The Walter Family

Ancestors of Sarah Margaret Walter Hopson

For additional information, see these Bedford Co., PA websites

http://www.pa-roots.com/users/bedford/

and

http://www.motherbedford.com/index.html

 Introduction

I have not yet been able to make the connection between Daniel Webster Walter’s father Jacob Walter and the Walter family who were early settlers of Bedford County, PA.  However, I am reasonably certain that there is a connection and it just remains to be found.  The following information is from an Ancestry.com posting by Ramona Householder:

 1^st generation:  Rudolph Walter, born about 1696 in Germany; arrived in  America 19 Aug 1729 on the ship Mortonhouse.  In 1735 he returned to Germany to get his wife Hannah Barbara whom he had apparently married before sailing to America the first time.  On 28 May 1735 the family arrived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the ship Mercury.  He is buried in Montgomery County, PA.  One known son, Mathias Walter born 1730 in Bedford Co., PA, and a daughter Catherine born 1740.  [How did Mathias get born in  PA in 1830 when Hannah didn’t come here until 1735?]

2^nd generation:  Mathias Walter born about 1730 Bedford Co., PA, died after 1763 on his farm in “Dutch Corner.”  A death record on Ancestry.com gives Mathias Walter’s death as 1780.  He married Barbara Imler, b. 1734 in Germany, d. about 1814.  They had 11 children.

3^rd generation:  The sons of Mathias Walter and Barbara Imler included Henry, Daniel, Frederick, Joseph b. about 1770, John b. about 1776.  One of those sons is probably our direct ancestor but I don’t know which one.  The two most likely possibilities are Henry and Joseph simply because by the process of elimination I have determined the other two men’s sons did not include the Jacob we are looking for.

I think a GOOD POSSIBILITY for the next in line is Joseph Walter b. about 1770, d. about 1806 in Bedford Co., PA.  Married Rachael Bucker, b. 1765.  Joseph had five sons, the youngest of whom was Mathias b. 20 Mar 1806.  In the 1840 Bedford census Matthias had a male between the ages of 15-20 in his household, and in the 1850 census that male was no longer living in the home.  He COULD have been Jacob Walter.

4^th generation:  Based on the above, I think Matthias Walter is POSSIBLY the father of Jacob Walter.  Research is ongoing.

5th generation

Jacob J. Walter

(1824-1904)

Rachel Sarah Weisel

(1815-1876)

Photo thanks to J. Tinney!

Jacob J.  Walter

Jacob J. Walter was born in Bedford Co., Pennsylvania on 12 August 1824 according to the cemetery record of the Reformed Church Osterburg in Bedford County.   Rachel Weisel was born 19 February 1815, a daughter of John Weisel and Margaret Schneider, in Bedford Co., PA. (see WEISEL and SCHNEIDER).

Jacob and Rachel were married  23 Apr 1847 in Bedford County, PA.  The newspaper account of their marriage in the Bedford County Archives indicates Jacob Walter was from Hollidaysburg and Rachel Weisel was from St. Clair Township.  They had five children[1]: 

          i.        Sarah Jane b. 24 Feb 1848  Bedford  Co., PA

          ii.       Deresa Walter b. 4 Jan 1851 Bedford Co., PA, d. 17 Jun 1875.

          iii.      John Walter, b. about 1854 Bedford Co., PA, d. probably

                    in California.

          iv.      Samuel  S. Walter, b. 10 Dec 1855 Bedford  PA; m. 22 May

                   1889 Margaret Jane Boller Lamberson; 2 children; d. 25

                   Sept. 1904 Los Angeles, CA.

          v.       Daniel Webster Walter, b. 1860 Bedford Co., PA, m. 1881

                   Marietta Strausbaugh (1857-1916), d. 1944 WV

Photos thanks to Jo Epling Tinney

John Walter

Deresa Walter

(The name written on the back of this photo was "Tracy" but that may have been someone else's misunderstanding of the name, which was Deresa.)

