A grandson of a twice-wounded veteran of the American Civil War and the second youngest child of a telephone industry pioneer, Chester Hartanft Snyder, Sr. began his work life as an employee of a communications company that was co-founded by his father.

Choosing to forge his own path professionally, he advanced up his personal career ladder through a series of increasingly responsible positions in America’s insurance industry during the mid-twentieth century. At the time of his retirement, he was a sales manager for The Prudential Insurance Company of America.

At the time of his death, he was a thirty-second degree Mason.

Formative Years

Born on 17 October 1910 in the Village of Lavelle, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, Chester Hartranft Snyder was the seventh child born to John Hartranft Snyder and Minnie Rebecka (Strohecker) Snyder. His mother, Minnie, was the daughter of Samuel and Annie (Troutman) Strohecker, of the town of Gordon in Schuylkill County. His father, John, was the first surviving son of Catharine (Boyer) Snyder and Timothy Matthias Snyder, who had served with the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry during the American Civil War.

* Note: The name “Hartranft,” which was chosen as the middle name of Chester Hartranft Snyder, was first used in this branch of the Snyder family when Chester H. Snyder’s father, John Hartranft Snyder, was born to Timothy Matthias Snyder and Catharine (Boyer) Snyder. Tim and his wife had made the decision to give each of their male children middle names which honored several of the Union Army generals that Tim had served under and come to respect. “Hartranft” was the surname of Major-General John Frederick Hartranft, the Union Army officer who was placed in charge of the federal prison where key conspirators in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln were held during their imprisonment and trial. (Major-General Hartranft was also the Union Army officer who read the execution warrant to the subsequently convicted conspirators shortly before their hanging at that prison. Post-war, General Hartranft was elected as the seventeenth governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.)

Chester Hartranft Snyder was also decended from American Revolutionary War Patriot Johann Nicholas Schneider, according to an application that Chester’s older brother, John Sylvester Snyder, filed for membership in the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution during the 1940s. In addition, Chester H. Snyder was a nephew of Spanish-American War veteran Timothy Grant Snyder, who had served aboard the flagship of United States Navy Admiral George Dewey as a private with the United States Marine Corps, and who was the second oldest son of Civil War veteran Timothy Matthias Snyder.

By the time that Chester H. Snyder opened his eyes for the first time in Schuylkill County, his four oldest siblings, Timothy Peter Snyder (1898-1913), Nona Mae Snyder (1900-1987), Helen Corrine Snyder (1901-1988), and John Sylvester Snyder (1904-1969), had already become regular attendees at the Lavelle School. All four had been born at the Snyder family home on Main Street in Lavelle, with Tim having been born roughly two years before the end of the previous century, on 1 May 1898, and Nona having been born shortly after the dawn of the twentieth, on 29 January 1900. Corrine had opened her eyes in Lavelle for the first time on 6 September 1901, followed by Catharine Rebecka Snyder (1906-1995), who was born on 25 August 1906 and would go on to become an executive assistant with the New Holland Company and marry businessman Charles F. Courtney (1900-1950); and Lillian Estelle Snyder (1908-2001), who was born on 30 September 1908 and would go on to become a head nurse at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts and a clinical nursing instructor at the Allentown Hospital School of Nursing before working for the pharmaceutical company Merck Sharpe & Dohme in Baltimore, Maryland.

They were also all children of increasingly busy, working parents. Two years before Chester Snyder was born, the family’s patriarch, John Hartranft Snyder, had co-founded the Lavelle Telegraph and Telephone Company. Officially incorporated in 1908, the company’s main communications center was based at the Snyder family home on Main Street in Lavelle, which was located directly across the street from the Lavelle School. (John H. Snyder would later be credited with installing the first telephone lines in the Lavelle Valley, as well as in rural areas south of the city of Ashland in Schuylkill County.)

In addition, John H. Snyder’s wife, Minnie, and their oldest children operated a dry goods store from the ground floor of the family’s home.

But the Snyders’ increasingly good fortune would be abruptly halted when they collectively experienced the first of two tragedies. The first occurred sometime around 8:30 p.m. on the evening of 16 March 1911, while Chester Snyder was still in his infancy, when a fire was sparked by a gasoline stove in the family’s house–a largely wooden structure. Flames were reportedly visible as far away as the city of Pottsville.

The Snyders were able to escape, thankfully, but their home was completely destroyed–as was the home of Harry Keller, their neighbor next door. The fire then spread roughly one hundred feet further, heavily damaging the home of G. S. Maurer. The fire loss for the Snyders was estimated at twelve hundred dollars while Harry Keller was estimated to have lost property valued at fifteen hundred dollars.

The Snyders subsequently rebuilt their home at the same site on Main Street, but were required to relocate to Ashland during the construction. As a result, they collectively and individually endured several years of hardship.

