Biography: Bert Winiford Wilson
The Wilson family came to western Pennsylvania from Berks County in the early 1840’s, and are presumably of either English or Scots Irish ancestry. Bert Wilson’s mother was a Stoughton, with English and Dutch ancestry. The Wilsons and Stoughtons were among the pioneer settlers of Butler County, Pennsylvania.
Bert was born 28 February 1891 to James L. Wilson and Elizabeth Ann Stoughton Wilson. Bert grew up as the youngest of four children, with two older brothers and a sister. He attended grade school, and learned reading and writing. With his father he became familiar with the farm, logging sites and the saw mill. They also enjoyed hunting wild game.
In 1898, when Bert was eleven, his only sister, Pearl, died from a bee sting. She was fifteen years old. In 1910 when Bert was nineteen years old, his older brother John Luther Wilson, who was twenty-nine at the time, died of typhoid.
Bert married Clara Mabel Wimer in 1911; they were both twenty years old. Their first child, Ruth, was born in May of 1912. The young family lived on a rented farm next to that of Bert’s father for several years. Presumably he was renting from his father. Bert and Clara had six children born on the farm in Slippery Rock Township.
Bert’s father Jim Wilson brought home a bear cub from a hunting trip and chained it outside the barn, where it grew to adulthood. At some point it caught one of the children, John, in its grasp, and his older sister Ruth rescued him by pulling him out of the coat he was wearing. The bear was sold to Ringling Brothers Circus. Another childhood escapade involved the boys shooting homemade toy bows and arrows. An arrow pierced the arm of Ray and had to be pulled out by his mother.
Bert was registered for the draft but was not called to serve in World War I. In 1929 the family had purchased a farm near the village of Nickleville in Richland Township, Venango County, about thirty miles north of Slippery Rock. Here a seventh child, Pauline, was born in 1930 but she died at birth and was buried at the Nickleville Presbyterian Cemetery. Bert practiced farming and was involved with Harry Fithian of Butler in drilling oil wells. With his childhood familiarity with the timber industry, he taught his children carpentry skills and a love of woodworking. In about 1938 or 1939, REA brought electricity to the area, and gas lights were replaced by electric lights.
Three sons, John, Russ and Ray, were drafted to serve in World War II. In January of 1944 it was discovered that Clara had advanced cancer. She had five grandchildren, four belonging to her oldest daughter Ruth, and one to her second son John. She died in March of 1944, and was buried beside her infant daughter at Nickleville Presbyterian. Her son John was called home from army training in South Carolina for the funeral, but son Ray was already in the European war theatre and could not return. Clara’s mother survived her and attended her funeral. One year later, from March until May of 1945, son John was held as a German prisoner of war, returning home in July of 1945.
After his wife died, Bert lived with a housekeeper, Anna Fisher, and a distant cousin “Uncle Les”. He had a total of nineteen grandchildren. He had traveled by car with his wife and daughter-in-law Ella to visit his son John in South Carolina during army training; with Les to visit John’s family in Tennessee in the 1950’s; with Ruth and Allene’s family to granddaughter Betsy’s wedding in North Carolina in 1972, among other places. In his later years he sold the farm in Richland Township and lived in smaller rented houses near to the home of his daughter Allene’s family in Rockland Township. Bert developed bone cancer and died in May of 1971. He is buried with his wife in Nickleville Presbyterian Cemetery.
-Written on 4 September 2006 by Elizabeth Wilson Williams, grandaughter of Bert Winiford Wilson.
