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Note: George Washington Stitcher, son of Peter Henry, was born on Christmas Eve, in the last year of the Civil War, 1865. He died on Easter Sunday, April 12, 1952, in Plainfield, N.J. During his long life, G.W. demonstrated a determination for doing things "his way". Foresaking the Stitcher family tendency to work in the trades, he signed on with the Standard Oil Company, delivering kerosene door-to-door, by horse and wagon. Along the way, he met Margaret Macready Kline, widowed or divorced, with four children. Margaret was named after her Scotch-Irish mother, Margaret Magill, who moved to Baltimore from St. Mary's City. When G.W. moved his wife to the Germantown section of Philadelphia, he took along his stepson, William Kline, and raised him as his own. A daughter, Ellamae was born, then a son, George Edward. When G.W. was transferred to Newark, N.J., William was old enough to stay behind and take a job with Atlantic City Power and Light. After a stay in Newark, the family moved, permanently, to Plainfield, N.J. The family home, a big, three-storied affair, sat sandwiched between the main street in town and the Jersey Central Railroad. G.W. retired from Standard Oil with a pension and multiple shares of ESSO stock, purchased over the years. By this time, ESSO was in the Mideast, and G.W. warned his grandson about the trickery of the "A-rabs". He was also vehemently opposed to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a man who his grandson grew to regard as a second father-figure. To ease the tedium of his long retirement, G.W. frequented the Plainfield Masonic Hall, and his fellow members helped officiate at his funeral. A compusive tinkerer and collector of useless items, G.W. built a shop behind his garage and fell into the Stitcher tendency to work with the hands. His grandson was warned away from the tools, but nevertheless, tinkered. G.W. built a summer home near Barneget Bay, in Lavalette, N.J. and spent his summers there. He consumed fish and crabs that he had personally caught in the bay. His skills were developed in his boyhood, along the Chesapeake. The retired District Manager was buried on April 15, 1952, in Hillside Cemetery, Scotch Plains Township, N.J. By happenstance, his grandson was home on leave from his duties, shipboard, in Norfolk, Va.
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