I have an Aunt (I never met her) Grandpa Clark’s oldest daughter Mary Elizabeth Clark b. November 3, 1904 in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. I haven’t found records that state when she began working for American Reduction Company in Pittsburgh, but I do know she worked there because her occupation and place of work are on her Death Certificate. She died November 21, 1921 just a few days after her 17th birthday.
She lived with a Mr. William Siefer at 2849 Carey Alley, which I suspect was part of company owned housing in a village called ‘Reduction, Pennsylvania’ (“The Town That Garbage Built”) in Westmoreland County, discussed in the following articles, see links https://www.pennlive.com/entertainment/2018/01/strange_inheritance_reduction.html. or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduction,_Pennsylvania
Mary and Mr. Siefer both worked at the company, he was the informant on her death certificate which lists Mary as Single. Yet he gave his last name as a middle name for her. Their relationship is very much open to discovery. Her job with American Reduction Company was ‘paper picker’.
This is not a pretty story… My mother told me some of it when I was a child.
Genealogy is perhaps my most favorite pass time and as I go deeper into my Grandfather’s first family, I find much tragedy. Frank left his first wife Rebecca (Gray) his second cousin, sometime after the birth and death of his name sake, Oliver Franklin Clark Jr., born and died one month later in 1912. He traveled from Pennsylvania to St. Joseph, MO. He met Bessie Chapman Akins, a divorced, much younger woman and mother and married her in 1914 starting a second family. However, the first family has been left in dire straights. They most likely weren’t in great shape before his departure, as Grandpa Clark was just a laborer.
Discovery shows the oldest son, Aaron Burnside Clark, b. 1902 who at the age of about 11 was fostered out and used for labor. As mentioned earlier, Mary worked a hard and most likely dirty, disgusting job at American Reduction, for how long I have not discovered. What I do know… She died much too young of Lobar Pneumonia.
I hope I have not offended any of my Clark family with this telling, but I felt compelled to give some thought and care to my Aunt who most likely knew nothing of her Sisters in St. Joseph, MO. Mom only claimed to have met one member of the first family. That was Willie, he made the trip to St. Joseph as a young man to meet his father and the siblings, Mom was very young still, she did not like him. He would have only been 3 or 4 when Grandpa left Pennsylvania. Willie only lived to be 40. I most likely will be increasing this story as I discover what is able to be found on these Aunts and Uncles who were lost to us.