Sam Walter (undated)

Rachel is the name of Jacob’s wife as given in the marriage record, children’s birth records, cemetery record, and the 1850, 1860, and 1870 census.  However, family information from my aunt Edith Hopson Epling indicated Jacob’s wife’s name was Sarah Wisel.   My grandmother Sarah Walter Hopson did not remember her grandmother’s name at the time she gave me the family information, just saying that her Grandpa Jacob’s wife “died young.”   The last record we have of Rachel Walter is in the 1870 census at age 55.  Also, if my grandmother had been named after her grandmother Sarah, it would seem more likely that she would have remembered the name.  Jacob and Rachel’s oldest child was named Sarah, and that may have been the reason for the confusion.  As for the spelling of the name Weisel, it is also seen in some documents as Wisel, but researchers of the family have accepted the spelling Weisel.

I have been able to piece together some information on Daniel's brothers and sisters, besides their names and approximate birth dates from the census, and we do have small photos of each of them as young adults (except for Sarah, the oldest).  These were in a collection of photos belonging to Daniel Walter, now in the possession of his great-granddaughter Jocelyn Epling Tinney.  Jocelyn sent the photographs around to family members so those who wished to do so could make copies.

The 1850 Union Township, Bedford Co., PA census[2] shows the family as follows:

          Jacob Walter, 28, laborer, PA

                   Rachel 26 PA

                   Sarah Ann 4 PA  [should  be Sarah Jane, age 2]

The 1860 St. Clairsville, Bedford Co., PA census, pp. 461-462, is as follows:

          John Wisel 91 PA (Rachel’s father) PA, farmer

          Jacob Walter 37 PA farmer

                   Rachel 41

                   Sarah Jane 12

                   Deracy A. 9

                   John 6

                   Samuel 4

                   Daniel W. 3 mos.

The 1870 Bedford Co., PA census shows the family as follows:

          Walter, Jacob, 52, house painter

                   Rachael, 55

                   Deracea, 19 (name is difficult to read, very dim)

                   John, 16

                   Sam, 16

                   Daniel, 10

Living next door to the Walter family is a young married couple, Lewis (28) and Sarah Mock (22), who COULD be Jacob and Rachel’s oldest daughter.  Marietta Walter told her grandson Joe Inghram that they had some Mock relatives.

By 1880 the family is no longer together.    Their daughter Deresa died 17 Jun 1875 at the age of 24, and Rachel died 25 July 1876, at the age of 61.   Jacob is a widower, age 56, living in E. St. Clair, Bedford, PA.  His occupation is listed as “Justice,” and his birthplace PA. Both his parents’ birthplaces are listed as France.  (I question these details, but the other Jacob  Walter in Bedford is accounted for.)  Daniel is boarding with the Strausbaugh family in Cambria County, working on the Pennsylvania Railroad.  Samuel is also boarding with a Cambria County family and is a cabinetmaker.[3]  There is a John Walter in Bedford county, married to Martha, with a son Clarence. 

In 1900, Jacob is living with his son Samuel and his family:

1900 Conemaugh, Cambria Co., PA census, Ancestry.com image 6: 

Samuel S. Walter 45, Dec 1854, PA PA PA, painter; 

wife Margaret J. 42, Jun 1857 married 11 years, 3 children, 3 living, PA MD PA;

dau Ada Pearl 7, Jun 1892;

son Harry J. 2, Apr 1898;

Albert O. Lamberson stepson 19,  Sep 1880 PA PA PA;

William O. Boller father-in-law 69, Apr 1831, widower, MD MD MD;

John J. Walter father, 71, Aug 1828, widower PA PA PA.   painter.

Every other record we have shows Jacob or J.J. Walter, so his name could have been John Jacob, or Jacob John. 

Marietta Strausbaugh Walter told her grandson Joseph Inghram that some of their relatives had gone to California and were never heard from after the San Francisco earthquake of 1906.  She was speaking of Daniel’s brothers John and Samuel, though there’s no reason to believe either was in San Francisco.

