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LIFE OF SAMUEL CLARE WAGNER--AN INTERVIEW BY FRANK ANDERSON BLILEY

Here is a most-interesting interview of a major contributor to our family history, Sam Wagner (60), with his his uncle Frank Anderson Bliley (79) asking the questions about Sam's life, and making comments on his relationship with Sam over the years. Sam worked in conjunction with his older sister, Inez, to create a large body of photographic work and then distributed them to the family. Unfortunately, his photographic work was not discussed in this interview, but you can see their work online on this Web site. Frank died six months after this recording was made. Recorded July 29, 1945.

Voices of: Samuel C. Wagner Interviewee Frank Anderson Bliley Interviewer

Audio: MP4 / 8.9 Mb / Length 18:17 Click Here if a control panel does not appear above this line in a minute.

NOTE: The original recording was spread over two disk and recorded on both sides. All four segments were combined into one digital audio file. The recordings traveled right up the center of the disk into an area that is not used on modern records, hence, the last five or so seconds of the recording were lost as the player’s tone arm automatically retracted to protect the needle from damage. This was unavoidable.

RECORDING CONTENT SUMMARY
by Norma Jean Kennedy Venable, October, 2014

Introduction

Frank Dawson Bliley lived at 965 Arlington Road in Erie, Pennsylvania from 1939 until his death in 1955. (The family remained there until 1995) One of his pastimes was making record recordings on a commercial home recorder of various radio broadcasts and activities in his living room. Among the topics he recorded were social activities, radio plays and more than a dozen family history and genealogy-related topics. Among these recordings was one of Sam Wagner (60), then of Rochester, New York, being interviewed by his uncle, Frank Anderson Bliley (79), of Erie, Pennsylvania. The 20-minute recording was on two 12-inch records and transferred to digital audio in October 2014 by Frank’s grandson, Charles A. Bliley.

Charles A. Bliley
October 20, 2014

Previous Knowledge

• Sam Wagner was born August 21, 1886 in Erie, Pa. on the Tracy Farm, on West 8th St.
• The Tracy Farm—
  • Now an urban residential area covering approximately 170 acres.
    Tracy Farm Boundaries (1875): West, Indian Drive; North, Erie Bay Front; East, Maryland Avenue; South: West 12th Street/Route 5
  • The Tracy Farm’s official name as listed on letterhead paper was “D. D. Tracy and Co., Lake Side Stock Farm and Dairy, Thoroughbred Holstein and Jersey Stock, and General Farm Produce”.
  • The Tracy family was a well-off Erie railroad family.
  • Sam’s father, Charlie Otis Wagner, managed the farm for the Tracy family.
  • About 1886, Charlie gave up farming and moved his family to Erie where Charlie went into the restaurant business.
  • Charlie without his family then went to Duluth, Minnesota, to manage a hotel restaurant there.
  • He returned, and managed the Inn at Harbor Creek, near Erie, where he died an untimely death from gastritis in 1891.

New Information from Frank Bliley on the Recording

• Frank remembered Sam’s dad Charlie as “likeable, friendly, good-natured, cordial and beloved by all who knew him.”
• Note: Sam’s mother, Mary Agnes Bliley Wagner moved to Wesleyville, Pennsylvania, about a year after her husband, Charles’ death in 1891, to live with her parents, Charles and Mary Jane Mead Bliley. She brought with her three children: Inez, Sam and George.

Sam’s Memories Recalled in the Recording:

• Miscellaneous memories of growing up with his grandparents. (Sam lived in Wesleyville from 1982 to about 1906.)
• There were many reunions as Mary Jane's and Charles children and their spouses came to visit. The men sat on the back porch and talked. Sam was too young to understand all the conversation.
• The 1897 Golden Anniversary of Charles and Mary Jane, and how the family bought plenty of bananas for the grandchildren.
• His grandmother, Mary Jane Mead Bliley, as a remarkable woman. She was “active and busy”. She was happy, contented, with a happy philosophy of life and living. Sam said she and Charles set a good example for him.
• Mary Jane arose about 5 AM, and swung a lantern in the window so it could be seen by her son “Wil” (Wilfred), as he was bringing in the milk from on his wagon from the Station Road Farm. It was a greeting between mother and son. (Wilfred, whom Sam called “Nuclei”, bought his parent’s Station Road Farm, 3767 Station Road, Harborcreek Township, Pennsylvania, from his parents Mary Jane and Charles Bliley. 1.2 Miles away from the retirement home on South Street, Wesleyville.)
• He did not know grandfather Charles quite so well as he did Grandmother Bliley. Sam described Charles as “reserved”.
• Attended Sunday school at the local Wesleyville Baptist and Methodist Churches.
• Graduated from Erie High School in Erie, then graduated from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, about 1910, then graduated from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York about 1911.
• After graduation he went to Baltimore, MD for a job with the B and O Railroad.
• In October 1911, he married Ada Dowd in Camden, New Jersey.
• Ada had once lived in Erie and Wesleyville. (Sam must have met Ada Dowd when they both lived in Wesleyville. The Dowd family came from Erie.)
• The Wagner family moved to the St. Charles, Missouri area where their first four children, Don, Jean, Dick, and Lois, were born between 1912 and 1916.
• In 1917, the Wagner family moved to Erie, Pennsylvania where they lived for 12 years. Bob and Alice were born in Erie.
• In 1929, the Wagner family moved to Rochester, New York where Sam worked for Master Electric. He sold electric motors to large companies. Sam said he spent half his time traveling and selling motors, but this was no hardship as his route often took him to New York State’s beautiful Finger Lakes region.
• As of the 1945 recording date, just after WWII, Sam’s son, Dick Wagner, was stationed in Pear Harbor, Hawaii with the Air Transport Command. Another son, Bob, was a lieutenant with the American 17th Service Squadron-- the Jimmy Doolittle squadron, in England, but was soon transferred to France. (Sam's oldest son, Donald, worked for the Eastman Kodak Company in Rochester, New York, and he received a wartime military service exemption, as his work was considered vital to the national wartime interest.)

Other Resources

• More information on the Wagner, Bliley, and Dowd families can be found on this Web site, or in PDF booklet form, The Wagner, Bliley, and Dowd Families of Erie County, Pennsylvania, written and published by Norma Venable in 2014.

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