A Heartbreaking End

As if that devastating fire had not been tragic enough, the family suffered another tragedy just over two years later when Chester H. Snyder’s older brother, Timothy P. Snyder, was critically injured during a coal mining-related accident. Just nine days shy of his fifteenth birthday, Tim fell from a coal train while working as a laborer at the Potts Colliery in Locustdale, Schuylkill County on 22 April 1913. The train, which was in motion at the time, ran over his legs. Although his battered body was transported as quickly as possible from the colliery to the Ashland Hospital in Ashland, Tim died while en route, at 2:30 that same afternoon.

Snyder family records and oral histories confirm that the teenaged Timothy P. Snyder had taken a man-sized job at the colliery to help his family meet ends during the rebuilding of their home following the 1911 fire. He remains at rest with his parents at the Snyder family plot at the Citizens’ Cemetery in Lavelle, Pennsylvania.

Although Chester Snyder was too young to understand the impact of the double tragedy as a toddler, he was still very likely affected by the shock and grief that his parents and older siblings were experiencing.

Roughly four years after Timothy P. Snyder’s heaetbreaking death, Chester Snyder and his family appeared to be healing–thanks in part to the birth of a new Snyder sibling–Willard Emery Snyder (1917-1972)–the final child who would be born to John Hartranft Snyder and his wife, Minnie.

Like their father before them, Chester and Willard would grow up to become employees of the telephone industry. In addition, Willard would forge a close bond with their older sister, Corrine, who was largely responsible for raising both boys while their parents managed the family’s businesses and kept the family afloat during an increasingly challenging economy. It was Willard, in fact, who created Corrine’s nickname. Unable to pronounce her name (“KO-reen’) correctly as a toddler, he called her “Eenie,” and it stuck, becoming a beloved moniker for a much-beloved sister and aunt.

On 8 August 1918, the Snyder siblings’ paternal grandmother, Catharine (Boyer) Snyder (the widow of American Civil War veteran Timothy Matthias Snyder), died at her home at 1131 Church Street in Reading, Pennsylvania. In her late sixties at the time of her death from complications related to pulmonary tuberculosis, Catharine’s remains were transported to the Brock Cemetery in Ashland, Schuylkill County, for burial beside her husband on 11 August.

Perseverance in the Face of Adversity

As a chief stockholder and secretary of the Lavelle Telegraph and Telephone Company, Snyder family patriarch John Hartranft Snyder continued to manage the firm’s expansion throughout the teen and early adult years of the older Snyder siblings.

By 1920, Chester H. Snyder was still residing at home in Lavelle with his parents and was continuing his studies at the Lavelle School. Also residing at the Snyders’ home were his siblings: Nona, Corrine, John S., Catharine R., Lillian E., Chester H., and Willard E. Snyder. According to that year’s federal census, Nona was a nineteen-year-old “Saleslady” in a “Clothing Store,” and was the only one of her siblings who was employed at that time. Their father, John H. Snyder, was described as a “Carpenter” who was employed in the “Coal Mines.”

All of the Snyder children, except for Willard, were described as having attended school during that school year. That same year, the Snyder siblings’ mother and aunts, as well as other women across the United States of America who were twenty-one years of age or older, were granted the right to vote, following the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution on 18 August 1920.

By the mid to late 1920s, Ches Snyder, as he had come to be known, was graduating from Ashland High School, while three of his sisters–Corrine (who was known to family as “Eenie”), Catharine (who was known as “Kitty” or “Kit”) and Lillian–had moved out of the Snyder family home in Lavelle and had relocated to the city of Reading in neighboring Berks County. Both Eenie and Kitty, who had been working as a bookkeeper and a stenographer, respectively, had been living together in an apartment at 1037 North 4th Street in Reading when Lillian moved in with them during the winter of 1927 in order to pursue training at the Reading Hospital School of Nursing. Following her graduation on 9 May 1929, Lillian was appointed to the nursing faculty and clinical staff of the Reading Hospital.

Sometime around this same time, Ches Snyder’s older brother, John Sylvester Snyder, relocated to Mount Carmel in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania. By 1928, John S. Snyder was employed there as a construction estimator and superintendent of construction for the E. R. Bastress Company.

But once again, the strength of Ches Snyder and his family would be tested when a major reversal of fortune shook their community, state and nation during the fall of 1929. Between 28 and 29 October of that unstable year, the Dow Jones (America’s stock market) suffered a twenty-five percent loss, sparking a worldwide financial disaster that would ultimately come to be known as the Great Depression. “By mid-November, the Dow had lost almost half its value,” according to historians at the United States Federal Reserve.

The slide continued through the summer of 1932, when the Dow closed at 41.22, its lowest value of the twentieth century, 89 percent below its peak. The Dow did not return to its pre-crash heights until November 1954.