I found a death notice for Samuel Walter in the Pre-1905 California Death Index:  25 Sept 1904  Samuel G. Walter age 48, 9 mos. 15 days; white male, married, bp Pennsylvania.   This would give him a birth date of Dec. 10, 1855, the same as in the church record of his birth, so I believe it is the same Samuel Walter in the 1900 Cambria PA census above. 

What is left of the Samuel Walter family mentioned above is found in the 1910 Pasadena, Los Angeles county, California census:

          Margaret J. Flower 52, 3^rd marriage of 2 years PA MD PA

          Albert O. Lamberson 29 single PA PA PA

          Harry J. Walter 12 PA PA PA

No husband is listed with Margaret in 1910, but Ward B. Flower is listed as her husband in 1920.  Her California Death record indicates Margaret Flower died 20 Feb 1944 at the age of 84.

At the wedding of Jacob's granddaughter Mary Elizabeth Walter to Frank Inghram in 1904 in Marmet, West Virginia, J.J. Walter signed as a witness.[4]

Jacob's granddaughter Sarah Margaret Walter Hopson said her grandpa Jacob lived with his son Daniel and his family "until an old age, 80 or 82." 

The cemetery records of the Reformed Church Osterburg in Bedford Co., PA, show that Jacob Walter died 28 December 1904, at the age of 80.  He may have died in West Virginia but apparently his family wished to lay him to rest beside his wife and daughter.

The following information about Jacob and Rachel’s daughter Sarah Jane and their son John Walter is based on the assumption that I have found the right person in the census; at this time I don’t have any other evidence to support this.

Sarah Jane Walter (b. 24 Feb 1848)

Next door to Jacob & Rachel Walter in the 1870 Bedford Co., PA census is Lewis Mock 28, Sarah 22.  Sarah is the right age to be Sarah Jane Walter, and Marietta Walter told her grandson that they had Mock relatives.

1880 E. St. Clair, Bedford  Co., PA census, p. 298A:  Lewis Mock 41, Sarah 32,  Calvin D. 8, Jas. W. 6, Daniel D. 4, Jno F. 1.   

Lewis and Sarah Mock are not found in the 1900 census; Daniel and John are boarding at the same home in Westmoreland County: Daniel 24, Jun 1876, railroad brakeman, John 21, Sep 1878 railroad fireman; Calvin is boarding at a home in Maryland; James W. 25, Sep 1874, coal miner in Somerset Co., PA, married to Lottie 15, Oct 1887, married 1 month.

John Walter (b. about 1854)

1880 Bedford Co., PA census:  John Walter 26, Martha 25, son Clarence 1. 

John, Martha, Clarence not found in 1900 census.

1910 E.  St. Clair, Bedford Co., PA census, Ancestry.com image 18:  John M. Walters 56 painter, married 31 years; wife Martha, age illegible, 4 children, 1 living; grandson Claud J. 5.

Clarence E. Walter, widower, age 31, in Wichita, Sedgwick, KS in 1910, PA PA PA.  No child is living with him.

1920 San Luis Obispo, CA census, p. 2B, Image 4 & 5:  John M. Walter 66, PA PA PA, Martha 65, PA PA PA grandson John C. 15.  KS, PA, OH (John C. is probably same as Claud J. in the 1910, probably son of Clarence.  Clarence not found in 1920).

1930 San Luis Obispo, CA census, p. 7A, Ancestry.com image 13:  John M. Walter 76, Martha 75.  [John C. Walter, age 25, not found in 1930 census]

Sources of information:

Bedford County, PA Archives:  newspaper account of marriage of Jacob Walter and Rachel Weisel

Their granddaughter, Sarah Margaret Walter Hopson (1884-1971)

Original Walter family photo album (in possession of Jocelyn Epling Tinney)

Their great-grandson Joseph Webster Inghram  (1906-1986)      

Pre-1905 California Death Index, Los Angeles Co., Book 6 T-Z. 

