OBIT: Albert Dwight "A. D." GRAHAM, 1941, Somerset, Somerset County, PA 

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

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A. D. GRAHAM

A. D. Graham Died of Heart Attack

President of Somerset Fertilizer Works and Community Leader

  A. D. Graham, 56, died in the Somerset Community Hospital Saturday morning at 
11:45, from a heart condition suffered for the past two years.  He had been a 
patient in the hospital for only one week, having been removed to the 
institution for a rest.
  Mr. Graham was first stricken with the heart ailment in September, 1939, but 
after partial recovery was able to resume his duties as president of the 
Somerset Fertilizer Works.  For over a year his condition, although considered 
serious was not thought grave until a last attack in the hospital last Wednesday 
morning.
  Albert Dwight Graham was born December 5, 1884 in Dalrymple, Ontario, Canada, 
the son of Mr. and Mrs. Edward A. Graham.  His father, a venerable gentleman, 
lives in Chicago, but his mother and a sister passed away many years ago.
  He came to Somerset County in 1918 and accepted a position as general manager 
of the Quemahoning Coal Co., then operated by the late D. B. Zimmerman.
  The Somerset County Fertilizer Works, with A. D. Graham as president, was 
founded in 1928.  Under his able management the fertilizer works developed into 
an extensive business enterprise.
  During the first several years of business in the fertilizer plant, the old P. 
W. & S. station on the north end of town, was used as a storage plant for excess 
products.  In 1925, A. D. Graham purchased the right of way of the Pittsburgh, 
Westmoreland & Somerset railroad, using the spur line from the Baltimore & Ohio 
railroad as a track on which to run cars to the fertilizer plant.  Negotiations 
for the purchase of the railroad right of way were begun as early as 1918, but 
the actual purchase was not completed until 1925. 
  The abandoned railroad bed was bought for the use of the spur line, which then 
had track still laid beyond the village of Husband, and for the mineral and lime 
stone deposits beneath.  In turn the road bed figured in the transaction of the 
Pennsylvania Turnpike company, as being part of the original roadbed of the 
South Penn railroad.  Over a week of court litigation was consumed in 
determining ownership of certain tracts of the railroad bed.  The case is again 
before the Somerset courts, in a motion for a new trial.
  A. D. Graham was united in marriage June 29, 1912, with Margaret Elizabeth 
Yates of Braddock.  To their union was born one son, Albert Dwight Graham, Jr., 
who has been associated in business with his father for a number of years.
  Mr. Graham served as president of the Somerset Chamber of Commerce for four 
years, and at the time of his death was president of the Somerset County 
Association.  He gave much of his time and ability to promoting the welfare of 
Somerset and the county as a whole.
  A. D. Graham was a member of the Episcopal Church in Braddock but during the 
years he lived in Somerset, was an attendant at Old Trinity Lutheran Church.
  Surviving are his widow, Margaret Elizabeth Graham, his father, Edward A. 
Graham of Chicago, and one brother, Ernest, of Seabright, Province of 
Saskatchewan, Canada, one son, Albert, of Somerset, and three grandchildren, 
Elizabeth, Ellen Day, and Jane Graham.
  Funeral services were conducted at the late residence at 149 East Catherine 
Street, Somerset, Monday afternoon at 3 by the Rev. Dr. I. Hess Wagner, pastor 
of Trinity Lutheran Church, assisted by the Rev. Ernest V. May of the Methodist 
Church.  Interment in the Husband Cemetery, under the direction of Charles R. 
Hauger, mortician.

Meyersdale Republican, June 19, 1941