Orrin Gillmore Passes – Sept. 13, 1939

With the passing of Peggy Gillmore about a year and a half ago, Lorain lost a sixth generation member of the pioneering Gillmore family that left Massachusetts to settle in Lorain in the early 1800s, and presumably its last direct link to the city’s early history.

There was a time in Lorain (as in all cities, sooner or later) when the passing of the venerable pioneers was front page news. That’s because everyone in the community knew them, or had heard of them; they were well-respected, and their deaths were an accepted part of the city’s historic tapestry.

Courtesy findagrave.com

I run across these reports of pioneer deaths while scrolling through vintage microfilm, and recently I found the obituary for Orrin Gillmore, Peggy’s grandfather. It ran in the Lorain Journal and the Lorain Times-Herald on September 13, 1939.

It’s a short, interesting read and reveals a few things that I didn’t know about the family, its farm and Lorain’s original fraternal organizations.