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SEARCH MY WASHINGTON COUNTY PENNSYLVANIA WEBSITES
OTHER FAMILIES (o_f) of McDonald PA
and surrounding areas
Washington County PA
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Stories about People from McDonald PA area
Enhance your genealogy research about ancestors from McDonald, Washington County PA with newspaper
articles, birth, death, marriage, notices, obituaries often with cemeteries noted, probate, deed, surname,
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Biographies
Mrs. Anna Elizabeth THOMAS WADE
From the
McDonald PA Record, Feb. 15, 1924, page unknown:
Mrs. Anna Elizabeth THOMAS WADE
On a farm in Westmoreland county, near the present town of Latrobe,
Pa., December 28, 1845, Anna Elizabeth THOMAS WADE was born, the
daughter of Mrs. and Mrs. John THOMAS. Mrs. WADE was left an orphan when
only five years old. She made her home with kindly farmer folks until
her marriage. She worked in the open air, helping in the gardens and
fields and she is firmly convinced that it was then that the gained the
foundation of the excellent health and strength that she has enjoyed for
seventy-nine years.
September 27, 1863, Anna Elizabeth THOMAS and Luke WADE were united in
marriage at Cumberland, Md. Mr. WADE, who was a soldier in the Civil
war, died in March 1922, aged eighty-eight years. Mr. and Mrs. WADE were
parents of eleven children. Nine grew to man and womanhood. They are
Eunice, Gertrude, Olivia, both deceased (sic); Eugene of Wheeling, W.
Va., Harry Malcolm of Steubenville, Ohio; Violet, wife of Isaac Davis,
Midway; Arthur Centennial and Elliott Jefferson, both died when aged six
years; Percy Hampton of Carnegie; Clyde Milton of McDonald; Joseph
Judson of Jeannette and Clifford Ray of Burgettstown. Mrs. WADE has 25
grandchildren and 17 great grandchildren. Mr. and Mrs. WADE and their
three children came to Midway 53 years ago, July of 1871. The
Pennsylvania railroad had been completed through her but three years.
The town was called Egypt until renamed by the railroad.
They moved first to a log house on what is now known as the Pittsburgh
Coal company farm, “between the two cuts,” later building the house
Mrs. WADE now occupies on the corner of North avenue and Dickson street.
For fifty-two years it has been the WADE homestead; for thirty-five
years Mr. WADE kept a general merchandise store there. He also worked on
the opening of the upper face of the old Walnut hill mines.
Mrs. WADE told me much about the Civil war. She lived at Penn station at
the time of the assassination of Abraham LINCOLN and recalls of the
great sadness at the death of the noble man. Mrs. WADE paid great
tribute to LINCOLN saying that he was a good honest true man.” In
speaking of the high costs of living and scarcity of food, Mrs. WADE
said that dry goods were very high, but foodstuffs were not much above
normal. She laughed when telling of a pair of pillowcases she made. The
muslin was seventy-five cents a yare, two yards were required, then lace
for trimming—“Indeed they were quite costly.” Calico cost at least
fifty cents a yard and in Civil war days three or four yards would not
make as dress as it does nowadays.
Mrs. WADE says Midway has altered much in a little more than half a
century. The houses were scarce and nothing elegant or even convenient;
many were “little shacks stuck up on posts.” The one store was kept
by John KENNEDY---at which anything could be bought. Mrs. WADE recalls
that Dickson street of thirty years ago was a sea of mud in winter and
clouds of dust in summer. Teams were often mired for hours at a time.
Now in summer as many as a hundred automobiles flash past in an hour.
The happiest time of her whole life, Mrs. WADE says, was when her
children were all small. Yet since they have gone out into the world
each as made good and she is indeed a proud mother and grandmother. Mrs.
WADE strived hard to make her children happy and someone has said “If
we make our children happy now we will make them happy twenty years
hence by their memory of it. Thus all their lives do we link ourselves
to those we love,” and truly it is said of “Granny WADE.”
Mrs. WADE, an immaculately neat, bright-eyed, active little woman, works
her garden having planted the same garden plot every year for fifty-two
years, tends her flowers, quilts and makes many rugs, and is ever busy.
She laughed heartily when asked what she did all day. “Why, I am as
busy as if I had twelve children.”
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