Tredyffrin Easttown Historical Society
History Quarterly Digital Archives

Source: Spring 2005 Volume 42 Number 2, Pages 67–68

In Memoriam

Page 67

ELINOR JANNEY THURLOW

Elinor Janney Thurlow of Lincolnville, Maine, president of the Tredyffrin Easttown History Club from 1968 to 1971 and then again from 1976 to 1977, died on February 5, 2005, from Alzheimer's Disease. She was 80.

Thrice married, we knew her in 1961-1963 as a resident of Berwyn and contributor of five Quarterly articles under the name Elinor C(raig) J(anney) Sensenig. As Elinor J(anney) Detterline in 1969 to 1971 she was president of the Club and the author of five additional articles; one, “A Brief Glimpse of East Whiteland,” identified her then home on Morehall Road, north of Valley Store.

She moved to Maine in 1979 and a year later, continuing an active interest in the Club, the Quarterly published her story taken from old family letters written by her paternal great-grand-parents, John Craig and Katie Newlin, who were married in 1860. Eventually, the Craigs became owners of three acres of land in Paoli where they spent their summers. Craig Road, running between Darby and Chestnut Roads near the eastern end of Paoli, takes its name from the family.

Elinor is survived by her children: Eric Sensenig and Stephen Sensenig of California, Carol Sensenig Klein and Frederick Sensenig of Chester County, and Douglas Sensenig of Maine; a sister, and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. She left a great legacy to our Club which we remember, with thanks, today.

MILDRED ELIZABETH KIRKNER

The Tredyffrin Easttown History Cub bids farewell to one of its special people, Mildred Elizabeth Kirkner, who passed away on March 7, 2005 at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia. She was 83, a valued Club member, and treasurer for the last 20 years.

Mildred grew up in and around Berwyn, part of a large family which included Club members Ed and Dottie Hayes and the late Libby Kirkner Weaver. Graduated from Tredyffrin Easttown High School in the class of 1939, she was retired from the Bryn Mawr Trust Company and earlier had worked for Foote Mineral Company. She was a past president of the Berwyn/Paoli/Malvern Business and Professional Women's Association.

She was a member of Trinity Presbyterian Church in Berwyn for 62 years, where she had served as a Sunday School teacher, deacon, elder, president of the Women's Association, treasurer of the Memorial Fund, Flower Guild administrator, and Cathcart Home representative. She was, in general, known to be involved in almost everything.

Never married, she was a tower of strength, loved by all. What we need now is about ten people to do all the things Mildred did to keep her favorite constituencies running like clock work.

CONRAD WILSON

Conrad Wilson, 84, of West Dummerston, Vermont died peacefully at his home on March 19, 2005 after an eight-month struggle with lung cancer.

He was born in Bridgeport, Pennsylvania, the son of William West Wilson and Marie Carlotta (LaVake) Wilson. He lived the first ten years of his life in Bridgeport, then in 1930 moved to the family farm in Valley Forge that his father and uncle inherited. During the Depression years at this farm, they lived a self-sufficient lifestyle and often fed the less fortunate who would help out on the farm in exchange for a few meals. He was a charter member of the Tredyffrin Easttown History Club in either 1936 or 1937 when he joined as a teenager and was later vice-president of the organization from 1958 to 1963 and president in 1964-65.

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After attending local public schools in Pennsylvania, he enrolled at Middlebury College, Vermont in 1938. He attended Middlebury for two years, then had to drop out for financial reasons. After working for a year, he enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania in 1941, which he attended for a year before World War II intervened.

He grew up a Quaker and became a Conscientious Objector when drafted by the military during the war. His CO status was accepted and he did alternate service through Civilian Public Service, working for six months in Maryland as part of a work camp draining old-growth cypress swamps, then at a mental hospital in Middletown, Connecticut. He gained release from the CPS by agreeing to volunteer for the American Field Service, an ambulance corps that was started during World War I. In 1944 and 1945 he drove an AFS ambulance as the Allied Forces pushed the retreating Germans north through Italy.

He was serving with the British Army in 1945 when they liberated Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. In his unpublished 1999 memoir, he wrote that this experience “shook me to the very foundations of my thinking about war and the human condition.” He remained a pacifist throughout his life. Following the war, he returned to Pennsylvania and joined the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker relief agency. He was involved in AFSC reconstruction efforts in Italy and recently reflected that this work in Italy was one of the happiest periods of his life.

After returning to the United States, he re-enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania and completed a degree in Art History in 1947, then began work on a doctorate in classical archaeology, which he never completed. At the University of Pennsylvania Museum, he met Barbara Copp, whom he married in 1951. He worked during much of the 1950s for the Foote Mineral Company in Exton, Pennsylvania, while he and his wife raised two sons in a small 1710 log home they bought and restored. It is still standing at 251 Irish Road, Berwyn.

One of Conrad Wilson's major local achievements was the restoration of the Van Leer log cabin on Irish Road on the grounds of Conestoga High School. He proposed and taught an American Heritage course at the high school and between 1960 and 1966 advanced students from the school researched and restored the cabin. It was originally built between 1800 and 1820 by the Van Leer family and at the time of the restoration was owned by the high school. Shown above is the finished cabin with students who worked on the project and Conrad Wilson in the foreground in the white shirt. Date: c. June 1966. Photographer unknown. Courtesy Tredyffrin Easttown Historical Society.

Leaving his job at Foote Mineral and following his passion for history, he proposed an innovative course on local history to Conestoga High School in Berwyn, Pennsylvania. The idea was accepted and he taught it for two years, during which time he and his students restored a 1800s log cabin on the school property, using the building as a focus for their studies.

He then worked alternately at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and the Chester County Historical Society in West Chester, Pennsylvania, serving as director of the latter organization from 1973 to 1977. During much of this period he and his family lived in Villanova.

In 1985, he and his wife moved to Dummerston, Vermont to be closer to their younger son and live out a long-held wish to return to Vermont. During his twenty years at Deer Run Farm in Dummerston, he continued to pursue his lifelong interest in genealogy, and spent much of his time outdoors, tending his extensive woodland landscapes and trail networks.

He is remembered as a kind and generous man by all those who knew him. Throughout his life he was committed both to the betterment of humanity and the protection of the environment.

He was predeceased by his wife in 1995. He is survived by an older brother, William Wilson of West Chester, Pennsylvania; two sons, Christopher Wilson of West Newbury and Alexander Wilson of West Dummerston; and six grandchildren.

(Original obituary used with permission by Alexander Wilson. Our thanks to Craig TenBroeck for putting us in contact with Conrad Wilson's family.)