OBIT: Peter A. BEACHY, 1945, native of Somerset County, PA

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Meyersdale Library.
Transcribed and proofread by: Richard Boyer.

Copyright 2007.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/somerset/
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PETER A. BEACHY

Peter A. Beachy Fatally Stricken In His 87th Year
Was Manager of Rich Fahrney Proprietary Medicine Estate

  Meyersdale relatives of Peter A. Beachy were notified by telegraph and mail of 
his death in his apartment in his room in the Edgewater Hotel, Chicago, last 
Sunday.  A native of Somerset County, Pa., Peter Abraham Beachy, was born in the 
old stone Beachy homestead near West Salisbury, now the home of Jerry Beachy and 
family, Jan. 19, 1859, the second son of the late Abraham P. and Christina 
(Lichty) Beachy.  
  He spent his boyhood helping with the work on his father's farm, and attending 
the local public and normal schools.  Before he was 20 years of age he taught 
two terms of school in Elk Lick Township, at Cross Roads and West Salisbury, in 
the typical little red school houses of that time.
  In 1878, he attended one spring term of Juniata College, Huntingdon, Pa., 
followed by a four-year course in Mount Union College, Alliance, Ohio, from 
which he was graduated in 1882 at the age of 23.  Until the year 1900 he was 
employed in banks in Red Cloud and Lincoln, Neb., and Hoquiam, Wash.
  At the turn of the century he accepted employment as private secretary to Dr. 
Peter Fahrney, owner of a large proprietary medicine business in Chicago, 
started by Dr. Fahrney in Meyersdale in the late 1860's and moved to Chicago 
after the great fire that destroyed most of that city in 1871.
  On Jan. 10, 1901, Mr. Beachy married the widowed daughter of his employer, 
Mrs. Emma Pratt, with whom he lived very happily until her death several years 
ago.  To them one son was born, Harold Peter Beachy, who is now married and 
living in Beverly Hills, Cal.
  Upon the death of Dr. Peter Fahrney in 1905, Mr. Beachy became the executor of 
his will and general manager of his estate which was appraised at that time at 
nearly $4,000,000, and has since increased in value.
  During Mrs. Beachy's lifetime she and her husband maintained three homes - one 
in Oak Park, a suburb of Chicago, a summer home at Crescent Lake, Mich., and a 
winter home at LaJolla, Cal.  After his wife's death, he gave up housekeeping 
and lived in Chicago's swank Edgewater Hotel.
  Mr. Beachy was in good health until a few months ago when he suffered a severe 
heart attack, but recovered.  He spent last Saturday evening in the company of 
an old lady friend, when he appeared to be feeling well and made an appointment 
to call at her home again on Sunday afternoon.  When he did not appear, she 
inquired after his welfare at the hotel, and when he did not respond to a ring 
to his room, the hotel management made an investigation and found him clad in 
his night clothes and robe, sitting upright in an arm chair, dead.  A medical 
examiner said he apparently had been dead for about 12 hours.  His death was 
attributed to a renewed heart attack during Saturday night.  A funeral service 
for Mr. Beachy was conducted by Dr. Albert B. Coe, pastor of the church to which 
Mr. Beachy belonged, Tuesday afternoon, in the home of Attorney John L. Vette 
and wife, the son-in-law and daughter of the late Emma Fahrney Beachy, by her 
first marriage.
  Relatives of Mr. Beachy in Meyersdale are two nieces, Mrs. D. J. Fike and Mrs. 
Philip Reich, also numerous cousins, and other relatives in and around 
Meyersdale and Salisbury, including a nephew, Jerry Beachy, present owner and 
occupant of the ancestral farm on which Peter A. Beachy was born and reared.
  Surviving is one sister, Mrs. Alice Musselman of Arkansas City, Kansas.  Two 
brothers and two sisters, Samuel A. and Lloyd L. Beachy and Mrs. Samuel P. Maust 
and Mrs. Gabriel Beachley, preceded him in death.
  Peter A. Beachy was a very handsome, genial and lovable man, highly esteemed 
by all who knew him.

Meyersdale Republican, November 8, 1945