John
A. Logan Strauch
(1891-1926)
John
A. Logan Strauch was born on April 18, 1891 near
Dawson, Fayette County, PA, the son of John and Mary
Hester (McKnight)
Strauch. He was one of many Minerd-Miner-Minor cousins to be killed in
a railroad accident.
John was married to Anna C. Moon (1890-1944). They had two sons, Paul Logan Strauch and Kenneth Strauch.
John was a laborer for the Pennsylvania Railroad,
working in connection with shipments to and from the W.J. Rainey coke operations
in the region. He was a member of the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen No. 461,
an early union-type organization.
In 1918, the Strauchs lived in McKeesport, near Pittsburgh. Later, in the 1920s, the family resided at Clarksville, Greene County, PA.
Tragedy struck suddenly on June 6, 1926, when John was instantly killed in a railroad accident. He was just age 25.
The Uniontown Morning Herald of June 7, 1926 reported that John:
... fell between two railroad
cars while working on the Monongahela Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad at
Clarksville.... [He] had worked for the railroad for a number of years, at
one time working out of the Rainey yards here, and was employed in the
Brownsville section at the time of his death. The crew was shifting cars
when the accident occurred.
John was buried in the Strauch family plot at Dickerson Run Cemetery, near Vanderbilt, Fayette County.
More
than four years later, on the evening of Sunday, Sept. 14, 1930, John's memory
was honored at a memorial service held at the South Brownsville Methodist
Episcopal Church on Second Street in South Brownsville. The service involved not
only the Railway Trainmen but also the brotherhoods of Locomotive Engineers,
Railroad Trainmen and Order of Railway Conductors, as well as the Ladies
Auxiliary to the Railway Trainmen. In all, 56 deceased members were memorialized
that evening, with their names printed in a special booklet. A copy of that
booklet today is preserved in the Minerd-Miner-Minor Archives, and is seen at
left. (John's name is the very last one on the right-hand page.)
Anna lived for another 18 years, and passed away in 1944.
Son Paul (1918-1994) married Delilah Madison in about 1938. They were married for 56 years. He was "a veteran of World War II and was a retired employee of the former Pennsylvania Railroad," said the Uniontown Herald-Standard. He is believed to have been Assistant to the President of the Pennsy, and to have attended a retirement dinner of a Monongahela Railway Company employee, and pictured in a related newspaper article. Circa 1994, they lived in Allison Park, Allegheny County, PA. He died at Macrina Nursing Home in Uniontown on Sept. 29, 1994, and was buried at Dickerson Run Cemetery. Their children were John Logan Strauch, Arthur Strauch and Nancy Micher.
Copyright © 2000-2006 Mark A. Miner