A grandson of a twice-wounded veteran of the American Civil War and the fourth-born child of a pioneer in the American telephone industry, John Sylvester Snyder was a prominent executive in Pennsylvania’s construction industry during the mid-twentieth century.

His first-born son and first-born grandson would both go on to serve the nation as officers in the United States Air Force.

Formative Years

Born on 2 May 1904 in the Village of Lavelle, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, John Sylvester Snyder was the fourth oldest child of John Hartranft Snyder and Minnie Rebecka (Strohecker) Snyder. His mother, Minnie, was the daughter of Samuel and Annie (Troutman) Strohecker, of Gordon, Schuylkill County. His father, John, was the son of American Civil War veteran Timothy Matthias Snyder, who had served with the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, and Catharine (Boyer) Snyder.

* Note: John Sylvester Snyder also decended from American Revolutionary War Patriot Johann Nicholas Schneider, according to an application that John filed for membership in the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution during the 1940s (an application that was subsequently approved by the organization). In addition, he 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.

During the early 1900s, John Sylvester Snyder attended the Lavelle School in Lavelle with his older brother, Timothy Peter Snyder (1898-1913), and his older sisters, Nona Mae Snyder (1900-1987) and Helen Corrine Snyder (1901-1988). All three 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.

Around this same time, the family’s patriarch, John Hartranft Snyder, co-founded the Lavelle Telegraph and Telephone Company, which was officially incorporated in 1908. John H. Snyder was subsequently 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. During the firm’s early days, the company’s main communications center was based at the Snyder family home on Main Street in Lavelle.

In addition to John H. Snyder’s involvement with the Lavelle Telegraph and Telephone Company, John Snyder’s wife, Minnie, and their oldest children operated a dry goods store from the ground floor of the Snyder family home in Lavelle, which was located directly across from the Lavelle School.

By 1910, the increasingly prosperous Snyder family was welcoming the arrival of another child–Chester Hartranft Snyder (1910-1983). Born on 17 October 1910, he would ultimately grow up to become an insurance company executive.

But that progress would be abruptly halted when the Snyders experienced the first of two tragedies. In 1911, the Snyder family home in Lavelle was destroyed by fire. The family members subsequently rebuilt their home at the same site on Main Street, but were required to relocate to Ashland during the construction. As a result, the family underwent several years of hardship.

A Heartbreaking End

As if that devastating fire had not been tragic enough, John Sylvester Snyder’s older brother, Timothy P. Snyder, was critically injured two years later during a coal mining-related accident. Just nine days shy of his fifteenth birthday, he 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. His battered body was taken from the colliery to the Ashland Hospital in Ashland, but he 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, John Hartranft Snyder and Minnie Rebecka (Strohecker) Snyder, at the Snyder family plot at the Citizens’ Cemetery in Lavelle, Pennsylvania.

Roughly four years later, the final Snyder sibling–Willard Emery Snyder (1917-1972)–was born in Lavelle on 31 July 1917. Like his father before him, Willard E. Snyder would have a long relationship with the telephone industry. He would also have a close bond with his older sister, Corrine, for more than half a century because she was largely responsible for helping to raise him while her parents managed the Snyder 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, John Sylvester Snyder was still residing at home in Lavelle with his parents. Also residing at the Snyders’ home were his siblings: Nona, Corrine, 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.

A graduate of Ashland High School in the city of Ashland in Schuylkill County, John Sylvester Snyder continued to help operate the Snyder family’s business interests as he expanded his own horizon by obtaining entry level work in the construction industry during the early 1920s.

By the mid to late 1920s, 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 Corrine and Kit, 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, John Sylvester Snyder relocated to Mount Carmel in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania. By 1928, he was employed there as a construction estimator and superintendent of construction for the E. R. Bastress Company.

