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Getting to Know Adeline Lawson Graham (1856-1930)
A Biographical Inquiry in Three Parts: Part 2
Philip Ruth, Research Coordinator
January 31, 2023
The unattributed obituary for Adeline Lawson Graham quoted in Part 1 of this post reported that Adeline “was brought [back] to Bellefonte as a young woman by the Dr. Wilson family and for a number of years was a servant in the Wilson household. She later accepted employment in the home of former Governor Andrew G. Curtin where she remained until her marriage to Henry Graham.” A Democratic Watchman article describing the November 1901 Lawson-Graham wedding asserted that “Adaline [sic] has been employed at Mrs. A.G. Curtin’s for the last twelve years or more and she is not only highly respected but she is fully capable of running an establishment of her own.” The general timeline set forth in those accounts—for which I have found no contradicting evidence—has Adeline returning to Bellefonte from Chester County around 1881, working for the Wilsons through Dr. Wilson’s death in September 1883, then taking a position with the Curtins around 1884.
Back in Bellefonte at approximately 25 years of age, Adeline would have reunited with her middle-aged half sisters Mary Ann Gilmore and Sarah Williams, who were then living together with Sarah’s married daughter Annie Thompson and her husband and children in one of the two houses Isaac Lawson had built on Lot 78 along E. Bishop Street. Adeline would also have reconnected with her half niece Mary Rebecca Gilmore, married since 1868 to Charles Garner Sr., a Civil War veteran who had been elected in 1874 as Bellefonte’s first black High Constable. More recently, Charles had purchased from the executors of ironmaster William A. Thomas’ will a plot of ground on Halfmoon Hill, near the intersection of St. Paul Street and Parsons Alley, on which he then built a house. By 1882 the resident Garner family included six children, the youngest being Adeline Lawson, presumably named in honor of her great-aunt Adeline. Charles Garner Sr. had lately “converted [to Christianity] under Rev. Palmer and united with the [AME] church,” according to St. Paul congregation historian and lay leader William H. Mills. Charles then began “studying for the ministry,” and was eventually “licensed as [a] local preacher, to do local work in the church.” Records of St. Paul AME Church activities in the 1890s indicate that Adeline Lawson was an active member of that congregation—to the point of serving as assistant superintendent of the Sunday school—so it seems likely that she resumed her membership soon after returning to Bellefonte in the early 1880s.
Adeline’s new employers in Bellefonte were retired and widowed physician William Irvine Wilson and the two middle-aged daughters looking after him in his old age: recently divorced Mary P. Wilson Moyer and unmarried Mary Amelia Wilson. The doctor and his daughters occupied a three-story brick row house in a three-unit block standing on the west side of N. Spring Street, about 150 feet north of its intersection with W. High Street (the site of those row houses is now a parking lot adjoining the Bellefonte Loyal Order of Moose building).
Dr. Wilson and his daughters had moved to the Spring Street residence in the late 1870s after living for many years in Potters Mills. The aged physician’s wife, Mary Potter, a daughter of Judge James Potter of Potters Mills, had died in that community on the eve of the Civil War. The Wilsons’ late-1870s move to Bellefonte landed them a short walk from the home of Dr. Wilson’s eldest daughter, Katharine, wife of former Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Gregg Curtin. The Curtin family’s stone mansion stood one block to the southeast, along the east side of W. High Street (present-day home of the Bellefonte Elks Lodge).
Dr. Wilson was in his upper 80s when Adeline began working for him and his daughters. Over the course of his long career, he had built a wide reputation as Centre County’s preeminent “country doctor.” It was written of him in 1877 that he “traveled altogether on horse-back, and for forty years averaged thirty miles per day. His practice extended up and down Penn’s valley, into Brush valley, and into Kishacoquillas valley, Mifflin county” By the time Adeline became one of his care-givers, Dr. Wilson had weakened and slowed considerably, due partly to failing eyesight. His mind remained clear, though, so it’s likely Adeline heard many stories of exploits and adventures from his younger days. She must have also witnessed his final decline and peaceful death on September 22, 1883 “at his residence on Spring street” (as noted in the Centre Democrat).
