!
Bellefonte, Pa., January 10, 1919.
To Correspondents. —No communications
published unless accompanied by the real
name of the writer,
Pr. GRAY MEEK, - - Editor !
Terms of Subscription.—Until further !
notice this paper will be furnished to sub- |
scribers at the following rates: 5 |
Paid strictly in advance - -
Paid before expiration of year - nw
Paid after expiration of year - 2.00 |
J... he ——————————————————
WORK OF THE ENGINEERS.
Major H. R. Cooper Writes Very In-
terestingly of Last Days of War
and What the Engineers
Found.
Back in October, while the war was
still at its height and the American
army was driving the Germans out
of the Argonne sector, the “Watch-
man” published a letter written by
Major H. R. Cooper to his father, H.
S. Cooper. The fact that Major Coop-
er, or “Rex,” as he is best known by
his Bellefonte friends, spent many
years of his life here would have, of
itself, attracted attention to his let-
ter, but in addition to that it was one
of the newsiest epistles that came
from the seat of war at that time.
And this week the “Watchman” is
privileged to publish another of the
Major's letters written after the arm-
istice was signed and we commend it
to our readers as being unusually in-
teresting. Major Cooper is with the
315th engineers and they evidently
saw plenty of action and played their
part well.
Stenay, France, Nov. 16, 1918.
Well, “le guerre finis,” and I'm
safe, sound and hearty as a dollar; a
little thinner, that’s all. Reckon I
can give you some dope now, so here
goes. Since we arrived in France we
have been on the front for sixty-sev-
en days fighting, gone over the top
in three grand and four small attacks,
have made some sixty odd raids and
never failed to bring home the bacon.
In fact in every attack the corps com-
manding officer had to halt us to al-
low the divisions on our right and
left to catch up with us. Once we
carried the whole corps along with us.
We received two grand citations for
our work on the St. Mihiel front, and
have already received three for our
work on this front, and have been told
that the best is yet to come. The end
of the fight, i. e., 11 o’clock, 11th day,
11th month, found us in Stenay, hav-
ing just driven the Hun out after a
house-to-house, barricade-to-barricade
drive of about eighteen hours contin-
uous fighting. We crossed the Meuse
at Sassey on the 10th on our last
grand attack, and they accuse us of
not quitting at eleven sharp... Our
last killed were at three minutes of
eleven. Our regiment has had one
lieutenant, one non-com., and one pri-
vate get the distinguished service
cross; two officers, four non-coms and
two whole companies cited—this all
from the St. Mihiel scrap—so Wwe are
some “set up.” And as everyone ex-
cept one officer and one non-com. was
from my battalion, why I claim the
best Bu., in the best regiment of en-
gineers, in the best division, in the
best army in the world, and the Bu.
will lick anyone who says it isn’t so.
Two of our officers were the first to
enter this town (Stenay), which they
did from the west side while on a
bridge reconnoissance some four days
before we took the place. They got
in without being fired upon, but ma-
chine gun bullets and one-pounders
chased them out and followed them
for a kilometer but “never touched
em.”
The last grave assault started No-
vember 1st. We have been on this
front since October 17th. Since Oc-
tober 23rd my Bu. has moved; work-
ed, eaten and slept under almost con-
tinuous shell-fire, from guns of all
calibres up to the 12 inch, (this
won’t mean much to those who have
not lived under it, but as a nerve-
breaker it has everything in the world
beaten), and this with no more shel-
ter than shacks and pup-tents afford-
ed. We moved so many times and!
worked so continuously that we never
had a chance to “dig-in,” so we dodg-
ed shells all day and laid at night and
wondered which one would get us.
For seven days we woke up every
morning to find that a shell or shell
fragment had gotten some one or
more of our men.
One night (October 30th) my Bu.
was ordered to rebuild a bridge the
Huns had blown out and also build a
ford to be available in case they shot
the bridge out again. As this work
‘was to be within two hundred yards
of the Hun lines, in a valley shaped
like a horseshoe, the hills of which
bristled with two hundred guns and
God only knew how many machine
guns and one-pounders, you can im-
agine it was some job. Then when
the “H” hour came (6:30 a. m., Nov.
