Edith McCrum Smith, daughter of John Milton Smith and Amanda Larimer Horne, was born in Apollo, Armstrong County, Pennsylvania on March 4, 1888. She was the third child of seven—Benjamin Gordon Smith, George Nelson Smith, Edith McCrum Smith, Howard Stanley Smith, Helen Margaret Smith, Bertha Edna Smith, and John Thompson Smith. She is my husband’s great-aunt with their nearest common relatives being her parents.
Neither the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania or Armstrong County recorded births during the period 1855 to 1892, so unfortunately there is no birth certificate for Edith. Instead, you have to look at church birth and baptism records. Luckily, there is a Register of Baptisms for Apollo’s First Presbyterian Church, which is apparently where the Smith family worshiped. On page 140, I found six of the seven Smith children listed. The entire family is grouped together, so they were apparently re-written from other entries, or perhaps the church was catching up on member information and it was compiled at that point. Within the entries, I found several discrepancs, with two of them related to Edith:
- The family name—Smith—was not included at all. The person recording the children simply listed “J. M. & Amanda his wife” in the “Parents’ Names” column, leaving their last name out in the “Names” column.
- Ben should have been recorded as Benjamin.
- Edith was recorded as Elizabeth. I have found no other record showing her with that name.
- Edith’s birthday was recorded as March 11, not March 4.
- I have always been told Bertha’s name was “Bertha Edna Smith” not Edna Bertha. It could be either. Regardless, in this list she was recorded as Elva, not Edna.
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Apollo’s First Presbyterian Church baptism record (first page) |
I found a second First Presbyterian Church record listing the Smith children individually, although not all of them. Edith was one of the children not listed. Among the discrepancies in this record were the following:
- Page 154 records Benjamin as Bennie.
- Page 158 records George’s birth year as 1886, not 1885.
- Page 164 records Howard but does not include a birthdate.
- Page 178 included both Helen and Bertha. Helen’s birth year was recorded as 1896, not 1895. Bertha’s was recorded as January 22 rather than the 24th.
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Second First Presbyterian Church baptism record |
I highlight these discrepancies to demonstrate how records can be inaccurate. With that said, my husband and I are in possession of a red memo book that Bertha left behind. Inside the book, she wrote birth and death dates for at least two generations of this Smith family. On two different occasions, she recorded Edith’s birth as March 4 vs. March 11.
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Both entries from Bertha's red memo book |
Further down in this post, you can see that Edith’s tombstone is very aged and difficult to read. The photo was probably taken 20 years ago. I cannot remember if I took it when visiting the cemetery with my mother-in-law, or if it was taken by another researcher I once worked with. It could be either. Whatever the case, I was not aware of the baptism record at the time so have used the birthdate provided by Edith’s sister, Bertha, and by the birthdate recorded on her death certificate—March 4. Now back to the baptism record, the second page record does not tell us much, but does record Edith’s death date.
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Apollo’s First Presbyterian Church baptism record (second page) |
On June 25, 1900, Edith and her family lived in Washington, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. Edith’s parents had been married for 18 years. Her mother was enumerated as having had six children, all of which were living. Her father was a rougher, operating “roughing mill roll stands to reduce steel billets, blooms, and slabs to specified dimensions” in a sheet mill. Her brother Ben worked as a clerk in some sort of depot (I am unable to read the type of depot in the census record). George, Edith, and Howard were attending school. Her brother John was born after this census was taken.
At some point in her short life, Edith contracted measles, resulting in her going blind. Her parents sent her to the Western Pennsylvania Institution for the Blind in Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, probably to learn the skills now requred to get her through life.
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Western Pennsylvania Institution for the Blind. Photo used with permission of My Genealogy Hound, http://mygenealogyhound.com/index.html. |
About October 8, 1906, Edith contracted typhoid fever and was admitted to Mercy Hospital in Pittsburgh where she was attended by Dr. Joseph A. Baird. He last saw her October 23, one day before her October 24th death. A week earlier, 163 cases of typhoid fever had been reported in Pittsburgh, with several ending in death. At the age of 18, Edith’s parents buried her at Apollo’s Riverview Cemetery on October 26. Although her death came first, she shares a tombstone with her parents and sister, Helen. As mentioned above, Edith’s side of the stone is difficult to read.
Updated April 29, 2024 to add a new photo of Edith's tombstone.
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Photo by T. Heasley; used with permission per Find A Grave profile |
Edith’s death certificate listed her occupation as school girl. Like her sister Helen, Edith had heart trouble. She never married or had children.
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Edith's death certificate |
The photo of Edith below is actually a button pin and is the size of a quarter. I wrote about the pin in 2016. You can read that post here.
References
- Bertha Smith Athya red memo book.
- Deaths of One Week: Typhoid Fever Claims Several Victims and Many New Cases of the Disease Are Reported, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, October 26, 1906..
- Edith Smith Certificate of Death no. 100243, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Bureau of Vital Statistics, 1906.
- How to Find Pennsylvania Birth Records; https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/How_to_Find_Pennsylvania_Birth_Records.
- Personal visit to Riverview Cemetery, Apollo, Armstrong County, Pennsylvania.
- Rougher: A description for the rougher job; https://job-descriptions.org/rougher.html.
- U.S. Federal Census, Washington, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, 1900.
- U.S., Presbyterian Church Records, 1701–1970, Apollo, Pennsylvania, First Presbyterian Church, Baptisms, Births, Deaths, 1904–1907.
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