Adeline suffered another loss in the summer of 1883 as her 52-year-old half sister Sarah Williams—whose husband Henry had passed away some years earlier—“was taken to the insane asylum” on June 25, according to a report in the Centre Democrat (the news item referred only to “Mrs. Sarah Williams, colored,” of which there were two living in Bellefonte; the reference could not have applied to the Sarah Williams married to Samuel Williams and living near the Garners on Halfmoon Hill, as that Sarah would live to a ripe old age in Bellefonte). If Adeline’s half sister Sarah was transferred to the State Hospital for the Insane at Danville, as seems likely, she may have reunited in that institution with Milky Lawson, her stepmother and former next-door neighbor on Bishop Street. Sarah and her husband had taken care of Edward Lawson, Milky and Isaac Lawson’s son, following Milky’s committal to the Danville asylum about 15 years earlier.
In the aftermath of Dr. Wilson’s death, Adeline left the Wilson residence to live and work in the home of the late doctor’s eldest daughter, Katharine Wilson Curtin. A note in a second newspaper account of Adeline’s 1901 marriage to Henry Lawson (published in the Cameron County Press, Emporium, Pa.) asserted that Adeline “has for more than 17 years been with the family of the late Ex-Governor A.G. Curtin.” By that measure, Adeline’s transition from the Wilson household to the Curtins’ would have occurred around 1884.
An obituary for Adeline published in the Cameron County Press claimed that Adeline “was cook in the [Curtin] household,” a specialized position outranking “domestic servant.” The obituary explained that Adeline had “received a fine training in domestic arts [while] ‘bound out’ in early youth to a Quaker family in Chester County, Pa., as was the custom by many colored families at that period in our history.” Then followed a rare description of Adeline’s characteristic demeanor, and the esteem she engendered during the latter half of her life: “She was known and respected by the entire community. Her ready wit and sunny smile and her unfailing fund of humor and cheeriness made her hundreds of friends.”
When Adeline moved into the Curtin mansion, former Republican governor A.G. Curtin was serving a second consecutive term as a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives, so the greater part of the year the Curtins maintained their principal residence on Washington, D.C.’s K Street. Only after completing a third term in March 1887 did A.G. Curtin and his family return permanently to Bellefonte and the stone mansion 400 feet down W. High Street from the Centre County Courthouse. Approaching his 72nd birthday, Bellefonte’s most famous citizen finally retired from political office.
The stately Curtin residence at 14 W. High Street—Adeline’s home for the next 17 years—was fancier than any of her previous abodes. As Dorothy Montgomery noted in a Pennsylvania Mirror article, “the architect’s drawing of the A.G. Curtin house . . . depicts [it] as a 15-room mansion. The walnut winding staircase rises to the third floor on the center left. On the second floor, it opens on an unusual octagon shaped central hallway. The 16-foot ceilings, marble fireplaces with heavily carved mantle mirrors, huge doors, carved wood work and original heat grids, still remain [in 1976].” The mansion had been built for the Curtins in 1868, the year after A.G. Curtin completed his second term as Pennsylvania Governor, but the family didn’t move in until the former governor returned from serving as U.S. Ambassador to Russia in the summer of 1872. According to Montgomery:
“During [A.G.] Curtin’s residency until his death in 1894, thousands entered the doors of the mansion. For many years it was the center of Bellefonte’s social life. Curtin and his wife . . . entertained the rich and the poor, strangers in town and notables, both foreign and on the national level. The large parlors, sitting rooms and library were filled on all occasions. Portraits of the Czar Nicholas and Prince [Gorchakov] hung on the walls of the reception rooms, presents from the Russians for his service as Ambassador. . . . The back door of this mansion [leading into the kitchen where Adeline spent most of her time] was also busy. As Curtin once said regarding the number of tramps knocking at his rear door, “I think that in the spring and fall the tramps placed some cabalistic sign upon the house that pointed it out to their fellows as a place where a square meal could always be gotten. . . . After his retirement the Governor spent many days on the front porch at 120 W. High Street. He loved greeting old friends and talking to the war veterans gathered every day to talk over old battles.”