Still single and living in Schuylkill County when the New Year dawned, Ches Snyder was working for the communications company that his father had co-founded–Lavelle Telegraph and Telephone. Unlike siblings Nona, Willard and John S. Snyder, however, Ches was not documented as a member of his parents’ household when the 1930 federal census enumerator arrived at the Snyder family’s home on Main Street.

* Note: In 1930, the federal census enumerator for the Village of Lavelle confirmed that John Sylvester Snyder (Ches Snyder’s older brother) was employed as a laborer at a lumber company and unmarried, and noted that Nona Snyder (their oldest sister), was also still single, but was unemployed (due to the Great Depression, like so many other Americans). Their twelve-year-old brother, Willard was described as a public school student, while their father, John H. Snyder, was described as a coal mine laborer.

That same year, a census enumerator in neighboring Berks County confirmed that Eenie, Kit and Lillian Snyder (Ches Snyder’s other sisters), were still living and working in the city of Reading. Eenie was a bookkeeper employed by the Jewel Tea Company at this time, Kit was a stenographer working for the Reading Iron Company, and Lillian was a registered nurse serving on the faculty of the Reading Hospital School of Nursing.

Despite the persistence of economic uncertainty throughout the 1930s, multiple Snyder siblings made multiple, forward-thinking changes to their lives–forging new paths that they hoped and prayed would lead them toward brighter days. On 3 June 1931, John Sylvester Snyder wed Catherine M. Rissmiller (1906-1996) in Gordon, Schuylkill County. Known to family and friends as “Kitty,” she was a daughter of Albert and Emma Rissmiller.

Then, on 15 June 1933, Ches Snyder wed Roma May Haas (1914-2003). A daughter of Palmer C. Haas and Mayme J. (Dietz) Haas of Pitman, Schuylkill County, she was known to family and friends as “May.” Their wedding ceremony was held in the parsonage of the Salem Reformed Church in Leck Kill, and was officiated by the Reverend James Beam. According to the Mount Carmel Item:

The costume of the bride was a gown of pink mousseline de sole with white accessories. She carried a bouquet of roses.

Miss Haas was attended by Miss Nona Snyder, a sister of the bridegroom. Miss Snyder’s outfit was of rose chiffon with tan accessories. She carried roses of a corresponding hue.

The interests of the bridegroom were looked after by John S. Snyder, of Mount Carmel, a brother.

The bride is a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Palmer C. Haas, of Pitman, and is a graduate of the Mount Carmel High School class of 1931. Miss Haas has been residing in Mount Carmel for some time.

The bridegroom is the well known son of Mr. and Mrs. John H. Snyder, of Lavelle. He is a graduate of the Ashland High School class of 1928, and is employed by the Lavelle Telephone Company.

Their first daughter, Corinne May Snyder, was born in Eldred Township, Schuylkill County on 22 January 1934. Settled comfortably with his young family in Millville, Cumberland County, New Jersey by 1937, Ches was employed as salesman for a branch of the Jewel Tea Company–the same company which had employed his older sister, Eenie Snyder in Reading, Pennsylvania since the mid-1920s.

1940s

By 1 April 1940, Ches Snyder was residing with his wife and daughter in the Borough of Ashland in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, where he was working as a milkman and truck driver. Later that same year, he and his family made a move that would forever alter their futures. They relocated to the community of Mount Carmel in Northumberland County, enabling Ches begin a new career as a salesman with that town’s branch office of The Prudential Insurance Company of America.

That fall, he and and his wife welcomed the birth of their second daughter, Susan Katherine Snyder. In 1943, a son, Chester Hartranft Snyder, Jr., was born.

* Note: Still involved with the Lavelle Telegraph and Telephone Company to some degree during the late 1930s and early 1940s, Ches Snyder’s father, John H. Snyder, was diagnosed with stomach cancer and was compelled to curtail his business efforts. As a result, the operations of Lavelle Telephone and Telegraph were subsequently connected to those of the Bell Telephone Company’s facility in Ashland. (Full control of the entire firm was ultimately transferred to Bell Telephone of Pennsylvania in 1956.)

Meanwhile, during the spring or summer of 1940, Ches Snyder’s older sisters–Eenie, Lillian and Kit Snyder–were making major life changes of their own. Still employed as a bookkeeper by Jewel Tea, Eenie transferred to the company’s branch office in the city of Allentown in Lehigh County, while Lillian and Kit left their respective jobs in the city of Reading in Berks County to relocate to Boston, Massachusetts so that Lillian could accept a position on the nursing staff of the nation’s renowned Peter Bent Brigham Hospital. She subsequently provided medical care to women and children and also trained the nursing students and staff there as part of America’s national defense preparations for World War II, while Kit worked as a private secretary with the A. M. Byers Company, one of the largest wrought iron producers in the United States. 

