World War I

The big dark gravestone stands in sharp contrast to the neat and uniformly spaced rows of plain marble markers that characterize a military burial plot. The soldier buried here wasn’t…

George had three sisters and three brothers to grow up with in the Brewerytown section of Philadelphia next to East Fairmount Park. They were raised by their mother Maria and…

When Harry Edward was born in Philadelphia on January 25, 1891 his father, Dr. Harry P. Challenger, was 36 and a  local physician. His mother, Margaret, was 22 who gave…

Edward was the fourth of nine children born to a Swedish immigrant, Frans Stäl (who anglicized his name to Frank Steele) and his Norwegian immigrant wife, Louise. Like a lot…

George’s father had the same name as his son and worked as a streetcar conductor in Philadelphia, as did his father. George Sr. was 21 when he married Isabella Carmichael…

The Berman family had nine children besides young Nathan under their roof when they left their native Ukraine and boarded a ship for America in 1889. Nathan became a naturalized…

Edward’s family had a rough start. He was the second boy, but the first, John, lived less than two months. A daughter, Mary, was born in August of 1888 but…

German immigrants brought Edwin’s father, John, to Philadelphia where he married Catherine Viereck, also of German lineage, and had six sons, the youngest of whom was Edwin. Catherine died of…