FHL Film #385038:  Records of Old Log Church, Lutheran & Reformed, Bedford, PA;  Records of German Reformed Church at  Bobs Creek, Bedford Co., PA:  births and baptisms of Sarah Jane and Samuel S. Walter, children of Jacob and  Rachel Walter. 

Archie Claar Cemetery Inscriptions Vol. 1, page 292:  Reformed Church Osterburg Bedford Co.

6th generation

Daniel Webster Walter

(1860-1944)

Marietta Strausbaugh

(1857-1916)

Photos thanks to Jo Epling Tinney!

Daniel W. Walter 1861

Daniel W. Walter

Daniel W. Walter

Daniel W. Walter

Marietta Strausbaugh Walter

Walter family (Elizabeth Walter Inghram, Dan Walter, Marietta Walter,

Thomas J. Hopson Sr., and Maggie Walter Hopson)

          Daniel Webster Walter was born February 9, 1860, in Bedford County, Pennsylvania[5], one of four children of Jacob J. Walter[6] and Rachel Weisel[7]

Walter.  Little is known of Daniel’s family or childhood in Bedford County.

          Daniel first appears at the age of 3 months in the 1860 census of Bedford Co., Pennsylvania, with his parents Jacob and Rachel and older siblings Sarah Jane, Teracy, John, and Samuel.   In the 1870 Bedford Co., PA census, Daniel appears at age 10, and his oldest sister Sarah has apparently married by that time.[8] 

Photo thanks to Joe Inghram!

Marietta Strausbaugh Walter and her mother Elizabeth  Shearer Strausbaugh

          Marietta Strausbaugh was born April 10, 1857[9]  in Altoona, Blair County, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Peter Strausbaugh and Elizabeth Shearer Strausbaugh[10]. (see STRAUSBAUGH.) Little is known of her childhood or family, although she said at one time she was a “second generation German immigrant,” which apparently referred to the fact that her grandfather George Shearer had come from Germany.[11]  They were some of the people called “Pennsylvania Dutch” – not Dutch at all, but German.  According to her grandson Joseph Inghram, Marietta spoke of brothers and sisters who were well-to-do, and that some of them had gone to California and were never heard from after the earthquake of 1906.  (She was referring to Daniel's brothers and possibly his sister, for I have accounted for all of Marietta’s siblings and they remained in Pennsylvania.)  She said they had Miller and Mock relatives, referring to her sister Sadie who married a Miller and probably Daniel’s sister Sarah who I think married a Mock.

          Marietta appears in the 1860 Cambria Co., PA census[12] at age 4 and in the 1870 Westmoreland Co., PA census[13] at age 13 with her parents Peter and Elizabeth Strausbaugh and family.

          The 1880 census of Cambria County, Pennsylvania[14] shows the family of Peter Strausbaugh, age 49, his wife Elizabeth age 49, and children Charles 23, Mary E., 22, Sarah E., 15, and John L., 8.  It also indicates three young men were boarding with the family at the time, all working, as was Charles, on "repairs on PRRC" (the Pennsylvania Railroad).  One of those young men was Daniel Walter, age 20.

          Daniel Walter and Marietta Strausbaugh were married in Johnstown, Cambria County, Pennsylvania, on April 2, 1881[15].  They had four children:

          i.        Mary Elizabeth Walter  5 Mar. 1882-15 Nov 1968, m. 1904

                     Frank Inghram (1868-1931)[16]

          ii.       Sarah Margaret  Walter (1884-1971)

m. Thomas Jefferson Hopson, Sr.,  1905

          iii.      Anna May (May 1886-1967) m. Morden Curry

          iv.      Elmer Jacob (May 6, 1892-Sep 24, 1966)   never married[17]

Photos thank to Jo Epling Tinney!

