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Charles Mason Gorsuch |
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| Maple Summit Church Cemetery |
Charles Mason Gorsuch was born on Oct. 1, 1881 (or 1886) at Connellsville, Fayette County, PA, the son of Richard Mason and Martha (Minerd) Gorsuch.
Charles was of medium height and build, with blue eyes and dark hair. He never married, but "always have made my home with my mother," he once wrote, first at Maple Summit, Fayette County, PA, and then in Rockwood, Somerset County. He made his wages as a laborer.
Charles often helped soothe tensions when his father and mother argued bitterly and later separated. In 1921, after his father had been missing for some nine years, Charles was interviewed by a government investigator. In his testimony, now on file at the National Archives in Washington, DC, Charles recalled that in early 1912:
We had word that my father was sick at Vanderbilt and my brother Richard and I went to see him there and found him sick and weak, living alone in a shanty, and willing to return home if physically able to make the trip; As we had walked to Stewarton to take the train, it was necessary to return home and take a rig to Ohio Pyle Sta. and bring father home in a rig, so I did this the following day accompanied by Will Johnson.
The father was never found and eventually legally declared dead.
Charles in September 1918 was required to register for the military draft during World War I. At the time, he lived in Rockwood and earned a living as a laborer for the Ivy Ridge Coal Mining Company. He listed his mother as his next-of-kin.
The federal census of 1920 shows Charles at age 39, now residing under the roof of his married sister Edna Hyatt in Confluence, and employed as a timber laborer. The census-taker misspelled his name as "Gorsige."
In August 1924, Charles and his mother, mother, sister Edna Hyatt and brothers Richard and Carl, were among a crowd of 82 who attended the annual Minerd-Miner Reunion held at Lincoln's grove, near the Western Maryland Railroad Station in Confluence, Somerset County. In an article about the reunion, the Meyersdale Republican reported: "A very successful and pleasant reunion of the Minard family was held ... A fine picnic dinner was partaken of at 12:30 p.m., after L.L. Mountain invoked a blessing." In the article the family name was misspelled as "Gorsage."
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| Somerset County Home and Hospital, where Charles lived at the end |
Charles lived only a few years afterward, and afflicted with a debilitating illness, could not work. He was sent to live at the Somerset County Home and Hospital. He suffered a stroke and died on June 21, 1926, at the age of 40.
He is buried at the Maple Summit Church of God beside his ill-fated brother Floyd, and near his infant sister Leah and grandparents Charles and Adaline (Harbaugh) Minerd.
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