My Genealogy Hound

THOMAS DAVISON TURNER, funeral director, Wilkinsburg, is a native of that town, born June 21, 1851. His grandfather, Adam Turner, the son of a Scotchman, was born in Pennsylvania. He married Mary Quigley, a native of what is now Penn township, this county, and settled very early on the present site of Wilkinsburg. Here was born their son, Hugh, on the last day of the year 1809, and died Dec. 26, 1888. The latter married Catharine, sister of James Duff (whose biography appears elsewhere), who was also born in Penn township, and is now living in Wilkinsburg, having reared seven of eight children, of whom Thomas is the eighth. Hugh, the sixth, died at the age of thirty, after serving three years in the Army of the Tennessee as a member of the 15th P. C. T.

D. Turner attended the public schools till fifteen years old, worked two years at laboring work, and then entered on a three years’ apprenticeship as carpenter. After working as journeyman a like period, he engaged in the grocery trade for seven years. In 1881 he established the first undertaking business in Wilkinsburg, and a livery in connection, erecting a large building on Penn avenue, near Wood street, for the purpose. He is also owner of other property in the borough. Mr. Turner is an elder in the U. P. Church, president of the Wilkinsburg Building and Loan association, and treasurer of the borough. Politically he is a democrat, with strong prohibition sympathies. Jan. 8, 1878, he married Eliza Jane, daughter of Richard Beatty, now a resident of Wilkinsburg. Mrs. Turner was born in Pittsburgh, and is the mother of three children: Mary Ella, Laura Belle and Thomas Davison, Jr.