Sarah Margaret Walter age 18

Anna May Walter Curry

Elmer J. Walter

Sometime after their marriage, they went to live in the little town of Mineral Point, about four miles north of Johnstown.  From David G. McCullough’s book, The Johnstown Flood,[18] comes this description of Mineral Point:

          The white frame village of Mineral Point consisted of some thirty houses set in a row along a single street, Front Street, which ran parallel with the river on the north side of the river.  It was a pretty little place, quiet, clean, tucked at the foot of the mountainside.

          There were perhaps 200 people in Mineral Point, if you counted the outlying families that picked up their mail there.  The houses all faced the river and had deep lots, running back to where the woods started at the base of the hill.  Fruit trees and truck gardens grew wonderfully in the moist soil put down by the river over long geologic ages.  Nothing much out of the ordinary had ever happened in Mineral Point.

          In that little town, Dan and Marietta Walter settled down to raise their family.  Two daughters came along, Mary Elizabeth (called Lizzie) in 1882, and Sarah Margaret (called Maggie) in 1884.  Dan opened up a general merchandise store, and like the other stores in the Johnstown vicinity, he conducted much of his business on credit, with his customers paying up their accounts whenever they had the money.  He was also a skilled carpenter, cabinet maker, and did some preaching in the Methodist Church.

          Living as they did in the river valley, the people around Johnstown were accustomed to spring floods, and May of 1889 was no exception.  The morning of May 31, 1889, the water had been coming up so fast that most families in Mineral Point had pulled out to higher ground.  Their first floors were under water and picket fences and chicken coops had floated away.  But this particular day would bring one of the great disasters of the century.

          High above Johnstown on Lake Conemaugh sat the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club.  Only an earthwork dam, long the subject of heated controversy, held back the waters of the lake from the valley below.

          By noon of May 31, 1889, as a result of heavy rainstorms, the dam was in serious trouble.  Hour after hour, work crews struggled to stave off disaster, as urgent attempts were made to warn Johnstown.  Then at 3:10 the dam gave way and Lake Conemaugh, an estimated 20 million tons of water, started down the valley.

          When the flood came, the wall of water swept through in such a way that it left almost nothing to suggest that there had ever been such a place as Mineral Point.  The town was simply shaved off, right down to the bare rock.

          Sixteen people died in Mineral Point, but still that town was luckier than others downstream, such as East Conemaugh and Woodvale.  At about 4:07 p.m., not quite an hour after the dam gave way, the wall of water hit Johnstown:

          The height of the wall of water was at least 36 feet at the center, and was preceded by a wind which blew down small buildings before the water ever hit.  Because of the speed it had been building, the water struck Johnstown harder than anything it had encountered in its 14-mile course from the dam.  The drowning and devastation of the city took just about 10 minutes.

          Dan Walter had gone to work at daylight that morning.  His oldest daughter Lizzie recalled (in a newspaper interview 72 years later):  “It was in the afternoon, though it seemed late evening it was so dark, when Mother decided to try to get us children out of the bottom to higher ground, where father was working.  We were trying to wade the water out in the alley behind our house when father came.  He had become worried and had come to take us to higher ground.  We waded in fast-moving water up to my middle for long minutes and then we started up the hill when the wall of water came down the valley.”

          Dan Walter carried Maggie, age 5, in his arms, and 7-year-old Lizzie trotted alongside.  Marietta was carrying May, the youngest.

          Lizzie continued, “We saw our house lifted and smashed and disappear in the water.  Water was rising fast out on the hills’ edges and we went up the mountain.

          “We got out to a farm house in the country above the town.  There were dozens of people in that house.  I’ll never forget that night.  People crying and praying and getting into dry clothes and watching the town below, by the light of the stuff burning at the bridge.”[19]

          They lost everything but their lives and the clothes on their backs.  Their home and Dan’s general store “went down the creek,” along with many of his debtors.  He never tried to collect what was owed him.

          Well over 2000 people were killed and hundreds were never found.  Thousands were homeless with no dry clothing, no money, and no stores left to buy anything.  Bridges were gone, roads were impassable, and the railroad had been destroyed.  The Red Cross arrived at its first major disaster, Clara Barton herself staying five months in Johnstown.

