Austin
J. Firestone Sr.
(1865-1941)
Austin J.
Firestone Sr. was born in 1865 in Somerset County, PA, the son of Lewis
and Sarah Ann (Rose) Firestone.
At the age of 25, on Sept. 4, 1891, Austin married 17-year-old Mary 'Mollie' Elizabeth Stillwagon. She was the daughter of Boston B. and Lavine Stillwagon of Fayette County. The ceremony took place in Uniontown, Fayette County.
They had 11 children – Norman Firestone, Lenora L. Firestone, Woodrow Firestone, John Wesley Firestone, Sarah Messenger Condie, Grace Echard, Lenora Firestone, Eva Parfitt, Lavina Harrison, Austin J. Firestone Jr. and Lydia McCall.
Sadly, daughter Lenora died of diphtheria at the tender age of two years, eight months, on Oct. 24, 1900. She was buried in the family plot at Rich Hill Cemetery near Connellsville.
The Firestones lived in Connellsville, and later near the Pleasant Valley Country Club in nearby Bullskin Township. Said the Connellsville (PA) Daily Courier: "In his early life he was a school teacher at Normalville, Springfield township. He served for a time as a member of the Board of Education of Bullskin township…" Austin's name was listed among those who attended the 37th annual Fayette County Teachers Institute in December 1890, in a story printed in the Uniontown (PA) Genius of Liberty.
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Pleasant Valley Country Club -- a prominent landmark near the Firestone home |
Later, said the Courier, "for 38 years [Austin] was a brakeman for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, having been retired in 1929." He apparently drew a railroad pension for his years of work. Later in life, he served as justice of the peace near Connellsville.
Circa 1927, Austin and Mollie had a telephone in their dwelling, with the number "4100-R-2."
Austin died
at age 75 on Jan. 14, 1941. He was buried at Mount Olive Cemetery. At the time
of his death, they had 23 grandchildren. Later
that year, the nation was plunged into World War II.
Son Norman Firestone (1893-1969) married Rose (died 1948). He was a veteran of World War I, and a longtime carpenter, residing at Searights near Uniontown, Fayette County. They had seven children, including Dorothy Labo, Robert L. Firestone, Anna Kvaskovsky, Victoria Churan, Donald G. Firestone, Norman R. Firestone Jr. and Rose Mary Holland. Two sons served in the military during wartime -- Norman (World War II) and Robert (Korea).
Daughter Eva Firestone (1903-1982) married John M. Parfitt (1905-1977). He worked for U.S. Steel’s Christy Park works in McKeesport, Allegheny County, PA.
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Firestone-Stillwagon reunion at Austin and Mollie's home circa 1927 |
Daughter Lavina Firestone (1906-1984) married William H. Harrison Sr. (1905-1983). They lived at Crucible, PA. Later, he was a millwright at St. Joe Minerals Corporation (formerly St. Joe Lead) in Monaca, Beaver County, PA. They resided in New Brighton, Beaver County, and had three children -- William H. Harrison Jr., Vernon Harrison and Norma J. Holsinger.
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Son Vernon Charles Harrison served in the US Army in Italy during World War II.
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Son William H. Harrison Jr. also served in the Army during the war.
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Daughter Norma J. Harrison (1931-2008) was born in Crucible. She married Richard C. Holsinger ( ? -1960), had three children and resided in Pulaski Township, Beaver County. Norma "was a retired employee of the former Westinghouse Corporation, Vanport," said the Beaver County Times. "Protestant by faith, she was a former licensed practical nurse with the former Rochester Hospital." She passed away at the age of 77 on April 15, 2008, and was laid to rest in Sylvania Hills Memorial Park.
Daughter Grace Firestone married Peter Echard. They resided in Greensburg, Westmoreland County, PA. Their son Richard E. Echard served in the Army during World War II.
Daughter Sarah Firestone (1909-1991) married Donald Grove Messenger (died 1955) and Charles A. Condie (died 1975). She lived in Aliquippa, Beaver County, PA (circa 1982) and was a nurse at the Beaver Valley Geriatric Center in Beaver. “She served as worthy high priestess of the White Shrine of Jerusalem, and as past mother advisor of the Rainbow Girls, Rochester,” said the Beaver County Times.
Son Austin Jr. (1910-1994) married Lillian Breagle. He worked at Robertshaw Controls in New Stanton, Westmoreland County, PA. He was a deacon with the First Baptist Church of Greensburg, and a Boy Scout troop leader.
Son Woodrow Firestone (1913-1988) resided in Carmichaels, PA and Salem, OH. He was married and had three children.
John
Wesley Firestone (1901-1970) is seen at left. He was born in May 1901 in
Connellsville. He worked in a variety of
trades, including coal mining (“They call this the Hardly Able Coal Company,”
he liked to joke). He also labored in road construction and trucking throughout
Western Pennsylvania. (He is seen at right
in work clothing.) He played the fiddle and mandolin at country dances.
From 1937 through 1966, he was a machinist in the Roaster Plant
Maintenance Division of the St. Joe Lead Company zinc smelter on the Ohio River
near Monaca, Pennsylvania. In 1941 he
married Rita Marian Reinehr (1914-1998). They had one child, Mary Aloyse
Firestone in 1942. They lived in
Beaver, Rochester, and Baden, Beaver County, PA. John
was an avid still and movie photographer and fisherman. He enjoyed automobile
trips around the U.S. and Canada with his family.
After his retirement in 1966, he fulfilled a lifelong ambition --
visiting a famous redwood tree in California; he had seen a picture of a
horse-drawn wagon driving through a tunnel in the trunk of the giant tree and
was able to photograph his own car in the same spot.
He died of congestive heart failure in 1970.
Daughter Lydia Firestone (1916-1996) married David L. McCall (1917-2003). In 1928, he founded McCall Press in Beaver Falls, Beaver County, PA. She was President of Beaver County Council of the PTA, on the Beaver Falls Mayor’s Advisory Council and active with a local poetry society.
A nephew on the Stillwagon side of the family -- Arnold McMahon -- was an avid historian and photograph collector. He was active for many years with the Beaver County Historical Research and Landmarks Foundation. He also published three books of photographs, entitled Beaver County Album, Beaver County Album II and Beaver County Album III. His extensive archive of thousands of old images now comprises the Graule-McMahon Collection of Graule Studios in Rochester, Beaver County.
Copyright © 2004, 2008 Mark A. Miner.
Many thanks to Mary Aloyse Firestone for the John Wesley Firestone material.