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Birdie
(Minerd) Thomas |
Birdie Ethel (or "Bertie") (Minerd) Thomas was born in May 1890 in Dunbar, Fayette County, PA, the daughter of Andrew R. and Annie (Rhodes) Minerd.
Birdie's parents separated when she was young. She and her mother and sisters moved to Pittsburgh, residing with her grandmother at 814 Aiken Avenue. Tragedy was compounded on heartache in 1913, when Birdie's father was killed when he fell down some steps at a hotel in Dunbar.
On March 22, 1915, when she was age 25, Birdie married 30-year-old George Thomas (1885- ? ), the son of Frederick and Melinda (McLaughlin) Thomas of Uniontown, Fayette County. The ceremony was held at Birdie's home, officiated by Rev. J.H. Norcross, pastor of the Shadyside Baptist Church. News of the Thomas's wedding was announced by Anna's mother and published in the Pittsburgh Press.
At the time of marriage, George was a mechanic, and resided at 5837 Ellsworth Avenue in Pittsburgh. Said the Press: "Mr. and Mrs. Thomas will be at-home in the Lenox Apartments, Mathilda st., after May 1."
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| Looking east on Pittsburgh's Liberty Avenue, as seen from Sixth Street, early 1900s |
When George registered for the military draft during World War I, he was marked as working as a truck repairman for a company named Campbell. He was of medium height and build, with green eyes and black hair.
They are the same George and "Buela" Thomas enumerated in the 1920 federal census of Pittsburgh, living in a rented house on Clair (?) Street, with George employed as railroad company repairman; and George and "Burd" Thomas in the 1930 census, living on Pittsburgh's Coral Street, with George working that year as a laborer in a tire company. Both censuses show them with their one daughter, Jane Louise Thomas, born in 1917.
Circa 1942, they made their residence at 5 Clarendon Place in Pittsburgh's East End.
Birdie became sick in the winter of 1942, and was admitted to the Homeopathic Hospital. She did not recover, and died at the age of 50 on March 9, 1942. Funeral services were held at the Hartwell and Waples Funeral Home at Baum Boulevard and Graham Street in Pittsburgh. Her final resting place is not known. Birdie's obituary was published in her old hometown newspaper, the Uniontown Morning Herald.
George outlived Birdie, but his final fate is not known.
Daughter Jane Louise Thomas has faded into history, but her story will be told here when known.
Copyright © 2001, 2010 Mark A. Miner