Revised
May 2, 2013 The McLaughlin Family
Of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania The family of Odie McLaughlin Long (1888-1976), who lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma, has been traced back to the McLaughlin and Hennessey families of Ireland. This account of the McLaughlin family begins with those born in Ireland and continues down to Odie and her descendants. It includes these sections: The
McLaughlin Name in Irish History
Charles McLaughlin (1798-1863) John McLaughlin (1824-1889) Charles William McLaughlin (1862-1940)
Susan
Gertrude McLaughlin Martin (1892-1963)
Nelle Virginia McLaughlin (1900-2001) Mary Kathryn McLaughlin (1902-1994) Charles W. McLaughlin (1905-1907) Genealogical Charts for the McLaughlin Family The McLaughlin Name in Irish History A description of the history of the McLaughlin name, distributed in Ireland, contains this account: Name
in Gaelic: O Maoilsheachlainn [Descendant of
Maoilsheachlainn,
meaning devotee of St. Secundinus] Mac Lochlainn [Son of Lochlainn, men
of the lakes].
McLaughlin is the surname born by descendants of two ancient Irish septs [clans], both of illustrious lineage, stemming from Niall of the Nine Hostagaes, King of Ireland from 379 to 406. County Meath was the homeland of the O Maoilsheachlainn sept. . . . Down to the Anglo-Norman invasion in the late 12th century, the McLaughlins were able to retain their title of King of Meath. However, their power was greatly diminished when the county was granted to Hugh de Lacy. . . . So completely devastated by the 17th century confiscations was this once royal family, that in the outlawries or attainders of 1691, only one of the name, Maolseachlin O'Melaghlin, was listed. Since that time, those remaining in their ancestryl territory have adopted the spellings McLaughlin and McLoughlin. See also a website which gives further history of the McLaughlin name: http://members.aol.com/lochlan/others.htm Charles McLaughlin of Ireland (1798-1863) Odie McLaughlin’s great-grandparents were Charles McLaughlin and his wife Eliza. The family oral history said that “Charles William McLaughlin” and Eliza were born, lived and died near the Lakes of Killarney, County Kerry, in southwest Ireland. Further, the history said that, between 1840 and 1845, Charles and Eliza put all six of their children on a ship bound for America, never to see them again. The children had all been born in Ireland, and all went to live in or near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. However, there is evidence that the parents, Charles and Eliza, also moved to America, for it appears they are buried in Pittsburgh. At St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Cemetery, at 45th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue in Pittsburgh, there is a McLaughlin plot that was purchased by “Charles McLaughlin” on April 2, 1860. The plot contains 10 grave spaces. One was empty in early 2007. The other spaces contain the graves of Charles and Eliza, all six of their children, and the spouse of one child. (The plot is identified as Lot F, Lot 257, in St. Mary’s Cemetery. There is no office at the cemetery, but the keepers of the records, which are at Calvary Cemetery, will meet a visitor and provide a map to the plot if called in advance, (412) 421-9959.) Judging by the ages of the individuals buried in this plot, as shown in the cemetery records, Charles would have been born in 1798 and Elizabeth in 1797. The records said that Charles was buried on March 7, 1863, and was 65 when he died, and that Elizabeth was buried 23 years later, on January 23, 1886, and was 89 when she died. The records said that Charles died of consumption and that Elizabeth died of “old age.” Both Charles and Eliza were shown as having been born in Ireland and having died in Pittsburgh. No record could be located of their travel to America, but presumably the entire family traveled together. The children were born between 1824 and 1845, as best can be determined. Judging by the dates in the cemetery record, Eliza would have been at the unusual age of 48 when the last child was born. All the children were born in Ireland. If the family traveled to America after the last child was born, then the trip would have been made in 1845 or later, when Charles was at least 47 and Eliza 48. The oral tradition, and even written notes, of the family indicated that the family plot had been purchased in 1860 by Charles William McLaughlin, a grandson of Charles and Eliza of Ireland, for the use of his siblings and other family members. However, no one seemed to recognize that that Charles the grandson was not born until 1862, and he could not have been the Charles McLaughlin who purchased the property. The plot containing ten graves was purchased on the same day as the burial of one of Charles’ daughters, Catherine McLaughlin Gorman, and only three years before his own death. It is curious that, although many family members lived in and near Pittsburgh, none of them seem to have recorded in letters or notes that the Irish progenitor of the family had come to America and was buried in the family plot. The Children of Charles and Eliza McLaughlin According to family records and the cemetery burials, the children of Charles and Eliza McLaughlin were the ones named below. Dates are from cemetery and census records. See also the genealogical chart for Charles and Eliza. John
McLaughlin (1824-1889)
William McLaughlin (1830-1872) Catherine McLaughlin Gorman (1833-1860) Eliza McLaughlin (1837-1911) James McLaughlin (1840-1872) Ellen McLaughlin (1845-1896) Besides the cemetery records and the recollections of their descendants, there is no other information about Charles and Eliza, and census records do not help. However, there is one census report, taken on June 15, 1860, for the Third Ward of Pittsburgh, showing a family that might be the same one. The family in the census consisted of Charles McLaughlin, 56, a shoemaker; Eliza McLaughlin, 54; Ellen McLaughlin, 24, a milliner; Eliza McLaughlin, 21, a glass fitter; and James McLaughlin, 22, a shoemaker. All were born in Ireland. The ages of these people are close to the ages and burial dates of the family in the cemetery records, but they also seem too far apart to be based upon the same people. A comparison of the estimated birth years from cemetery records, on the left in the list below, with the estimated birth years of the family in the 1860 census report, on the right, shows these differences in likely dates of birth:
Cemetery
Census
Charles McLaughlin
1796
1804
Eliza McLaughlin
1797
1806
James McLaughlin
1840
1838
Eliza McLaughlin
1837
1839
Ellen McLaughlin
1845
1836
The family in the census could be the same as the cemetery McLaughlin family. Although only three of the six known children were listed in the census, it is possible to account for all of them. Of the three children not included in the census, John and William were the oldest and both had gotten married by the time of the census in 1860 and were living on their own. The sixth sibling, Catherine, had died in April 1860, two months before the census. The family understanding was that James, Eliza and Ellen all remained single and lived together, perhaps beginning with their parents, as in this census report. Also, the listing of Charles and James as shoemakers reinforces the reports that shoemaking was a family profession. In addition, if the ages given to the census-taker were correct, Eliza would have had her last child when she was 39, a more reasonable age for childbirth than the 48 indicated in the cemetery record. Thus, the names, ages and professions given in the census suggest that this might be the family of Charles and Eliza of Ireland. But if it is, a large number of errors were committed in reports of their ages in either the census or the cemetery. Such mistakes were not unusual in either the census or burial records or obituaries, and sometimes family members simply didn’t know the correct dates. However, it is also possible that the census simply shows a different family from the one in the cemetery, with names that are very similar. The issue remains to be resolved. The St. Mary’s Burials The cemetery records show the following burials in the McLaughlin plot in St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Cemetery in Pittsburgh, basically in the order in which they died.
