Blum

My father, William Wesley "Budd" Blum was born on 23 Aug 1921 in Cranberry Twp, Venango County, PA to Howard Edwin Blum & Hazel Doreen Cann Blum. Howard Edwin Blum was born in Forest County, PA on 05 Feb 1890.

Howard Edwin Blum first married Lenora Belle Emert on 11 July 1911 and they had two daughters, Edith Iona Blum and Lenora Belle Blum. Howard's wife, Lenora died in 1915 apparently in childbirth when Lenora Belle Blum was born.

On 20 Jan 1920, Howard Edwin Blum married Hazel Doreen Cann in Venango County, PA. They had two children together Beatrice Anne Blum and William Wesley Blum before they divorced in 1926.

Howard Edwin Blum third married Reba Summerson and had two more children, Henry Blum & Janice Blum.

Howard Edwin Blum was a "wildcatter" in the Oil Industry. He spent most of his working life in the Western Pennsylvania area. He had a brother, Forrest Alvin Blum who did the same type of work and worked all across the United States and finally settled in Texas.

Howard & Forrest had one other brother, Lawrence who died in a logging accident at the age of 19 in Forest County, PA. They had six sisters as follows - Mabel Agnes Blum who married Henry Raymond Childs; Sophronia A. Blum; Blanche R. Blum who married Max Sutley; Arley May Blum who married Jule Shreve; Katherine I. Blum who married Harry Juan; and Effie I. Blum who died at the age of 24.

Their parents were Henry Blum & Katherine Elizabeth Eichenburg. Henry Blum was born 17 May 1854 in Forest County, PA. Katherine Elizabeth Eichenburg was born 31 July 1861 in German Hill, Forest County, PA.

Henry Blum's father, Sebastian Blum, had immigrated to the United States on 5 Aug 1847 according to his petition for citizenship filed in Venango Co., Pa. He had come to American aboard the ship "President Schmidt" along with his father, Johannes Herman Blum. Sebastian was born in Hesse Cassel, Germany on 15 Nov 1813 to Johannes Herman Blum & Dorothea Elizabeth Lauer.

The following excerpts are from "History of the Counties of McKean, Elk and Forest, Pennsylvania" published by J. H. Beers & Co. Publishers, Chicago, 1890. From the Forest County section , Chapter II entitled Indians and Pioneers -

The German settlement of this county was begun in April, 1842, when Herman Blume, of Hesse Cassel, came to Tionesta. He learned the American language here, and in 1848 was independent enough to take his family out. In 1846 he was joined by Jacob Wenk and John Shellhouse, and they, with Adam and Henry Zuendel and Bernard Busch, who came in 1840 to Tionesta, formed the pioneers of the German colony with H. Eichenburg, an immigrant of 1844; Nicholas Mater, Henry Glassner and George Babendorf, of 1846, and Deitrich Weyant, Sebastain Blume, Adam Frank and Chris Sewer.

Daniel Harrington, referring to Herman Blume, says: "Mr. Bloom was one of the most courteous German gentlemen that I ever met. He owned a house and lot in the village, and worked at his trade as a tailor. The clothing he made for his customers was always honestly put together; the wind never blew the buttons off that he sewed on. I was at Franklin when he made application for his naturalization papers. He would sometimes take a little hop bitters, or a substitute therefor, and get a jolly good humor. I remember one time he said to me, "Mr. Harrington, oh put I do feel goot.' He resigned his earthly commission in December, 1879, at nearly ninety years of age. A number of his grandsons are citizens of Dutch Hill."

Among the pioneers of the southern townships of old Forest were the Agnews, Armstrongs, Cooks, Reynoldses, John Wynkoop, James Irwin, the Coons, Noltons, Munns and others referred to in this work, and Ferdinand Smearbaugh, of 1847; John Weyant, M. Holebine, Henry Sipple, N. Mater, Jr., and Henry Klinestiver, the blacksmith, of 1848. In 1849 Henry Kiser arrived, in 1852 Ernest Behrns and Rudolph Kaman, Hanoverians, and Edward Walker, settled north of the Zuendel location, and the Koops lived at the old Tubbs run settlement. In November, 1868, Fred W. Blume arrived from Hesse Cassel. In the "fifties" Bartholomew Church was erected on the hill, but up to 1869 the members of the Reformed Church contested its ownership with the Lutherans. At this time other troubles came among the two peoples -- a spook or ghost being said to inhabit the building.

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This page was last updated on -10/23/2009