By February 1942, their brother, John Sylvester Snyder had been hired by the McKinney Construction Company to manage its branch office in the city of Sunbury in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania.

The first years of the 1940s would prove to be difficult ones for the Snyder siblings, however, as their father became increasingly frail. On 22 May 1944, John Hartranft Snyder was compelled by his illness to undergo major surgery at the Geisinger Hospital in Danville, Pennsylvania. As his condition worsened, Ches Snyder’s younger brother, Willard Snyder, was brought home from his duty with the U.S. Navy Seabees on Midway Island in the Pacific Theater of World War II for a thirty-day leave of absence to visit their dying father.

Around this same time, their sister, Lillian Snyder, resigned her position as a head nurse at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston “to come back home to stay with her parents,” according to “Lavelle Nurse Home,” a news report that was published in the 18 July 1944 edition of the Mount Carmel Item. (In doing so, she ended a promising career with one of the leading academic medical centers in the United States, causing her to spend the remainder of her nursing career striving to regain the power and prestige she had accrued during one of the happiest and most fulfilling periods of her life.)

Sadly, the surgery their father endured was not enough to save him. On 5 August 1944, John Hartranft Snyder succumbed to cancer-related complications–just weeks after Willard Snyder had returned to his duties on Midway Island. Following his passing at the Snyder family home in Lavelle, John H. Snyder was laid to rest at the Citizens’ Cemetery in Lavelle, in the same family plot where the Snyder siblings’ older brother, Timothy P. Snyder, had been buried after his tragic, fatal accident in 1913.

Soldiering on in their respective military and civilian capacities, the siblings’ sadness and worry increased, as it did for so many of their fellow Americans, when they read the shocking news that U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had died on 12 April 1945. Although they understood, intellectually, that there would be a smooth transition of power at their nation’s highest level, as Vice President Harry Truman became the next president of the United States, they also feared what might happen next as their younger brother, Willard Snyder, and other sailors and soldiers continued their fight to bring an end to World War II under the leadership of a new commander-in-chief. Joining with others across the nation who mourned the late president, they read news coverage of President Roosevelt’s death and funeral, which included memorable images in Life Magazine and other publications that were created by renowned photographers Wayne F. Miller, Ed Clark, et. al.

Their fears were gradually transformed into halting feelings of hope, however, as word spread that an end to the global conflict might be closer than they had dared dream. Buoyed by a radio broadcast on 8 May 1945, during which senior U.S. military officials proclaimed that Victory in Europe had finally been achieved, they joined with other Pennsylvanians in V-Day celebrations that were tempered by the knowledge that their youngest brother was still in harm’s way in the war’s Pacific.

On 2 July 1945, Ches Snyder was promoted to the position of assistant superintendent of Prudential’s Mount Carmel office. According to the Mount Carmel Item, he had previously spent “five years as an agent on the Mount Carmel Township Wilburton debit.” Six subordinate sales agents subsequently reported to him, as did one office clerk.

During that summer of 1945, the Snyder siblings were finally able to relax as radio stations and newspapers announced, in mid-August, that the Empire of Japan had surrendered and, on 2 September, had formally signed the Japanese Instrument of Surrender, sparking V-J (Victory over Japan) celebrations across Pennsylvania and worldwide. They would see their youngest brother soon.

* Note: The Snyder siblings’ post-World War II reunification process began on 18 October 1945, when Seaman Willard Snyder ended his tour of duty on Midway Island. Shipped with other Seabees to San Francisco, he arrived on 26 October and was stationed there until ordered to return to the East Coast. Part way through his trip home, however, he became ill during a stopover in Olathe, Kansas. Redirected by a superior officer to the U.S. Naval Hospital in Great Lakes, Illinois, he was admitted there on 9 November, and received roughly two weeks of treatment for malaria, which he had contracted while in service to the nation. Subsequently transported to the U.S. Naval Personal Separation Center in Bainbridge, Maryland during the third week of November, he was honorably discharged on 24 November 1945, and allowed to return to his childhood home on Main Street in Lavelle.

Post-war, the Snyder siblings and other Pennsylvanians began to rebuild their lives. Willard and Lillian Snyder continued to reside at the Snyder family home in Lavelle, while Eenie continued to live and work in Allentown. Still residing in Mount Carmel in 1946, Ches and Mae Snyder welcomed the birth of their third daughter, Barbara Haas Snyder.

On 12 July 1947, Ches Snyder’s older sister, Kit, married steel industry salesman Charles Francis Courtney, Jr. in Boston and began to make a new life with him in the city of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

* Note: Sometime during the 1940s, Chester H. Snyder, Sr. contracted diphtheria, but recovered thanks to the nursing care he received from his sister, Lillian Snyder, who was still a registered nurse. His recovery was also aided by his wife, May. 