Although he would maintain his relationship with that firm for fourteen years, that affiliation would be tested when a major reversal of fortune shook his family, 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 once again residing with his parents in Lavelle as of 1930, John Sylvester Snyder was described as a laborer at a lumber company, while his older sister, Nona, who was also still living in Lavelle, was described by that year’s federal census enumerator as unemployed, like so many other Americans. Their twelve-year-old brother, Willard, who was also living with them, was still a student at a public school in their county. Their father, John H. Snyder, was still working as a laborer at an area coal mine. (Eenie, Kit and Lillian, however, were still living and working in Reading. According to the 1930 federal census and other documents, Eenie was a bookkeeper employed by the Jewel Tea Company, Kit was a stenographer working for the Reading Iron Company, and Lillian, who had graduated from nursing school on 9 May 1929, was employed as a member of the faculty of the Reading Hospital School of Nursing.)

But John Sylvester Snyder was determined to have a brighter future. On 3 June 1931, he held fast to his dreams as he married 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. Their son, John Albert Snyder (1932-2008), who was subsequently born in Gordon on 7 December 1932, would later go on to become a fighter pilot with the United States Air Force.

Determined to support his family, even as the Great Depression still dragged on, he continued his affiliation with the E. M. Bastress Company in Mount Carmel.

But it was not an easy time for any of the Snyders. According to historians at the FDR Library & Museum, “By the time that FDR [Franklin Delano Roosevelt] was inaugurated on March 4, 1933, the banking system had collapsed” and “nearly 25% of the labor force was unemployed.”

Factories were shut down, farms and homes were lost to foreclosure, mills and mines were abandoned, and people went hungry. The resulting lower incomes meant the further inability of the people to spend or to save their way out of the crisis, thus perpetuating the economic slowdown in a seemingly never-ending cycle….

In the First Hundred Days of his new administration, FDR pushed through Congress a package of legislation designed to lift the nation out of the Depression. Roosevelt declared a “banking holiday” to end the runs on the banks and created new federal programs by so-called “alphabet agencies.” For example, the AAA (Agricultural Adjustment Administration) stabilized farm prices and thus saved farms. The CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) provided jobs to unemployed youths while improving the environment. The TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) provided jobs and brought electricity to rural areas for the first time. The FERA (Federal Emergency Relief Administration) and the WPA (Works Progress Administration) provided jobs to thousands of unemployed Americans in construction and arts projects across the country. The NRA (National Recovery Administration) sought to stabilize consumer goods prices….

Those efforts came to be known as President Roosevelt’s “New Deal for the American People.” As the nation’s economy improved, John Sylvester Snyder and his wife, Kitty, welcomed the birth of their second son, David Cameron Snyder (1936-1962), in Danville, Montour County, Pennsylvania on 30 September 1936.

By 1938, the United States Treasury Department was funding large-scale public infrastructure improvements, including the construction of new railroad lines and new housing for Americans who were homeless or living in residential homes or apartments that were unsafe. This was welcome news for John Sylvester Snyder and his employer, the E. M. Bastress Company of Mount Carmel.

Around this same time, John Sylvester Snyder’s older sister, Nona, also made the decision to move out of the Snyder family home in Lavelle. Still unmarried as of 1938, she began to make a new life for herself in neighboring Lebanon County.

* Note: Still involved with the Lavelle Telegraph and Telephone Company to some degree over the next few years, the Snyder sisters’ father, John H. Snyder, would gradually begin to curtail his business efforts after being diagnosed with cancer. The operations of Lavelle Telephone and Telegraph were subsequently connected to those of the Bell Telephone Company’s facility in Ashland. After forty-seven years of transmission, control of the entire firm was transferred to Bell Telephone of Pennsylvania in 1956.

1940s

Still employed by the E. M. Bastress Company and still living in Mount Carmel as the New Year of 1940 dawned, John Sylvester Snyder was distanced further from his siblings as they became increasingly involved with their own lives and careers.

*Note: Sometime in early 1941, Lillian and Kit chose to relocate Boston, Massachusetts, enabling Lillian to join the nursing staff of the nation’s renowned Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, where she provided medical care to women and children at the hospital while also training nursing students and staff as part of national defense preparations for America’s increasing involvement in World War II. To support herself, Kit found work as a private secretary for the A. M. Byers Company, which would soon become the largest wrought iron producer in the United States. 

Around this same time, Eenie Snyder, now in her early forties, was transferred by the Jewel Tea Company to a bookkeeping position in the city of Allentown in Lehigh County. On 1 October 1942, she was confirmed by the United States government to be one of the residents of an apartment building located at 949 North 19th Street. The form on which this address was listed was handwritten by her beloved “baby brother,” Willard Snyder, in his capacity as an electrician’s mate who was stationed in Freetown, Sierra Leone, Africa with a Seabee battalion of the United States Naval Reserves.