The Children of Charles and Eliza McLaughlin Little is known about the children except for John. Available details are these: 1. John McLaughlin was born in 1824. Family members understood that he had been born in the Lakes of Killarney region of Ireland and traveled to the United States about 1844, at the age of 19. (If the family traveled after the birth of the last child, the trip might have been made in 1845 or perhaps later.) John died in Pittsburgh in 1889, at the age of 65, and was buried in the McLaughlin plot on June 12, 1889. Family members understood that he died in Pittsburgh, although the burial record said that his last residence was in Butler, Pennsylvania. The record said that he died of heart failure. John married Johanna Hennessey. Johanna died eight months before he did. They had six children, including Charles William McLaughlin (1862-1940). Details on the family of John and Johanna Hennessey McLaughlin are below. 2. William McLaughlin was born about 1830, judging by his burial record. The record said he was born in Pittsburgh, but this is likely an error, since all of his siblings were born in Ireland. He reportedly worked in, or owned, a shoe store on Diamond Street in Pittsburgh, and married Julia Towey. He was buried at age 42 in the McLaughlin plot in St. Mary’s Cemetery on August 4, 1872, just three weeks after the death of his brother James. He was 42. The burial record said he died of “softening of the brain.” 3. Catherine McLaughlin was mentioned in several McLaughlin family accounts as a child of Charles and Eliza, along with the fact that she was known as “Catherine Gorman.” Virtually no information about her can be found through the census, probably because there were so many women named Catherine McLaughlin and Catherine Gorman in Allegheny County at that time. Presumably, she was married to a man named Gorman, but no record of such a man has been located that can be related to Catherine. In the McLaughlin family plot at St. Mary’s Cemetery, in Pittsburgh, the first person buried, in Grave No. 1, was “Catherine Gorman.” The burial was on April 2, 1860, the same day that Charles purchased the family plot. The cemetery record said only that Catherine was 27 on the day of her burial, and thus she would have been born about 1833. Catherine was identified as having been born in “County Derry,” Ireland. (Oral family history said that the McLaughlin family came from the Lakes of Killarney area, in “County Kerry,” and so the “County Derry” in the cemetery record may be an error.) The burial record said that Catherine’s last residence was Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, which became the North Side of Pittsburgh in 1907 after it was annexed to the city (or “stolen,” as some citizens complained). The record said that Catherine died of consumption, the contemporary term for tuberculosis. Given the other burials in this plot, one must assume that Catherine was one of the children of Charles and Eliza McLaughlin and the first of the family to die after they moved to Pittsburgh. It appears that when Charles, her father, needed to bury her, he bought a plot with 10 graves, big enough for the entire family. No other information about her has been developed. 4. Eliza McLaughlin, one of the six children of John and Johanna, was buried in the family cemetery plot in Pittsburgh. The records said she was born in Ireland and buried on January 18, 1911, at the age of 74. She thus would have been born about 1837. She might have been named after her mother, Eliza.  Family records said that Eliza lived in Pittsburgh with her sister Ellen and her brother James, and that none of them married. In the family notes of Odie McLaughlin, she was listed as “Great Aunt Eliza” and Ellen as “Great Aunt Ellen.” No census record has been found that seems to reflect Eliza or that she lived with her two siblings. The 1870 census for Ward 4 of Pittsburgh showed one “Eliza McLaughlin” who was born about 1840 and was working as a chambermaid, but it is not possible to determine if this was the same person. The photograph at the left is identified on the back as "Eliza at wells in 1898," in the handwriting of Charles McLaughlin. This could be John McLaughlin's' daughter Eliza, who married Peter McMahon (see below), who would have been 44 in 1898. It seems more likely that the woman pictured is about 60 and thus is the sister of John McLaughlin. The dates of burial in the cemetery records indicated that Eliza was the last survivor of her immediate family. By 1911, when she died, her parents and all her siblings had been buried in St. Mary’s Cemetery. The record said that her last residence was Millvale, Pennsylvania, which is where her brother John and his wife, Johanna McLaughlin, had lived prior to their deaths in 1888 and 1889. Perhaps – and this is total speculation – after Eliza’s brothers, James and William, died in 1872, Eliza and her sister Ellen moved to Millvale to live with their oldest sibling, John. Ellen died in 1896, and her last residence was reported to be in Crafton, just nine miles from Millvale. Perhaps Eliza, the last of her family, remained living in Millvale until she died at 74. In some listings of family members, there is reference to a “Julia McLaughlin” and no “Eliza,” indicating some confusion in family records. There is no other record of a Julia McLaughlin that might fit as a child of Charles and Eliza. It appears that the wife of Eliza’s brother William McLaughlin, the former Julia Towey, somehow became mixed up in family history, and some people mistakenly thought that there was a Julia McLaughlin, a daughter of Charles and Eliza, who married a William Towey. 5. James McLaughlin was born about 1840, judging by the age in the burial record. There was a man of this name who was described in the 1860 census as a “riverman,” living in Pittsburgh Ward 3. But that man was 40 years old, thus born about 1820, and he would have been too old to be the James of this family. Another possibility is the man of this name, age 22, thus born about 1838, a shoemaker, born in Ireland, who was also living in Pittsburgh Ward 3 at the time of the 1860 census. Family records said that James lived with his sisters Ellen and Eliza, and that none of the three married. James was buried in the McLaughlin family plot in St. Mary’s Cemetery on July 14, 1872, at the age of about 32. The record said that he also died of consumption. 6. Ellen McLaughlin, known as “Great Aunt Ellen,” was born about 1845, according to the cemetery record. It was understood that she lived with her sister Eliza and brother James. Ellen did not marry. She was buried in the McLaughlin family plot in St. Mary’s Cemetery on April 22, 1896, at the age of 51. The record said that she died of heart failure and that her last residence was Crafton, Pennsylvania. John McLaughlin (1824-1889) The first child of Charles and Eliza McLaughlin of Ireland, John McLaughlin was born in 1824 near the Lakes of Killarney, in County Kerry, according to the family tradition. Family members said that he traveled to the United States in 1844, at the age of 19, arriving in Philadelphia. (If the entire family traveled to America together after Ellen was born, the trip might have been in 1845 or later.) One of John’s descendants said that he was a Catholic refugee from the Irish potato famine. John was naturalized on October 10, 1854, at the U.S. Circuit Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, in Pittsburgh. Members of his family in 2007 still had the original citizenship certificate. In Philadelphia, John met and married Johanna Hennessey, who had been born in 1823. Where she was born is not clear. Some family members believed she had been born in Ireland, but census records of Johanna in both 1860 and 1870, as well as census records of her children, said she was born in Pennsylvania. Her burial record in Pittsburgh said her place of birth was unknown. However, the register of deaths in Buckhannon, West Virginia, on the occasion of the death of Johanna's son, Charles William McLaughlin, in 1940, said that Johanna was born in Philadelphia. Her family was reported to have been involved in shipbuilding in Philadelphia, although one family member thought the business involved liquor.
A granddaughter of John and Johanna, Odie McLaughlin, said Johanna’s family was not Catholic. One family member said that Johanna was rather tall and slender, with fine, sharp features, and that Odie “rather resembled her.” Johanna’s only son, Charles, the father of Odie, ran away at age 13 (see below). One family member wrote that, “from a couple of letters to her son Charles, you realize she was a wise and intelligent mother, and must have been broken hearted that circumstances were such that her youngest, and only boy, left home at age 13.” The census of 1860 said that John, 34, was a shoemaker, born in Ireland. In his household in Ward 2 of Pittsburgh were his wife and four children: John
McLaughlin, 34, shoemaker, born in Ireland
Johanna McLaughlin, 34, born in Pennsylvania Eliza McLaughlin, 7 Ellen McLaughlin, 5 Julia McLaughlin, 2 Mary McLaughlin, three months In 1860, the family was in Pittsburgh, but John must have been attracted by the growing oil business not far away. In 1862, they were in the area of Oil City, Venango County, Pennsylvania, and that is where John’s son Charles was born that year. Odie thought that John worked there as a tenant farmer, but in the census of 1870, John, 43, was listed as an oil producer near Oil City. Later, he became owner of a boot factory that family members said spanned an entire city block and sold boots to the Union Army during the Civil War. The family said that John was known to have a fine voice and was a “handsome Irishman, with milk white skin, blue eyes, and blue-black wavy hair. He was not very tall. He had a fine voice, and was in demand to sing on special occasions, such as funerals.” In the 1870 census for Cornplanter Township, near Oil City in Venango County, the household consisted of: John
McLaughlin, 43, oil producer, born in Ireland
Joanna McLaughlin, 43, keeping house, born in Pennsylvania Eliza McLaughlin, 17, at home Ellen McLaughlin, 15, at home Julia McLaughlin, 12, at school Charles McLaughlin, 8, at school Gertrude McLaughlin, 4. Johanna died in Millerstown, a town of about 4,000 people about 10 miles north of Pittsburgh. Later, the town was renamed Millvale. She was buried on November 23, 1888. A burial record at St. Mary’s Cemetery in Pittsburgh gave the cause of her death as cirrhosis of the liver. However, family members believed the cause was pernicious anemia, which afflicted a number of members of the McLaughlin family. Johanna died at the age of 65 in the same year that her granddaughter Odie McLaughlin Long was born. John died of a heart attack in 1889, at the age of 65, eight months after his wife, Johanna, died. It was understood that he died at Millerstown, Pennsylvania, where he had lived with Johanna, although the burial record said that his last residence was Butler. Perhaps he moved to Butler after Johanna died. He was buried at St. Mary’s Cemetery in Pittsburgh on June 12, 1889. The Children of John and Johanna Hennessey McLaughlin John and Johanna McLaughlin had six children, five girls and one boy. See also the genealogical chart for John and Johanna. Eliza
Johanna McLaughlin McMahon (1854-1913)
Ellen (Nellie) McLaughlin Purington (1855-1925) Julia Austin McLaughlin Crawford (1858-1933) Mary (Mazie) McLaughlin (1860-1860) Charles William McLaughlin (1862-1940) Gertrude McLaughlin Westerman (1865-1914)
Details are as follows: A. Eliza Johanna McLaughlin was born in Pennsylvania in August 1854, according to the 1900 census. About 1873, when she was 19, she married Peter Joseph (P.J.) McMahon, who had been born in New York in May 1846. Peter's parents, Thomas and Mary Lynch McMahon, had been born in Ireland. In 1880, Eliza and Peter were living in Limestone, near Cattaraugus in western New York State, about 80 miles from Erie, Pennsylvania. Peter was then a contractor. In 1900, they were living in the McElroy District of Tyler County, West Virginia, and Peter was identified as an oil well contractor. Peter died on August 5, 1908, as reported by the Bradford, Pennsylvania, Era. His obituary said he had been a resident of the oil country "since the early excitement." It said that Peter and his son Charles "had been operating in the oil fields of Oklahoma." Peter was 62. His death led Eliza’s sister Gertrude to write from Chicora to urge her brother Charles to write to Eliza, who she said was “broken hearted over his death.” Eliza died on February 15, 1913, at the home of her son Charles in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Her detailed will had been executed 10 days earlier, on February 5, 1913. She was 59. Eliza's nephew, J. J. Westerman, son of her sister Gertrude, was named executor of her estate. Many members of the extended McLaughlin family attended the funeral, according to the Bradford Era. Both Peter and Eliza were buried at St. Bernard's Church in Bradford. A Catholic church in Tulsa reportedly has memorial windows in honor of Eliza and Peter. Detailed information on the family has been developed by Kathrine McMahon of Tulsa and can be found in the family tree section (McMahon) of Ancestry.com and in the Find-a-Grave site for St. Bernard's Church in Bradford County, Pennsylvania.