1st), we were to open, clear and keep
clear two certain roads, follow the in-
fantry and open a road through No-
Man’s land for the artillery. The Hun
knew or felt that we were to attack.
He knew this town (Bautheville) was
the crossroads where our only road to
him lay; that this bridge was our on-
ly artillery passage, so for about
twenty hours he poured everything
he had on, or rather at, the town,
crossroads and bridge. We built the
bridge—no lives lost; we built the
ford—no lives lost, but had twenty-
seven slightly wounded and twenty-
six gassed, all cases that will be o.
in two or three weeks.
Then came November 1st. I was
so darned scared I took my motor-
cycle driver and we beat it up to the
crossroads about fifteen minutes
ty minutes pash ast the
ahead of my first company. At twen-
! came C company With Co Cte one
at their head. They “an. in single
| file, rifles slung Over their backs and
| their tools over their shoulders. Hon-
: est, I never was So proud of anything
in my life as I was of that bunch.
Shells were bursting around them and
.-among them, so fast that it seemed as
iif they would be annihilated. Yet I
| never saw a single man falter or
| break the line. They had to step over
: dead and wounded men, dodge falling
{ walls, and all of them knew they were
moving right up into direct machine
gun fire, and were going up to work
in it all day and maybe all night; that
Yetically it is limited for such work
| it was work and be killed, yet they
| moved as steady as clockwork. B |
company (Capt. Timmons) followed !
- were completely ransacked and every-
then A company (Capt. Millender).
A company stayed in the town and |
i worked in the shell-fire all that day,
‘ then. moved on ahead.
We drove the Hun so fast that at!
times our own engineers could hardly | here yesterday, about fifty British and
keep even a trail for artillery (light a lot of French and Italians, former
75s) to follow, but three times ma- prisoners, The Huns are simply turn-
chine gun fire checked us and each |ing them loose and telling them to
time my men got ahead of the infan-
try before they noticed the check and
twice I found nothing but space be-
tween me and the Huns. We had to
go ahead and reconnoitre the roads as
the Beasts were destroying and ruin-
ing as they retreated, and we simply
had, to know how to get our bridging
material to the Meuse. We finally
reached the river, but were so far
ahead of the rest of the corps they
wouldn’t let us cross, so for six days
we lay under shell-fire and nearly
killed ourselves trying to make a two-
ways road for guns weighing eighteen
tons out of a bottomless mud trail.
It kept us going day and night. Then
on the 10th we got the order to cross
and “sic em,” and we again went at
it.” We put several foot bridges across
and got onto a national highway. The
Huns had utterly destroyed five
bridges between Dun-sur-Meuse and
Mousay, but in four and a half hours
we had the infantry, artillery and am-
munition trains over the river, into
Mousay and after them. The Huns
had machine guns by the hundreds on
every hill, in every clump of woods,
and Stenay was alive with them, but
we went ahead, and at 9:45 on the
morning of the 11th had cleared all
but the northern edge of the city.
Some prisoners we took, when they
saw artillery in Mousay could scarce-
ly believe their eyes, as they calcu-
lated that two days would be a mini-
mum time for us to get artillery over
their destructions. So you see the
engineers “went some.”
And let’ me tell you: Fighting
courage is one thing, but the man who
can’t fight but has to take the hell
and keep on working has more cold
courage than any fighting man that
ever lived. Our stretcher bearers all’
prefer work in the front line to work
in the shell area, as they aver it is
much safer and not so hard on their
nerves."
We had the ceremony of the presen-
tation of the distinguished service
crosses to our men today, and it was
fine.
one of them, but a poor, darned major
of engineers: has about. as much
chance for a D. S. C. as a snowball i in
hades. |
Qur divisions are now moving on to
the Rhine, and through here are pass-
ing two divisions—from daylight un-
til dark one solid steram of men
horses and horse-drawn vehicles, and
auto-trucks—it seems as if they nev-
er will pass. ‘Since the armistice we
have been doing a lot of reconnoisance
work, which is very interesting. We
are finding “beaucoup” loot. The
Hun may have been hard pressed for
food on other fronts, but in this one"
town we have found -about 20,000
loaves of Hun bread, 5,000 to 10,000
bushels of fine potatoes, hay, wheat
and oats straw by the thousands of
tons, and barrels of sauer-kraut,
pickled onions, etc.; and in the fields
hundreds of acres of beets, cabbage,
rutabagas, sugar beets, onions, celery,
lettuce, carrots and other vegetables,
and so far as our “roughins” are con-
cerned we are living high. We have
also found large stores of Hun war
materials, 10,000 cans of .solidified
alcohol, thousands of tons of coal and
other stuff.