As his career with Prudential took off, Ches was assigned to cover territory in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. Rather than uprooting his family, however, he continued to reside with them in Mount Carmel. As a result, he created a revised work life for himself that involved regular commutes to the community of Enola–a bread-winning, “knight-errant” status that he maintained until 1951. 

Somewhere along the way during this busy professional and personal life, Ches Snyder acquired the nickname of “Bingo,” which was shortened to “Bing” by family and friends.

1950s

Still managing Prudential’s Mount Carmel branch office as the 1950s dawned, Ches Snyder still resided in Mount Carmel with his wife and children, who were all enrolled in the local public schools (except for three-year-old Barbara). In April of 1950, Ches Snyder’s oldest sister, Eenie Snyder, was still working for Jewel Tea as a bookkeeper and was still living alone in apartment number two at 930 North Nineteenth Street in Allentown when a federal census enumerator knocked on her door.

* Note: That same month (April 1950), a federal census enumerator confirmed that Ches Snyder’s brother, Willard, was the head of a household residing in the Snyder siblings’ childhood home on Main Street in Lavelle. Also residing with Willard were his wife, Genevieve, and their daughter, Judy; Willard’s sister, Lillian, and their mother, Minnie. Lillian was employed as a nurse at a hospital by this time, while Willard was worked as a repairman for Bell Telephone.

Sometime after April 1950, however, Lillian Snyder joined the nursing faculty and staff at the Allentown General Hospital in Lehigh County. Still single, Lillian shared an apartment with their sister, Eenie. (From this point forward, Eenie and Lillian would continue to live together for the remainder of Eenie’s life–first in Allentown, then in Baltimore, Maryland, and finally in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.)

Still residing in Lancaster with her husband, Kit (Snyder) Courtney lived with him in an apartment building in Lancaster. Their happy times together were cut short, however, when Charlie suffered an acute coronary occlusion on 1 December 1950. Following his death the next day at the Lancaster General Hospital, his remains were cremated and subsequently inurned in the columbarium at the Charles Evans Cemetery in Reading.

On 12 February 1951, Chester H. Snyder, Sr. was transferred from Prudential’s office in Mount Carmel to its office in the city of Harrisburg in Dauphin County.

Just over a year later, the Snyder siblings found themselves grieving yet another loss when their mother, Minnie (Strohecker) Snyder, died at the age of eighty in Allentown on 28 April 1952. Battling cancer, Minnie (Strohecker) Snyder had moved from Lavelle into the same apartment that Eenie shared with Lillian in Allentown so that Lillian, a clinical nursing instructor on the faculty of the Allentown Hospital’s School of Nursing, could care for her. Following her passing, Minnie was also laid to rest at the Citizens’ Cemetery in Lavelle.

Less than a year later, the Snyder family’s oldest daughter, Nona, finally decided that she was also free to marry. At 8 a.m., on 23 September 1953, she wed Allen Adam Albert (1907-1993), the owner of Albert’s clothing store in Pine Grove, Schuylkill County. Their wedding ceremony was held at the First Evangelical Congregational Church in Lebanon, Pennsylvania. A subsequent report by the Lebanon Daily News noted that “The couple was unattended” during the ceremony.

During the  early to mid-1950s, Ches Snyder took a break from his Prudential career in order to accept a new management job in an entirely different industry, according to oral history records in the Snyder Family Archives. Hired by Harrisburg-based, jet engine repair company B. F. Hetrick Industries, he was recruited to manage the company’s plant in Highspire, Dauphin County.

During the summer of 1954, Ches and May Snyder announced the engagement of their oldest daughter, Corinne, to Thomas Burt, an ensign in the United States Navy who was stationed in Philadelphia, aboard the USS McGowan. Also residing in Philadelphia at that time, Corinne M. Snyder was employed as a receptionist by the McGraw-Hill Publishing Company.

In October 1956, Ches Snyder was transferred to the West Coast by B. F. Hetrick and assigned to manage his firm’s new plant in Sacramento, California. Established under a contract with the McClellan Air Force Base, that plant had just opened on 20 September 1956. According to a report by The Sacramento Bee:

Boyd F. Hetrick, president of the company, said 20 persons [would] be employed at the start, with 80 expected to be on the payroll within a year. He estimated that should conditions warrant this branch could employ as many as 300 to 400 in future years.

The company [was, at that time,] negotiating for the purchase of a 10 acre north area site on which to construct permanent facilities.

Chester H. Snyder [thus became the] manager of the Sacramento plant and Frederick C. Helsom, general foreman.

The transfer appeared to be a promising one for Ches Snyder, but he quickly realized that he had walked into an uncomfortable work environment–one in which tensions had sparked between the firm and a union representing jet engine repairmen in just the first few weeks of the plant’s opening. As work disputes mounted and tensions increased further, life became increasingly unsafe for Ches and his family.