If the Curtin mansion was “the center of Bellefonte’s social life” during the 1880s and 90s, Adeline’s skills in food preparation must have been repeatedly put to the test. She apparently passed such tests with flying colors, developing what one newspaper reporter described as a “great reputation in the culinary art.” I suspect her efforts were overseen by the sophisticated and charming mistress of the Curtin household, Katherine Wilson Curtin. A biographical sketch of Katharine posted on the Centre County Historical Society’s “Her Stories” website includes the following details:
“[She] is a fascinating woman for her humanistic qualities as well as her great contributions to her husband’s career. Born at Potter’s Bank on January 17, 1821, [she was] raised on the family homestead in Penns Valley, [then] came to Bellefonte to live after her marriage on May 2, 1844 to Andrew Gregg Curtin, a young lawyer at the time with aspirations for political involvement.
It has been noted that Katharine Wilson Curtin was a very devoted family woman, first and foremost a wife, mother, and grandmother, and at her fullest enjoyment when surrounded by her children and grandchildren. She was the mother of two sons and four daughters and an extremely devout Christian, as she was remembered as an active member of the Presbyterian Church in Bellefonte. [She] was accepting of everyone, and her hospitable home drew both rich and poor, who were treated with equal respect. Social station was of no concern to Mrs. Curtin, as she didn’t think to try to elevate herself above those less fortunate than her. [She] was a woman with a sharp intellect and undisputed charm and beauty, qualities that made her perfectly suited for the position of prominence that she was called upon to fill as the wife of the Pennsylvania governor, congressman, and minister to Russia.”
If Adeline moved in with the Curtins in 1884 (as seems likely), she would have been present and very busy on Wednesday, May 2, 1888, as Katharine and A.G. Curtin’s youngest surviving daughter, “Miss Kate,” married Moses DeWitt Burnet, “a prominent young banker of Syracuse, New York” in a ceremony held in the Curtin mansion (as described in a Democratic Watchman article). By that date, Adeline must have spent considerable time with the lively and cultivated “Miss Kate,” who turned 29 on the day of her wedding. We can only imagine the stress and excitement Adeline experienced that day in helping to mount what a reporter for Carlisle’s Sentinel newspaper described as “a brilliant society event”:
“The bridal party entered the parlors as the orchestra played Mendelssohn’s wedding march. Rev. Mr. Elliott, pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Unionville, [Centre County] and an uncle of the bride, led the happy procession and performed the ceremony. He was followed by the ushers, . . . dressed in cutaway coats and light trousers, and [wearing] gold pins with pearl centers, the gift of the groom. Then came the bridesmaids dressed in superb costumes of white organdy over white silk with moire sashes. They carried bouquets of pink roses and wore pansy pins with diamond centers, the favors of the bride. . . . Last of all the bride entered on the arm of the groom, arrayed in rich oriental crape, elaborately trimmed with old point lace, the gift of her mother. The flowers she carried were white hyacinth and lilies of the valley. She wore no jewelry. After the ceremony a reception was held. The house was beautifully decorated with palms and blooming plants.”
A Democratic Watchman review of the wedding declared that “the floral decorations were magnificent, and the presents, for variety, beauty and value, were never equaled at any wedding in this section. The refreshments were served by a corps of caterers from Philadelphia and the music was furnished by Neff’s Orchestra of Altoona.” We will never know if Adeline’s work required coordination with that “corps of caterers.”
Kate Curtin’s departure left Adeline cooking for a household in the Curtin mansion comprising (as of 1890) the 75-year-old ex-Governor, his wife Katharine (age 69), their eldest daughter Mary (45), Mary’s physician husband George Fairlamb Harris (47), and Mary and George’s daughters Katharine (19) and Adeline (12). Living with and serving the Curtins—in addition to Adeline Lawson—were Lizzie Hazel (27, having already served the Curtins for more than a decade) and Hettie Landis (22, the Pennsylvania-born daughter of German immigrants). As there were two “Adelines” in the Curtin household, name variants must have been used to differentiate between Adeline Harris and the Curtins’ cook. There were also two Katharines in residence (Curtin and Harris), so they also had to be separately identified.