I have seen many interesting and
wonderful things. The Verdun bat-
tlefields, where every literal inch of
the ground is part of a shell crater,
all traces of trenches lost, Dead Man’s
hill, (Le Mort Hommes) where we
worked for four days and every time
a pick or shovel went into the earth
it brought up men’s bones or flesh;
Hill 304 nearly as bad; Bethincourt
Nealincourt, where not one stone re-
mains on top of another to show that
there had once been homes; Montfau-
con, where the Crown Prince went to
watch his troops take Verdun. He
had a shelter with more than twenty
feet of reinforced concrete and ten
feet of earth on top of that. It was
equipped with a wonderful periscope
sort of thing through which, while
seated in an easy chair, he could do
all his watching. The last building
in this town (Stenay) from which we
drove the Hun was the chateau in
which he lived for three years. The
beasts had not injured it in any way
and it is a beautiful place, It is now
a brigade P. C.
Wish you could see ‘the wonderful
system of 60 c. m. railroads the Hun
had built all through this country.
Vantillois was the railhead for his
broadguage, and really Montigny was
the big railroad for supplies, and
everywhere he used the 60 c¢. m., or
as we call it, the “Soixante.” We use
it now, and during our drive between
k. | the engineers of the division and
the Twenty-third engineers (the nar-
row guage railroad regiment—10,000
men) we had it working up almost to
the battle front all the time. It
brought up ammunition a distance of
nearly sixty kilometres, although theo-
I'd give five years to have been
to about ten miles, but “limits” didn’t
bother us at all.
We are now (until moved again) |
quartered in a very pleasant house, |
formerly used by a Hun regimental '
commanding officer, and yesterday the
lady who owns it came and
brought her two daughters, aged 15
and 19. They all three were ravished
three years ago and were forced to
live and work for the officers all the |
time they were here. Fifteen days:
before the Huns moved out all the in-
habitants were forced into the cellars
and kept there for four days. When
they came out they were herded to-
gether and headed for Belgium. The
houses during the four days the own-
ers were forced to stay in the cellar
thing in them literally torn to pieces
and destroyed. The refugees are be-
ginning to pour back now.
Eighteen hundred Russians came in
“peat it.” I noticed that they all
seemed well fed. I think the Hun is
lying about the starvation business.
He may be short in’ fats, he is short
on brass and copper, but he’s not
starved by one “hell-uv-a-site.” His"
new cartridges are iron, electro-plat-
ed with copper. Lots of his big gun
shells are all iron. He used high-ten- !
sion electricity everywhere and for
everything. His high-tension lines !
radiate over the entire country. He
had transformer houses—very neat!
ones—in every village, town and
camp, electric lights and motor-driv- !
en machinery everywhere. He utiliz-
ed all the water-power he could find |
to generate electricity. He had saw-
mills wherever there was timber and |
cut every available stick of hard wood !
throughout the entire country. We |
have many thousands of feet of every |
size lumber and timbers. He had
baths, hot and cold showers, and de- |
lousing stations everywhere. We
have repaired and are using now in
our division alone some twenty of
these plants.
In a word, the Hun carried on the
war in every phase with perfect Teu-
tonic thoroughness and let slip abso-
lutely not one single opportunity to
use everything he captured to the end
of assisting him in carrying on the
war; in fact his watchword was the
elimination of waste and the utiliza-
tion of everything he found at hand.
Just below this town is a rendering
plant capable of an output of 10,000
gallons a day. Evidence shows that
every dead horse went there. His
hide was salted down and everything
in him used, including his hoofs and
tail. We captured over 5,000 horse
hides, nicely ‘sorted, salted and packed
ready for shipment.