The final straw came when union workers through bricks through the windows of his family home at 6209 Elinora Way in the North Highlands section of Sacramento. Motivated by the shocking violence, he resigned, brought his family back to Pennsylvania, and resumed his career with Prudential.

Subsequently residing with his family at 251 Clark Street in Lemoyne, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania (the same home where he and his wife would reside from 1956 until his death), Ches Snyder was employed as a sales agent with Prudential’s West Shore District Office. Based in Camp Hill, he and his colleagues were honored in multiple newspaper advertisements by Prudential from 1957 through 1959–several of which noted that the West Shore office was a recipent of the Prudential President’s Citation for outstanding performance.

* Note: Around this same time, Ches Snyder’s still-single older sisters, Eenie and Lillian Snyder, also made a major move. In 1956, they relocated to Baltimore, Maryland, enabling Lillian to accept a position as a registered nurse with Merck Sharp & Dohme, the pharmaceutical company known for its development of streptomycin, the first medication proven to be effective in the treatment of tuberculosis–the disease which had sickened and killed the Snyder siblings’ paternal grandmother, Catharine (Boyer) Snyder.

1960s

As the next new decade dawned, excitement was brewing yet again for the Snyders as Ches and May Snyder announced the engagement of their daughter, Susan, to Gerald Dixon Seiler, a son of Allen P. Seiler of Enola, Pennsylvania. Their wedding was held that summer in Lemoyne; Susan’s sister, Barbara Snyder, served as her maid of honor.

Roughly four years later, Ches and May’s son, Chester Hartranft Snyder, Jr., wed Julia Dawn Hauser at the Wade Street Methodist Church in Guilford County, North Carolina. An airman with the United States Air Force during the early 1960s, Chester H. Snyder, Jr. had been trained in radio and radar maintenance at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi.

As the Sixties era wound down, Ches and May Snyder made plans for a European vacation. During that trip in 1968, they toured London and Paris, and also visited their daughter, Barbara (Snyder) Behm, who was residing in West Berlin, Germany while her husband, Ronald Behm, was serving as a specialist, fourth class with the United States Army.

1970s

Still residing with his wife, May, at their home on Clark Street in Lemoyne at the dawn of the 1970s, Ches Snyder traveled with May to Miami Beach, Florida, where they networked with friends and colleagues as he represented his employer, The Prudential Company of America, at a regional business conference in May 1971.

Two years later, in May 1973, he and May traveled south yet again, but this time, it was for a pleasure trip to Mobile, Alabama to support one of their grandchildren, Linda Susan Rutledge, as she participated in the America’s Junior Miss Pageant. On 11 May 1973, they watched with pride as their granddaughter was crowned as America’s Junior Miss, and was awarded a scholarship to support her studies in computer science at Pennsylvania State University.

Still working as a sales manager for Prudential four years later, Ches Snyder took part again in a regional business conference in Miami Beach, Florida.

Later Life

Retired by the early 1980s, Ches Snyder his wife, May, continued to reside at their home in Lemoyne. On 3 June 1983, they celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary in grand style as their children hosted a luncheon and reception for them at the New Cumberland Army Depot Officers’ Club in New Cumberland on 12 June.

Sadly, their love story ended far too soon. Just over a month after their joyful celebration, seventy-two-year-old Chester Hartranft Snyder, Sr. suffered a stroke. Following his death at the Harrisburg Hospital on 22 July 1983, his funeral was held at the Trinity Lutheran Church in Lemoyne. He was then laid to rest at the Rolling Green Cemetery in Camp Hill, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania.

 

Sources:

