Pearl W. (Wetmore) Leiby (abt. 1880 - 1979)

Born about 5 Jun 1880 in Charleston Township, PA

Ancestors

Wife of James Thomas Hunter Leiby — married 1 Jun 1922 in Allentown, PA

Descendants

Died 4 Feb 1979 at about age 98 in Berkeley, CA

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Ellen Leiby [send private message]

Biography

Buried in Allentown, PA at Grandview Cemetery according to bill from Grandview Cemetery Association...

Her name may have been Anne Pearl, not Pearl Ann.

My grandmother Pearl ("Nana") was born in Pennsylvania to Phillip and Sarah Wetmore. Phillip was a Civil War veteran and by the time my grandmother was born, was probably an alcoholic. Phillip and Sarah had at least nine children (I have heard as many as 13.) Pearl was one of the younger ones, but not so young that when her mother filed for divorce in the mid 1880s, she kept her. My grandmother and some other siblings were sent to live in an orphanage for children of Civil War veterans. She left the orphanage several years later (when she was about 11) to go live with her father's oldest sister Hannah ("great-aunt Han") when she married. Hannah took her out of the orphanage and they moved to near Belleville, Kansas to homestead. I believe they lived in a dugout. My grandmother told me she would get up at four or five in the morning to make bread, and then walk to school along a dirt road, in the middle of the road so she didn't get dusty. She had very long hair (down to her knees) even in her eighties and I once asked her what she ate when she was young, that her hair would grow so long and be so strong, and she said they ate bread, potatoes, and cabbage.

She went to a teaching or nursing college in Philadelphia, and then she worked in a charity nursing home caring for indigent sick and elderly. When she left (about 1905), the residents collected enough money to buy a $5.00 brass clock (made by C.R. Smith & Son in Philadelphia) for her. My father impressed upon me that these people had nothing, so to be able to cobble together $5.00 was a huge thing. I (Ellen, her granddaughter) have this clock today.

Sources

• email from my father's cousin Ginny, my father, and directly from my grandmother Pearl.

• "United States Census, 1930," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XHQK-MYG : accessed 7 November 2019), Pearl W Leiby in household of James T Leiby, Allentown, Lehigh, Pennsylvania, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 27, sheet 15A, line 38, family 418, NARA microfilm publication T626 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2002), roll 2064; FHL microfilm 2,341,798. Image: [1]

• "United States Census, 1940," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KQ7Q-FH3 : 28 July 2019), Pearl Leiby in household of James Leiby, Ward 10, Allentown, Allentown City, Lehigh, Pennsylvania, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 39-41, sheet 19B, line 75, family 411, Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940, NARA digital publication T627. Records of the Bureau of the Census, 1790 - 2007, RG 29. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2012, roll 3543. Image: [2]