Wordless Wednesday--Arthurdale, West Virginia

Wouldn't we love to see this price per gallon again!!! Photos taken at Arthurdale, West Virginia in Preston County. Arthurdale was a model Federal homestead project sponsored by Eleanor Roosevelt. It was one of our stops while on vacation in 2008. Check out the Arthurdale website for more information on the history.

Tombstone Tuesday--Elizabeth Ann VanGilder Frum

     Meet my great great great great grandmother, Elizabeth Ann VanGilder Frum. She was born in 1792 in Maryland to Jacob VanGilder and Anna Margaret Gibler. The VanGilder’s, early pioneers of Monongalia County, (West) Virginia, traveled over the mountains from Frederick, Maryland in the late 1790’s.

     On June 11, 1815, Elizabeth married Sampson Smith Frum in Monongalia County. Sampson was to become one of the largest land owners in the county. She and Sampson raised a family of six known children, all living to adulthood and raising families of their own.

     Elizabeth is buried in the Old Frum Cemetery located on a piece of Sampson’s land along Aarons Creek, outside Morgantown, West Virginia. She was the first person to be interred in the cemetery. She died on August 1, 1845 at the age of 53. The little cemetery holds the remains of four of Elizabeth and Sampson’s adult children, some of their spouses and grandchildren.

     I have had an opportunity to visit twice; however, it is now impossible to get to it as a barbed wire fence has been built around the cow pasture where the cemetery is located. I have two blogs on The Old Frum Cemetery if you would like more information on this small family cemetery The Old Frum Cemetery and The Old Frum Cemetery Revisited.

ELIZABETH
Wife of
SAMSON FRUM
DIED
August 1 1845
in the 53 Year of her age
_______

My flesh shall slumber
under ground
Till his loud joyfull
trump shall sound
Then burst the lamb with
sweet surprise
And in my saviours im-
age rise

__________

(carver's name) Morgantown, Va

Sources:

-Monongalia County, West Virginia Marriage Records, Volume 1 Page 725.

-Old Frum Cemetery, Monongalia County, West Virginia.

-Wilkins, Robert Poole, Frum Family Genealogy.

Other Blogs on Flipside

Sampson Smith Frum and Elizabeth Ann VanGilder

Updated August 2025

Nobody's Fool--Jessie Pool VanGilder

Carnival of Genealogy, 67th Edition "Nobody's Fool" The topic for the next edition of the Carnival of Genealogy Destination: Austin Family will be: "Nobody's Fool" – who in your family was known to have the best common sense, the best sage advice and basically just “kept it together” all the time?

     This topic has given me the opportunity to blog about one of my family heroes. I never knew my paternal great grandmother, Jessie VanGilder; however I have heard the stories and have concluded from my research that she was a woman of great courage and determination. 

     I did know one of her daughters, my paternal Grandmother Hughes, (aka Grams), one of the most loving, gracious and yet resilient individuals it has been my honor to know. These traits were not instinctive; she learned them from her mother. 

    Jessica Pool was born on a farm outside of Morgantown, West Virginia on October 17, 1870, the daughter of Sampson Frum Pool and Sarah Louise Harner¹. The family was deeply rooted in the area from all branches back into the late 1790’s. Large family gatherings were the norm and many prominent citizens were relations.

      Jessie Pool met her future husband, George Ethelbert VanGilder, in school….he was her teacher and second cousin². There was a nine year difference between them and when they married on October 28, 1891 Jessie’s father said, “He is so much older than you. He will die and leave you with a bunch of kids.”³ 

     George VanGilder was a good provider. He had various business interests in Morgantown, West Virginia and was an elected official.⁴ The VanGilder’s had four girls, Mary Louise, Estelle Anna, Sarah Margaret (my paternal grandmother) and Jessica Virginia. Several months following the birth of their fourth child, in 1904, George was stricken with a fatal kidney disease⁵ and Jessie’s fathers prophesy came true. Jessie was living in a large home with a servant when George died⁶. There was no life insurance. Her parents were aged. She was suddenly faced with the challenge of four young girls to raise and no source of income. 

     Fortunately, Great Grandmother was a “pull yourself up by the bootstrap” kind of woman⁷. Using the resources taught to her by her mother, she was able to earn a living by cooking and keeping house. She opened her home to West Virginia University students as a boarding house. The four little girls helped their mother with the cooking, cleaning and dishes when they were not in school. Jessie stayed in the Morgantown area for about 6 years running boarding houses⁸. She began with students and moved into the Sabraton area to board coal, tin and oil workers. 

     Jessie strictly enforced reading as an evening activity for her daughters and they all received a good public school education.

1910 West Virginia Census
Jessie, her daughters and 28 boarders

     In  1911 or 1912, Jessie decided to make a move from her hometown to Woodlawn, Pennsylvania in Beaver County⁹. A new Jones & Laughlin steel plant had been built and there was good opportunity for her to continue her boarding house and cooking operation on the Ohio River. Jessie ran a boarding house and had a separate restaurant in the town. The girls were getting older. One married a steel worker and by 1916, the other three were able to get jobs in various companies as secretaries.