1. “100 Years Ago–1911” (news brief regarding the 1911 fire which destroyed the family home of Chester H. Snyder, Sr.’s parents). Pottsville, Pennsylvania: Pottsville Republican, 17 March 2011.
2. “Agent Transferred” (transfer of Chester H. Snyder, Sr. from Prudential’s Mount Carmel office to its Harrisburg office). Sunbury, Pennsylvania: The Daily Item, 9 February 1951.
3. “Area Sales Talk” (mention of Chester H. Snyder, Sr.’s attendance at a sales conference in Miami Beach). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: The Evening News, 21 May 1971.
4. Attendance, Graduation and Employment Records of Lillian Estelle Snyder, Reading Hospital School of Nursing, 1927-1939 (Chester H. Snyder, Sr.’s younger sister). West Reading, Pennsylvania: Office of the Registrar, School of Nursing, Reading Hospital.
5. “Baby Girl for Mr. and Mrs. Snyder” (birth notice of Chester H. Snyder, Sr.’s daughter, Barbara). Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania: Mount Carmel Item, 19 August 1946.
6. Beyerle, Emma; and Snyder, H. Corinne [sic, Corrine], Catharine R. and Lillian E., in U.S. Census (City of Reading, Fourteenth Ward, City of Reading, Berks County, Pennsylvania, 1930). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
7. “C. H. Snyder New Assistant Sup’t of Prudential: Mount Carmel Agent Fills Vacancy Left by Kaiser Fatality.” Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania: Mount Carmel Item, 17 July 1945.
8. Catharine Snyder (paternal grandmother of Chester H. Snyder, Sr.), in Death Certificates (file no.: 91429, registered no.: 1242, date of death: 8 August 1918). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics.
9. Charles F. Courtney (brother-in-law of Chester H. Snyder, Sr.), in Death Certificates (file no.: 103378, registered no.: 912, date of death: 2 December 1950). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics.
10. “Chester H. Snyder; 32nd-Degree Mason” (obituary). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: The Evening News, 25 July 1983.
11. Chester H. Snyder, Sr., in World War II Draft Registration Cards (1940). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
12. Courtney, Charles F. and Catharine R., in Polk’s Lancaster City Directory, 1950. Boston, Massachusetts: R. L. Polk & Co., Inc., Publishers, 1950.
13. Courtney, Charles F. and Catharine R., in Polk’s Lancaster City Directory, 1960. Boston, Massachusetts: R. L. Polk & Co., Inc., Publishers, 1960.
14. “Died on Way to Hospital” (brief notice of Timothy P. Snyder’s fatal accident at work). Pottsville, Pennsylvania: Pottsville Republican, 23 April 1913.
15. “Former Area Girl, Ensign to Be Wed” (announcement of the engagement of Chester H. Snyder, Sr.’s oldest daughter). Shamokin, Pennsylvania: Shamokin News-Dispatch, 7 July 1954.
16. “Four Killed, Four Injured in Collision” (report of car accident in which Chester H. Snyder, Sr.’s nephew, David Cameron Snyder, was killed). Spokane, Washington: The Spokesman-Review, 31 December 1962.
17. Godcharles, Frederic. Biological and Genealogical Sketches from Central Pennsylvania, vol. 4, p. 257: “John S. Snyder” (regarding the life of Chester H. Snyder, Sr.’s older brother). New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, Inc., 1944.
18. “Great Depression Facts.” Hyde Park, New York: FDR Library & Museum, retrieved online 16 February 2025.
19. “Hats Off to the West Shore District Office” and “What’s All the Excitement?” (advertisements for The Prudential Insurance Company of America, documenting Chester H. Snyder, Sr.’s employment as a sales agent for the company’s highly successful West Shore District Office). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: The Evening News,  27 February 1958 and 7 October 1959.
20. “Heads New Plant” (photo of Chester H. Hartranft, Sr. with caption announcing his transfer by B. F. Hetrick to Sacramento, California). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: The Evening News, 4 October 1956.
21. “J. S. Snyder, 65 Once of Sunbury” (obituary of Chester H. Snyder Sr.’s older brother, John Sylvester Snyder). Sunbury, Pennsylvania: The Daily Item, 13 November 1969.
22. “Jet Engine Repair Firm Opens Capital Branch.” Sacramento, California: The Sacramento Bee, 13 September 1956.
23. John H. Snyder (father of Chester Hartranft Snyder, Sr.), in Death Certificates (file no.: 73704, registered no.: 184, date of death: 5 August 1944). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics.
24. “John H. Snyder” (father of Chester H. Snyder, Sr.), in “Deaths.” Pottsville, Pennsylvania: Pottsville Republican, 7 August 1944.
25. “John H. Snyder, Lavelle, ‘Phone Official, Dies” (obituary of Chester H. Snyder, Sr.’s father). Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania: Mount Carmel Item, 7 August 1944.
26. “John H. Snyder, Lavelle Businessman, Dies at 70” (obituary of Chester H. Snyder, Sr.’s father). Sunbury, Pennsylvania: The Daily Item, 8 August 1944.
27. John S. Snyder, in Death Certificates (no.: 109888, date of death: 12 November 1969). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics.
28. John Sylvester Snyder, in Applications for Membership, 1946. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania Society of the National Society Sons of the American Revolution.
29. John Sylvester Snyder, in U.S. World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942. Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
30. “Lavelle Nurse Home” (article about Lillian E. Snyder’s resignation from her position as a head nurse at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts to return home to Lavelle, Pennsylvania to care for her dying father). Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania: Mount Carmel Item, 18 July 1944.