As I posited earlier, Adeline Lawson likely reintegrated into the St. Paul AME congregation upon her return to Bellefonte in the early 1880s. Her father had been a pillar of that congregation before his death in 1870, and Adeline’s participation in church activities during the 1890s is well documented. Among other things, she was “installed” as assistant superintendent in the reorganized “A.M.E. Sunday school” in February 1891, according to a report published in the Democratic Watchman. Her fellow officers were “Superintendent W[illiam] H. Mills; Secretary Miss Carrie Mills; Assistant Secretary Master Albert Jackson; Treasurer Mrs. Tamazine McDonald; [and] Librarians, Lewis Mills and Thomas Stewart.” Adeline’s name also appears on annual lists of persons making annual donations of “Dollar Money” in support of the congregation and its overseeing Pittsburgh District. We get a brief glimpse of her involvement in the wider black community in the following Democratic Watchman report from February 1892, which inaccurately identified her as “Miss Adelade Lawson”:
“On Monday evening the colored populace of town turned out galore to witness the nuptials which made Mr. Harrison Sanders, bell-boy at the Bush House, and Miss Ella Keys, of Altoona, one. The ceremony was performed by Rev. Chas. Honesty, of the St. Paul’s church, at the home of the groom’s parents, on Thomas street. The father of the groom acting as best man with Miss Adelade Lawson as bridesmaid. The young people have gone to housekeeping and we wish them much happiness.”
Adeline was probably aware that her half sister Mary Ann Gilmore, now about 70 years of age, was nearing the end of her life. Mary Ann had suffered from a debilitating stomach tumor for more than a decade, with the County picking up the tab for her care and accommodation as early as July 1879, either in the Poor House or a private residence. Since her discharge from that facility, Mary Ann had built a snug, 1½-story, three-room, frame house at the southern end of Lot 78, fronting on E. Logan Street. There, beside the site occupied by the log Wesleyan AME church prior to its fiery destruction in 1879, she lived out the final few years of her life, perhaps with Adeline paying occasional visits. Mary Ann’s death on March 23, 1892 appears to have left Adeline as the only living heir of Isaac Lawson not confined to a mental asylum.
Two years later, Adeline witnessed the decline and death of a second famous employer. On February 27, 1894, 78-year-old ex-Governor Curtin slipped and fell on a patch of ice in front of the Curtin mansion. According to an obituary published in the Democratic Watchman, Bellefonte’s most famous son never fully recovered from the shock of that fall. He soldiered on for a few months, but on Tuesday, October 3, “he was seized with a chill and a general collapse of the nervous system followed with symptoms of uremia.” The constant attendance of three doctors—Harris, Fairlamb, and Dobbins—proved fruitless, and the ex-governor’s “life ebbed away ere the sun of the Sabbath morn [October 7, 1894] had wakened the slumberers of his native town,” it was reported. “All the members of his family, who are living, were at his bedside when he died. They are his widow, Katharine Wilson Curtin; W.W. [William Wilson] Curtin, of Philadelphia; Mary W., wife of Dr. George F. Harris; Marcy [sic] I., widow of Captain K.R. Breese, United States navy, and Kate W., wife of M.D. Burnet, of Syracuse, N.Y.”
The next few days must have been a whirlwind for Adeline and other members of the Curtin household. According to the Democratic Watchman:
“The news of [A.G. Curtin’s] death, though not unexpected, caused a profound sorrow in the town, business was partially suspended and remained so until after the funeral. Immediately preparations were begun for an imposing burial of such an honored resident. The burgess issued a proclamation lamenting the loss to the town and all of the business houses were draped in emblems of mourning.”
The day of the funeral—Wednesday, October 10—was marked by the greatest public outpouring of emotion and tribute the borough had ever witnessed. As reported in the Democratic Watchman, “[the] morning dawned and the rain fell in torrents. Notwithstanding the gloomy outlook, crowds began to assemble on the streets.” It was later estimated that Bellefonte absorbed 7,000 visitors on the day of the funeral, 4,500 of whom viewed Gov. Curtin’s remains lying in state in the Courthouse, as “the great bell of the court house tolled the solemn death knell.” After a service at the Courthouse, the honor guard that “had been in charge of the body and stood guard over it while away from the [Curtin] house, carried it back for the last sad rites in the home which in life it presided over.”
