The eighth and last article about people whose names appear on the stained glass windows in our beautiful sanctuary concerns Julia Frances Leffingwell. I have been able to trace her ancestry back to her great-great grandparents but I have found very little about Julia Frances herself. I do know that she was the daughter of Erastus and Sybil Freeman Leffingwell who “had a very large vineyard”. The recently complied Westfield School Census (1879-1907) reveals that Julia Leffingwell was a teacher in several different schools om 1893 until 1899 when she taught in the village school for an annual salary of $360.00, big money for those days!

There is an interesting story about Julia’s great-great grandparents. James Leffingwell was married to Anne Chapman. He passed the early part of his life at Norwich, conn., then lived for a time at New Marlboro, Mass.. But finally started with his family and that of his son, Erastus, in two large covered wagons, for the West. After a tedious and perilous journey they reached Westfield, NY, and here he lost his life in an attempt to save several men who were building a bridge across Chautauqua Creek. While placing in position a heavy timber, the support gave way, and seeing the danger his men were in, he grasped it, and while moving backward, tripped and was crushed by the falling beam. Without surgical aid at hand, he survived only a few days. Julia Frances Leffingwell died in 1900 while still a young woman. She is buried in the Westfield Cemetery. If anyone has any more information about Julia Frances Leffingwell we would like to hear about it. (Valedictorian of the Columbian class of 1892 – Westfield Republican, June 29, 1892) (per her obituary in the January 17, 1900 Westfield Republican, she died of consumption[Consumption: An old and once common term for wasting away of the body, particularly from pulmonary tuberculosis (TB). Other old TB terms include the King’s evil or scrofula (TB of the lymph nodes in the neck) and Pott’s disease (TB of the spine)]) http://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/lccn/sn83031732/1900-01-17/ed-1/seq-1/#date1=01%2F01%2F1899&city=&date2=12%2F31%2F1901&searchType=advanced&SearchType=prox5&sequence=0&lccn=sn83031732&index=0&words=LEFFINGWELL+Leffingwell&proxdistance=5&county=&to_year=1901&rows=20&ortext=&from_year=1899&proxtext=Leffingwell&phrasetext=&andtext=&dateFilterType=range&page=1)