Eliza and Peter had five children: (1) Mary Maybella (Mabel) McMahon
was born on July 18, 1874, in Chicora, Butler County,
Pennsylvania. She was a graduate of Vassar College and taught Latin in
New York public schools. She was not married. She died at the home of
her brother Charles in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, on May 19, 1934. She was
59. She was buried at St. Bernard's Cemetery in Bradford, Pennsylvania,
where her parents were also buried.
(2) Charles Lucien McMahon was born on April 27, 1876, in Chicora. He was shown in the 1900 census as a bookkeeper, age 24, born in Pennsylvania, living with his parents in Tyler County, West Virginia. The 1910 census showed him as an oil producer living in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, with his sister Nelle McMahon, age 27. He worked with his father in the oil business. Charles was married to Mays Cleveland Jacob, who had been born in Greenville, South Carolina, on December 14, 1885. Charles died on June 23, 1946, in Tulsa, at the age of 70. Mays died in Tulsa on July 15, 1952, at the age of 66. Charles apparently is the person who placed the memorial windows in the Tulsa church in honor of Eliza and Peter. Charles and Mays had five children: -- Charles Lucien McMahon, their first child, was born in Miami in 1920 and died in Tulsa in 1991.
-- Peter Joseph McMahon was born in 1923 in California and died in 1989 in Tulsa. -- Richard Wallace McMahon was born in 1924 in Oklahoma and died in 1980 in Tulsa. -- Julia Ann Nancy McMahon was born in 1926 in Tulsa and died in 2011 in Colorado. -- Martha Johanna McMahon was born in 1928 in Oklahoma and died in 1981 in Tulsa. (3) Susan McMahon was born on September 4, 1878, in Cattaraugus, New York, and died about 1960 in Bradford, Pennsylvania. She was a Vassar graduate. She married John Rogers Lavens, Sr., and they lived in Bradford, Pennsylvania. They had four children: -- Elizabeth Lavens
married Leo Drozeski,
and
they lived in Bradford.
-- Susan Lavens
married Hugh Grant.
-- Patricia Lavens married a man named Hemenway and lived in Auburn, New Jersey. -- John Rogers Lavens, Jr., married Mabel and they lived in Evansville, Indiana. (4)
John Paul McMahon
was born in 1881 and died in 1882 at the age of one. The 1900 census
reported that Eliza McMahon had had five children, of which four were
living.
(5) Mary Ellen (Nell) McMahon was born on March 18, 1883, in Bradford. In 1910, when she was 27, she was living with her brother Charles in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. In 1915, she married Leo Carl McAvoy, Sr., who had been born in 1881 in Pennsylvania. They had three sons, including Leo Carl McAvoy, Jr., and one daughter. Nell died in February 1961 in Pinellas, Florida. Leo died in Pinellas in 1957. B. Ellen (Nellie) McLaughlin was born about 1855, as indicated in the 1860 census, which said she was five years old. Later census records suggested that she had been born in 1865 or 1870, but these apparently were in error. Nellie was the second child in her family. She had a trained voice and was a paid singer in several Pittsburgh churches, including St. Paul’s Catholic Church. Odie said Nellie was an excellent pianist, and she played and sang. “She had an ambition for concert singing.” When she was 15, Ellen lived with her family in Cornplanter Township, near Oil City, in 1870, and that apparently is where she met and married Lloyd Nottingham, who was listed there as a coal dealer, age 23, in the same year. He had been born in Virginia. In 1880, Lloyd and Ellen were living in Edenburg, Clarion County, where he was listed as a bookkeeper. Boarding with them was Ellen's sister Julia McLaughlin, then 21. Nelle and Lloyd had a child, Austin Nottingham, who died at the age of 6. What happened to Lloyd is not known. In the 1900 census, when he was 53, he was listed as a soldier in a "Maryland line confederate soldier's home" near Baltimore. The report also said he was single. By 1903, according to the 1910 census, Nellie was married again. According to her niece, Nelle McLaughlin, Nellie had purchased a plumbing company on 
Pennsylvania
Avenue in
Pittsburgh, and married the company manager, Henry T. Purinton,
who had been born in Maine about 1870. In the 1910 census
for
Pittsburgh Ward 7, Henry was listed as a plumber, living with Ellen in
a lodging house. They had been married seven years, the
second
time for both of them. In the 1920 census, Henry and Ellen
still
lived in Pittburgh, and they has a 20-year-old servant living with
them. In 1927, Clarence
Long
wrote to Mary Jane Vallance that “Odie’s Aunt
Nellie
married a man ten years younger than herself [it appears the difference
was actually 15 years], and that marriage was a
success.” The photo at right, apparently sent about 1901, just after Nelle McLaughlin was born, bore the puzzling caption "For Baby Nell from Nell McMahon." This could mean that the caption was written by someone who confused Nell McLaughlin Purinton with her sister, Eliza McLaughlin McMahon. Or, if the woman in this picture could be considered to be 17 or 18, it could be the Nelle McMahon who was a daughter of Eliza and Peter McMahon. Nellie died on October 6, 1925, at her home, 919 Ivy Street in Pittsburgh, at the age of 70. Her remains were cremated. Henry died on March 11, 1936. C. Julia Austin McLaughlin was born in Pittsburgh on April 25, 1858. She was a teacher before she was married in 1882 to Ebenezer G. (E.G.) Crawford, who came from Franklin, Pennsylvania, about ten miles  south of
Oil City. Ebenezer
does
not appear in many records. Julia’s niece Nelle
McLaughlin
wrote in 1978 that she was researching the family and trying to
discover what E.G.’s occupation was. “E.
G. was
considerably older than Aunt Julia,” she wrote,
“and her
family didn’t approve of the marriage.” The 1860 census for Venango County, Pennsylvania, showed a large Crawford family, including Ebenezer Crawford, a clothier, age 25. He would have been born about 1835. If this is the man who married Julia, he would have been 23 years older than she, and an early death may account for why he does not appear in later census reports. E. G. apparently died before 1900. Odie McLaughlin Long said she understood the family was fairly wealthy. “I have heard it said that Aunt Julia Crawford’s husband owned most of the small town banks in Western Pennsylvania,” she wrote. However, there is no other evidence of this. In the 1900 census, Julia and her three sons were living in Franklin, Venango County. Her husband was not included in the family census list. Julia moved to Cleveland in 1921. She died on December 23, 1933, in Shaker Heights, Ohio, where she lived with her son Eben. She was 75. Julia’s children were these: (1)
Eben G. (E.G.) Crawford, Jr., was born about
1884. He
was president of the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company and as a
banker launched a $35 million campaign for construction of the
company. He was president of the Great Lakes Exposition in
1936
and a director of the Cleveland Baseball Company. His mother,
Julia McLaughlin
Crawford,
was living with him in Shaker Heights, Ohio,
in 1930. Eben died in Cleveland on April 17, 1945, at the age
of
61. About 1909, he was married to Edith, who had been
born
about
1886. Eben and Edith lived in Cleveland. Eben had
three
sons, Pedro Crawford,
who died about age 14 in an automobile crash, David Crawford
(born about 1920), and a foster son named Joseph
Crawford.
