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Earl
Norman Stairs |
Earl Norman Stairs was born on Nov. 24, 1904 in Mt. Pleasant, Westmoreland County, PA, the son of Lehman G. and Mattie (Minerd) Stairs. He and his sister Pearl were twins, and their names rhymed.
Tragically, when Earl was 20, he survived a severe burn in an oil explosion that claimed the life of his older brother Ray. In March 1924, the brothers were caught "in the Freedom Oil Company's gasoline explosion" near Mt. Pleasant, said the Connellsville Daily Courier. They were rushed to the nearby Frick Memorial Hospital. Two weeks later, on March 27, Ray died of his injuries, though Earl was "getting along nicely at the hospital," said the Courier.
When the federal census was taken in 1930, Earl was employed as an insurance agent. At age 25, he was single, and resided in the home of his parents and widowed twin sister Pearl Hence on Diamond Street in Mount Pleasant.
In September 1931, Earl is known to have attended a 25th wedding anniversary reception for his cousin Alvin P. Thurston in Mt. Pleasant.
Earl and his sister Pearl and her son Edward all shared a home in Mount Pleasant in 1940, when the U.S. Census again was taken. At the time, he earned a living as a laborer with the Works Progress Administration. The WPA was one of the ways President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the federal government tried to overcome unemployment during the Great Depression. It is widely considered one of the Roosevelt's largest and most ambitious undertakings of his "New Deal" to get the nation back on sound economic footing. Over the years, the WPA hired millions of out-of-work individuals to build public works projects, such as roads, bridges, retaining walls and buildings.
Earl eventually married Mary S. Hughes (1904-1943), daughter of Sidney E. and Mary (Musick) Hughes of Latrobe, Westmoreland County. They are thought to have had two sons.
They resided near Lycippus, in the Mt. Pleasant vicinity.
Sadly, Mary contracted breast cancer and passed away at age 38 on April 21, 1943. Mary's obituary in the Courier does not give details of her untimely death, nor does it identify their sons. Ironically, she and Earl's uncle, Charles W. Thurston, died one day apart. She was placed into rest at St. Paul's Lutheran Cemetery in Trauger, Westmoreland County.
Earl appears to have married a second time to Louise V. (1915-1974).
In 1975-1977, Earl was residing in McKeesport, near Pittsburgh.
Death spirited him away in May 1982, at the age of 77. His remains were lowered into eternal repose beside Louise's in Jefferson Memorial Park in Pleasant Hills, PA.
Copyright © 2001, 2010, 2022 Mark A. Miner