Biography: James Elgie Beals
The Beals family is traced to Lehigh County, Pennsylvania in the early eighteen hundreds. Jacob and Elizabeth Brey Beals, the grandparents of James Elgie Beals arrived in the western part of the state and settled in Clarion County in 1841. Elgie’s father was born there in 1846. Both the Beals and Brey families were members of the Lutheran church tradition.
Elgie was born 24 April, 1889, to James Francis Beals and his second wife Olive Samantha Bower, on a farm in Richland Township, Venango County, PA, near the highest point in the county. He had two older sisters, Minta, born in 1883, and Florence, born in 1884, and two older step-siblings, Charles and Bernice, from James Francis Beals’ first marriage to Adeline Kribbs. When Elgie was six years old his mother died in childbirth, and the baby died also.
As a young man he worked on his father’s farm, and hired out as a farm hand in the community. In later life he told of walking to work on these other farms, and buying a hearty breakfast of eggs, meat, and pancakes for five cents. Elgie stood five feet eight inches tall, slim of build, with brown hair and blue eyes.
On 12 October 1910, at age twenty-one, Elgie married Winnifred May Kline, whom he met when she came to do housekeeping for his widowed father. The marriage was at the home of the bride in Richland Township, Venango County.
The couple lived for some years on the farm of Elgie’s father. Records show that Elgie bought a portion of this farm in 1910, and again in 1911. Their first two children were born there. James Loy Beals, known as Loy, was born 8 February 1912, and Ella May Beals was born 28 September 1917.
Winnie’s father died in 1915 and sometime between 1917 and 1922 Elgie and Winnie bought the Kline farm. An addition to the farmhouse was built for the widow Ella Kline, and her youngest daughter still at home, Mary Philistia Kline. Two more children were then born to Elgie and Winnie, Bertha Irene Beals on 6 May 1922, and Robert Elgie Beals on 13 November 1926.
Elgie’s father belonged to the Salem Lutheran Church, but after moving to the Kline farm, Elgie and Winnie attended the nearby Old Zion EUB church, probably because of its proximity. (This denomination, the Evangelical & United Brethren, is today part of the United Methodist Church). Elgie was at times superintendent of Sunday School, and a teacher at Old Zion. He also served as school superintendant at some point, either for the township as a whole, or possibly for the Old Home School that the children attended, located a couple miles from the farm.
The Kline farm that Elgie & Winnie purchased consisted of 95 acres, half of which was wooded. It had been purchased by the Kline family from “Squire” Maurice B. Shannon, Jr. There had been two former houses on the property. Evidence of the first consisted of the quarried stone foundation blocks near the boundary of fields and woods. A small two-story second house still stood, the one in which Winnie Kline Beals had been born during years when the Kline family rented this farm. It was called the Election House, because for some years after being vacated it served as the community polling place. The third house, occupied by Winnie’s parents after they purchased the farm, and by Elgie & Winnie and family, was a two story wood clapboard house standing about fifty yards back from the road, and near a substantial barn and several out buildings.
Emlenton, on the Allegheny River, served their shopping and banking needs. After the discovery of oil at Drake’s Well near Oil City, Emlenton became a refinery town and is credited with the formulation invention of Penzoil motor oil. A modern high school was built there in the mid-thirties, and the Beals children graduated from it.
Elgie’s wife Winnie Beals died on May 4, 1966 from complications of late onset diabetes, and was buried at Zion Union Cemetery. In May of 1978 Elgie’s oldest son Loy died from a heart attack, and is buried at Emlenton Cemetery
Elgie was cared for in his later years by his three remaining children, and died of old age at the home of daughter Bertha Chambers on 12 February 1982. He was 92 years and 10 months of age. He was buried at Zion Union Cemetery, and the farm was deeded to his son Robert Beals.
By the 1980’s most of the old outbuildings and the Election House had collapsed. The house and barn still stand.
-written by Elizabeth Wilson Williams, granddaughter of Elgie & Winnie, on August 25, 2006.