(2)
Lloyd R. Crawford, second child of Julia
Crawford, was
born
in Franklin about 1886. His long
 obituary
in the New York
Times
said that he became an oil company employee at the age of 17, and six
years later he was sent to Hungary as manager of the Vacuum Oil Company
in Budapest. About 1915, he was sent to Colombia to develop
oil
production there. Later, he was president of Paragon Oil and
later the Producers and Refiners Corporation of Independence,
Kansas. In 1919, he married Anita Barnett, who
had been born
in
New York about 1886. In the 1920 census, they were living in
Toledo, Ohio. They had a daughter named Anita Crawford.
Lloyd was a
captain in the First World War. A letter to his
mother, published in the Cleveland Evening News, told of his
experiences in France:
I
get along well enough here. We have our laughs and good
times
as well as anywhere else. I’ve been wet, cold, hot,
hungry,
thirsty and more tired than I ever was before, and sometimes scared to
death. But one gets used to these things, and I’ve
had more
joy from a piece of bread and some corned willie or a glass of water
than I ever had from lobster
 or
champagne, a thousand times. . . . Just
now I am dirty, unshaven and ragged. But I’ve just
had a
piece of cold boiled beef, a piece of bread and a drink of water and no
one on earth feels better than I do. Lloyd
was gassed during the war and suffered serious damage to his eyes
and lungs. He died from the effects of the wartime gassing
about
1935 in Kansas City. He was the first of the three brothers
to
die. He was 49.
(3)
Clan Crawford was born about 1889.
He was an
army
captain in World War I, and family members had a picture of him in
uniform standing next to General Pershing. Later he was an an
attorney in Cleveland. He died in 1950.
D. Mary (Mazie) McLaughlin was three months old in the 1860 census. She reportedly died in infancy. E. Charles William McLaughlin was born in 1862 and died at the age of 77 in 1940 in Buckhannon, West Virginia. He married Keziah Jane (Jennie) McClurg (1862-1895) and later Mary (Mayme) Eckhardt (1875-1962). More information on him is below. F. Gertrude McLaughlin was born in 1865. She was a teacher before her marriage to John 
Jacob Westermann, and they lived in Chicora, in
Butler County, north of Pittsburgh. Gertrude died in Pittsburgh of
pernicious anemia on October 22, 1914, at the age of 49.
Funeral
services were at her home in Chicora. Odie McLaughlin Long wrote that “Aunt Gertrude was really my dearest aunt. She was known as the wife of a prosperous German who owned a department store in a W. Penn. Town, Chicora. Actually, Uncle John Jacob Westerman was American, born of German-born parents. Uncle Jacob’s father had owned ‘the store,’ a big small-town department store, which fell to Uncle Jacob and his brother. Four departments: dry goods, shoes, carpets and groceries.” Gertrude and John had two sons, both physicians: (1) Dr.
John Jacob Westermann, Jr., went to Yale and
studied medicine at Columbia. He was a noted surgeon at St.
Luke’s Hospital in New York City from 1920 to 1935.
A
photograph taken about the age of 14 showed him as a very handsome
young man in a school military uniform. “In those
days, his
minimum price for an operation was $1,000,” Odie
wrote.
“Until I was past fourteen, Jacob was the apple of my
eye.
We did things as playmates, dolls and toys when we were six or so,
later cards and driving the horse about the
country.” Jacob
was married to Margaret,
and they lived in Westchester County, New York. They had
three children, Gertrude
Westermann, John
Jacob Westermann III, and David Westermann.
David was killed in an automobile accident when he was a teenager. Dr.
Westermann later remarried.
 (2) Dr.
Henry Westermann was born in 1898. He
was tutored by
his
mother, Gertrude, before he went to Hill Preparatory
School.
Later, he went to Cornell, studied at Columbia, and got a medical
degree from the University of Pittsburgh. He was a heart
specialist in Pittsburgh and died of a heart attack in 1940 at the age
of 42. Odie McLaughlin Long wrote that “Henry was a
doctor
who diagnosed my father’s pernicious anemia when a
life-saving
treatment had just been discovered, and he became the McL family
hero. Henry’s mother, my aunt Gertrude, had died of
pernicious anemia.” Henry’s children were Henry
Westermann, Jr., Julia
Gertrude Westermann, and Richard Westermann.Charles William McLaughlin (1862-1940) Charles William McLaughlin, one of the six children of Johanna Hennessey and John McLaughlin, was born, according to Odie, at Wrin Farm on Oil Creek, in Oil City, Venango County, Pennsylvania, on  August
31, 1862. The faded photograph at right, showing Charles when
he was six years old, about 1868, was sent to Charles' first
wife, Jennie McClurg McLaughlin,
from his sister, Julia McLaughlin Crawford. It was inscribed
on the back "To Jennie
from Julia," and pasted underneath was a poem, "Only a Boy," which ended
"Our blessings, our trouble, our rest, our care. Our torment,
our joy. Only a boy!" The photo appears to have
been a family heirloom, possibly a print from a tintype. Charles
died of pernicious anemia at his home on Kanawha
Street in Buckhannon, West Virginia, on January 30, 1940. He
was
77. Charles was raised as a Catholic, and some thought his father, John McLaughlin, to be a religious fanatic. When Charles was in his teens, his father reportedly told Charles it had been decided that he would become a priest and would be sent to a monastery for training. Before that could happen, Charles ran away from home at age 13. He did not see his father or his sisters for some ten years. Many years later, one of Charles’ grandsons, John Vanderford Long, asked Charles about his venture to escape the priesthood, assuming that he was an atheist. “No,” Charles said, “I didn’t need any God damned priest to intervene between me and God.” “So I concluded,” John later said, “maybe he wasn’t an atheist after all.” When Charles sent his daughter Odie to a Catholic school operated by nuns in Clarksburg, West Virginia, she said she was instructed to say she was an Episcopalian. Much later, Charles told Odie that her mother, Jennie, who was Scotch-Irish and Presbyterian, had offered to go into the Catholic Church if he would return to it. “He would not,” Odie wrote. “In his family of four sisters and himself, only one remained in the RC Church.” Nelle McLaughlin said that her father lacked a formal education as a result of running away from home. On an envelope that Charles had addressed in 1928, she wrote: “Father’s handwriting – great for a man that never went to school!” Charles’ Wives Charles was married about November 1886 to Keziah Jane (Jennie) McClurg, who had been born  in 1861 or
early
1862. Both were about
24. Jennie’s
parents were Cyrus
McClurg (1836-1883) and Martha Ann Ralston
(1838-1916). Both the
McClurg and Ralston families were very large. Jennie and
Charles
McLaughlin had two children, Odie
Deetta
McLaughlin (1888-1976)
and Susan
Gertrude McLaughlin (1892-1963). Jennie died of
tuberculosis on January 27, 1895, at the age of 33, in Shousetown,
Pennsylvania. See more on Jennie and the McClurg
Family and on Martha
and the Ralston Family.
On June 1, 1898, three and a half years after Jennie died, Charles married  Mary (Mayme)
Myrtle Eckhardt in Wheeling, West Virginia, where
she had been born. He was 36 and she was 23. It is
possible
that Charles met Mayme in West Virginia, where he had been working in
the oil business. Mayne reportedly came from a prosperous
family.
Three of her siblings lived in Washington State, as shown in
Mayme’s obituary. Charles and Mayme had three
children, Nelle
Virginia McLaughlin, Mary
Kathryn McLaughlin,
and Charles
Eckhardt McLaughlin.Not long after their marriage, Charles and Mayme moved to an area in or near Clarksburg, West Virginia. Their three children – Nelle, Kathryn and Charles – were all born in West Virginia, beginning in 1900. Later, they moved to Buckhannon, West Virginia. In the 1910 census, Charles, 47, identified as superintendent of a gas office, was shown living there with Mayme, his wife of 11 years, and three daughters, Gertrude (child of Jennie), 17, Nelle, 9, and Kathryn, 8. Although they lived in different places in West Virginia, the understanding is that Charles and his family at one point lived next door to the house of Bill and Mattie Long and their son Clarence Long in Clarksburg. In 1914, Clarence married his neighbor, Odie McLaughlin. Charles died in 1940 and Mayme lived until 1962.
Charles and the Oil Business Charles was involved in the oil business, and in various towns he participated in oil and gas exploration. When the family lived in Shousetown, on the Ohio River north of Pittsburgh, Odie wrote that her father joined with another man to acquire two gas wells. This
became the gas company that supplied our town and another
nearby. The fireplaces and kitchen stove had previously
burned
coal. Now they were cleaned up and pipes run into
them. All
we needed was to turn on the gas and light it. Little pipes
were
run to the ceiling and lowered by contraptions with globes for gas
light, quite a step in domestic living.
