William Edmond Doutt was born September 24, 1879, in Smithland, Clarion County, PA. He was the thirteenth child of Ephriam Theodore and his wife Emeline Butler Doutt. His father died May 9, 1882, leaving Emeline on her own with 14 children ranging in age from new born to 28. Sending the younger ones to live with family and friends seemed the only solution to her problem, so Ed and his brother John went to live with Ephriam's niece Emma Doutt (daughter of James and Hannah) and her husband Edward Unger in Ridgeway, PA.

No one knows for certain how long they lived with Emma and Edward, but it is believed they remained there until they joined the army in April of 1898.

When Ed was 10 to 12 years old he worked in the railyards making $.50 a day. Large railroad flat cars were brought in loaded with coal, and it was his job to shovel the coal off the car by hand.

Most families have a ghostly story to tell for Halloween, but in my family a love story was the traditional Halloween tale. In the fall of 1896 or 1897 Ed and his brother John went to a Halloween dance. Ed noticed an exceptionally pretty young girl sitting by the wall surrounded by a knot of other girls. He asked John who she was. John told him she was Lizzy Fluman. Ed said, "That's the girl I'm going to marry!" And eventually he did.

In the spring of 1898, the Spanish-American war broke out, and April saw Ed and John enlisting in the Army. Ed enlisted as a private, Co H of the 16th Regiment of the Pennsylvania Infantry.

On the journey south he passed through a new town, Vandergrift. There was a steel mill and homes were being built by the workers in the mill. He wrote Elizabeth and told her he had found the place he wanted to settle.

His unit was sent to Puerto Rico, where he served until December 28, 1898 when he was discharged. During his time in the army he cared for and drove the mule teams for the supply wagons. On August 18, 1898, he lost control of a team, became tangled in the harnesses and dragged by the team. He was admitted to the hospital at Ponce, Puerto Rico with a concussion and burns of his back and arms. He carried the scars from those burns for the rest of his life. Ed would tell the grandchildren that he had been kicked by a mule and that was his claim to fame from the War.

On his discharge from the army, he settled in Sharpsburg, Alleghney County, PA. It is said he lived with his brother until he found work. In the summer he sent for Elizabeth so they could get married. She came in August bringing the marriage license and parental consent papers with her. They were married on August 26, 1899 in Sharpsburg by Reverend Samuel J. McDowell.

He did finally go to work in the American Steel and Template Company, Vandergrift mill, sometime in 1900. Their first child William Harold was born during the summer of that year in Sharpsburg, but they moved to Vandergrift before the end of the year.

It became the family joke that each time a child was born they moved into a new house, but eventually they purchased a house on Emerson Street in Vandergrift and it became the family homestead.

Ed worked his way up in the mill from a laborer to a Heater. The Heater worked with the blast furnace insuring the proper temperature for the processing of the steel. He was also responsible for banking the furnace when it was not going to be used for several days.

Ed was very strict with the children. He probably had to be with so many and because Elizabeth tended to be very lenient. The story is told of the day when one of the boys got in trouble and was confined to his room. In the evening after the miscreant figured everyone would be in bed asleep, he tried climbing out of his window, only to land on the ground and find his father waiting for him. He never climbed back into his window as fast as he did that night.

Ed loved family picnics and baseball, so a summer never passed without at least 2 or 3 picnics and the sound of the Pittsburgh Pirates on the radio. There was the usual family Reunion, a Picnic on the Fourth of July, and possibly another if everyone could get together.

He was a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and he would march or ride in all the parades. At the time of His death in 1962, he was one of 2 surviving veterans of the Spanish American War in the Vandergrift, PA area.

When he joined the army, his occupation was listed as woodsman. His father had been a carpenter before him and it seems Ed started out in the trade. Even though he worked in the steel mill for 45 years, he continued to work with wood in his spare time. His basement at the Emerson Street home was filled with saws, lathes and other equipment of the trade. He would make tables and pieces of furniture. Some of those things are still in use by family members.

When he died on June 10, 1962, he left 10 surviving children, 17 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren.

by KDW,
published in
Doutt Dialogues,
Vol 2, Issue 4,
December 1992