I really believe that the Hun could
get behind the Rhine and give us hell |
right now, but I.don’t: believe he 'w
One is -simply- forced: “fo-admire h
wonderful organizing and ‘utilizative
powers. I don’t believe anyone who
hasn’t seen ‘behind the’ lines—away
behind—can ever appreciate it, or re-
alize just how sure of, and close to,
winning the war he was.
The regiment is changing a lot. So,
many of our officers have returned to’
the States for promotion, some trans-
ferred to other regiments, another
regimental commanding officer, Lieut.
Col. Knapp gone—his health broke
down—(am hoping for. silver leaves
myself but as yet have seen no signs)
and while not a man of us would trade
for any other regiment in the world,
we all wish for our “Old Man,” Col.
Boggs, and the rest of the crowd. I
reckon it is the same with other out-
fits, but we had such a plumb, nice,
congenial bunch it seems very hard to
sée it gradually scattering to the
“four winds.”
As to our future, God only knows.
Reports say: e will be, we won't
be; we are, we “aint” part of the ar-
my of occupation. Or, we stay here,
we don’t; we move, we don’t; we go
front, we go rear, until we don’t much
give a d—n about it, either one way
or the other.
REX.
In a letter to his aunts, the Misses
Benner, of this place, under date of
November 26th, Major Cooper says:
“At the present time we are a part
of the army of occupation which is
marching into Germany, and at this
writing we are close to the Luxem-
burg border. I have been some forty
or fifty miles further on and have had
some very interesting trips and recon-
noissances, having visited many towns
in Belgium, Luxemburg and Alsace.
We have no idea how long they will
keep us over here, or how long we will
be a part of the army of occupation. In
fact we know nothing at all about
our future movements. Being a part
of the army of occupation is a great
honor which has been conferred upon
this division, so they tell us, on ac-
count of the very good fighting that
we did on the two fronts we occupied.
We are all very thankful that the war
ended before we had to spend the
winter in the trenches. It was begin-
ning to get very uncomfortable, to say
the least, and knowledge of the fact
that this winter will be spent in fair-
ly comfortable billets or camps, in-
stead of in the trenches, will do a lot
to reconcile us to not getting home
quite so soon.
“I have never had a chance to see
Bertha Laurie, as I found out where
she was when it was too late. I am
sorry, too, because I was down near
Isurtile a great many times, and had
I known she was there could have
made it a point to see her. Haven’t
seen any other Bellefonte people late-
ly, either.”
{oe waives) bons REX,
——Two dozen or more Bellefonte
men and their wives enjoyed a turkey
dinner at the Nittany Country club
last evening.
IS FRANK CRISSMAN DEAD?
Father Received Official
That Effect on Tuesday.
The following brief notice was re- |
|
1
CHARLES McCOY NOT DEAD.
Proves Incorrect.
When private Charles McCoy Jr, |
ceived from the War Department on son of Mr. and Mrs. Charles McCoy,
; of Bellefonte, reaches home, as he is
“likely to do soon, he will be able to
| read a notice of how he was killed in
| action in France as published in the
Tuesday by W. Homer Crissman:
Regret to inform you that bug-
ler Frank H. Crissman, of the
military police, died on October
3rd of wounds received in action.
According to information that is |
considered very reliable bugler Criss- |
man was wounded on October 2nd,
and letters received from other Belle- |
fonte boys during November stated
that he was getting along fine.
father, however, has not received any |
word from him since letters written | from the War Department that tHelr
in September and, although after
, hearing of his being wounded he !
made every effort to find out through |
| the War Department his condition he |
could get no further information than | |
the very unsatisfactory statement’
| that he had been severely wounded in .
action on October 2nd.
And now, |
after more than three months of un- |
| certainty, along comes the message
announcing his death from wounds.
' But the date given of his death is pri-
or to the time that other Bellefonte
. boys reported seeing him alive, SO |
' that the question of his death is very |
| uncertain.