The obituary for Charles in a Buckhannon
newspaper read in part:
The
opening of the Copley oil field in Lewis County brought Mr.
McLaughlin to West Virginia. From there, he went to Spencer
and
superintendent of the West Virginia Central Gas Company. In
1909,
he came to Buckhannon as superintendent of the Eastern Oil
Company. He held this position for many years until he was
made
superintendent of the Keener Oil and Gas Company at Weston.
A newspaper article touting the importance of Charles was published in The Corinthian, of Corinth, in Preston County, West Virginia, on January 10, 1920. It was  headlined
“Oil Expert
Visits City
on a Mission of Investigation.” Some excerpts:That
there may be oil located in this territory has long been the
opinion of oil experts and the hope of those who own the property. . .
. C. W. McLaughlin, with the Hutchinson Coal & Oil Co., of
Fairmont, Va., which location is in the heart of the West Virginia oil
fields, is in the city [Corinth] today discussing conditions with
property owners and those informed.
Mr. McLaughlin says it is no secret that there is believed to be oil through this section somewhere covering an area perhaps fifty miles in width, and that it is simply a matter of financing the proposition of locating it.  Clarence Long’s father, William G. Long, was at one time a neighbor of Charles in West Virginia, and both of them were heavily involved in the oil business. Bill Long wrote a long article about “Charley McLaughlin” for Oil Journal, an industry magazine published in Tulsa in 1913. The article, written when Charles was 51, was accompanied by a photograph of Charles looking dapper in a suit and necktie, a slouch hat pulled down to his eyebrows. (The same photo appeared on a postcard, inscribed on the back "To Kathryn. Father.") Headlines read “Charley McLaughlin Puts it Over in Rhetoric” and “Sets them all a-Guessing when He Uses his Wit.” Bill Long wrote that Charles was a “philosopher, epigrammatic driller, contractor and humorist” who “from the time of his birth has been active in making oil country history.” I
know that a man who wears his heart on his sleeve, as Mac does, will
have a berth on the limited train straight into glory. Mac
has
laid the temper screw aside, the anvil’s ring is not heard
from
his office in Buckhannon, West Virginia, where he is busy looking after
the comfort of the gas consumers who are hooked up with the Eastern Oil
Company’s gas line. He knows the game from the
meter to the
regulator and from the regulator to the well.
Oh, I know that he is lonesome. I know that out there at Buckhannon he misses the boys who could tell a good story and listen to one. There is a vacancy in his life that nothing in the world will fill but the grin and the handshake of the boys who have grabbed the same temper-screw and have sledged on the same bit. I presume that hanging away back in the closet of Mac’s home are the old mud-splattered hat and the grease spangled overalls, and somewhere near them are the old yaller laced boots. These are relics of days gone by; remembrances of the days when the smell of the new Manila was as sweet incense to his nostrils, when the cough of the engine, the samp of the mighty drill as it ripped, plunged and beat a hole through the earth’s foundation was tuned in harmony with his rugged thoughts. They were happy days and nights. But those
days are gone for Mac. With his interests and his
salary, his pathway seems to have turned in pleasant places.
The
charm of the evenings at home, be-gowned and be-slippered, is a
well-earned happiness.
Although Charles may have prospered at various times during his career, it was reported that he had little income at the time he died. Family members said he was largely supported by his two youngest daughters, Nelle and Kathryn, and much of their money came through the family of their mother, the former Maude Eckhardt. On the other hand, Maude was still alive when Charles died, and so this comment on his finances is not clear. Charles and the Long Family Charles was described as “Father McLaughlin,” sometimes as “Grandfather McLaughlin,” in Clarence Long’s letters from Tulsa to Mary Jane Vallance. In December 1926, Charles McLaughlin visited the Longs in Tulsa, and Clarence took him and the two oldest boys to visit “Charley Erickson’s pig ranch,” near Siloam Springs. The
Erickson family is very interesting. Father McLaughlin
stayed
there seven years ago when he was out here drilling that
well.
Erickson is a big blonde Swede who used to run a big saloon and
gambling joint in Butte, Montana, in the wild and woolly
days.
His wife is a little plump dark German woman raised on the Rhine, very
calm and efficient and a beautiful singer. The three girls
and
two boys are all dark like their mother and range in ages from twenty
to ten. They are a fine family. You ought to see
the
diamonds they have. I never saw such a mess of diamonds
outside
of a jewelry store.
Showing the breadth of Charles’ oil interests, Clarence said that Charles intended to go from Tulsa to Montana. “He has been exchanging telegrams with some of his wife’s relatives in Spokane regarding a gas plant over in Montana which they wanted him to come and run for some people they knew. But we never could get much real information. . . Finally, he got mad and wired that he was not coming unless he had had some definite details from some official of the company, otherwise he was leaving for West Virginia.” Clarence added: He
could have found something here if he did not carry so many chips on
his shoulder where his relatives are concerned or was willing to hunt
for it, but he has never hunted for a job in his life and does not know
how. Also he has burned his bridges behind him everywhere he
has
gone, which does not help him now. Perhaps we might have done
more but I have been sick and I know that Odie and I both have a
feeling that he should be allowed to paddle his own canoe. He
turned Odie loose to paddle hers when she was sixteen and I suspect
that we do not feel the responsibility for him that the other girls
do. He put them through college.
Charles and Odie Odie McLaughlin Long’s relationship with her father remained ambivalent for many years. Charles would write to Odie’s husband, Clarence, and sign the letters and postcards “Dad,” but he didn’t very often write to his own daughter, Odie. In August 1919, for example, Charles wrote to Clarence “just a few lines so you will know I am still on earth.” He wrote from Baxter Springs, Kansas, where he was checking out oil sites, and tried to persuade Clarence to come visit. No mention of Odie. In July 1924, Clarence had written that the McLaughlins were planning to visit them in Tulsa. “I will be just as satisfied if the Macs don’t come,” he wrote, “and Odie will be too, though she hasn’t said so directly. [Rachel had been born five months earlier.]” She
wants to see her father, but that is about the end of it.
They are a funny family. For one thing, she and the girls
would
clash immediately over playing with the boys, for they
[Gertrude’s family] evidently do all sorts of things with
Gertrude’s children [the Martins] that we don’t
approve of
and would not stand for, and then she and her stepmother never could
get along. However, if they come, they won’t be
here more
than two weeks at the most.
Ten years later, in February 1934, Clarence wrote that “Odie was feeling rather soft today, because yesterday she had a long letter from her father – I think the first in about five years. It was a grand letter, sounded just as he talks and expressed his opinion of the Eckhardts [his in-laws through his second wife, Mayme] and made Odie feel very triumphant.” A few months later, Clarence wrote that Odie “even wrote to her father – just think of that!” Health Problems On February 22, 1927, from Buckhannon, Charles wrote a dramatic letter to “My dear Clarence and All,” explaining his medical turnabout and advising Clarence on what to do for his own health problems (spelling uncorrected): Don’t
you know four weeks ago, I would not give a hoot for
yours
truly. For a week befor I left Tulsa, I felt my old hart was
off
the job, and I thought they was noting could be done, but I would kick
over and that would be the end. Mother and Gertrude was after
me
a good deal. On Dec 15 I drove home with Mamie in heavy snow
storm, built fire in furnace, shovel snow off walks, walked in, and
over I went. Dr. could hardly believe a man in my condition
could
drive a car 100 miles in snow storm.
What was the matter. Anemia. Not one red spot on my hole body, nothing would lay on my stomach. After they pulled my teeth, Gertrude sent to Pgh for Dr. Westerman [a nephew] and he agreed with my Drs. Henry said take all the medicine away but a drug called Fowlers. But feed him ½ lbs of calves liver or beef liver for diner, for a week. I could not swallow a bit but I got one bite down and after that I could eat 3 times a day, pieces as large as my hand & in two weeks I am running around up stairs and while all my fat is gone, I am as red in face as ever, all done in two weeks. Now,
Clarence, the Dr. said that in one year not one case had come back
by the liver treatment. Now, boy, go to the calves liver or
beef. They cannot tell why it does the work, but it does
it. Now try the liver, not mutch grease. Love to
all.
Dad.
Nevertheless, that cure did not last for long. One year later, in February 1928, Clarence wrote to Mary Jane that “we had a telegram from Gertrude [Odie’s sister] last night.” Father
McLaughlin is very ill and has been taken to the hospital at
Morgantown and evidently is to be operated on for gallstones.
In
the condition he is in, I hardly think there is much of a chance for
him. I wish we could have gone back last summer, for Odie’s
sake
anyhow.
