Franklin Charles Wintermute was a Clerk in coal Department in Lehigh Valley Rail Road.
3 He was in Lehigh Valley Rail Road; Occupation: Clerk in coal Department.
A native of Stroudsburg, Monroe County, PA, Frank moved to Weissport, Carbon County, when a boy of five. He was a farmer at the start of the war.
During the Civil War, Frank enlisted in Lehighton on August 1862 in the 132nd Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, Company F. Others in the family serving in the same regiment were Alexander Mills and William H. Miner. Frank stood 5 feet, 9 inches, with a light complexion, blue eyes and dark hair.
He saw action in the battles of Antietam, Gettysburg and Chancellorsville, and was discharged at Harrisburg and thence at Catasauqua, Carbon County in late May 1863.
They had five known children -- Horace Miner Wintermute (born 1866), Joseph Elmer Wintermute (1868), Maude E. Munro (April 1872), Miriam Cook Hess (August 1875) and Russell Kirby Wintermute (May 1881).
The family first lived in Catasauqua, Lehigh County, PA, and thence moved to Weissport, Carbon County. In 1867, Frank accepted a position as clerk in the coal department of the Lehigh Valley Railroad. Said the Mauch Chunk Daily News, "After his return from the war he became a leading clerk at the Packerton Forwarding office and was held in high esteem by the company's officials. The Packerton forwarding office was then in its prime."
Advertisement for Frank's employer, the Lehigh Valley Railroad, appearing in The Chautauquan, October 1894
Eventually, in 1869, they relocated for good to East Mauch Chunk, where they remained for the rest of their lives. Frank's employment circa 1870-1900 was as a railroad clerk. One of his longtime co-workers was Ben F. Kuehner, of the railroad clerk's office at Packerton. The family were members of the Grace Methodist Church.
The 1880 census shows Frank's widowed mother, age 58, living under their roof on South Street in East Mauch Chunk. This family was listed in the 1895-1897 book Annals of Our Colonial Ancestors and their Descendants, by Ambrose Milton Shotwell.
Frank suffered a debilitating injury on the night of Nov. 28, 1882, at the age of 62, when he was struck by a moving locomotive at Lehighton. In his words:
Was run over by a locomotive, foot crushed, and amputated above the ankle, the train came in on the South bound track, instead of the North as that was the track on which it should have come. I stepped off the depot platform and was in the act of crossing the South bound track, and was caught and injured as above stated. I had a very sore eye which was bandaged, and the strong light from the Engine's head-light was so bright that it hurt my good eye, consequently I did not see that the North bound train was coming on the South bound track.
Wintermute Family History, published 1900
The damaged leg was removed seven inches below the knee. Dr. B.S. Erwin of Mauch Chunk provided medical care during that time. As the scar healed, Frank began using an artificial leg, which another surgeon noted that he "gets around very nicely."
When the Atlas of Carbon County was published in 1875 by F.W. Beers & Co., Frank and Kate's home was identified and marked on the page featuring East Mauch Chunk. Their home was on South Street, in between Second and Front Street, and just a half block from the town's commons. The map shows that not only did they have a home on their narrow tract, but also a rectangular outbuilding in the back. In a list of atlas subscribers published on the same page, Frank is mentioned.
In 1892, Frank received payment of $2,145.56 from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. This was compensation for services he provided to schools in Carbon County, but details are not yet known. He also is known to have begun drawing a pension for his service in the war in September 1890. His paperwork is on file today at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. [Invalid Application #919.578, Invalid Certificate #699.675; Widow Application #1.160.715, Widow Certificate #894.351]
Red dot marks Frank and Kate's town lot on South Street in East Mauch Chunk, from the 1875 Atlas of Carbon County
He subscribed to the publication The Elevator Constructor, a trade journal of the International Union of Elevator Constructors. The magazine asked readers to respond to the question, "What is the difference between labor union and trusts?" Frank answered in writing, with his comments published in the April 1904 issue: "The trust is organized by the capitalistic class for the purpose of accumulating more of the wealth that the industrious world creates, while the labor unions are organized by the wealth producers of the world, so that they may be able to retain more of the wealth that they create."
Frank enjoyed socializing with former Civil War veterans in Mauch Chunk. He was active with the local L.T. Chapman Post No. 61 of the Grand Army of the Republic, a veterans organization. In June 1899, he took part in the 33rd annual GAR encampment in Pennsylvania, held that year in Wilkes-Barre, PA.
In 1900, the census lists the Wintermutes in East Mauch Chunk. Frank, age 56, was employed as a clerk in a railroad office. Son Russell, age 19, worked as a "drug clerk," while daughters Maude (age 28) and Miriam (24) had no occupation.
The census of 1920 shows the family living on 117 South Street in East Mauch Chunk, with 40-year-old daughter Maude making her home under their roof, and working as a private duty nurse for her parents.
Dimmick Memorial Library
Interested in all aspects of weather, he served as a voluntary but official climate observer United States Weather Bureau, representing Mauch Chunk. Among his duties was to record temperatures, including the mean, departure from normal, highest, lowest and their corresponding dates. He also logged precipitation data such as total rainfall, departure from the normal, the greatest volume in a 24-hour period and total snowfall. As well, he noted the number of clear, partially cloudy and fully cloudy days. His name was published in many editions of reports over the years. He collected meteorological data at a special station in East Mauch Chunk, located "on a knoll about 450 feet from and 100 feet above the Schuylkill River, and surrounded by mountains ranging from 500 to 900 feet above the river," he wrote in a report.
In retirement, Frank served as librarian at the Dimmick Memorial Library in Mauch Chunk, circa 1906, when he would have been 66 years of age. The library was opened 16 years earlier, on Oct. 1, 1890, and was built of Jacobean design just a block from the Carbon County Courthouse At the time Frank worked there, the library had 15,000 volumes. (It later was named to the National Historic Register, and survived a disastrous fire in 1979, in which some 19,200 volumes were destroyed. In an ironic twist, family researchers visited the library and made marvelous discoveries about the Wintermutes and Miners in April 2013.)
Front page, Mauch Chunk Daily News, June 14, 1920
The Wintermutes grieved in June 1918 when they learned of the death of their son Horace, who had been living in Colorado.
Family physician Dr. J.E. Weaver of East Mauch Chunk described Frank's deteriorating health as he aged. Writing in 1920, he said:
Until 15 years ago treated him at rare intervals for abscess of stump of leg where amputated (right, middle third). For past fifteen years vision has been progressively failing, until now is not able to read, with glasses. He was employed at clerical work until 15 years ago, when he was obliged to stop work, on account of eyes, and generally debilitated condition. For past six years the mentality has been failing (senility). Physically, is not able to move about, must be assisted from chair to bed and vice versa.
As Frank and Kate's physical conditions seriously declined in about 1919, daughter Maude quit her job and moved back in with her parents to provide care. They were heavily dependent on Frank's $32 per month pension payment from the federal government. On Oct. 1, 1919, Kate suffered a stroke, and became "entirely helpless in bed," Maude reported.
Also suffering from his own stroke of paralysis, Frank passed away eight and a half months after Kate's stroke, on June 14, 1920 at the age of 79. His death ended a marital union of more than 55 years.
He was laid to rest in the Evergreen Cemetery in Mauch Chunk (Jim Thorpe), with funeral arrangements handled by local undertaker David DeFrehn. A front-page obituary in the Mauch Chunk Daily News said he "was one of the few surviving members of L.F. Chapman Grand Army Post [and] had been an invalid for some time and for the past week or two as very feeble."
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