Clark Reed Stahlman Family: 

Clark Reed Stahlman’s grandfather, Jeremiah Stahlman, came first to Schuylkill County, PA where his father, Gabriel Stahlman was born in 1828 and then to Clarion County in 1840. The Rand-McNally map shows “Stahlman Round Top” in the Clear Creek area. Gabriel married Ester Keck from Clarion County and settled in Jefferson County, where he cleared the land, built a home and farmed. For a bed cover, Ester sheared sheep, carded and dyed the wool, spun the yarn and wove a pine-tree design coverlet, now in the museum in Harrisburg, PA. 

Clark Reed Stahlman (1871-1946), ninth child of Gabriel and Ester Stahlman, grew up in Jefferson County and one trip he looked forward to was going on a logging raft, down the river to Pittsburgh, PA, where he got a new pair of copper-toed shoes. He liked school, and after graduating from Clarion Normal School, Clarion, PA, followed the teaching profession. In 1901, he married Ella Theresa Johnson (1872-1957) a Clarion Normal graduate and teacher from the Hazen, PA area. They built a home in Brookville, PA, where a daughter, Muriel Lucile (Lucille) Stahlman was born in 1908.

A few years later, Clark moved his family west to Cottage Grove, Oregon, to serve as a forest ranger in the Cascade National Forest, where he discovered a lake, which he named “Lake Lucille”. After doing further college study and educational supervisory work, he returned to Pennsylvania to continue his career until retirement, never to busy for gardening and grafting a few varieties on the apple tree. 

Clark’s daughter, Lucille, spent her school days in Brookville, for a time, having to cross the swinging bridge (footbridge) to go to school. She first learned to drive in an open car with side curtains for bad weather, and took her first airplane ride at the Brookville flying field for one dollar a ride. She followed family tradition and, after graduating from Clarion Normal School, started a teaching career in Pennsylvania. 

In 1944, Lucille moved to Washington, D.C., where she began to teach English to foreign diplomats from around the world. After the study of linguistics and a master’s degree, she joined the faculty of the Language Institutes of American and Georgetown Universities. 

In 1973, Lucille married Edwin Scott Smith, grandson of former Pennsylvania state senator Winfield Scott Smith, and moved to Mountain View, California. She has one step-son and three step-granddaughters.

Though still in California, Lucille often reminisces about the early years of the Clark Reed Stahlman Family in Jefferson County.

- Submitted by Lucille Stahlman Smith

Transcribed By Steven A. Stahlman from “Jefferson County Pa History 1982”, published by the Jefferson County Historical and Genealogical Society, Inc. pages 305-306.