801 Merion Square Rd, Ardmore, PA

Back in 2010 I wrote a post about my maternal great grandfather, William Ross Harper.

He was born in Thomas County, Georgia in 1874. He married Virginia Jeanne Sims Stapleton in 1894. They had 4 daughters and 1 son. The son, William Ross Harper, Jr., died when he was a year old.

William's first wife died shortly after their last child was born in 1902. Somewhere around 1905 he remarried and his new wife and the four girls moved to Philadelphia, PA.

One of the daughters, Eleanor, was my mother's mother. I never knew her as she died a month before I was born. The only thing, really, that I knew about my mother's mother's side of the family was that they were from the South and they were wealthy.

A couple of years later, April of 2012, I got a notification that I had a comment on the post of William Ross Harper. All of a sudden I had a new found second cousin who knew a lot about that side of my family. Our grandmothers were sisters! We corresponded back and forth, and I was thrilled to hear all of her stories. She told me about this "big house" as we now call it, just outside of Philadelphia that William lived in.

I knew that Paul and I were going to the Philadelphia area in April for a 90th birthday party for Paul's aunt. I got in touch with my cousin to see if she had an address for the "big house." I wanted to see it. She didn't have an exact address but she knew it was in Ardmore, a suburb of Philadelphia.

I knew that Paul didn't like to go looking for places that we really have no idea of where they are, but I thought that we could look in one of the libraries around there and maybe find a City Directory and find the address.

Who knew that Philadelphia didn't have city directories?

We spent most of the day that we were driving home trying to locate this house. We found several other houses that he lived in before moving to the "big house."

We actually found the house on Merion Square Rd, but we didn't have a house number. One house on the street was not a private home. It was owned by the Philadelphia Motherhouse of Deaconesses.

After we got home we started doing some research and I found two articles written by The Lower Merion Historical Society.

One of them said:

Its new owner, William Harper, a Philadelphia musician, lived at "Skylands" until 1952 when he sold it to Joseph Newton Pew, Jr. The next year, Pew donated the property to the Philadelphia Motherhouse of Deaconesses, who nearly doubled the size of the residence with northeastern additions.

The other one said:

The Skylands mansion was built in 1928 on a 16-acre site for William Wood and his family. The house was originally named Stonecroft. Wood was involved in the woolen industry and did quite well for a time until the Depression hit and his business began to crumble. In 1938 the couple were so broke they put their house up for sale.

Two years later it was purchased by William Harper and his wife, who breathed life back into it. Known for their entertaining skills, the Harpers’ house was filled with music from two grand pianos in the Great Hall and dancing in the third-floor ballroom. They even had individual members of the Philadelphia Orchestra perform at the home, according to a 1999 Main Line Times history page.

In 1952 the Harpers sold the mansion to the Pew family for $100,000, even though the original cost of the home was closer to $500,000.


There were also pictures, the most impressive being this one.

Paul and I have entered all of this in our Family Tree Maker.  I really love doing this, even though it is a lot of work and can sometimes be very frustrating.

I wish my mother were still alive and of sound mind.  It would be so much fun to show her all of this and talk with her about it.

April 2016 Scrapbook Pages

Throwback Thursday - Janelle

This is what I journaled back on 5/19/2004 - before I had a blog.

This is the story of Mark and Janelle:

They met in January of 2003 where they were both working at Providence Hospital.  They started dating in March of 2003 and broke up in July 2003.  They started re-dating in February of 2004 and we met her in either March or April. They came to dinner on a Wednesday evening and she remembers that we had pork chops (probably orange juice pork chops which is one of Mark's favorites).  This picture was taken in May as I was not brave enough to start taking pictures of them until a few months later. As far as Marley meeting Janelle - Marley was not quite 3, and she knew that Uncle Mark's girlfriend Janelle was coming to dinner to meet the family. As soon as Mark's car pulled up in front of the house, Marley ran out and gave her a big hug. Janelle had asked Mark if he thought Marley would be shy around her. He said that he didn't know, because he only saw her around family. I guess not. For some reason she just attached herself right to her. We were all a little surprised just how “un-shy” she was with her. Mark's theory was that Janelle reminded her of a Barbie doll. In fact, Marley named her first Barbie doll "Barbie Janelle."

This week Janelle and their 2 year old daughter Miriam were in a pretty serious car accident.  A truck ran a red light and hit her car on the passenger's side.  Thank God Miriam's car seat was on the driver's side.  Janelle's car was totalled.  They were both shaken up, Janelle more so than Miriam.  She is bruised and very sore but, thankfully, nothing was broken.

Janelle is such an important part of our family that I cannot imagine what it could have been like.  It makes me realize that none of us is guaranteed another day and that we should never take our loved ones for granted.

Throwback Thursday - Table pictures

I guess my habit of taking pictures before holidays or birthdays (actually, anything special) started early on.  Maybe Paul started it since he is the one taking the picture.

