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From The
McDonald PA Record, June 20, 1924:
WILL Golden Wedding
Mr. and Mrs. Jacob WILL, for more than twenty years residents of
McDonald, on Tuesday afternoon, June 17, 1924, celebrated their golden
wedding at their spacious home in Lincoln avenue, surrounded by their
family and a host of friends. Guests from a distance began to arrive at
one o'clock and they came and went until the hour of five. There was
no special form of entertainment for the afternoon. It was "open
house" and old-fashioned hospitality, lunch being served informally.
Greetings were exchanged, congratulations extended, and reminiscences
enjoyed by friends of long standing.
In 1871 Jacob WILL, then a young man 18 years of age, of German descent,
settled in the town of West Newton, Westmoreland county, Pa., where he
started in business as the only white barber in the community, and came
into close contact with such prominent business men as Philip J. ROHLAND,
Jacob GEOTCHEY, Isaac DOWNS and George CROUSHORE.
In the course of his social life he became acquainted with Mrs. John
ANDY, Mrs. Anna Belle COLLINS, Miss Lucy GEOTCHEY, afterwards Mrs.
George CROUSHORE.
About the year 1873 Mrs. Anna Belle COLLINS, who lived at Connellsville,
visited her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Philip J. ROHLAND, at West Newton.
Mrs. COLLINS was accompanied by her sister-in-law, Miss Anna Belle
COLLINS, the youngest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William L. COLLINS of
Connellsville, who became acquainted with Mr. WILL and later--June 17,
1874--they were united in marriage by the Rev. Mr. COLLIER at
Connellsville. They began their married career at West Newton, where Mr.
WILL continued in the barber business until the year 1886.
There were born to this happy couple six children, three boys and three
girls, of whom five are living. They are John E. of New Kensington
(1875), Mrs. H. H. BEATTY of Midway (1877), Guy C., of McDonald (1878),
C. Lyman of McDonald (1880), and Mrs. B. F. KENNEDY of McDonald (1882).
Miss Anna Mae (1884) died of peritonitis in McDonald September 19, 1903.
There has been born in the family 16 grandchildren and three great
grandchildren.
Jacob WILL was the second son of Joseph and Emma WILL, born at
Birmingham, now the Southside, Pittsburgh. There are three brothers:
Philip, John and Frank, and one sister, Mrs. Barbara WEINHEIMER. When
seven years of age his parents removed to Dravosburg, where the father
was employed at the Smith Coal works, opposite McKeesport. It was two
years later when a terrible accident took place on the Smith Coal Co.
tipple and five men were killed, among whom were Mr. WILL's father and
the superintendent of the coal company. In less than six months the
mother was stricken by death, leaving five orphan children, the oldest
nine years of age and the youngest an infant born after the father's
death.
Mr. WILL, at the age of nine years worked in the coalmines as a trapper
boy. Later he was taken into the home of Henry ROHE, then of the
Southside, Pittsburgh, now a resident of Duquesne, as an apprentice to
the barber trade. Mr. ROHE tells the story that one day, after about two
years of apprenticeship, he sent young Jacob on an errand, and that he
never returned. He next heard of him at West Newton, where he later set
himself up in the barber business and was quite successful, but not
until he had married Miss Anna Belle COLLINS. Miss COLLINS was the
youngest daughter of William L. and Sara COLLINS of Connellsville. Her
mother, whose name was GLENDENNING, died in 1873, leaving a family of
five boys: James, George, John, Robert and William, all of whom become
railroad enginemen. There were also six girls in the family, Mrs. James
CURL being the oldest of the family, now being 80 years of age, Mrs.
Haddie MITCHELL (deceased), Miss Althea COLLINS, Mrs. M. E. WAHN, Mrs.
William HUTCHISON and Mrs. Jacob WILL. The father, William L. COLLINS,
was a tailor by trade, his father being one of the first tailors to
travel over the country, cutting and fitting clothes made from homespun
cloth. It is said that he traveled as far north as Kittanning to get
cloth and measurements for his work. Mr. COLLINS operated a tailoring
establishment at Connellsville for a number of years and died at a good
old age in the year 1892.
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