          The rebuilding started immediately, but just getting the place back to where it had been would take five years or more.  Dan Walter went to work as a carpenter.  He rebuilt his house on the same lot.

          It is believed that the Walter family had been members of the Mineral Point Methodist Church, and in its history is the following:

          At the time of the 1889 flood, the church was swept from its foundations.  It was reported that the church bell was heard tolling until the building was out of sight.  The bell was later found near Woodvale and was carried back to Mineral Point.

          Shortly after the flood, a new church building was constructed.  Messrs. Daniel Walter, Emannuel Reighard and David Wilson were appointed to the building committee.[20]

          Like so many other flood victims, Dan Walter was never to get back on his feet financially.  During the rebuilding period, his and Marietta’s only son, Elmer Jacob, was born in May 1892 in Johnstown.  Later they lived in various other Pennsylvania communities, including Apollo in Westmoreland County.

          Just what caused Dan Walter to decide to go into the ministry at the age of 40 is not known, nor why he went to West Virginia, after having lived all his life in Pennsylvania.  Perhaps it was to be a new beginning.  Lizzie was 18, Maggie 16, and Elmer 6 when they left Apollo, and moved to West Virginia.  According to his daughter Lizzie, their first home in West Virginia was in Hamlin in Lincoln County[21].

          The Lincoln Co., WV census of 1900 shows Daniel Walters, age 40, born Feb 1860, married 20 years; Mary  E. 43, b. Apr 1857; Lizzie 18, born Mar. 1882; Maggie 15, born Aug 1884; Anna M., 14, born May 1886; and Elmer 8, born May 1892.

          According to his grandson, Joseph Inghram, he was ordained a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, North, at West Virginia University in Morgantown.  The records of the West Virginia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church indicate that he was admitted on trial October 8, 1901, in First Church, Fairmont, West Virginia.  He was then assigned to the Dingess Circuit in Mingo County, a remote section over the mountain from Logan.  Other assignments were as follows:[22]

          1901-02       Dingess Circuit, Mingo County

          1902-03       St. Albans and Marmet, Kanawha County

          1903-04       Marmet

          1904-06       Reid Circuit

          1906-08       Kincaid Circuit, Fayette County

          1908-09       Clay Court House

          1909-10       Moundsville Circuit, Marshall County

          1910-14       Falling Spring, Greenbrier County

          1914-16       Holcomb, Nicholas County

          1916-17       Webster Springs Circuit, Webster County

          1917-19       Philippi Circuit, Barbour County

          1919-21       Burnsville

          1921-24       Wolf Summit, Harrison County

          1924-26       Frenchton Circuit

          1926-28       Enterprise Circuit, Harrison County

          1928-29       Norton-Mable Circuit, Randolph County

           According to his grandson, Joseph Inghram, “He spent the early part of his service to the church the last of the old-time circuit riders, rode around a thin long chain of congregations on a horse, a three to five-day trip.  I saw the last animal, a pretty, perfectly proportioned appaloosa named 'Pretty' some church member had given him.  Later he bounced over the route in an old Model A which he retained until he passed away.”

          Anna May was the first of the children to marry, in October 1903, at the age of 16.  She married Morden Curry.

          Dan’s father Jacob Walter had come to live with Dan and his family some time after 1900.  In 1904, he was a witness at the wedding of Dan’s oldest daughter, Lizzie, to Frank R. Inghram, a railroad man.  His daughter Sarah Margaret Walter Hopson wrote in a letter to me, "Grandpa Jacob lived in our home until an old age."   

          During this same time period, Dan invited a young minister to preach a revival for him -- the Reverend Thomas J. Hopson.  Reverend Hopson noticed the pretty organist, Dan’s daughter Maggie, and in November 1905 they were married.

