Leland and Evelyn McKnight's Short Time Together

To continue my story from last week's post...

Sometime between August, 1931 and October, 1935, Leland McKnight and his wife Evelyn moved from their home in Westfield, New Jersey to the McKnight farm in Hebron, New York with their three young children. The move was necessary because Leland lost his job (a result of the Depression) and, with no income, the young family had to find a way to survive until a suitable job was again available. Moving back to Leland’s childhood home, which was fully paid for and which would provide at least a subsistence living via farming, must have seemed like the best option among very few available to the couple at the time.

The exact date of their move is not known. From the 1930 census, we know that Leland and Evelyn still lived in Westfield in June of 1930. Their youngest child was born in August, 1931, in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Leland’s father, Addison, died in 1932 and his death may also have prompted Leland and Evelyn to consider moving back “home” to Hebron, if they had not already done so. Ida McKnight, Addison’s widow, would have been living alone at the farm then and may have welcomed the company – and the help – of her son and his family. Based on remembrances of Leland’s children, Leland lived at the farm at least a few years when they were small, so an arrival in 1932 or 1933 is most likely.

Little is known of Leland and Evelyn’s time together at the farm either, as Leland died in an accident on Thursday, October 16, 1935. After Leland fell from a ladder and hit his head, his daughter (8 years old at the time) remembers running more than a mile to the nearest phone to call for a doctor, while Leland’s six-year old son was sent to a slightly closer neighbor’s home to get immediate help. But there was nothing anyone could do. According to his obituary in the Salem paper the next day, he died early that evening:

“Leland Rea McKnight met a tragic death yesterday afternoon at his home about four miles east of West Hebron. Mr. McKnight was standing on a stepladder which he had placed at the top of the cellar stairs in order to repair a water pipe and when it slipped fell, striking on his head on the cellar bottom with fatal force. The accident happened about 4:30 and he died in the early evening.”

All three of Leland and Evelyn’s children were quite young, but the eldest remembers hearing vague conversations about Leland’s health, along with speculation that he may have had a heart attack, which in turn caused him to fall. No autopsy was ordered, however, so there is no way to confirm any health issues, and the death has always been considered an accidental one.

I do not possess any photos of Leland. Evelyn was not forthcoming with details about her young husband when I asked her about Leland in the late 1970s, and since discussing it continued to upset her even after so many years, I never pressed the issue. She never remarried (although she told me she received at least one offer). She raised all three children at the McKnight farm, cared for her widowed mother-in-law and then her own mother there, and continued to live there as long as she possibly could. She continued to wear her wedding ring for the rest of her days.