John Earl Held and Florence May Benninger

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Husband John Earl Held ^{1 2}

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           Born: 31 Oct 1895 2
     Christened: 
           Died: 5 Jul 1990 3
         Buried: 

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         Father: John David Held (1870/1870-1947) 1 4
         Mother: Rosanna Smail (1871-1965) 1

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       Marriage: 29 Jan 2

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Wife Florence May Benninger ²

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           Born: 26 Nov 1891 2
     Christened: 
           Died: Jan 1985 2
         Buried: 

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Children

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1 M Thomas B. Held ⁵

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           Born: 24 Jul 1914 5
     Christened: 
           Died: 
         Buried: 

         Spouse: Betty Truby (1917-      ) 5
           Marr: 17 Nov 1937 5

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2 F Marian Held ⁵

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           Born: 9 Sep 1917 5
     Christened: 
           Died: 
         Buried: 

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General Notes: Husband - John Earl Held

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The year of his ninetieth birthdate he was featured in an article in his hometown newspaper, from which the following is taken:
When still in Apollo (Pennsylvania) Public School more than 80 years ago, for example, he worked part-time helping his father, John, in the W. H. Carnahan Grist Mill at North Eleventh Street. "My dad was a miller and he bagged flour at Carnahan's," he says. "Had a good business as well. We sent flour to stores and bakeries as far away at Pittsburgh. It seemed far away. . ." Another of his early jobs was weeding the tomatoes, pickles, beans and horseradish which H. J. Heinz Co. grew in fields in North Apollo. . .
Held recalls Apollo's heyday of the Thirties and Forties. "Everything was booming then," he says. "The steel mills were going like crazy, the stores were doing lots of business. . . would you believe that we had passenger trains arriving here on the hour? They came up from Pittsburgh. When I was a kid I used to help the guy operate the turntable that turned the locomotive around so they could go back to the city."
"Try to recall the earliest thing you can remember," he suggests to a reporter. In Held's case the first recollection is traumatic. It is the funeral of a brother, Raymond, buried in Bethel Cemetery, Bethel Township, in the bitterly cold winter of 1901.
In later years, Held would participate in other funeral arrangements, this time as a driver in horse-drawn buggies rented from A. C. McCullough Livery Stable, Grove Street, by undertakers Gosser and Kepple. McCullough paid him $1.50 a day. He figures he's delivered miles of steel pipe, drawn on a two-horse teamed wagon, to gas drilling sites in the Apollo area. "And we delivered coal," he says. "We paid four cents a bushel at the mine and sold it for eight cents a bushel and that included shoveling it in to the coalhouse." Held also worked for the Apollo Water Company. . . "We were on call all hours of the day and night. . . was paid $2.50 a day. Best. . . job I ever had," he says.

1 Editor, Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, Her People Past and Present (Chicago, IL: J. H. Beers & Co., 1914), Pg 835.

2 Marlin A. Field, Peter Smail of Pennsylvania & His Descendants (Ozark, MO: Dogwood Printing, Sept., 1990), Pg 313.

3 Marlin A. Field, Peter Smail of Pennsylvania & His Descendants (Ozark, MO: Dogwood Printing, Sept., 1990).

4 Marlin A. Field, Peter Smail of Pennsylvania & His Descendants (Ozark, MO: Dogwood Printing, Sept., 1990), Pg 310.

5 Marlin A. Field, Peter Smail of Pennsylvania & His Descendants (Ozark, MO: Dogwood Printing, Sept., 1990), Pg 314.