     Jessie had fostered independence and self reliance in her girls. She always stressed that they were ladies, first. Gloves and hats were a must for certain occasions and hankies! She was a mother that told her daughters to consider each circumstance in life with great thought and to make the best of each situation, even those that were not going in the right direction. She did not like quitters.

      My Great Grandmother continued to work as her daughters moved on with their lives. During about 1915-1920 she lived in various riverboat towns on the Monongahela River. In some, she put down roots and did her cooking and in some, she just had a room and used it as her base of operation as a cook on various steamboats. Tracing Great Grandmother VanGilder’s Life on the Mon is a blog dedicated to her time on the Monongahela River. 

     Between about 1921 to 1931 she was the stewardess on two known riverboats, LaBelle and Carbon traveling the Ohio and Allegheny Rivers.    A blog covering this time on Flipside is found at Mrs. Van Stewardess on Steamboats.

     The family was tight, even as each daughter married and moved to different cities. Jessie visited them frequently and the girls were “best friends” into adulthood. By the mid 1930’s or early 40’s, Jessie stopped working and lived with her youngest daughter’s  family in Akron, Ohio until her death in 1949¹⁰.

     Jessie was nobody’s fool. A morally and spiritually strong woman, she held her family together under the worst of circumstances and endowed each of her children with life lessons that they carried on into their own families. 

     My aunt remembers her as a warm, outgoing and friendly individual, but was also strict and would not tolerate any insubordination¹¹.” My father told me that Jessie’s response to personal tragedy was to sigh and say, “It must be God’s will” and then go on with her business¹². Another grandchild of Jessie’s related a story to me about wanting to pay her grandmother back some money she owed and Jessie wouldn’t hear of it¹³. 

     Those lessons continue to move down the generations, from my grandmother, to my father, to me and on to my own children. Little did Jessie know she would be influencing family members into the 21 century….wouldn’t that give her a smile.

Jessie Pool VanGilder Blogs on Facebook

-VANGILDER, JESSICA POOL--Carnival of Genealogy

-VANGILDER, JESSICA POOLE--Chow Time on the River:  A Transcription

-VANGILDER, JESSICA POOL--Guardian Bond

-VANGILDER, JESSICA POOLE--Mrs. Van Stewardess on Steamboats

-VANGILDER, JESSICA POOL--Timeline on TimeToast

-VANGILDER, JESSICA POOL--Tracing Her Life on the Mon

-VANGILDER, JESSICA POOL--Identified at Poole Family Reunion

Notes

1. Monongalia County, West Virginia Register of Births, (Morgantown, Monongalia County, West Virginia), Film Number: 840895, Digital GS Number: 4229130, Image Number: 136, Reference Number: P 130, rn 78.

2. George Ethelbert VanGilder, George Ethelbert VanGilder Autograph Album, Morgantown, Monongalia County, West Virginia, 1888-1887.

3. Catherine Wallace Billik, granddaughter, personal interview.

4. Earl L. Core, The Monongalia Story A Bicentennial History: IV Industrialization, (McClain Printing Company, Parsons, West Virginia, 1982), Chapter 122: 1898, page 227.

5. "Morgantown Weekly Post," Morgantown, Monongalia County, West Virginia, May 24, 1904, page 7.

6. 1900 West Virginia Federal Census, Morgantown, Morgan District, Seneca, Monongalia County, ED 83, Sheet 15A.

7. Faith Hughes Roolf, granddaughter and my aunt, personal interview.

8. 1910 West Virginia Federal Census, Morgantown, Morgan District, Monongalia County, ED 80, Sheet 15A.

9. "The Charleroi Mail," Charleroi, Pennsylvania, June 16, 1913, page 3.

10. Ohio Death Certificate, (Ohio Department of Health, Vital Statistics), State File # 71714.

11. Faith Hughes Roolf.

12. George VanGilder Hughes, grandson and my father, numerous interviews.

13. Catherine Wallace Billik.

Updated September 18, 2022

I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU. All comments are welcome; however, if they are inappropriate, they will not be published.    PLEASE post your e-mail in the comment section if you would like to network about a particular surname or topic. I will capture it for my use only and not include it when I publish your comment.

© 2009, copyright Linda Hughes Hiser

Wordless Wednesday--George & VanGilder Streets

     Not so Wordless Wednesday 😃

     My father, George VanGilder Hughes standing beside the streets in Morgantown, West Virginia named for his maternal grandfather and namesake, George Ethelbert VanGilder. 

Currently on Google Maps (2022)

     VanGilder Street (now listed on Google map as VanGilder Avenue) is perpendicular to Stewart Street located above the campus of West Virginia University. Four hundred acres of land was given to Robert Hill for his service in the Revolutionary War. Some of the land passed to Robert’s son, Joseph Davidson Hill and at his death passed to daughter, Mary Louise Hill who was married to John Oliphant VanGilder. 

