The following is a transcription of a letter from Clarence Joseph Powers to his daughter Mary Irene dated October 22, 1969.

Mary Irene,

This is the history of the Powers family as I heard it.

James Powers, (from county Cork, Ireland) sailed for the United States with his family.  My father was seven years old.  I think they had two girls older than he.  One was Katie, Eliza, Margaret, Nellie & Ann.  The boys were named John, (my father) James and Frank.  When they came to this country they settled in Vale Summit and went to work in the coal mines in Vale Summit.

When he got older, he married my mother who was Rachel Arnold who was 15 years old, (nothing unusual in those days.)  And they had 15 children; James, Ellen, John,   Frank (baby), Thomas (baby), Williams, Ann, Jane Frances, George, Charles, Thomas, Katie, Mary Theresa, (Molly) John Clarence and Frances Theodore, (Frank).

You will notice 2 Thomas and 2 Franks.  The older ones died when they were babies.

When my parents were married, they moved to Frost mines, (Borden), where we were all born.

When I was about 5 years old, we moved to Frostburg. where my father built a house on Maple Street.  Katie married Michael Shea.  they also built a house on Maple Street.  Ann Spates built a house on Beall Street above where Armand Store is.

Margaret lives in Vale Summit where she married a Haggerty.  And Eliza married a Pittsburgh man named McMullen.

I was about 7 years old when my father died.  And my mother died in 1919.   My grandmothers' name was Nellie Wade and she was married to Nation Arnold.   They were related to the Porters and McKenzie.  Also the Frosts who founded the town when it was named Mt. Pleasant.

that is all I can think of right now, more later.

When I was 22 years old, I married Annie Munsie, who you know.  We had three children, Lawrence, Mary Irene and James Donald.  I guess you know some of these.

Dad