Viola
(Younkin) Mountain
(1884-1947)
Viola Ray (Younkin) Mountain was born in March 1884 at Clay Run, Fayette County, PA, the daughter of William ‘Dayton’ and Lucinda (Harbaugh) Younkin.
Three days before Christmas in 1901, at age 17, Viola married 28-year-old teacher Joseph E. "Bert" Mountain (1876-1966) at her parents’ home near Clay Run. At the ceremony, said the Connellsville Courier, “Quite a number of guests were present.”
Viola and Bert resided in Greensburg,
Westmoreland County, PA. They had at least four children - Theodore
"Ted" Mountain,
Olive Silvis, Mildred Lucartha Mountain and Margaret P. Mountain. Viola (standing at right) and her children
are seen here, posed with flowers in a field, date unknown.
Bert was well known in the community, and once made news in the Courier for his efforts to grow a mustache. Said the story, "Bert Mountain’s mustache is on the move. It is all right in its way, but it doesn’t weigh enough."
A niece once recalled that Bert "was a professional man and always well-dressed."
When the federal census was taken in 1930, the Mountains made their home in South Greensburg Borough. That year, Bert was employed as a ticket express agent for the railroad, and son Ted as a printer in a local printing plant, daughter Mildred as a teacher and daughter Margaret as a stenographer in a hardware store. Married daughter Olive and her husband Jacob Silvis made their home under the Mountains' roof that year, with Jacob working as a dentist and Olive as a bookkeeper in a printing plant.
Viola died of cancer in August 1947, at age 63. The cause of death is not known. She was laid to rest in the Hillview Cemetery in Greensburg.
The same month that Viola died, son 'Ted' of Jeannette, Westmoreland County, attended the annual Harbaugh Reunion on Aug. 10, 1947, and was elected Secretary-Treasurer. He continued serving in this role each year until 1964. A copy of the minutes of the reunion meetings, in his handwriting, is in the Minerd-Miner-Minor Archives.
|
| Greensburg's West Pittsburgh Street, looking East. Note the courthouse dome in the distance. |
Bert outlived her for nearly two decades, and died on Oct. 17, 1966. He was buried in Hillview Cemetery in Greensburg.
Daughter
Olive Mountain (1902- ? ),
seen here, married Dr. Jacob R. Silvis (1900-1981), a
dentist of Scottdale, Westmoreland County, PA. Jacob died in May 1981 at the age
of 81. Olive passed away on New Year's Eve 1993 in Dunedin, Pinellas County, FL.
Daughter Mildred Lucartha Mountain (1908- ? ) was a public school teacher in 1930, and graduated from the State Teachers College of Indiana, PA in 1935. (Today the school is known as Indiana University of Pennsylvania.) She is listed in the college's Alumni Directory for 1940, which gave her address as 1239 Ashland Street in South Greensburg, and her occupation as "teacher." She also is said to have taught school in Pittsburgh. Her fate is lost to history for now.
Son Theodore "Ted" Mountain (1906-1999) later moved to San Diego, CA, and passed away in 1999.
The fate of daughter Margaret P. Mountain (1912- ? ) is unknown.
Copyright © 2001-2003, 2006, 2008 Mark A. Miner