          The 1910 West Virginia census of Marshall County has a Daniel Walter 54, born in WV, and Mary 49, also born in WV.  The ages and birthplaces are wrong, but Daniel and Marietta were living in Marshall County in 1910 according to the above list of church assignments.  Elmer is not living with them, nor with one of his sisters.

          The 1910 census of Kanawha County, WV[23] has the Frank Ingraham family listed as follows:  Frank Engrims 40, Lizzie 26, Joe 4, Leo 2, George 4 mos., and a teen-age nephew and niece of Frank’s.  (Actually, I think the boy designated as nephew was actually Frank’s son John from his first marriage.  Thomas, another son from the first marriage, is living with his grandparents.)

          Also in the 1910 census, living in the Ward precinct, are Mord N. Curry, age 27, his wife May 21, and two children, a son Dana 6 and a daughter Virginia 2.  May has given birth to 3 children but only 2 are living.[24]  (The third child, Irene May, died in infancy.)

          Sometime in about 1911, Marietta’s health began to fail, and since Dan was serving a circuit in a remote area of Greenbrier County where no doctors were available, she and her son Elmer, then about 17, went to live with her daughter Lizzie and her family in Ward, Kanawha County, West Virginia.  No one realized how serious her illness was, and Dan returned to his preaching in Greenbrier County.

          That remote circuit in Greenbrier County was described by Joseph Inghram as follows:  “We took the C & O train from Charleston to Ronceverte and then got a buggy ride of ten or fifteen miles out in the country, to some place near Greenbrier River, then out into the hills to the parsonage, located near ONE of his churches.  The county then had few roads, lots of fields and woods.  In fact, I was told wolves existed in them.”

          Joe Inghram remembers his grandfather as being a well-built man of about five feet, six inches tall, and 160 pounds.  He was always well dressed, being a full-time preacher, and wore a neatly trimmed mustache.  He was outgoing, a good neighbor, and liked children -- and, of course, was a “dry.”  He was an uncompromising Christian, but a down-to-earth man.  He loved the outdoors and was an artist with the old-fashioned single shot shotgun.  He hunted for the table, and Joe vividly recalled lifting the lid of a pot simmering on his grandma Marietta’s stove.  The delicious smell came from the squirrels stewing there, but Joe didn’t have the appetite to eat anything -- Marietta cooked them with the heads on.

          Joe remembers his grandmother coming to stay with them:  “She was skilled in housework and was no stranger to hard work.  In 1911 she came to my parents’ home to live with us more or less permanently, as her health was failing.  She was not bedfast at any time.  We boys didn’t even know she was sick.  My father was a genial man and there were two or three relatives living with us all the time, including Marietta’s only son Elmer, who was scared to death she would catch him smoking.

          “She was rather short and plump, not overly religious, and possessor of quite a temper when aroused, which was infrequent.  She was well educated and spoke some German.”

          Ruth Hopson Bailey, daughter of Marietta’s daughter Maggie, was five years old when her grandmother died, and she recalls quite a bit about the occasion.  Her family was living in Ripley, West Virginia, when her mother received the message that Marietta had had a stroke and was unconscious.  Ruth was certain that this was in 1916 when she was five years old and her younger brother Tom was a baby.   The family got on the train to make the trip to Ward where Marietta had been staying with Lizzie.  Lizzie’s stepson met the train and told them that Marietta had died after being unconscious for three days.  Maggie was, of course, very upset at not being able to see her mother alive again.

          Kanawha County, West Virginia, does not have an official death certificate on Marietta Strausbaugh Walter.  I have been given conflicting dates on her death as well as her birth.  Her daughter, Sarah Margaret Walter Hopson, gave me the date of her death as 1915; and Daniel Walter’s Memoir in the West Virginia Conference Journal gave the date as 1916.  The brief family history in Shawkey’s History of West Virginia[25] gave the death date as 1912.  However, the cemetery stone, of which I have a photo, gives the date as 1916, which corresponds with Ruth’s recollections.

Photo thanks to Joe Inghram!

