Tombstone Tuesday: Sadie Davis

My great grandmother, Sadie Davis, has been one of my main focuses as of late. I was quite fortunate to discover her buried next to her daughter when I went to visit Upland Baptist Church Cemetery in October. There was a huge shrub planted right in front of her stone, so I had to take my picture at kind of a strange angle. Fortunately I had my mom there to help hold it back so I could get a photo.

Sadie's Find a Grave memorial is here.

Matrilineal Monday: Sadie Davis

I recently began digging in to the Delaware County (PA) digital archives and combing the old newspapers for mentions of my DelCo relatives. Of particular interest to me was my great grandmother, Sadie Davis. Sadie was born in 1894, in Upland, PA¹. She died in 1964 (a good 20 years before my birth!)², and her daughter, my grandmother, has also passed. Piecing together this side of my family has been challenging. I lack the personal information I have on my mother's family. It's hard to imagine these people and what their lives were like.

Fortunately, it seems news was slim in Chester back at the turn of the century (19th to 20th, that is). I found multiple mentions of Sadie in the Chester Times. Here are a few of them:

May 5, 1903: Hand Injury³

May 23, 1903: Ninth birthday Party⁴

May 4, 1937: '30 Years Ago'⁵

I also found Sadie in The Delaware County Daily Times.

April 16, 1962: Helping with local historic discovery⁶

There are several others. It was so interesting being able to read about her in the news. They're small tidbits, but together they give me a rough sketch. She seems interesting. She was an active member of her community. She was intelligent. What a wonderful discovery to make.
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¹Chester Birth Records 1889-1906, Archives, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, online , Davis data downloaded 20 November 2012.
²"Winnberg [obituary]," Delaware County Daily Times, 17 Feb 1964, p. 4.
³"Hand Lacerated," Chester Times, 5 May 1903, p. 2.
⁴"Young Girl's Birthday," Chester Times, 23 May 1903, p. 11.
⁵"Thirty Years Ago," Chester Times, 4 May 1937, p. 6.
⁶"Caleb Pusey House Day Observed," Delaware County Daily Times, 16 Apr 1962, p. 2.

Thriller Thursday: Always an Accomplice, Never a Bandit

Until recently, I had thought the only scoundrels in my family tree were the growing number of alcoholics. Enter George O. Shaffer. George Shaffer was my grandmother's brother. I never knew him, but my mother did. She told me he was 'a funny old bird' and my grandmother Sarah fretted over him often. He never married, he appeared and disappeared at random, and he sometimes drove a cab.

While browsing the digital archives for Delaware County, PA, and searching for newspaper mentions of my relatives, I did a search for George. At first I was skeptical about what I found, then, the evidence mounted.

Uncle George Shaffer was a convicted accomplice to Cliff Redden, known as the 'Flash Bandit' in the mid 1940s¹. Together with Flash and another accomplice, George participated in at least seven armed robberies and three car thefts. He was sentenced to 50-100 years of hard labor and solitary confinement at Eastern State Penitentiary².

Eastern State closed its doors in 1971, but evidence suggests he was already released by this time. George's mother, Sadie, passed away in 1964, and her obituary indicates that her son George was residing in Folcroft, PA³. I am working on obtaining the records of his incarceration to pin down the exact dates.

While some might say an armed robber deserves 50-100 years in prison, at least one person disagreed. John Parmer Gates, minister of the Upland Baptist Church, wrote an impassioned letter to the editor of the Chester Times⁴. George Shaffer, he wrote, "was hit by an automobile, which injured his right frontal lobe. He still bears a large scar which runs from above the forehead to the cheek. In the Army, while stationed in England and while in transit to the United States he was confined to a psychopathic ward. He was given an honorable discharge with a bill of poor health." All facts which the minister believed should have been considered at sentencing.
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¹"Young Bandits Admit Staging Three Holdups," Chester Times, 2 Feb 1946, p. 1.
²'"'Flash's' Pals Get 50 Years for Robberies," Chester Times, 25 Mar 1946, p. 1.
³"Winnberg [obituary]," Delaware County Daily Times, 17 Feb 1964, p. 4.
⁴"Upland Pastor Writes [Letter to the Times editor]," Chester Times, 28 Mar 1946, p. 6.