Bugler Crissman, who was twenty- |
| six years old on the 5th of last June, |
went to Camp Hancock on September
‘ 11th, 1917, with Troop L. He trained
i there and when the First Pennsylva-
nia cavalry was broken up he was as-
signed to the military police. He went
across with the Twenty-eighth divis-
ion in May and as is generally known
: the Pennsylvanians were thrown into
| action at Chateau Thierry in July, and
| later transferred to the Argonne sec-
i tor. They were in most of the hard
| fighting preceding the signing of the
! armistice and their casualty lists were
i unusually heavy.
Mourning the uncertainty ‘of the
young man’s fate are his father, two
sisters and a brother, namely: Mrs.
A. B. Cromer, of Erie; Mrs. Maurice
Broderick, at home, and Luther, a
member of the supply company of the
109th field artillery in service in
France.
DAVID LAUCK KILLED IN ACTION.
On Sunday the sad message was re-
ceived in Snow Shoe announcing the
fact that David H. Lauck had been
killed in action in France on Novem-
ber first. Private Lauck was a son of
William and Lillian Lauck and was
twenty-six years old. The family
moved to Snow Shoe about seven
years ago and prior to going into the
service young Lauck was a trombone
player in the Moore band. ‘He was in-
ducted into the national army by the
local board and sent to Camp Medde
on May 28th. After five week’s train-
units that suffered heavy losses dur-
ing the big drive in the Argonne sec-
tor. While the announcement of his
death was naturally a great shock to
his parents their grief is somewhat
assuaged by the fact that he died such
a glorious death.
Prior to his being called for serv-
ice he was employed as a brakeman
road and was a most faithful and ef-
ficient employee. He had many
friends in Snow Shoe and surrounding
community who. deeply regret "his
death and will long cherish his mem-
ory as one of the brave boys who gave
his life in requiting the debt the Unit-
ed States owed to France.
Surviving him are his parents and
the following brothers and sisters:
Newton Lauck, of Runville; Mrs.
Thomas Stark, Mrs. Clark Huey, Mrs.
Howard Woleslagle, all of Snow Shoe;
Anna, Mabel and Mary, at home.
DIED OF WOUNDS.
Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Elton Kuhn, of
State College, last week received a
notice from the War Department that
their son, Charles E. Kuhn, had died
on October 5th of wounds received in
action on October 2nd. Private Kuhn
was one of the original Troop L boys
and in France served in the 109th field
artillery. The young soldier was
twenty years and six months old.
+ A Brief Letter from LeRoy Gates.
LeRoy Gates, a former Ferguson
township boy who went overseas as a
member of Ice Plant company 301, un-
der date of December 9th, wrote his
mother, Mrs. John Quinn, of Penn-
sylvania Furnace, as follows:
Just a few lines tonight, as every-
thing is practically the same. I had
a bad cold when I wrote last week but
I soon lost it. I think I have become
acclimated now to all the different
changes of weather in France. I am
| afraid we will all get sick at first
when we arrive in the States, but I
am willing to be sick a little while. I
think we will be back some time in
the spring, but the exact date is very
indefinite.
It is reported over here that some
of the people back home are reporting
that all the enlisted men are in the
service for four years, which shows
how much they know about it. All
men who enlisted in the regular army
are good for four years, but we fel-
lows who enlisted in the national ar-
my are for the duration of the war.
Of course, we are all regular army
now, but our enlistment period has
never been changed.
I sent you a chevron several months
ago and in five weeks now I will get
my second one. I am enclosing a sou-
venir coin—five centimes, equal to our
cent.
aT a LeROY.
Whatever you do don’t miss
the great photoplay, “Eye for Eye,”
January 13th, matinee and night.
on the Bellefonte and Snow Shoe rail-.
' Bellefonte papers and also see his pic-
ture in the same papers. Private Mec-
Coy went from a national army train-
ing cantonment to France in August,
i and according to reports was slight-
ly wounded and gassed on September
His | | th.