31. “Lavelle Seabee Home from Africa on 30-Day Furlough.” Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania: Mount Carmel Item, 12 July 1943.
32. Maurer, Russ. “Lavelle Telegraph Telephone Company Charted in 1908,” in “Memories of Russ Maurer.” Hegins, Pennsylvania: The Citizen-Standard, circa 1990s.
33. “Methodist Church Ceremony Unites Miss Julia Dawn Hauser, Mr. Snyder” (announcement of the marriage of Chester Hartranft Snyder, Sr.’s son, Chester Hartranft Snyder, Jr.). High Point, North Carolina: The High Point Enterprise, 14 June 1964.
34. “Miss Nona Snyder Is Married Today to Pine Grove Man” (article describing the wedding ceremony of Nona M. Snyder and Allen A. Albert). Lebanon, Pennsylvania: Lebanon Daily News, 23 September 1953.
35. Mr. and Mrs. Chester H. Snyder, in “The West Shore Beat.” Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: The Patriot-News, 9 October 1968.
36. “Mrs. John H. Snyder” (obituary of Chester Hartranft Snyder, Sr.’s mother). Pottsville, Pennsylvania: Pottsville Republican, 29 April 1952.
37. “New Junior Miss: Pageant Crowning Elates Relatives of Ex-Area Girl” (newspaper profile of Chester H. Snyder, Sr.’s granddaughter, Linda Rutledge. and their family). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: The Patriot-News, 13 May 1973.
38. Nona, Corrine and “Kitty” Snyder, in “Personal Mentions.” Reading, Pennsylvania: The Reading Eagle, 26 August 1926.
39. “Penn State Coed Signs Up: ‘Junior Miss’ Is Rated as a Navy Midshipman” (newspaper profile of Linda Rutledge, a granddaughter of Chester Hartranft Snyder, Sr.). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: The Patriot-News, 19 September 1973.
40. “Roma Haas Was Married Last Evening” (announcement of the marriage of Chester H. Snyder and Roma May Haas). Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania: Mount Carmel Item, 16 June 1933.
41. “Snyders Are Honored on 50th Anniversary.” Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: The Evening News, 17 June 1983.
42. “Snyder-Seiler” (announcement of the engagement of Chester Hartranft Snyder, Sr.’s daughter, Susan K. Snyder, to Gerald D. Seiler). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: The Patriot-News, 14 February 1960.
43. Snyder, Catharine R. and Courtney, Charles F., in “Massachusetts Vital Records Index to Marriages” (documentation of the marriage of Chester H. Snyder, Sr.’s younger sister, Catharine, in Boston in 1947). Boston, Massachusetts: New England Historic Genealogical Society.
44. Snyder, Catharine R. and Lillian, E., in The Boston Directory for the Year Commencing July 1, 1942 (Boston, Massachusetts, 1942). Chicago, Illinois: R. L. Polk Publishers, 1942.
45. Snyder, Chester H. and Roma, in Polk’s Millville (Cumberland County, N.J.) City Directory, 1937-1938. New York City, New York: R. L. Polk & Co., Publishers, 1937.
46. Snyder, Chester, May and Corinne, in U.S. Census (Borough of Ashland, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, 1940). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
47. Snyder, Chester H. (father), May R., Corinne M., Susan K., Chester H. (son), and Barbara H., in U.S. Census (Mount Carmel, Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, 1950). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
48. Snyder, Corrine and Catharine, in Reading City Directory, 1926. Reading, Pennsylvania: Boyd’s City Directories.
49. Snyder, Corrine, Lillian E. and Catharine R., in U.S. Census (City of Reading, Fourteenth Ward, Berks County, Pennsylvania, 1940). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
50. Snyder, H. Corrine, in U.S. Census (Allentown, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, 1950). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
51. Snyder, John H., Minnie R., Timothy P. and Nona M., in U.S. Census (Butler Township, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, 1900). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
52. Snyder, John H., Minnie R., Timothy P., Nona M., H. Corrine, John S., Catharine R., and Lillian E., in U.S. Census (Lavelle, Northwest Butler Township, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, 1910). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
53. Snyder, John H., Minnie, Nona M., John S., and Willard E. in U.S. Census (Butler Township, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, 1930). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
54. Snyder, John H., Minnie R., Nona, Corrine, John S., Catharine R., Lillian E., Chester H., and Willard E. in U.S. Census (Butler Township, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, 1920). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
55. Snyder, John S., Catherine R., John A., and David C., in U.S. Census (Sunbury, Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, 1950). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
56. Snyder, Willard E. (head of household), Jene M. [sic, Genevieve; wife of Willard], Judy L. (daughter of Willard), Minnie R. (Willard’s mother), and Lillian E., in U.S. Census (Lavelle, Butler Township, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, 1950). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
57. “Stock Market Crash of 1929,” in “The Great Depression,” in “Federal Reserve History.” Washington, D.C.: Federal Reserve, retrieved online 16 February 2025.
58. Timothy P. Snyder (brother of Chester Hartranft Snyder, Sr.), in Death Certificates (file no.: 34710, date of death: 22 April 1913). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics.
59. “Two New Telephone Companies.” Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania: The Wilkes-Barre Record, 10 October 1908.