Meanwhile, John Sylvester Snyder was completing a draft registration card, as required by the federal government. On 16 February 1942, he noted that he was a resident of 125 West 6th Street in Mount Carmel and that he had changed employers and was now working for the McKinney Construction Company in the city of Sunbury in Northumberland County. He had, in fact, become the manager of its Sunbury branch office and was responsible for supervising that firm’s construction operations. By 1944, his employer had become “one of the largest and most active organizations of its kind in central Pennsylvania” with “a record of many public and private buildings in Northumberland County to its credit, while being engaged at present upon various war construction projects in Pennsylvania,” according to biographer Frederic Godcharles. He was also actively involved with many civic and fraternal organizations during this time, including the Sons of Union Veterans of Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania.

The first years of the 1940s would prove to be difficult ones for the Snyder siblings, however, as their father, John H. Snyder, became increasingly frail due to stomach cancer. On 22 May 1944, he was forced to undergo major surgery at the Geisinger Hospital in Danville, Pennsylvania. As his condition worsened, Electrician’s Mate Willard Snyder was brought home from his duty station on Midway Island in the Pacific Theater of World War II for a thirty-day leave of absence to visit their dying father.

In addition, John Sylvester Snyder’s youngest sister, Lillian Snyder, resigned her position as a head nurse at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston around this same time, “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.

The surgery their father had endured was not enough to save him, however; 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.

Kit, who had returned to Boston, still worked as a private secretary for the A. M. Byers Co. and still lived in the apartment she had previously shared with her sister, Lillian (at 6 Autumn Street), while Lillian remained behind at the Snyder family home in Lavelle to care for their grieving mother.

Soldiering on in their respective military and civilian capacities, their sadness and collective sense of fear 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 worried about 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 his 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 gradually morphed 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, for them, by the knowledge that their youngest brother was still in harm’s way in the war’s Pacific.

During the summer of 1945, the Snyder siblngs 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.

That 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 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 Massachusetts two years later, their younger sister, Kit, married steel industry salesman Charles Francis Courtney, Jr. in Boston on 12 July 1947, enjoyed a brief honeymoon, and then began to make a new life with him in the city of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

By 1 April 1946, John Sylvester Snyder was residing with his wife and two sons at 214 Washington Avenue in Sunbury. In March of 1948, he resigned from his position with McKinney Construction in order to accept a job as the general superintendent of the Earl Cump Company in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. Active with his local Kiwanis Club, he was also a member of Lodge No. 22 of the Masons. In addition, he was also an avid philatelist during this phase of his life.

1950s

Still residing in Sunbury with his wife and two sons, as of 1 April 1950, John Sylvester Snyder continued to make a name for himself in the construction industry. Meanwhile, in April 1950, a federal census enumerator was confirming that his youngest brother, Willard, was the head of a household residing in the Snyder siblings’ childhood home on Main Street in Lavelle. Also residing with him were his wife, Genevieve, their daughter, Judy, and 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 afterward, however, Lillian Snyder joined the nursing faculty and staff at the Allentown General Hospital in Lehigh County, and moved into an apartment with her older sister, Eenie, who was also still single. (From this point forward, the sibling duo 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, Charles Courtney, at the dawn of the 1950s, Kit (Snyder) Courtney’s happy times were cut short, however, when her husband died, leaving her a grief-stricken widow.

The siblings’ grief was compounded as the health of their mother, Minnie, then also began a rapid decline. Battling cancer, she soon moved from Lavelle into the same apartment that Eenie shared with Lillian in Allentown. Following her death at the age of eighty, on 28 April 1952, Minnie R. (Strohecker) Snyder was laid to rest beside her husband and her first-born son, Tim, at the Citizens’ Cemetery in Lavelle, Schuylkill County.

