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