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For years I was told that we didn't know very much about my great-grandfather McDermond other than he was from Ireland, and he died in an elevator accident.

So I was shocked when my Aunt Dorothy produced the McDermond Family Bible. 

She had rescued it from the shed in my grandmother's back yard in Somerdale, NJ.  The outer cover and binding look dreadful, but the critical pages survived decades under a leaky roof in a structure without doors.

With the information it contains, I've learned quite a bit about Howard Pardee McDermond's family.

First, he wasn't from Ireland.  He was born in Pennsylvania, as was his father and grandfather.

His grandfather was James McDermond, a shoemaker. At age 44, James enlisted in the 21st Pennsylvania Infantry as a sargeant, and is listed as having served with "Distinguished Service."  In 1864, he named his youngest child Ulysses S. Grant McDermond after the general he served under.

U.S.G. McDermond was a machinist, and lived in East Lansdown, Pennsylvania.  He married Emma C. Cooper, and they had eight children.

Emma died in 1911, and Howard eventually remarried.  His second wife was Amelia Shem, who was nine years his senior, according to the 1930 US Census.

According to my Aunt Dorothy, Amelia was the widow of a candy maker from Woodbury.  My father still has a piece of  furniture she brought into the family: a very small wooden stool that has a drawer.  Aunt Dorothy says that Amelia kept a few small toys in there for the children to play with.

As did my grandparents.  The drawer is empty now, and the top a little worse for the wear, but it's still rock solid, and still has a working drawer

Howard Pardee McDermond worked for Otis Elevator as an installer.  He married Mabel Stickley in 1912, and they had three daughters: Dorothy, Elsie, and Marion.  Dorothy was my grandmother.  Marion is still alive and lives in New Jersey.

Howard was critically injured when the scaffolding at a construction site collapsed and he fell down the shaft he was working on.  He eventually died of his injuries, but a lawsuit awarded him $22,000 dollars in damages shortly before his death in June of 1929.

Announcement of Howard's successful suit for damages.  He had complained about the scaffolding that had been set up for weeks before the accident, and only worked on it under protest.
The settlement bought a house for his family, but his widow was on welfare when she died. She had to sign her house over to the county to collect benefits.  My grandmother later bought it back from the county, and my cousin now lives there.

According to my Aunt Dorothy, he lingered for at least a year in the hospital after the accident before he succumbed to his injuries.  My grandmother never discussed it.

The family was always short on money, which is odd when you consider that in a short span they had collected $30,000 from both lawsuits.  I assume the money was lost in the stock market crash.  "Money in the bank" is just a phrase, after all.

Here's a photo of my great-aunt Elsie and great-grandmother McDermond at the beach around 1928.  I don't know the dog's name.