Name/Title
AU Lambert, Elsie Pauline [Warfel] - 1975-01-22 letter to Malcolm Lambert SmithEntry/Object ID
1989.2.3Context
5561 Park Ave.
Bethel Park, Pa. 15102
Dear Malcolm:
I received your letter yesterday but today I have to write a book review and so cannot stop and get out the family history. You must have the letters I sent to Ernest Lambert a long time ago. I copied them and have those copies somewhere but can't put my hand on the right now. They were written in the 3Os and to my father who was trying to find out what had happened to all his father's brothers and sisters. He did go to California after that and did seen some of his cousins or cousins children but he never said much about the visit. At that time he also looked up his wife's daughter and son in law (that was when he was married to Martha and her daughter lived in Pacific Palisades). Martha was then living at home in Westerville whi1e he was working for the U.S. Agriculture Department inspecting fruit and vegetables and he travelled all over. The family in California went first to Whittier a Quaker settlement but they were scattered all up and down California for 600 miles when he went there.
The paper you sent me was just a copy of one which he had made for all the heirs to grandpa Lambert's property in Southern Ohio. We were all down there Lucile and Leroy, myself, Charles and Bernice, aunt Caroline, Martha, my son Bill, Lucile's children Mary Sue and Rodney, aunt Bertha, James Harris, Richard Harris, your mother and father, George Selby and his wife, Bertha Selby (was it Rowland?) and her husband, when dad had tried to fix up the other house on the next property to where grandpa had a farm (I think it was aunt Hannah Fawcett's original home). My husband did not go for I had gone to visit Lucile and Martha and he had stayed in Pittsburgh. Now Rodney was probably l6. Bill was about l5. Mary Sue was 10 and so that must have been in 1947. The house on grandpa's place had burned down and all that was left was the walk around the house. Grandpa Lambert before he became a preacher was a stone cutter and his stone work was very good.
I have the original of those papers about dad's administration of the Southern Ohio farm. He was always hoping that they would discover coal there as coal had been discovered nearby but they never did. At that time the land was worn out and dad put a lot in fertilizer to no avail. I think much of that territory is in woodlands now. I don't know. There was a lot of trouble then at that farm with a colored family who had come to live there and lived in a fixed up chicken house. After the original families most of them left that area people from West Virginia moved in and colored. I am sorry about Elizabeth. I did not remember that she had died. I know she was in some far away places during her life and she had friends also in Mt Vernon Ill. I could have done much better by your mother and Elizabeth the day they came to see me if I had known that they were coming. I am afraid the food was rather skimpy. Dick went to work in Salem Ill and Had to drive 22 miles back and forth every day so of course he would not be there until evening. But he and I drove South and stopped to see your mother and father while we were in Mt Vernon. Our son had wanted us to come to Florida for a vacation. We drove to Birmingham Ala first and he went with us to Pensacola Beach. Our son has lived in the South a good bit but for at least 5 years has lived in Wisconsin. We had only 1 son.
I'll try to do better about the family history later. I am glad you got in touch with Bette Knapp.
I was so sorry our first cousin Dwight Mayne died this month....or I guess it was Dec. 29th. He was buried in Westerville O, but he lived in California for many years. He lived in Ontario California. His daughter Henrietta and her husband went out there Before Christmas because he was ill and in the hospital. Lucile and Leroy and my brother Charles went to Westerville the day before the funeral and saw the family. Dwight was aunt Hannah's son.
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Mayme Ewing once told me that she did not know why her brother was named Chalkley but thot it was just after an uncle. When I looked up the family in Penna Historical Society Library I found out 3 of the older generation, grandpa's brothers were named after Quaker preachers, Thomas Chalkley from Philadelphia, Robert Barclay, and Elwood. (I don't know his first name) That was like grandpa Lambert naming my father after the founder of the United Brethren church William Otterbein. In the family aunt Bertha Harris named one of her sons Theodore Otterbein Harris and my parents named my brother Charles Otterbein Lambert. The Charles was after my mother's father Charles Henry Adams and the Otterbein after my father.
I guess Methodists favored the name Charles Wesley!
Well I must go now.
Sincerely,
{Pauline}