It must have been my mother-in-law Priscilla's birthday because the date on the back of the picture is April 1973. Priscilla's birthday is April 1st, and we moved into our house in the middle of April that year.

I remember being very nervous about cooking that meal.  I think we had a canned ham; I had kind of gotten that down pat. I see mashed potatoes (pretty easy).  I wonder what the veggie was, hmm..

"Lucy Wait and her two children Dorothy and Buddy"

In trying to decide which picture to use for Throwback Thursday this week, I found this picture in my grandmother's photo album.

On the back of the picture she wrote this:

I love the fact that they are sitting on an oil drum! I'm not sure where this was taken, probably in Brattleboro, VT as my father was born there.  My family always called my Dad Bud.  I guess it started early on!

I remember when I was young, in my grandmother's bedroom closet, there were a few photo albums. They were the kind with a leatherette cover and black construction paper pages.  The pictures were attached with black photo corners.  One of them was my grandmother's pictures; pictures of when she was young in Chateaugay, NY, near the Canadian border. There were also pictures of my grandfather, Donald Wait, probably when they started dating.

There was a smaller photo album with pictures of my Aunt Dot when she was young with her church friends and work friends.

There was also a larger album, same type, which was more of a family album.

I loved looking through those albums.  I remember my cousin and I looking through them and laughing at the styles of the clothes.

As I mentioned in one of my previous posts some time, maybe in the '80's, Dot took all of the pictures out of those albums (sigh...) and put them in magnetic albums and cut the pictures down to show just the main part of the picture.

I remember going through my grandmother's album, maybe at that time - I don't remember, and asking her who was who. Unfortunately, I didn't write anything down, and I have forgotten who a lot of the people are.

How I wish I had been more interested in old pictures when my grandmother was still here and young enough to remember who the pictures were of.

Throwback Thursday - Saturday night dinner with friends

Another table picture! This picture makes me laugh every time I look at it.  The year was 1972, probably in June.  I would have been 7 months pregnant with Kristen.

We were having dinner with our good friends, Danny and Joanie at our (second) apartment in Belden Ct in Agawam.  I would love to know what we had for dinner.  I see hot dog rolls, so probably hot dogs and beans, or maybe macaroni and cheese.  That is the bowl I used for macaroni (Kraft out of the box).  I was pretty good at that by that time (we would have been married for almost 2 years), ha ha!

The funny thing, though, was the fact that Joanie and I were in CURLERS!  I know it was Saturday night and the curlers were for church the next day.

I can't imagine going to friends' house in curlers now.  I can't even imagine using curlers now.

Times sure have changed!

March 2016 Scrapbook Pages

These are some older ones; playing catch up.

Throwback Thursday - Me and Ettie

The year on this picture from my Aunt Dot's photo album is 1953.  That means I was 3, and my aunt Esther (Ettie) was 23.  We were supposed to be posing with the "helicopters" from the maple tree on our noses.  Obviously I couldn't resist sneaking a peak at the photographer, most likely my Aunt Dot.  I'm so thankful for these old pictures!

Throwback Thursday - Me at 11 months

I found this picture in one of my Aunt Dot's photo albums.  I remember, as a kid, going through family photo albums.  There were several of them.  One of them was a large, maroon book with black card stock pages.  The photos were attached by corner stickers that the corner of the picture fit into.  I loved that book.  Some time later, my aunt took that photo album apart and cut a lot of the pictures into smaller pictures, with only the people showing, eliminating the backgrounds.  It must have been the thing to do then because Paul remembers his mother doing the same thing to her photo albums.

I take a lot of close-up pictures, but I also like to get the background in pictures too.  It gives the pictures context, and it's nice to remember things and places as they were.

I think this picture was taken in Greenfield, MA, where my grandfather was from and where some of his family still lived when I was young.  I have seen that wall in Greenfield before, I'm sure.

My next quest is to find that wall, and try to figure out where we were in this picture.  So, you see my point about not having all close-up pictures.  If this picture was cropped, I would never know where it was taken. It's not that important, really, but I like knowing the details of pictures.


***Update.  Paul and I went to Greenfield to try to find where the above picture was taken.  I had a feeling that I knew because I know where this wall is.  The area is a little different now.  We talked to the guy who owns an antique shop next door which, by the way, used to be an Assemblies of God church that I had been to as a kid.  He said that next door to him used to be all grass with a little shack business in the back.  Now that business has a big dirt/paved front and just a little grass.  There are also hedges out near the street.  It's the same place though.

Paul took a picture.  It's a silly picture, I know, but it does show the wall.

This is an old picture of the church next door.  Rev. Ralph Jelley used to pastor it.  He and his wife were friends of my family.  It was 1964 and we were there for someone's wedding.  It is my grandmother, my cousin Lynda, my Aunt Ettie, and my Dad.

This is what the church looks like today.  It is an antique shop.

Everything changes.  Sigh.....

February 2016 Scrapbook Pages

On the blank spot on the bottom I am going to add his baseball card picture.