A recluse for more than a decade before her death in 1903, Anne Drinker’s career as a writer was well on its way to bringing her a lifetime of recognition, yet more than a hundred years after her death, it is very difficult to find even the smallest detail about her. The daughter of Joseph D. and Eleanor (Skyrin) Drinker, she was born in Philadelphia in 1827 and educated there, but spent much of her life in Montrose in Susquehanna county. Writing under the pen name of Edith May, she authored many poems, many of which were published in the Home Journal, a well-known magazine of the time, and she began to acquire a following. The following snippet from The Automobile Tourist gives a sense of her life:

“At Edgemont, the famous home of Ann Drinker may be visited, and some member of the party should be able to tell of her romantic life and the story of her brilliant social career, her misplaced affections upon an unworthy suitor, her confinement in a sanitarium, on the ground that she was insane, by her guardian, who wished to secure possession of her estate; her rescue by her brother, who murdered her guardian. All the thrilling details of the indispensable ghost certain to haunt such homesteads, will provide another series of pleasurable thrills that will prove the main feature of the successful moonlight trip.

For a longer run, and one in keeping with the main thought of the evening, a side trip of five miles may be taken from Edgemont to the pretty little Episcopalian churchyard at Rockdale, where Ann Drinker lies buried, near the grave of her brother Joseph.

A brief review of the tragic end of the life of Joseph Drinker will be in keeping with the thoughts of the evening. Between Ann and her brother Joseph there existed a bond of love and sympathy that stood the strain of a murder and years of confinement in a madhouse. After rescuing Ann from the asylum in which she had been confined - in the blindness of his passion over the wrong - Joseph murdered the crafty guardian who committed the crime. Ann spend the better part of her fortune in the effort to save her brother form the gallows, and in the end she was successful, for the jury rendered a verdict of insanity. When Joseph Drinker was sent to an insane asylum his sister retired from society and lived a recluse during the remainder of her long life. Now that their bodies lie side by side in the little Rockdale Cemetery, the place is frequently visited by the morbidly curious who know their story.”

What is known about her life and that of her brother is the following:

• Her father died in 1881, her mother in 1877 (from the Drinker genealogy)
• Her brother Joseph fatally shot W. H. Cooper, her guardian in June of 1884 (NY Times, 6/24/1884)
• She was released from the asylum at Harrisburg, having been declared sane, in late summer 1885. (NY Times, 9/27/1885)
• Joseph died in 1894 and Anne had him buried at Calvary Episcopal in Rockdale, Aston township.
• Anne died in 1903 and was buried beside her brother, her name added to the headstone for him.

What is not known are the details alluded to in the article quoted, such as the story of her ill-fated love affair, but perhaps those fascinating bits will surface one day.

This was supposed to be the summer that I was going to make lots of day trips to photograph gravestones and old churches, but it hasn’t quite worked out that way so far. Though I have been spending a lot of time updating my own records, mostly the Quaker ones, this next trip will be to wander around an old Episcopalian site for a change, specifically Old St. David’s in Radnor. It’s a big place and filled with the graves of lots of notable figures, some of which tie in to my family. Because the older burials at St. David’s up to 1906 have been documented, I have a fair start to identifying some of the folks there. My plan is to photograph as many of the stones as possible and tie them in to their proper family links where I can. Part of what makes this sort of research interesting to me is to see familiar names that keep popping up in the different churchyards. Two of the other Episcopal parishes I am working on right now are St. James Perkiomen in Montgomery county and Old St. Mary’s at Warwick in Chester County, where many of the same surnames from St. David’s appear as well. With any degree of luck, I’ll make it up there one day this week.

With the New Year almost here, what resolutions will you make regarding your genealogy projects? One of mine will be to transcribe more genealogy data for Delaware county this year and make as much of it available here as possible. Another will be to organize at least reunion for my family in the area, to try to identify some of the old photos we have gathered and update records. I also want to go through my family tree database and properly source some of the older entries that are missing that information. And, finally, I want to schedule several trips to the area to add more photographs to the gallery. All in all, it looks to be a busy year ahead!

As Halloween approaches rapidly, spooky stories seem to come out of the wood-work. Here’s a classic tale from the late part of the 1800’s:

1892-02-27  The Philadelphia Inquirer

Chester Folk Have A Ghost

Murdered Young Emma Pfitzenmeyer’s Spirit Now Turns Up

Hair-Raising Experience of Members of the Rumford Family

They Visit The Room In Which The Pretty Girl Met Her Death and Have A Lively and Very Interesting Time With A Spook

Spercial to the Inquirer

Chester, Feb. 26. — The Schmidt residence, where that pretty German girsl, Emma Pfitzenmeyer, lost her life after she had returned from a dance, has leaped into prominence again, and this time because the “ghost” of the murdered girl insists upon roaming about to the great consternation of those in the neighborhood.

Emma wasn’t the kind of girl that would be likely to trouble the living, but after her tragic end it was some time before the owner of the Schmidt residence could get a tenant. Those persons who happened to be looking for a house were not afraid fo ghosts, no indeed, but they didn’t like to live in such places.

No Fear of Spirits

Finally a family came along that didn’t care a cent for spooks, rather liked the idea, in fact. So a short time ago, John Rumford, his wife and 19-year-old daughter Mattie moved in. It wasn’t long before Mrs. Rmford and a married daughter began to tell their friends about the unusual scenes in the house. They went so far as to say they had seen the ghost of some girl meandering around inthe roms. Mattie and her father laughed. “Rank nonsense,” they called it.

Tuesday evening, however, the final blow came. It was about 9 o’clock when Mattie was asked to go upstairs and get a wrap for her older sister. Mattie started and what followed can best be told in her own words. Here is the story as she told it to the Inquirer correspondent:

She Saw Something

“There is one gas jet in the room and this was lit and turned down very low. As I entered the door of the room something came from the closet. It had long waving hair, and resembled Emma Pfitzenmeyer. I held out my hand t see if it was not some mistake , and it uttered the most piercing shrieks. I made a rush from the room, and as I put my foot on teh first step I am positive I felt some one take hold of my arm.

After that I remember nothing until I recovered consciousness.

Her mother here related how they had picked her up at the bottom of the stairs unconscious, bleeding profusely from the mouth, and one of her feet badly sprained. The other members of the house are equally as positive as Miss Mattie, concerning the presence of some mysterious being in the house.

She Saw Emma

Mrs. Rumford said, “I have seen the form of Emma Pfitzenmeyer, that ill-fated German girl, standing at the foot of my bed. I did not know the girl in life, but as she appeared to me she was of medium height, with light hair which hung loosely over her shoulders. On another occasion my husband was in the room with me. I called his attention to it, and as I did so, it vanished, leaving only a ring of smoke. He saw this and nervously opened the door to see where it had gone. At various times I have seen the hand and arm of a woman in different parts of the room. I do not believe in ghosts, neither do any of the family, but this has given us a terrible shock.”