 Marietta Walter tombstone

          I have three photographs of Marietta:  a group picture which includes her husband, two daughters, and others; a photograph identified on the back as Marietta and her mother, and another one of Marietta and an unidentified woman, possibly her sister Sadie but I have no way of knowing.

          Marietta was buried in the Cobb Cemetery near Charleston, West Virginia.[26]

          According to Joe Inghram, when World War I came, Elmer served in Belleau Wood and was decorated by both the U.S. and French governments.  He was severely shell shocked and spent the rest of his life in and out of the Veterans Hospital in Pittsburgh.  He worked for 25 years for Stanley Hinge Company in Pittsburgh.  He died in September 1966 and is buried in the Allegheny Cemetery, Pittsburgh.[27]  (I have tried to obtain his military records without success; apparently there was a fire where the World War I records were stored in St. Louis, destroying many records.)

          The 1920 census of Kanawha County, WV, shows Elmer Walter, age 25, living with his sister Elizabeth Inghram and her family.

          Anna May and her husband Morden Curry lived in Pittsburgh many years.   The 1930 census of Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, PA, shows Myrdant Curry, 49, oiler in a hinge factory, wife May A. 43, daughter Virginia 21, and May's brother Elmer J. {Walter], 38, laborer in a hinge factory.

          Dan Walter’s other grandchildren were the children of his daughters Lizzie and Maggie.  Lizzie and Frank Inghram had five sons[28]:

          Joseph Webster (30 March 1906-August 1986)

          Robert Leo (1907-72)

          George Clifford (23 July 1909-2 September 1989)

          Samuel Leonard (1918-        )

          William Davis (1920-1971) (a Presbyterian minister)[29]

          Maggie and Reverend Thomas J. Hopson had seven children:

          Edith Margaret (1906-1975)

          Olive Mae (1908-1991)

          Ruth Mary (1910-1987)

          Mabel (1912-1913)

          Thomas J., Jr. (1915-1983) 

          Carl Daniel (1916-1988)

          Gail Joy (1923-1994)

          In 1919 Daniel married Edna Blanche Greene (1881-1966) of Philippi, Barbour Co., WV, daughter of Marion Sylvester Greene and Mary Elizabeth Bolton, and they had 25 years together before his death.

Photo thanks to Joe Inghram!

Daniel W. Walter & Blanche Green Walter

[unable to find Daniel & Blanche in 1920 census]

          The 1930 census of Buckhannon, Upshur County, WV, shows D.W. Walter, 70, first married at 22, born Pennsylvania; and his wife Blanche, age 48, born in West Virginia.

          He retired from the ministry in 1929 and managed to buy a small house behind the Buckhannon High School, and later traded it for a better one farther out in the country.  He was drawing a $75 a month pension from the Methodist Church.  He rented a one-acre plot to raise a garden, and it was there, working in the corn, he had his fatal heart attack on the morning of May 25, 1944, at age 84.[30]

          He was buried in the Mt. Vernon Cemetery at Philippi, in an honored spot near the door of the little church.  His second wife, Blanche Greene Walter, who died in 1966,[31] is buried beside him.  His Memoir in the West Virginia Conference Journal states, “He has left the church militant and joined the church triumphant.”[32]

Photos thanks to Dee!

Walter Tombstone

Daniel Walter Grave Marker

          Lizzie’s husband Frank Ingraham died in 1931 and Lizzie died 15 November 1968.

          Anna May died in 1967 in Pennsylvania.  I have no date of death for her husband.

Sources of information:

Letters from their daughter, Sarah Margaret Walter Hopson (1884-1971)

Letters from their grandson, Joseph Webster Inghram (1906-1986)

Conversations with their grandson, Thomas J. Hopson, Jr. (1915-1983)

Hopson Family Bible (in my possession)

Inghram Family Bible (in the possession of George Inghram’s family)

Conversations with their granddaughter, Ruth Hopson Bailey (1910-1987)