In fact, Charles lived for 12 more
years. Just three weeks
after
that letter, Clarence wrote that “Father McLaughlin is better
. .
. Judging from the small letter from Odie’s stepmother, all
the
doctors gave him up but he survived the gall stones operation, his eyes
have cleared up, and he wants to get up.” I have been expecting a message like this for months. Odie has not written for six or eight months, you know, and we have heard nothing from them. Though I understand the situation psychologically, my own close home ties and the feelings such ties bring to mind always are bringing me up short wondering how in the world she can be so indifferent. That isn’t the word, but that’s what they think it is.
They
think the gall stones were to blame for this anemia, but it seems
hardly likely that the Pittsburgh clinic could be fooled on that
diagnosis. . . . Odie has finally written to the family. I do
wish we could take a couple of months this summer and make the rounds
in the east. . . . I would like to go back to West Virginia and make
peace with the McLaughlin females. I know they could not
resist
sister [Clarence’s daughter, Rachel Long].
The Death of Charles In the middle of 1935, just before Clarence Long died, Charles, then 73, moved to Morgantown, West Virginia, so that he could be with his daughter Gertrude and closer to his other two girls, Nelle and Kathryn, who were in Pittsburgh. He died in Buckhannon on January 30, 1940, at the age of 77. His family attributed the death to pernicious anemia, which had been diagnosed in Pittsburgh many years earlier. The obituary said the death followed a long illness that was caused by heart disease. He was buried in the Heavner Cemetery in Buckhannon. The Eckhardt Family Charles’ second wife, the former Mary (Mayme) Myrtle Eckhardt, had been born on March 28, 1875, in Wheeling. Her father was Phillip Leopold Eckhardt, and her mother was the former Rose Ella Moore. It appears that the family developed a serious interest in activities on the West Coast. Three of Phillip's children moved to Washington State, and his father and brother Solomon, if not others, moved to California. Phillip and Rose, however, appear to have remained in the Wheeling area. Phillip Leopold Eckhart was born in September 1849, according to the census for Wheeling, Ohio County, Virginia. (The Wheeling area of Virginia later became part of the state of West Virginia.) The census for 1880 and 1900 showed Phillip to be a teamster. It appears that Phillip died sometime between 1900 and 1910. He did not appear in the census after 1900. His wife, Rosa (or Rose, in some records), appeared as head of household in the census for 1910, 1920 and 1930. She was born about 1855 and was still alive at the time of the 1930 census. She was mistress of a boarding house in 1910. Her daughter Nelle lived with her at least through 1930. Rose Eckhardt told the census taker in 1910 that she had had six children, of which only four were living. The children were these: 1. Mary (Mayme) Myrtle Eckhardt
was born in 1875, as noted above, and married Charles McLaughlin
when she was 23. She died in 1962.
2. Alberta Eckhardt was born about 1879. She was listed in the 1880 census report as one year old, but she did not appear in any other census, either with her mother or her father. It is likely that she is the "Mrs. E. B. Gibbs, of Colville, Washington," who was listed in the obituary of Mayme in 1962 as a surviving sister. 3. Nelle Eckhardt was born about 1888 in Wheeling. In the 1910 census, when she was 22, she was living with her mother and brother William in Wheeling. She was still with her mother in 1920 and 1930 and was listed as a telephone operator. At some point between 1920 and 1930, possibly in 1925, she married Frank D. Keyser. She was named in the 1930 census as "Nelle Keyser." Frank, however, was shown in the 1930 census as a lodger in the YMCA of Spokane, Washington, working as an electrical salesman. Nelle later joined him, and she died in Seattle on November 12, 1980, at the age of 95. Frank died in Seattle on December 7, 1953, at the age of 67, 27 years before Nelle died. 4. William H. Eckhardt, apparently the only son of Phillip and Rose Eckhardt, was born about 1890 in West Virginia. At the time of the 1910 census, he was 21, living with his mother in Wheeling, and a salesman in a shoe store. In 1930, William, 40, was living as a lodger at a YMCA in Spokane, Washington, the same place that his brother-in-law, Frank Keyser, resided. He told the census taker he had been married about 1923, but there is no other information about his wife. The obituary of his sister Mayme showed that he was living in Seattle in 1962. William died in Seattle on September 30, 1974. Mayme's daughters, Nelle and Kathryn McLaughlin, wrote of traveling to Washington state about 1930 to visit their "Uncle Eckhardt," who was a shoe salesman. 5. 6. Two Unknown Eckhardts
were also born. Rosa Eckhardt told the census taker in 1910 that she
had had six children, of which four were living. In the
birthdates of her known children, there is a gap of 11 years between
Alberta, born in 1879, and Nelle, born about 1888, and it may be that
the other two were born during this period and died young.
The Immigrant Eckhardt. The father of Phillip Eckhardt, and the grandfather of Mayme, was George Warner Eckhardt, who had been born in Germany (or Prussia) about 1808, judging by census reports. His wife, Barbara Eckhardt, was born in Switzerland. Somehow they found their way to Ohio County, Virginia, which later became West Virginia. The 1850 census showed that "George W. Eckhart," 42, was a tavern keeper in Wheeling. In the 1860 census, he was listed as a hotel keeper from Prussia, living with his wife and seven children, all born in Ohio County. In 1870, he was shown as a "box keeper" (?), and in 1880, when he was 72, he was listed as a "copper manufacturer." In addition to his own children, he had two adopted children living with him. It appears that George and his son Solomon Z. Eckhardt (if not others) went west. On April 7, 1894, under the Homestead Act of 1862, "George Warner Eckhart" and "Solomon Z. Eckhardt" separately filed claims for adjoining parcels of land near Sycamore Canyon, close to San Diego. George would have been about 76 at the time of this filing in 1894, and Solomon would have been about 35. The land later became the Goodan Ranch, which is the subject of a field guide published on the internet in 2002. There is no other information about George, and it is not known when he died. The children of George and Barbara Eckhardt were these: 1. George S. Eckhardt
was born about 1845 in Ohio County, Virginia. At the time of the 1870
census, George, 24, was a coal miner.
2. Charles V. Eckhardt was born about 1847. At the time of the 1870 census, Charles, 23, was a clerk in a store. 3. Mary Ann Eckhardt was born about 1848. She did not appear in the 1860 census, but in 1870, she was shown as "Mary Eckhart," 22. 4. Phillip Leopold Eckhardt was born in September 1849 and died between 1900 and 1910. He married Rose Ella Moore and they had six children, including Mary (Mayme) Eckhardt McLaughlin. His family is described above. 5. Barbara A. Eckhardt was born about 1852. At the time of the 1880 census, Barbara, 28, was living at home in Wheeling. The 1900 census showed her as "Barbara Echardt," 48, living in San Francisco with her sister "Nellie" (Cornelia) and her brother "Zach" (Solomon Z.). The two women were listed as nurses, and Zach was a school teacher. All three said they had been born in West Virginia of parents born in Germany. 6. Victoria Eckhardt was born about 1854. 7. Cornelia Eckhardt was born about 1857. The 1880 census said she was 22 and worked in a grocery store. It appears that she is the "Nellie" Eckhardt who was living in San Francisco with two siblings in 1900. 8. Solomon Zachariah Eckhardt was born in Ohio County, Virginia, about 1859. In most of the census records, he is named as "Solomon Z. Eckhardt," but in 1880, when he was 21 and living with his parents, he was shown as 'Zachariah Eckhardt." Before 1900, he and two sisters went to live in San Francisco, and he was listed as a school teacher. As noted above, Solomon and his father both filed Homestead Act claims on property near San Diego in 1894, when he was about 35. It appears that he lived on or stayed near the property. In 1910, the "News Notes of California Libraries" made note of a donation of periodicals by several people, including "S. Z. Eckhardt, San Diego." The 1920 census for San Diego showed "Solomon Z. Eckhardt," 60 and single, working as a salesman of coffee and tea and living in a boarding house. In 1930, he was still in a boarding house, but the census said he was 71 and married, but there is no other evidence of a wife. Mayme
Eckhardt McLaughlin, a niece of Solomon, had two daughters who lived to
be nearly 100. When the daughters died, they had in their estate a
decorative black cane, apparently meant for display or promenading. The
cane had a gold handle, delicately inscribed "S. Z.
Eckhardt - Feb. 8, 1886." This
appears to be a reference to Solomon Eckhardt of San Diego, but the
date has not been associated with any event in the Eckhardt family.
There is no evidence that Solomon had children, and it is possible that
his estate, including the cane, passed down through the Eckhardt family
until it reached the McLaughlin sisters. The date of Solomon's death is
not known, although he was still alive in 1930, when he would have been
71.