     The old VanGilder house with newer additions was originally the log cabin of the Hill family. 

     This photograph taken on a road trip for the annual VanGilder Reunion in the Winfield District, Marion County, West Virginia, summer 1995.

Updated September 2022

I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU. All comments are welcome; however, if they are inappropriate, they will not be published.    PLEASE post your e-mail in the comment section if you would like to network about a particular surname or topic. I will capture it for my use only and not include it when I publish your comment.

© 2009, copyright Linda Hughes Hiser

The Graveyard Rabbit--A New Carnival on the Block

Announced on January 31 at The Graveyard Rabbit: A New Carnival on the Block

The topic for the premier edition of this carnival is "exceptional finds." Share with us those rare and unique cemeteries, gravestones, monuments, memorials, inscriptions, etc


On a vacation several summers ago, we stayed at a resort in Shawnee-on-the Delaware, Monroe County, Pennsylvania in the Pocono Mountains. During a rainy day we decided to take a tour of the area on the Water Gap Trolley and one of the stops was the Historic Shawnee Presbyterian Church. We were not allowed to get off the trolley, so as soon as the tour was over, I persuaded my husband to drive back over to the church.



The first Presbyterian meeting house was built on this site on land given to Nicholas Dupui in 1753. In 1853, a brick building was raised over the original stone foundation. The granddaughter of Nicholas Dupui, Ann Depui Erb, laid the cornerstone. In 1893, a narthex and chancel were added which covered up some of the early burial spots. For the bicentennial of the church, massive renovations were done in the sanctuary, which gave a colonial look to the church.

The fascinating feature is the back of the church. Rather than moving those early pioneers that were interred, they simply built the brick wall of the building around the tombstones.

Those tombstones embedded into the back wall of the church are:

-ANN DEPUI ERB wife of Dr. John Erb, daughter of Nicholas Depui born in Shawnee April 25, 1781 died in Stroudsburg January 6, 1862 aged 80 years

-NICHOLAS DEPEW who departed this life April 25, AD 1808 in the 62 year of his age.

-JANE DEPUY daughter of Nicholas and Eleanor Depuy who was born Jan 22, 1779 and departed this life the 18th of April 1815.

-BENJAMIN DEPEU who departed this life the 7th day of August 1806 aged 23 years.

-NICOLAS DEPUY departed this life July 17, 1816 aged 28 years 4 months and 28 days

-SAMUEL DEPUI died the 15th of June1766 in the 49th year of his age.


FYI, Fred Waring the famous band leader of Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians is also buried in the Shawnee Presbyterian Church Cemetery.

Tombstone Tuesday--Alfred and Lucinda Frederick

This may be the first family tombstone that I actually made a road trip to find. Back in 1993, when I began doing genealogy, the surname I first researched was Frederick—my Mother’s ancestry. The Frederick family lived in Columbiana County, Ohio, not too far from my home. The real plus was that the Columbiana County Genealogy Society had published numerous cemetery books, which made locating this particular grave maker almost child’s play!!! Ha ha

Before we drove to the cemetery, we explored the small town of Columbiana. There were numerous antique shops and several local restaurants. After sampling some of Columbiana’s finest cuisine and poking our noses into several shops we headed to The Firestone Cemetery and the Frederick tombstone. The maps in the books made it easy to find.

When my Mom approached the tombstone, it was obvious to me that she was simply flabbergasted. All she could say was, “Who ever paid for this tombstone?” I guess she was expecting the typical small size maker.

Alfred and Lucinda Orr Frederick are my maternal great grandparents. Alfred lived to know my mother as a small child.

Alfred F. Frederick
Born: May 1, 1836, Salem Township, Columbiana County, Ohio
Died: February 9, 1927, have not been able to find where he died
Parents: Joseph Frederick and Mary Betz

Lucinda B. Orr Frederick
Born: June 29, 1844, Elkrun Township, Columbiana County, Ohio
Died: December 15, 1909, Bellevue, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania
Parents: William Morlan Orr and Nancy Cannon

Interesting Note: My great grandfather and I share a May 1 birthday!

Road Warriors on this trip:

Martha Stark Hughes

Linda Hughes Hiser

Aric Hughes Hiser

Ted Steven Hiser

I think this is my first award EVER!!!

I BIG and HEARTY thank you for the KreativBlogger Award which was sent to me by my long time genealogy friend and distant cousin Cheri at Still Digging for Roots . Following a week in the hospital and a week recuperating at home, this is just what the doctor ordered!!!

Here are the procedures connected with the KreativeBlogger Award:

Copy the award to your site.
Link to the person from whom you received the award.
Nominate 7 other bloggers.
Link to those sites on your blog.
Leave a message on the blogs you nominate.

My nominations are:

1. Tastes of Henry combining recipes, family and ancestry.

2. Shaking the Tree Adventures in Genealogy

3. Appalachian History

4. 24/7 Family History Circle

5. Lamb’s Tree Two

6. Branches and Roots

7. Lineage Keeper