On November 20th his parents re-
i ceived the customary official notice
son had been killed in action in the
| Argonne sector on October 3rd. From
! other sources information was glean-
: ed which was considered correct that
private McCoy had been discharged
«from the hospital and rejoined his |
company on October 1st and was kill- |
ed in action on the third. His name
also appeared in the regular list of ;
; killed in action given out by the War |
1 Department.
Naturally there was nothing else
| for the family to do but accept the
8, Was sent AEToSS. to. France, :
oH 3 neds to Com- |
, 314th” ‘infantry, one of the
at the Scenic theatre next Monday, '
| facts as correct and mourn their boy
as being one of those who gave his
| life in the great cause. But during
{ the past two weeks persistent rumors
have been in circulation that private
McCoy was not dead. Like all rumors
it was impossible to chase them down
to a solid foundation. But all doubt
as to McCoy’s being killed in action
was dissipated on Friday when Mrs.
McCoy received a letter from her son, |
who is now in this country and ex-
pects to get his discharge soon and
return home. The letter is as follows:
Camp Stuart, Newport News, Va.
January 1, 1918.
Dear Mother: —
Well, mother, I am back in the good
old U. S. once more and I hope that I
will never leave it again. We sailed
from Bordeaux, France, on December
18th and landed in port here or the
30th, so you see that was making good
time. I am in the best of health and
feeling fine. I had a small wound on
my right side which has been healed
up for about two months.
We will leave here in a day or two,
and I found out that I am to be sent
to Pittsburgh, and I guess I will get
my discharge there. I have not re-
ceived a letter from home since Au-
gust, and I sure would like to know
how my dear son Donny is, and teil
him that his papa will be home soon;
and I would like to know how all of
the family are getting along. I will
Notice to Report that He Was Killed in Action |
|
close for this time but will write soon.
again. Your loving son,
CHARLES McCOY.
ovo
“Watchman” Has Located the
. Lost Boys... :
Some weds ago the “Watchman”
volunteered to ascertain the location
of any boys who are in the service,
who have not been heard from for
such a length of time as to give con-
cern to their relatives. :
We received a number of requests
for information and immediately wir-
ed. them to our correspondents,” the
Home Paper Service of America, with
the result that we are able to give this
information concerning their where-
abouts.
CHARLES R. HEVERLY
Charles R. Heverly, of Howard, Pa.,
has not been on the casualty list. The
address given by his relatives is in-
adequate to locate him for it indicates
him to be in a replacement detach-
ment. Mail should reach him through
that address, however. But the De-
partment in Washington has no way
of locating where he might have been
assigned, if he has been moved out of
the replacement detachment at all.
PATRICK QUIRK ;
Patrick Quirk, of Snow Shoe, has
no casualty report. His unit, Co. A,
28th infantry is part of the army of
occupation, located on the Rhine river
near Boppard, Germany.
LINZY ROSS
Linzy Ross, of Port Matilda, has
no casualty report. His unit, Co. L,
145th infantry, according to latest re-
ports, was located at Hondschoote,
France. It is on the priority or pref-
erence schedule and is apt to start for
home at any time, as shipping condi-
tions permit.
ROBERT H. COLE
Robert H. Cole, of Port Matilda, has
no casualty report. His unit, Battery
F, 314th field artillery, is located at
Dun-sur-Meuse, France, and is not on
the priority list.
DORS. A. PETERS
Dors. A. Peters, of Mill Hall,
left hospital after suffering slight
wound and returned to duty on Octo-
ber 12th, 1918. His unit, headquar-
ters company 77th field artillery, is
part of the army of occupation and
latest reports had it located near the
city of Kirchberg, in Germany.
Otlier inquiries which the “Watch-
man” has receivnd since the above
were made have been sent in and will
be reported on immediately they are
received.
The information given above is ab-
The
solutely correct and is all that can be ,
procured on this side of the Atlantic.
It seems to us, however, that it is
highly reassuring to anxious relatives
and should set their minds at rest
against the time when they should
surely hear from their loved ones per-
sonally.
If the “Watchman” can be of any
further service in any of these cases
or others command it.