That same year, John Sylvester Snyder and his wife moved to the city of Allentown in Lehigh County, enabling John to take a new job as head of the Lehigh Lumber Company’s construction department on 1 August 1952. Just two years later, they were celebrating the marriage of their son, John Albert Snyder (who was known to family and friends as “Jack” or “Jackie”), to Suzanne E. Landau. A 1950 graduate of Sunbury High School, Jack Snyder had recently earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Science and Engineering from Pennsylvania State University (in June 1954) and was employed as an engineer for the American Bridge Company in Ambridge. His wife, Suzanne, was employed as a nurse at the Hahnemann Hospital in Philadelphia. Their wedding ceremony was held at the Zion Lutheran Church in Sunbury on 18 September 1954.

In 1956, John Sylvester Snyder’s still-unmarried sisters, Eenie and Lillian, relocated to Baltimore, Maryland, where Lillian had accepted 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

Still living and working in the city of Allentown, John Sylvester Snyder received word that his first-born son, John Albert Snyder, had received a promotion to the rank of captain in the United States Air Force and would be transferred to the Yakota Air Force Base in Japan.

His joy would soon be tempered, however, when he was notified by local police that his second-born son, David Cameron Snyder, had been killed in an automobile accident on 30 December 1962. A car attempting to pass a truck on the Pennsylvania Turnpike had lost control and had struck David’s car head on “near the Harrisburg-West interchange,” according to newspaper reports of the incident. A graduate of Muhlenberg College who was just twenty-six at the time of his death, David was subsequently laid to rest at Cedar Hill Memorial Park in Allentown.

Illness, Death and Interment

Still residing with his wife, Kitty, at their home at 2501 Union Street in Allentown during the late 1960s, John Sylvester Snyder was still employed in the construction industry. He had also taken up candle making with Kitty, turning it into a small business that produced speciality gifts for the holidays and other seasonal events.

As the decade inched closer to its end, he remained active in the construction industry as a construction estimator and salesman for the F. W. Wint Company of Catasauqua in Lehigh County. He and his wife were members of St. Timothy’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Allentown. In declining health due to hypertension, he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage on 7 November 1969, and was transported to the Allentown Hospital for medical treatment. Following his death there on 12 November 1969, he was laid to rest beside his son, David C. Snyder, at the Cedar Hill Memorial Park.

His only surviving son, Jack, who was serving in Thailand as a major with the U.S. Air Force, was flown home to attend the funeral at the Bachman Funeral Home. He was also survived by his widow, Kitty (Rissmiller) Snyder and three of Jack Snyder’s children, as well as his siblings: Nona (Snyder) Albert of Pine Grove, Pennsylvania; Eenie and Lillian Snyder of Baltimore, Maryland; Kit (Snyder) Courtney of Lancaster, Pennsylvania; Ches Snyder of Lemoyne, Pennsylvania; and Willard Snyder of West Lawn, Pennsylvania.

 

Sources:

