Photo of the Month April 2023

See Previous Photos     Unknown Faces and Places

The young Viola "Grace" McKnight poses for a simple but beautiful and somewhat mysterious photographic portrait circa 1900. The image made by a loving maternal uncle, William C. Nutt, who was a well-known commercial photographer. Grace grew up on the farm of her parents Henry and Martha (Nutt) McKnight at Lynn Station near Braznell, Fayette County, a community known today as Grindstone.

In 1912, at the age of 20, Grace was united in the bonds of holy matrimony with 21-year-old James Eli Soules. Together, the pair produced a brood of three children -- James Henry Soules, Hugh Melvin Soules and Martha Mae Cacchione. Grace and James eventually established their permanent home at 216 Grant Street in Canonsburg, Washington County, PA.

Sadly, she was felled by a cerebral hemorrhage and died on April 18, 1942 at the age of 50, "following an illness of three years," said a local newspaper. Her remains were lowered into the sacred soil of Little Redstone Methodist Cemetery, to sleep for the ages beside her parents and among many other McKnight uncles, aunts and cousins.  

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