Family Heritage

Growing Up in Mid 20th Century America
Chapter Five - Family Heritage

To set the stage for the rest of my story I must relate some information about our parents and their parents to help you the reader to understand our heritage.

Our dad, Ted Prichard, worked at Struthers Wells Corp. designing Heat Exchangers, Boilers, Evaporators, and other chemical process equipment that was used in heavy industry such as oil refineries, metal working plants, and even universities. Sometimes he would travel to distant cities to solve equipment problems or provide operator training. He was of Welsh and British descent and as such was very calm, laid back with a finely cultured sense of humor as long as it was properly clean humor. No uncouth words, dirty jokes, or curse words would ever leave his lips. Ted practiced christian living to the ultimate degree though I never knew him to read the bible or outwardly espouse religion. There will be more about religion in a later chapter.

He was a friendly guy with a practical nature and prodigious musical talent who was revered by his children, relatives, and his wife. He had grown up on a farm near Franklin, PA with two younger brothers, His father Will Prichard was a farmer, carpenter, and general industrial laborer. Will Prichard did not marry until over the age of forty and passed away at age sixty-eight in 1938. His wife, Georgianna Harwood Prichard passed away in 1930 leaving her three sons who were age 18, 13, and 12. As the eldest son at 18, our dad stayed at home on the farm to help his father with the younger boys for another four years until about 1934. Dad worked on the farm, at an oil refinery and studied Radio Engineering through a correspondence course with the RCA Institute in New York City.

Then at the age of about 22 he arranged to attend Tri-State College in Angola, Indiana. He obtained some financial assistance from his mother’s older sister Aunt Myrtle Harwood. At Tri-State he was able to complete a BS degree in Chemical Engineering in just three calendar years. With degree in hand he returned to Pennsylvania and found employment with Struthers Wells Corporation in 1937 at Titusville, PA. An unusual aspect of our family was that my sister and I were so fond of our father that we never called him “Dad, Daddy or Father.” To us he was “Ted”! After all, our “Mum” called him Ted so why shouldn’t we? And our mother was “Mum.” She called her mother “Mum” and so it was passed along. A photo below shows Ted with his father Will Prichard in their front yard around 1918 or 1919.

Our mother, Margaret Ebbert Prichard, was the 4th child of eleven children in the family of Andrew and Katie Hendren Ebbert in the village of Reno, PA along the Allegheny River between Oil City and Franklin, PA. Below we see Margaret in front of her two sisters Ruth and Ina and half-brother Kenneth Leroy Ebbert. Grandfather Andy Ebbert lost his first wife when Kenneth Leroy was born and later married Katie Hendren after moving to Ohio from Franklin, PA to work in the oil fields around Scio, Ohio where Katie’s father worked. After their marriage they moved back to the Oil City, PA area to the village of Reno where Andy began working for Wolf’s Head Oil Refinery in 1912. Andy worked for Wolf’s Head from 1912 to 1952 when he retired as a General Superintendent. He and Katie had 10 children together.

Our mother, being the 4th child with 7 more to come, was somewhat lost in the shuffle. As family lore suggests however, though she might have been stuck in the middle, she had such an aggressive manner that no one ever got the best of her. She learned assertiveness early and demonstrated her empathy for the underdog repeatedly during her life. In her marital years, we as her family learned to tread lightly to avoid her quickly ignited temper. During her school years it was said there wasn’t a boy in the Reno School that dared to tease her in any way for fear of being battered! She was also the life long protector of her one year younger sister Hazel who who was a far milder personality. As a caregiver and protector of our father in his end of life 20 years of dementia, no one could have done a better job. In his 15 years of nursing home care she was his constant advocate making sure he was well cared for. To get the best care she placed him in a home 60 miles away but visited him 3 to 4 times a week all those years.

In her early years Margaret was in fact so hard to control that her mother gave up and sent her upstairs to the third floor to live with her own parents Kate and Tom Hendren. There my mother learned how to cook for her grandfather, especially when her grandmother would leave on train trips to visit friends in other states. Apparently Katie Ebbert’s mother Kate Hendren was something of a head strong personality herself so it was thought she would understand how to handle Margaret.

To further complicate family matters, my grandmother Katie Ebbert’s brother Paul Hendren also moved to the village of Reno to work at the Wolf’s Head. Paul and his wife Pearl had six children so between 1912 and 1950 the two families raised seventeen children in the village of Reno! They were not only related but also the two families were best friends even going into a joint venture of building a green house where vegetables were grown year round. At least that was the case until one of the kids left in charge during a winter night fell asleep and let the fire go out. All the plants froze but not the boy in charge. Apparently that was the end of the green house project.

The two families really enjoyed picnics and in the early years there was only one car shared between the two families. When they went on summer picnics it would take two or three trips with the car to get everybody to and from the picnic grounds. That tradition continued even down to today as my cousin Bev hosts a family picnic in Franklin, PA for all interested Hendrens and Ebberts every summer. Her 92 year old mother Clara is one of my mother’s younger sisters and Mom's youngest sister Sally is still living in Texas. Below is a photo of one of the early Ebbert/Hendren picnics. Great Grandmother Kate Hendren has a hand on her hip at rear of the car. I cannot identify others.

In any event, at about the time in 1937 when our dad was beginning his career with Struthers Wells in Titusville, PA, Margaret Ebbert was going into business for herself with a partner in Titusville. Titusville was only about 30 miles from Oil City so after finishing her public school years, Margaret went off to Beauty School in Titusville in order to begin a career as a hair dresser/beautician. At the school in Titusville she made a good friend named Opal Ross whose family lived in Titusville. Margaret and Opal decided to open their own shop after first working in another beauty shop in Titusville. They probably got some financial assistance from their fathers but I don’t know the particulars. A few years ago on a visit to Pennsylvania, my daughter and I researched some city directories at the Titusville Public Library and learned that the beauty shop these two friends founded was called “The Personality Shop.” We even learned the address and went to check out the building.

As it happened back in the late thirties, both Ted and Margaret liked to roller skate at a skating rink in their spare time and it was in that manner that they became acquainted. In October 1939 they eloped to Virginia to get married. Mum was the first of her sisters to get married and the first to have a baby when my sister Cynthia Suzanne Prichard was born in Titusville, PA on January 14, 1941. Shortly after her birth our father was transferred to the Warren, PA plant of Struthers Wells and the Prichard family then moved to Warren, PA.

Below we see the new parents standing in the yard of Margaret’s parents in Reno, PA with baby Cynthia Suzanne. Grandfather Ebbert was quite hard of hearing and told his friends down at the Wolf’s Head that his new granddaughter was named Sympathy. He later had to make a correction. Below we see my mother’s parents Andy and Katie Ebbert in a photo taken in 1950 when they were in their early sixties.

Following the move to Warren, PA our parents rented several homes in Warren before finding a home at 3 Tremont Street that could be purchased through land contract from the owner. Below is a photo of my sister with Ted at a home they rented along the Conewango Creek on Water Street in Warren, PA. Looks like Ted was home on lunch hour or just home from work for the day. I have selected a few more early pictures of my sister as well. Our father passed away at age 84 in 1996 and our mother passed away at age 89 ten years later in 2006. We were saddened to lose my sister Cynthia to Esophageal Cancer just two days before her 75th birthday in 2016.