1. “100 Years Ago–1911” (brief news recap of the 1911 fire which destroyed the Lavelle, Pennsylvania home of John Hartranft Snyder and his family). Pottsville, Pennsylvania: Republican-Herald, 17 March 2011.
2. Attendance, Graduation and Employment Records of Lillian Estelle Snyder, Reading Hospital School of Nursing, 1927-1939 (John Sylvester Snyder’s younger sister). West Reading, Pennsylvania: Office of the Registrar, School of Nursing, Reading Hospital.
3. 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.
4. Catharine Snyder (paternal grandmother of John Sylvester Snyder), 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.
5. Charles F. Courtney (brother-in-law of John Sylvester Snyder), 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.
6. Courtney, Charles F. and Catharine R., in Polk’s Lancaster City Directory, 1950. Boston, Massachusetts: R. L. Polk & Co., Inc., Publishers, 1950.
7. Courtney, Charles F. and Catharine R., in Polk’s Lancaster City Directory, 1960. Boston, Massachusetts: R. L. Polk & Co., Inc., Publishers, 1960.
8. David C. Snyder (a son of John Sylvester Snyder), in Death Certificates (no.: 122368-62, date of death: 30 November 1962). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics.
9. “Died on Way to Hospital” (brief notice of Timothy P. Snyder’s fatal accident at work). Pottsville, Pennsylvania: Pottsville Republican, 23 April 1913.
10. “Four Killed, Four Injured in Collision” (report of car accident in which John Sylvester Snyder’s son, David Cameron Snyder, was killed). Spokane, Washington: The Spokesman-Review, 31 December 1962.
11. Godcharles, Frederic. Biological and Genealogical Sketches from Central Pennsylvania, vol. 4, p. 257 (“John S. Snyder”). New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, Inc., 1944.
12. “Great Depression Facts.” Hyde Park, New York: FDR Library & Museum, retrieved online 16 February 2025.
13. “J. S. Snyder, 65 Once of Sunbury” (obituary of John Sylvester Snyder). Sunbury, Pennsylvania: The Daily Item, 13 November 1969.
14. “Jet Pilot Snyder Promoted, Given Post in Far East” (article about the promotion of John Sylvester Snyder’s son, John Albert Snyder, to the rank of captain in the U.S. Air Force). Sunbury, Pennsylvania: The Daily Item, 15 January 1960.
15. John H. Snyder (father of John Sylvester Snyder), 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.
16. “John H. Snyder, Lavelle, ‘Phone Official, Dies” (obituary of John Sylvester Snyder’s father). Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania: Mount Carmel Item, 7 August 1944.
17. “John H. Snyder, Lavelle Businessman, Dies at 70” (obituary of John Sylvester Snyder’s father). Sunbury, Pennsylvania: The Daily Item, 8 August 1944.
18. 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.
19. John Sylvester Snyder, in Applications for Membership, 1946. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania Society of the National Society Sons of the American Revolution.
20. John Sylvester Snyder, in U.S. World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942. Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
21. “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.
22. “Lavelle Seabee Home from Africa on 30-Day Furlough.” Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania: Mount Carmel Item, 12 July 1943.
23. Leete, Doris. “Candle Making a Companionable Hobby for the John Snyders.” Allentown, Pennsylvania: The Morning Call, 10 December 1967.
24. Maurer, Russ. “Lavelle Telegraph Telephone Company Charted in 1908,” in “Memories of Russ Maurer.” Hegins, Pennsylvania: The Citizen-Standard, circa 1990s.
25. “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.
26. “Mrs. John H. Snyder” (obituary of John Sylvester Snyder’s mother). Pottsville, Pennsylvania: Pottsville Republican, 29 April 1952.
27. Nona, Corrine and “Kitty” Snyder, in “Personal Mentions.” Reading, Pennsylvania: The Reading Eagle, 26 August 1926.
28. Occupational Outlook Handbook, 1959 Edition, pp. 273-327, in Bulletin No. 1255. Washington, D.C.: United States Department of Labor, 1959.
29. Snyder, Catharine R. and Courtney, Charles F., in “Massachusetts Vital Records Index to Marriages” (documentation of the marriage of John Sylvester Snyder’s younger sister, Catharine, in Boston in 1947). Boston, Massachusetts: New England Historic Genealogical Society.
30. 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.
31. Snyder, Corrine and Catharine, in Reading City Directory, 1926. Reading, Pennsylvania: Boyd’s City Directories.
32. 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.
33. Snyder, H. Corrine, in U.S. Census (Allentown, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, 1950). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
34. 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.
35. 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.
36. 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.
37. 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.
38. 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.
39. 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.
40. “Snyder Family Moves.” Sunbury, Pennsylvania: The Daily Item, 1 August 1952.
41. “Snyder Leaves McKinney for Job at Allentown.” Sunbury, Pennsylvania: The Daily Item, 3 March 1952.
42. “Snyder Resigns as McKinney Manager.” Sunbury, Pennsylvania: The Daily Item, 26 March 1948.
43. “Stock Market Crash of 1929,” in “The Great Depression,” in “Federal Reserve History.” Washington, D.C.: Federal Reserve, retrieved online 16 February 2025.
44. “Suzanne E. Landau, John A. Snyder Wed in Zion Cemetery” (wedding announcement of John Sylvester Snyder’s son, John Albert Snyder). Sunbury, Pennsylvania: The Daily Item, 18 September 1954.
45. Timothy P. Snyder (brother of John Sylvester Snyder), in Death Certificates (file no.: 34710, date of death: 22 April 1913). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics.
46. “Two New Telephone Companies.” Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania: The Wilkes-Barre Rcord, 10 October 1908.