9. Elizabeth S. Eckhardt, adopted by George and Barbara Eckhardt, was born in 1863. 10. Katherine S. Eckhardt, also adopted, was born in 1865. * * * * *
Mayme Eckhardt McLaughlin died 22 years after her husband, at the West Penn Hospital in Pittsburgh on March 1, 1962, at the age of 86. Her daughters, Nelle and Kathryn McLaughlin, were living and teaching in Pittsburgh at the time. Mayme was buried in the Heavner Cemetery in Buckhannon. Her obituary said she was a member of the First Methodist Church of Buckhannon and the Order of the Eastern Star. It said she was survived by four daughters – Nelle and Kathryn McLaughlin, of Pittsburgh; Mrs. C. R. Long (Odie) of Washington, D.C., and Mrs. G. I. Martin (Gertrude), of Morgantown; as well as six grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren. It said she was also survived by two sisters and one brother, Mrs. E. B. Gibbs of Colville, Washington; Mrs. Frank D. Keyser of Seattle; and William Eckhardt of Seattle. The Children of Charles William McLaughlin Charles had four daughters, two by each of his two wives, and one son, who died very young. See the genealogical chart for Charles and his descendants. The children were Odie
Deetta McLaughlin Long (1888-1976)
Susan Gertrude McLaughlin Martin (1892-1963) Nelle Virginia McLaughlin (1900-2001) Mary Kathryn McLaughlin (1902-1994) Charles W. McLaughlin (1905-1907) Odie Deetta McLaughlin Long (1888-1976) 1. Odie Deetta McLaughlin Long, the first child of Charles and Jennie McLaughlin, was born on August 27, 1888, in Saxonburg, Pennsylvania, about 30 miles northeast of Pittsburgh and about 30 miles east of Beaver County. Many years later, she recalled the house where she lived. Her room had cherry  furniture and an
adult double
bed. When her sister Gertrude was born in 1892, it was in a
bedroom with flowers, a gas fireplace, a blue carpet, lace curtains,
golden oak furniture, and a white polar bear rug.
“I liked
that room and was pleased and a bit stunned to see a baby in the big
bed one morning.” Odie also remembered stealing
pennies,
although her mother, Jennie McClurg McLaughlin, insisted she had not
stolen them but simply received them as a gift.
“She also
had given me a fear of sin and Judgment Day,” Odie wrote.
Life on the Ohio River When Odie was very young, her family moved from Saxonburg to Shousetown (later renamed Glenwillard), a few miles north of Pittsburgh on the Ohio River. Once known as “Limerick’s Landing,” Shousetown was named for the ship carpenter Peter Shouse, who laid out the town. It was at one time a ship-building center. A local history reported that “the two sidewheelers, Diurnal and Winchester, which left on alternate days for Wheeling, were built at Shousetown. The Michigan and Lake Erie, the daily line boats which ran from Pittsburgh to Beaver, were also built there. . . . But the loss of the boat industry reduced the size of the community to about a dozen families by 1900.” Odie was enamored of the view from Shousetown: That
river was such a joy to me. Such a river, big and wide,
with
passenger boats snowy white and coal boats pushing barges full of coal
up to the steel mills and coming back empty to get more coal, and a
pleasing whistle announced their coming. I would run to the
edge
of the high plateau where I lived to see them pass. My father
took me by horse and buggy where, after passing through a stone
culvert, we came on a lovely beach and saw houseboats along the river
with people actually living in them. Think of that, to live
in a
boat and see the river at all times!
The Loss of Jennie Odie’s mother died in 1895 when Odie was only six. Her aunt Nellie McLaughlin came to stay with the family for a while but then returned to Pittsburgh. Two other aunts – Julia McLaughlin Crawford and Gertrude McLaughlin Westerman – wanted to adopt them, Odie to go with Aunt Julia and Gertrude with Aunt Gertrude. But Charles would not consent. “Gertrude and I often speculated on what our lives would have been,” Odie wrote. “Both the aunts were fairly well-to-do.” Gertrude nevertheless lived with her Aunt Gertrude for a while, while Odie was taken in by a widow named Kennedy, with grown daughters, in Shousetown, living in a house on a flat bluff above the Ohio.  Odie went to school with a young friend who lived with her grandmother. “Before we started to school,” she wrote, “we both had lost our mothers to a disease frequent in that day: tuberculosis.” Odie remembered learning to read in the school in Shousetown. She said she was taught the “Pollard” system: Every
letter had a story with its sound: hard g was made by the
frog. We took a stencil to the blackboard
and patted it with
a
dusty eraser. Removing the stencil, a piece of chalk then
outlined the holes in the stencil. There was Mr. Frog and
beside
him both capital G and small g. Presently we had the alphabet
in
phonics and began to work. After a fashion, it worked and we
read. . . . We stood in a row for spelling, working to get to the
top. And outside was the big playground, fenced in, for we
were
on another bluff above the river. There it continued to roll,
with the boats announcing themselves.
In 1898, Odie’s father, Charles, was remarried, to Mary (Mayme) Eckhardt. He was 36 and she was 23. Odie wrote that she was 10 when the wedding took place. Until then, “I had lived with the Kennedys, with frequent visits to my Aunt Gertrude’s and infrequently to my Aunt Julia’s.” Numerous pictures show Odie and her sister Gertrude posing lovingly with their new step-mother Mayme. Odie wrote: My life changed considerably
after my father’s
remarriage.
Oil was developing in West Virginia. We lived in Wheeling,
then
Clarksburg, and back on the Ohio in New Martinsville. There I
graduated from high school. Previously, I had acquired two
half-sisters, Nelle and Kathryn, later a little boy who lived but two
years. The little boy I scarcely knew, for then I went to
Geneseo
to school.
About 1904, when she was 16, Odie wanted to go to college but Charles could not afford it. His sister Gertrude McLaughlin Westerman agreed to pay all expenses for Odie to go to Geneseo State Normal School, a teachers college not far south of Rochester, New York. Odie’s husband, Clarence Long, years later wrote that at this time Charles “cut Odie loose.” In 1908, when Odie was 20, her father got a letter from his sister Gertrude. “Isn’t Odie the best ever?” she wrote. “No one need worry over her. She is quiet and can’t make a fuss. She is a darling, I think. Don’t you?” Odie got a two-year teaching certificate, studied teaching of the mentally handicapped, learned to administer the Binet intelligence tests, and taught for eight years in the Rochester school system. It was in Rochester that Odie met Mary Jane Vallance, with whom she and Clarence maintained a close relationship all their lives. “Mary Jane taught there in the same building as a demonstration teacher,” Odie wrote much later. “I taught retarded children. That was the beginning of I.Q. tests. We gave Binet’s test. He was a Frenchman who developed them. I studied them one summer at Vineland, New Jersey. That was the first year they were given in English. I continued in Rochester until I left to be married.” Marrying the Childhood Sweetheart On December 26, 1914, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Odie married Clarence Ray Long, a sweetheart from when they were children in Clarksburg, West Virginia. “I had known your grandfather since I was twelve,”  Odie wrote
later. “Our families had kept in touch with each
other
through the years and the developing oil business.”
See the article
written by
Clarence’s father about Odie’s
father
(above). Odie and Clarence lived in Tulsa and had four
children.
William
Charles Long (1916-1988)
Vallance McLaughlin Long (1917-1975) John Vanderford Long (1920-2004) Rachel Louise Long Misey (1924-2004) Charles McLaughlin, on his visits to his former home in Shousetown, often told Jennie’s sisters that he was concerned about the different child-rearing approaches used by his Odie and Gertrude. Odie’s  children had been reared “by
the
book,” he
said, while Gertrude’s “hung
loose.”
Odie’s husband Clarence Long apparently had the same
concerns, as
indicated in his letters. See detailed information on the Children of
Clarence and Odie Long. In Tulsa, Odie was heavily involved in the intellectual community and apparently shared Clarence’s strong views against public education, religion, and the Ku Klux Klan. She and Clarence were inveterate readers and insisted that their children read as well. Given that Odie and her husband did not have appreciation for the public school system in Tulsa, Odie took on the Tulsa school superintendent and won the right to teach her first two children at home for the first several years, keeping them out of school. She 
organized support for candidates for the Tulsa school board, and she
and Clarence campaigned for Robert LaFollette when he ran for President
of the United States in 1924 under the Progressive Party that he had
founded. More details of Odie’s life are in the
section on Clarence Long.Clarence was only 45 when he died in 1935. Odie lived for 41 more years. In Tulsa, she obtained a B.A. degree in psychology from the University of Tulsa, with honors (all A’s), and she was elected to be a member of Pi Gamma Mu, the National Social Science Honor Society, in Tulsa in May 1939. She was 51 years old. After spending some time in West Virginia, she moved to Washington, D. C., and taught there and in nearby Maryland schools. For a number of years, Odie resided with her son John Long, who lived in Bethesda, Maryland, near Washington. After falling and breaking a hip, Odie died in a nursing home in Washington on December 26, 1976, on the 62nd anniversary of her marriage to Clarence. Both Odie and Clarence were buried in Rose Hill Cemetery in Tulsa. Their daughter, Rachel Long Misey, was later buried in the same grave. Also buried in the same cemetery was Clarence’s father, Bill Long, who died in 1926. Susan Gertrude McLaughlin Martin (1892-1963) 2. Susan Gertrude McLaughlin, the second child of Charles and Jennie McLaughlin, was born in Shousetown, Pennsylvania, on December 2, 1892. She was only three when her mother died.
