William Porter Lehman Family

The oldest son of Porter and Mary Lehman, William Porter Lehman was born on November 25, 1865. As an adult, William (also called Bill) married Fannie Kauffman, the daughter of Isaac and Veronica Kauffman, important members of the Amish/Mennonite Church. The Kauffman family lived on the corner of what is now Smith Road and Lindsey Road in Wilmington Township, the present property of the Cal Rose family. Jane Redmond, daughter of Maryann Lehman Redmond, notes that she was taught that Fannie Kauffman was part of the Amish church before marrying, and was asked to leave when she married William Lehman.

A farmer and a coal miner, Bill bought a farm on Phillip School Road (Wilmington Twp, Lawrence County, PA), the area known locally as “Pole Cat Hollow”. He bought the 88 acre farm in 1902 from Adam D. and Anna W. Byler. In 1919 he sold some of the property to Robert Clark Wiggins for the price of $3,015. Bill and Fanny lived on their farm until February of 1936, when they lost it to a man by the name of Clark Hope. Bill had borrowed money from Mr. Hope to pay taxes and was unable to repay the money. The farm was sold at a Sheriff’s Sale to repay the loan, and was bought by local Amish farmer Daniel L. Byler and his wife Katherine Y.

Bill and Fanny had four children. The first son was named Harvey. He was born March 4, 1864 and died on June 1^st of the same year. He died of whooping cough in his mother’s arms. It was another six years before Bill and Fanny had another child, this time another boy- Norman Kauffman Lehman. Norman was born on May 20, 1900. He was also a farmer and married Katherine Malinda Zook (born January 11, 1904) on December 16, 1921. More detailed information about the Norman Lehman family can be found here.

Bill and Mary’s first daughter, Mary Ann Elizabeth, was born April 14, 1904. She married David Redmond (born May 22, 1896) on January 17, 1924. The couple was married at Rich Hill Parsonage. Daughter Jane Redmond recounts that her mother was thrown out of the Mennonite Church when she married David, and that the couple always belonged to the Methodist Church after that. David and Mary had five children, which David supported by his work on the WPA. The oldest son, Clair Herman, was born in 1922, and was married two times and had seven children. Their second child was a daughter, Jane Fannie, who was born in 1924. Jane married in 1947 to Earl Robert Cooper, known to most as “Speed”. Speed died in 1985 and is buried in Crestview Cemetery in Grove City, PA. The couple had no children.

A third child, David Arthur Redmond, Jr., was born in 1928. He was known to everyone simply as “Junior”. Junior was mentally retarded and cared for at home by his mother until she went into a nursing home before her death in 1991. After Mary passed away he lived in various assisted living facilities and was cared for by his brothers and sisters, primarily his sister Jane, who had no children of her own. He was buried with his mother in the Fair Oaks Cemetery, New Wilmington, PA after his death from heart complications in 1999. Genevieve Mae Redmond was born in 1930. She married Richard Healey in 1919 and the couple lived in Clintonville, PA. The couple had one daughter, Judy, in 1949. Genevieve had heart problems and died of an infection after heart surgery in Erie. She is buried in the Clintonville Cemetery.

The youngest child of David and Mary was Helen Elizabeth, born February 17, 1945. Since Helen was born over twenty years later than some of her siblings, her oldest brother and sister helped their mother raise her. She married Rodney Spencer in 1963, and they raised two children, Belinda and Mark. They reside in Butler County, PA.

Norman and Mary were the only two full-blooded children of William and Fannie to survive infancy, but the couple adopted another girl, Dorothy Sarah Davis Lehman, in 1915. Dorothy was born September 19, 1914 to mother Lillie Davis. It is commonly believed that William Lehman was her father, and that he met Lillie while “huckstering” to New Castle. Whatever the circumstance, William and Fannie adopted Dorothy in 1915 and raised her as their own. She married John Moore and had five children- Marian (1930), Marjorie (1932), Maxine (1933- she died one year later on her birthday from spinal meningitis), John (1935), and Harris (1939). When Dorothy was older, she claimed that she was psychic even as a small child, and wrote a book about life as the only psychic person in her family.

William Porter Lehman died on May 3, 1939 and was buried at Maple Grove Cemetery in Wilmington Township (Lawrence County, PA). His obituary read as follows:

“WILLIAM M. LEHMAN, whose valuable farm, containing eighty-eight acres, lies on the north side of the Pulaski and Walker Mill Road, in Wilmington Township, two miles south of New Wilmington, is one of the practical and successful agriculturists of this section. He was born in Mercer County, Pennsylvania, November 25, 1865, and is a son of David Porter and Mary E. (Neighwine) Lehman. Mr. Lehman has been a resident of Lawrence County since he was fourteen years of age and his life has been devoted to agricultural pursuits. On January 19, 1891 he was married to Fannie Kauffman, who is a daughter of Isaac and Fannie (Zook) Kauffman, prominent farming people of Mifflin County, Pennsylvania. Mr. and Mrs. Lehman had three children, Harvey, who was born March 4, 1894 and died June lst, the same year; Norman K. and Mary Ann Elizabeth. He is a good Christian man, a member of the Amish Church.”

NOTE: His name was not William M. Lehman – it was William Porter Lehman. His mother’s maiden name was Nightwine, not Neighwine.

Also – He was not a member of the Amish church, although his father-in-law, Isaac Kauffman, and his family were Amish.

Fannie Lehman outlived her husband by 18 years. After Bill died, she moved to Pulaski, PA. As the oldest granddaughter, Lois Lehman (Norman and Katherine’s daughter) was sent to live with her and help her around the house. Marcia Kaufman remembers her mother showing her the house in Pulaski and says that it was on the road that leads back to Pulaski Elementary school from Rt. 208. Eventually Fannie moved in with Norman’s family, living in a bedroom off of the kitchen in the house that the family refers to as “No Man’s Land” on Creek Road in Volant. After living with Norman and Katherine for a while, Fannie moved to Forrestville to stay with her daughter Mary. It was while she was living with Mary that Fannie died in 1959. She was buried with her husband in the Maple Grove Mennonite Cemetery.