CHAPTER 2
William Wilson Meredith (1869-1950) was prominent enough in his day to have several write ups upon his death. He had a finger in a
lot of pots. He owned a feldspar mine, farmed, and operated a lumber mill, but his main holdings were real estate in Modena and West Chester. He owned two houses in West Chester and died in the one at 413 West Minor Street.18 He owned a track of land in Modena that included a line of row houses, apartments and the Meredith General Store. These all were on Meredith Row. (I visited Modena with my daughter Noelle several years ago. The General Store and the row houses still existed, but it was a Hispanic neighborhood. The street name had been changed to Meredith Court, perhaps to give it more class than Row.)
William and Hanna had three children, two boys and a girl. Benjamin Franklin Meredith III was the middle child and my paternal grandfather (pictured left). Young Ben injured his back working at his dad’s lumber mill. He managed the General Store after that.
In 1937 tragedy struck hard at my father’s family. His Maternal Grandfather William E. Townsley, his Grand Uncle James Townsley and his father all died of pneumonia within a three-week period. Benjamin died when 37 years old. My father, a high school dropout, was without a father at age 18 and the soul support of his mother and two brothers. His Grandfather and namesake refused to do anything to help the widow and her boys. (Pictured right: l to r – My dad William, Florence, Francy, Benjamin and Ben IV.)
Why?
William W. certainly had the funds and where-be-all to aid his late son’s family. Why did he choose to turn his back? It was partly because he hated my father for being born and his mother for baring him.
Blaming the Baby for the Sins of the Father
Florence Blanche Townsley (pictured on right with my dad in the buggy and pregnant with Uncle Ben) had been William and Ella’s hired help, a
mere cleaning woman, and a servant. But she married their son and became their daughter-in-law in 1918. They considered her a gold digger and accused her of seducing their son into getting her pregnant. Was this true? The facts are she did get pregnant by Benjamin out of wedlock and she was six years his senior. She was a woman in her mid-twenties and he was a boy of 19 when they wed. My father was the result of it, not the cause, yet the Grandparents held it against him all their lives.
With little resources and four mouths to feed, my dad enlisted in the CCC. This was one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s alphabet soup answers to the Great Depression. The initials stood for the Civilian Conservation Corps and it existed from 1933 to 1942. It was open to single, unemployed men from relief families and provided manual labor jobs.
When my father announced to his Grandparents what he had done, Ella (as she was known) ordered him to rescind his enlistment.
“No one in this family will be associated with that, it’s nigger work,” she said.
Dad ignored her. He worked for the CCC in Virginia, helping build the Skyline Drive. It was a semi-military existence and they lived in camps where they worked. It was hard labor with $25 of the monthly pay of $30 sent back to his family in Modena.
When Ella died at age 82, my father went to her deathbed to say his final goodbye. As he walked into the room he heard her say to one of the others, “Don’t tell me that ne’er do well Bill is here?”
On May 14, 1950, William Wilson Meredith the First died after several months of ill health. He was 81. All his holdings went to his wife, but Ella died only a few weeks later on June 4, 1950. Most of the estate went to their oldest son John McCleese Meredith (1895-1983) and their daughter Amanda Ella Meredith Jones (1906-1999). The will states her name as Ella M. Jones, the M for Meredith.
“And I nominate and appoint the said John M. Meredith and Ella M. Jones, as executors of my estate.
“In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand this 31st day of March, 1949.”
The premises at 409 and 413 West Miner Street in West Chester were left to Ella.
409 W. Miner Street, as it looks today, is pictured on the left. This is considered an upscale neighborhood. 413 W. Miner Street, the house in which my Great, Great Grandfather cast off his mortal coil, and pictured on the right, as I write this is on the market for a mere $1,300,000.
Since their middle child, Benjamin, had died in 1937, they left a far lesser share of the estate to his offspring because they held a grudge against their daughter-in-law.
Of the three grandsons she left $3,000 to my Uncle Ben, when he reached age 35, and $3,000 to my Uncle Francy, when he reached age 25, both sums to be held by John M. Meredith until those ages were attained.
This is the total mention of my father, their eldest grandson, in the will of H. Ella Meredith:
“I give and bequeath to my grandson, William W. Meredith, the obligations he now owes me.” 19
The obligation owed was $600 dad had borrowed to purchase a car.
“All their money,” she fumed, “and they give you that!”
The “that” was a bowl surrounded by cupids, an ugly thing of not much use. My mother took it back and got a refund, which amounted to three bucks and change. This made her even more anger.
“They stopped in a drugstore on their way to the wedding and bought that gosh-awful thing,” she said when she gave us the money she received on exchanging it. “He’s such a cheapskate.”
“That’s how the rich stay rich,” my Grandmother Brown put in.
Perhaps there is something of the truth to that. If John was the best off financially on my father’s side, Bobby Wilson was on my mother’s. There too was an odd gift flap, this time at our 25th Wedding Anniversary. Bobby and Floss Wilson gave us a blanket. There is nothing wrong with that, except it was a blanket for a single bed, not a double. It would not cover two people. Did they expect us to divorce shortly after our Silver celebration? Would we have had a custody battle over the blanket?
Learning these things answered a lot of questions for me. Why did my father seldom talk about his family, other than his brothers and why was he so much closer to all the Townsleys than the Merediths?
When my father mustered out of the CCC his brother Benjamin Franklin Meredith IV had come of age and had a job. His youngest brother, Francis D., known as Francy, was still a teenager in school. Ben could help out some with the support while my dad looked for work. While searching for work he was to find something of much more value to him.
Footnotes:
18. Coatesville Record
May 15, 1950
&
Daily Local News
May 14, 1950
19. Will of H. Ella Meredith
March 31, 1949
West Chester, Pa.
No comments:
Post a Comment