Albert Crim of Martinsburg, a B&O Railroad car foreman, outlived all 13 of his siblings
Albert Gill Crim of Martinsburg spent most of his career as a car foreman for the B&O Railroad at Cumbo. He was later employed by the Kogelschatz and Coffman funeral home.
When died at age 81 in 1958, his obituary in The Martinsburg Journal said he was the last of a family of 14 children.
Albert's father, Aaron Millick Crim -- who was originally from Frederick County, Virginia -- had been married twice. Aaron's first wife, with whom he had at least one child, died when he was 31.
A year later, Aaron married his second wife, Alice "Martha" Clark, and they had at least 12 children. The family lived at 216 Winchester Avenue.
Albert was one of the younger children in the family. He outlived all his siblings, including the four who were younger.
Albert, who was 13 when his father died, grew up to be a tall man with gray eyes. In 1899, at age 22, he married Mollie Fowler of Middleway. Mollie’s father, a Confederate soldier, was a sergeant at the Stonewall Jackson Brigade.
Albert and Mollie lived in several homes in Martinsburg, including at 204 North Raleigh Street; on Faulkner Avenue; on South Maple Avenue; and on Burke Street.
The couple had no children.
In 1902, when Albert was 25, he lost two of his younger sisters within weeks of each other. Pink, a 19-year-old factory worker, died six weeks after contracting typhoid fever. Two months later, Mabel, 14, also died, possibly of the same disease.
Throughout most of the 1930s, when Albert was in his 50s, he lost five more siblings.
Around 1935, when his wife was in her late 50s, she fell ill and became an invalid. She died five years later in 1940.
After he lost his wife, Albert moved in with his niece Edith Myers and her two young adult children on West John Street.