—Mrs. David | R. Foreman has
purchased from Enoch Hastings the |
old Hastings home on” Spring street :
now occupied by Lewis Daggett and
family. Mr. and Mrs. Foreman will
occupy their new home on April first.
rn, |
WILLIAM A LVON
LYON.—Notwithstanding the fact
that he had been a sufferer for three
years or more with diabetes, and his
condition of late had been such that
it was evident that his end was near,
yet it was with extreme regret that
the people of Bellefonte heard of the
passing away at eleven o'clock last
Friday morning of William A. Lyon,
at his home on east High street. Dur-
ing the most of his long illness he
kept about by the sheer force of his
unusual will power and looked after
the details of his business, but much
of the time last summer he spent at
home. During the month of August
he was down at his place of business
several times but in September he
grew worse and was compelled to take
his bed. From that time on he suf-
fered considerable distress and misery
and the fact that his passing away
was calm and peaceful came like a
blessing.
He was a son of Moyer and Hannah
Lyon and was born in Danville on
March 6th, 1849, hence had reached
the age of 69 years, 9 months and 28
days. He first came to Bellefonte in
1872 and spent a short time here, but
in 1876 came here again and engaged
in the butchering business, making it
his life’s work. He exercised remark-
able judgment in buying stock for his
block with the result that he acquir-
ed a reputation at home and abroad
for his choice output. He was shrewd
and honest in all his dealings, with a
decision of character that is possess-
ed by few men.
His perception of human nature
was unusually acute and his rare judg-
ment was frequently consulted by
men in various walks of life, He was
jovial by nature and disposition and
had cultivated the art of witticism
and story telling to a remarkable de-
gree. In fact his reputation along
this line was more than state-wide,
and in the days when the late Gov- .
ernor Curtin was a prominent figure
in official life at Washington Mr. Ly-
on’ accompanied him on several occa-
sions to the national capitol and pit-
ted wits against some of the best ra-
conteurs of Washington, and always
to his credit. ;
He always took an active interest
in the affairs of the town and county,
but never sought any special prefer-
ence for himself. He served one term
as a councilman from the North ward,
| having been elected in 1913 for four
years.
Prior to coming to Bellefonte, or on
January 15th, 1875, he was united in
marriage to Miss Catherine Green-
slade, of Bristol, England, whose ac-
quaintance he formed while she was
visiting friends in America. She sur-
vives with five children, namely: Rob-
ert V., of Buffalo, N. Y.; Mrs. C. B.
Williams, of Bayonne, N. J.; Mrs. J.
E. Maginnes, of Atlanta, Ga.; Lieut.
Edward and Jack B. Lyon, both in
service in France. He was one of a
family of five boys and five girls, and
a peculiar incident of the family is
that the birth of each boy was follow-
ed by the birth of a girl. Of the fam-
ily of ten children six survive, as fol-
lows: Henry, of Norfolk, Va.;
Charles, of Danville; Jacob, of Belle-
fonte; Mrs. James Scarlet, Mrs. How-
ard Shultz and Miss Caroline Lyon,
all of Danville.
Funeral services were held at his
late residence on east High street on
Sunday afternoon and the remains
were taken on the early train Monday
morning to Danville for burial.
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RUNKLE.—Maurice Runkle died at
his home at State College on Friday
of last week after a brief illness with
pneumonia, the result of an attack of
the flu. He was a son of Mr. and Mrs.
John L. Runkle, and was born at Tus-
seyville on Jenuary 8th, 1879, hence
was within a few days of being forty
years old. He was united in marriage
to Miss Mamie Kline who survives
with no children. He leaves, howev-
er, two brothers, Lawrence, of Centre
Hall, and Wilbur, of Tusseyville. Bur-
ial was made at Boglspurg on Monday
afternoon.
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DUNKLEBARGER.—Grace Helen
Dunklebarger, daughter of Alfred
and Hannah Gettig Dunklebarger,
died at the home of her parents at
Pleasant Gap on Tuesday of cerebro
spinal meningitis, following a siege
of whooping cough. She was born on
February 17th, 1916, hence was 2
years, 10 months and 20 days old.
Owing to the nature of the disease
burial was made at Pleasant Gap on
Wednesday.
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SAGER.—Russell W., the infant
son of Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Sager, died
on Wednesday of last week following
a brief illness with influenza, aged 4
menths and .27 days. Burial was
made in the Union cemetery last Fri-
day.
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