Bertha's school friends and teacher

This is another photo from Bertha Smith Athya’s photo collection. Look closely and you’ll see Bertha wrote a number beside or near each person in the photo. 

On the back of the photo, she wrote the following:

1 Violet Barber Townsend

2 Jane Moor Zimmerman

3 Mary Boden Carnahan

4 J. B. Anderson (you can see “Teacher” very lightly penciled in)

5 Betty Barber Harmon

6 Bertha Edna Smith 

I found other photos of several of the girls in the collection:

Voilet Townsend and her husband

Mary Boden

Betty Harmon

J. B. Anderson would have been James Braden Anderson, their school teacher. James, born December 27, 1870 in Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, was the son of John Calvin Anderson and Ida Sarepta Sarver. He and his wife Charlotte (Duke) Anderson lived in Vandergrift Heights, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania in 1907. James died of cardiac failure at the age of 96 in the White Township of Indiana County, Pennsylvania. James’ obituary, published by the The Indiana Gazette on October 25, 1967 noted … “Upon graduation from Grove City College, he began teaching at Petrolia, Pa., and taught 37 years in Pennsylvania. His last years of service were in the Ernest Elementary School where he was principal for 14 years. …” 

Bertha was born in 1898 and looks to be in her early teens so I’m guessing this photo was taken about 1911 or 1912. Bertha was my husband’s grandmother. No one else in the photo are related.

References

• James Braden Anderson Certificate of Death no. 097303-67, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Health, Vital Statistics, 1967.
• James Braden Anderson obituary, The Indiana Gazette, Indiana, Pennsylvania, October 25, 1967.
• Lois Viola Anderson, Certificate of Birth, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Bureau of Vital Statistics, 1907.
• United States Federal Census, Vandergrift Heights Borough, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, 1910.