Robert LeRoy Moss was born on 20. Jun. 1884 at Maple Run Farm, Mossville, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. He was the son of
Irvin Torrence Moss and
Elnora Genet Moore. Robert LeRoy Moss married
Laura Mae Downing, daughter of
Marion Downing and
Mary Potter, on 24. Jun. 1925 at Wilkes Barre, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. Robert LeRoy Moss died on 13. Oct. 1971 at Maple Run Farm, Mossville, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, at age 87.
Roy was called "Dutch" because he had inherited his great-great-great grandmother Elizabeth Montayne Moss' red hair. Roy had been born with a neurological condition which frequently would put him into a catatonic state. He would be well aware of what was going on around him but would be unable to move or speak. His parents tried to find some type of cure for their only son but at that time medical science could not offer any help.
Roy was eleven when his mother died. Because of this turmoil in his life, as an adolescent he and his father did not get along. Consequently at about seventeen years of age, Roy hoped the rails and began traveling across the country. His family did not hear of his whereabouts till well over a year later. For awhile he settled down with his cousin Zed Creveling in the state of Washington. Later he traveled to Hawaii, Alaska, and Mexico.
When Irvin died, Roy came back to Mossville to take over Maple Run Farm.
As Roy was over 40 and feeling that it was time to settle down. He contacted Laura Downing who was a spinster of 36 and asked if she would be interested in taking the responsibility as his wife to run the farm with him. Since Laura's employer had was ill (and would soon pass away), she agreed to move back home and marry Roy. Not a very romantic story but as partners they had four children and worked together for over fifty years.
from Irvin Moss
Well as you probably know your grandad Moss was an expert with dynamite and was the one that took the stone rows and most of the ledges off the homestead for the WPA crews to haul away during the thirties.
Uncle Fred Saxe told me this story one summer when I was helping him with chores and he was not well, and cousin George was having one of his bouts with polio.
Back in the twenties and early thirties the locals would go up to North Mountain and after the ice damns froze they would cut the three hundred pound ice blocks and put them up in the three story ice houses for shipment to New York City in the summer months.
They had a small shack out on the ice with a pot bellied stove where they would eat their lunches. It had seats for about 25 and the young bucks would cut out about five to ten minutes early and get the seats in the lunch shack. Dad, Uncle Brooks , and Uncle Fred worked right up to twelve when the whistle blew and when they went to the shack all of the seats were full and no one would move over. They went out and sat on a snow bank and ate their lunch. Uncle Brooks and Uncle Fred carried on for a while but Dad just ate and didn't say any thing.
The next day they again worked right up to the whistle. They walked over to the shack and walked in. Dad made a production out of taking a stick of dynamite out of his hip pocket , walked over to the pot bellied stove, took off a lid and threw the stick of dynamite into the stove. Needless to say it didn't take long for the shack to empty out. Then Dad sat down and ate his lunch. You see he knew that as long as the lid was off the stove and the gasses were not confined the dynamite burned like tinder but there would be no explosion.
After that when Dad walked into the lunch shack there was always a place for him and those with him to sit as close to the stove as he wanted.
In 1938, Roy fell out of a cherry tree and broke his collar bone. Unable to do the farm chores for awhile, financially Roy and Laura were stretched. Later that year the herd of cows were condemned with TB. Six months later the new herd was also diagnosed with TB. Roy and Laura then had to put Maple Run Farm up for sale. Cousin George Moss bought it. These circumstances only lasted about six months. Sister Elnora, not wanting to see her family's farm lost, arranged financing and bought it back. Roy and Laura lived at Maple Run Farm for the rest of their lives.
Roy was an avid outdoors man and belonged to the Isaac Walton Club. He loved to be in the woods hunting and fishing. Reading was also a pleasure and keeping up with what was happening in the world. Though their home never had a TV, many news magazines and the daily paper were always subscribed to.
Maude Luskey.