When Gertrude was 15, in October 1908, her Aunt Gertrude Westerman wrote to her brother Charles to give advice: “Gertrude is at the age when she should have all the boys she wants, providing they are of good families and well behaved. Have them at home where you and Mayme can keep a little look out. If she doesn’t have them at home, she’ll meet them other places. I did when I was her age. Every jolly girl will!!”
Gertrude married George Irvin Martin, who was known as "Irvin" or "GI." A family record said he was born on June 29, 1893, and died on March 26, 1977, at the age of 83. (The Social Security Death Index had slightly different information. It said he was born on June 30, 1893, and died in Morgantown, West Virginia, in May 1977.) Gertrude died on August 8, 1963, at the age of 70, and she was buried in Heavner Cemetery in Buckhannon, West Virginia. Their children were:
George
Irvin Martin (1918-1972)
James Edward Martin (1919-1996) Susan Gertrude Martin (1921-1924) Details are as follows: A.
George Irvin Martin, Jr., was born in
December
1916.
When their grandfather, Charles
McLaughlin, died in January 1940,
George and his brother Jim were both living in Morgantown, West
Virginia, as was George’s recently born son, Howard.
 George married Muriel Murchison, and they had a child, Howard William (Billy) Martin, born about 1939. Later, George married a woman named Ellen and later Pauline Scott. Pauline had been born in West Virginia on January 30, 1915. With Pauline, George had a son named Thomas (Tommy) Martin, born on November 5, 1948. Tommy had a daughter, Angela Martin, born in 1975. Tommy’s family lived in Galveston, Texas, in 2001. George died
on February 23, 1972, at the age of 53, reportedly a victim
of murder at or near his home at Groves or Port Arthur,
Texas.
The family understanding was that he was attacked in his driveway at
night as he returned home from work. Pauline died in Groves
in
September 1994.
B.
James Edward Martin, second
child of Gertrude McLaughlin
and
George Martin, was born on April 13, 1918, and earned a Ph.D. in
mathematics from the University of Pittsburgh. He married Margaret (Peggy)
Thorn,
who had been born on January 1, 1918. Peggy Martin was
a frequent correspondent of Jim’s cousin Rachel Long Misey
as
they tried to sort out the details of the McLaughlin and McClurg
families. Many of the details of this report on the McLaughlins and the
McClurgs are the result of the research of Peggy and Rachel.
Peggy and
Jim lived in a variety of places, including Texas,
Massachusetts, and Redlands, California. Jim died in Banning,
California, near Redlands, on November 15, 1995, at the age of
77. Peggy moved to Texas to be near her family, and in 1997,
she
was renting a house in Garland, Texas, near her daughter
Cynthia.
Peggy died in Garland at the age of 86, on January 6, 2004, three days
after the death of Jim’s cousin Rachel Misey.
Jim and
Peggy had three children:
(1)
Margaret Susan Martin was born on August 23,
1945. She
married Kit Wilson.
They were divorced, and Susan later
married Ernest Kevin.
In 2007, she lived in Seattle.
(2)
Cynthia Martin was born on March 11, 1950.
She married James
Feagins, and they had a daughter Lara Sue Feagins,
born on February 21,
1968. Lara married Keith
Sheffield, and they had a daughter, Britni Lynn
Sheffield.
In 1980, Cynthia was living in Dallas, Texas, working for Coopers & Lybrand, an accounting firm that merged with Price Waterhouse in 1998 to form PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Cynthia and Jimmie were divorced. She later married David Keith Farr, and in 2007 they lived in Garland, Texas. (3) Jennifer Martin was born on April 16, 1955. She married Ronald Gorham. Their children were Crystal Marie Gorham, born December 20, 1973; James Michael Gorham, born August 18, 1976; and Anthony Gorham, born July 15, 1982. C. Susan Gertrude
Martin, named for her mother,
was born in
1920
and died on January 31, 1924, at the age of three and a half at her
home in Purseglove, near Morgantown, of an acute attack of
pneumonia. Funeral services were held at the home of her
grandparents, Charles and Mayme McLaughlin, in Buckhannon, and burial
was in Heavner Cemetery. Her obituary called her
“Gertrude
Martin” and gave details of the death.
Charles and his second wife, Mary (Mayme) Eckhardt McLaughlin, had three children. The Eckhardt family reportedly had very good financial resources, and much of this was passed to the two girls. On their death, the McLaughlin sisters made substantial bequests to their alma mater, West Virginia Wesleyan University, in Buckhannon. The university website in 2007 advertised the "Nelle V. and M. Kathryn McLaughlin Chemistry Scholarship," providing six renewable $4,000 awards each year to students who declare chemistry as a major, and a similar scholarship to students who declare English as a major. This had the potential to provide more than $50,000 in scholarships each year. Nelle Virginia McLaughlin (1900-2001) 3. Nelle Virginia McLaughlin was born on October 7, 1900, in Clarksburg, West Virginia. (Her birth certificate spelled her name "Nell," but she always used the spelling "Nelle.") According to her obituary, Nelle graduated from Buckhannon-Upshur High School in 1919 and was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1923 from West Virginia Wesleyan University, located in Buckhannon. Later, she received a Master of Arts degree in science at Columbia University in New York. Nelle told her family that women were not allowed to teach science in the Pittsburgh public schools at the beginning of her career, but she eventually became principal of the high school. She was a lifetime member of the American Chemical Society and a member of the Retired School Teachers of Pennsylvania. Nelle wrote that in May 1979, she and her sister Kathryn would have to “change our habitat,” apparently because the building where they were living was being converted to condominiums. “I will hate to leave the University (Pitt), Carnegie Institute, and the College Club,” she wrote, “but I am afraid will have to.” (Nelle was then 79.)
Nelle and Kathryn lived together virtually all of their lives. Neither of them married. At some point in Pittsburgh, they invited a fellow teacher, Lois, to join them, and the three lived together for more than 70 years. After they stopped teaching, Nelle, Kathryn and Lois moved into a retirement facility in Upper St. Clair, a suburb ten miles southwest of Pittsburgh. They occasionally spent summers in Buckhannon. Descendants of their half-sister, Odie McLaughlin Long, kept in touch with the sisters and made occasional visits to Upper St. Clair to see them. Nelle was 100 years old when she died there on July 17, 2001. She was buried in Heavner Cemetery in Buckhannon, where her parents, Charles and Mayme, were also buried.
Mary Kathryn McLaughlin (1902-1994) 4. Mary Kathryn McLaughlin was born on March 5, 1902, also in Clarksburg. Like her sister, she got a B. A. degree from West Virginia Wesleyan University and a master’s degree from Columbia University. Her graduate degree was in English. Kathryn became head of the English Department at the high school where Nelle was principal. They remained in these positions until they retired. Kathryn and Nelle were both in a retirement facility ten miles southwest of Pittsburgh when they died. Kathryn died on March 20, 1994, at the age of 92. She was also buried in Heavner Cemetery in Buckhannon.
The sisters did some traveling. In July 1930, Clarence Long wrote that Nelle had informed him that Kathryn, who was about 27, was traveling across the country and was expected to be in Missoula for the Fourth of July. She had relatives there, Clarence wrote, but she also planned to see her “Uncle Eckhardt,” who was in the shoe business in a large town on the eastern end of Washington State. Charles Eckhardt McLaughlin (1905-1907) 5. Charles Eckhardt McLaughlin was born on September 23, 1905, in Lesterville, West Virginia. He died on December 15, 1907, at the age of two years, two months, and 22 days.
LINKS Back to Top of this Section McClurg Family Ralston Family Clarence Ray Long Children of Clarence and Odie Long William George Long Samuel W. Long Samuel Parker Long Parkers and Vanderfords Genealogical Charts Neil Boyer's Family History Page |
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