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Family
Marriage: Children:
  1. Mary Louise Wolfenden: Birth: 15 MAR 1915. Death: 1965 in Friends Southwest Cemetery, Cardington, PA


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Notes
a. Note:   From Mildred Minster Larson: I remember Uncle Dink (David Wolfenden) and my mother (Mildred Everett Wolfenden Minster) talking about the early film days near the mill. The character actor Ed Wynne ( who did the "I love to Laugh" song in the Mary Poppins movie) was from Wynnewood (duh) and his son Keenan Wynne also had a Hollywood career. Dink knew Ed Wynne and mother took Dink to see the Mary Poppins movie so he could see him. She told me that when they came out of the theater Dink said; "that's the first picture I've been to since talkies came in". Priceless.
  Another anecdote from Mildred Minster Larson:
 Here’s the story I got from my mother about the clock (Uncle Dink's grandfather clock). Grandfather Wolfenden (John Taylor Wolfenden) bought it in disrepair from a widow named Wiltbanks who lived up the street on Marshall Road. Apparently Dink liked to tinker with things and the widow needed $, thus the purchase. How it survived Dink’s“tinkering” is amazing.

 The clock was made about 1830 in Germantown by a man named John Hagy. I had it appraised by a staff member @ Winterthur Museum in Wilmington who dated it @ 1830 because the map of the world on the clock face shows Australia as “New Holland”. It became Australia in 1830. News didn’t travel so fast then so it is “about” 1830. Another interesting aspect of the clock history is that the Wiltbank/Wiltbanks (spelled various ways) family were the people who had a business in north Philadelphia  called at the time:“Hauling and draying”. I think a “dray” is a wagon. When the Liberty Bell cracked at John Marshall’s funeral it was the Wiltbank Company that hauled it away to their lot in N. Phila. and there it stayed until it was rescued by a citizen’s committee and placed back in Independence Hall on the first floor, not in the bell tower. The Bell was in Independence Hall when I was young but now it is in a tourist information center nearby. Therefore the clock that has been in our family since grandfather bought it in the early 1900’s has a connection to the Liberty Bell. I have some newspaper articles about the Wiltbanks and The Liberty Bell which I will copy and send to you. There was a branch of that family in Baltimore who claimed they should have the Liberty Bell because of its history in their family. Of course they didn’t get it but it made news at the time.

 Everyone knew it was Dink’s clock and, as you said, many items in the big house on Marshall Road were left with Aunt Elizabeth with the understanding that each of her siblings would claim their own things at sometime in the future or when she sold the house. When she moved to Drexel Hill Dink allowed the clock to go with her and Willard. After her death Dink tried many times to make an appointment with Willard to go to Drexel Hill to get his clock and Willard kept putting him off saying he would be at work or it wasn’t convenient etc. etc. After several of these excuses , which of course were bogus, Dink finally told him when he would be coming for the clock and if he wasn’t home there was no problem because he had a couple of friends, ( big“colored fellas”  to quote Dink) with axes and they’d axe the door down and he’d take his clock that way. Of course the little creep was home; he was not match for Dink!

 You probably can look up the Wiltbanks family in a history of Delaware County. I’ll look for those newspaper articles about the clock which I believe are in the floor of the clock case.

 And another story:
 Thanks Dan for the articles on early film making in Delaware County. My mother said Dink knew comedian and Philadelphian Ed Wynn from the early film making days. Late in his career Wynn had a scene in the movie Mary Poppins ( I Love to Laugh) and his son, Keenan Wynn, had a major Hollywood career.  

 And now the embalmed body story as told to me by my mother when I was a nursing student at PGH ( Philadelphia General Hospital). Before Mayor Frank Rizzo had it torn down the hospital was located at 34th and Curie Ave. across from Convention Hall and next to the Univ. of Penna. Hospital which now occupies all that property I think.

 Uncle Dink and Uncle Jim took over running the mills after grandfather died. They “employed” a man as a custodian and night watchman whose name I don’t know but who had a very ordinary name like John Jones or William Smith and who lived in a room at the mill.  I believe he was a drifter they had taken in and given a job to help him as the Wolfenden family often did in many ways at that time. Sometimes this man would go on a drinking binge and disappear for a few days and then show up again. (James and Dink did their own share of drinking so this was no big deal to them). One Saturday morning in spring or summer just as he was preparing to go to the shore Dink got a call from PGH that this man had been found on the street and died in PGH. Dink’s name was in his wallet as the person to contact. Dink called a friend he knew at Oliver Bair Funeral Home to go get the body and embalm it. In the meantime Dink went to this man’s room at the Mill and found the name of a sister in Pittsburgh. He called the sister and made arrangements for her to come to Philadelphia by train for the funeral. This was in the 1920’s when telephoning and travel weren’t so easy and “going to the shore” was almost an all-day adventure. Making these arrangements meant many calls and took up most of Dink’s day. Later when he talked to his friend at Oliver Bair, the friend said,“my, that was a fine looking and rather young colored man you had me go for”.To which Dink said “but I sent you for a white man” and got the reply ”well they gave me a colored man and he’s been embalmed” !!  Dink called PGH and after some checking they found out  that 2 men with the same name came in by police wagon around the same time the night before and the papers got mixed up and Dink’s man was sobering up on the ward ! Dink said he’d return the black man to them and was told they wouldn’t accept a body once it was released. Now the sister is on her way from Pittsburgh and he has an embalmed black man on his hands. Late that night Dink and his undertaker buddy put the body in a plain pine box or wicker casket, put it in a hearse, took it to PGH, left it at the front  gate and drove away. Then he had to clean up the guy’s room and get him from PGH to meet his sister who was on her way for a funeral. It‘s like something from a movie.



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