Alvie Hake Sr.

Alvie Eugene Hake was born on Monday, April 10, 1916, south of the city of New Castle in the Willow Grove area of North Beaver Township, Lawrence County, Pennsylvania. He was born in the midst of a tense world situation as the Great War (World War I) was raging across Europe. The United States was still officially neutral, but would be dragged into the hostilities. Alvie was the first of eleven children born to George Hartman Hake and Margaret Matilda (Doutt) Hake, both of whom were descended from German immigrants and were joined in marriage in December 1914. Alvie was named after his dad’s brother Alvie Hake.

About six months after Alvie was born his parents took up residence on a nearby farm (and operated a poultry farm) along the banks of Hickory Creek. The property was rented from John McMillin, a popular and successful businessman from Mahoningtown. It was here that his mother gave birth to three more children, girls named Dorothy, Mildred, and Charlotte, over the next three years. In about November 1919 the family moved to Cedar Street in Mahoningtown, where a son named Robert was born less than two years later. In 1925 his father bought a large piece of property back along the banks of Hickory Creek and the Hake’s returned to the country life.

In the fall of 1924, when he was eight years old, Alvie started school at the North Beaver Consolidated School in Mount Jackson. His teacher was Martha Powell and among his classmates were Leslie Sipe, Wesley Hodge, Evelyn Tindall, and his sister Mildred Hake. Alvie was not very inclined towards his studies and it took about eight years to reach the sixth grade. I believe Alvie eventually left school for good while in the sixth grade – when he was about age sixteen - and sought out employment. This was about 1932 and in the midst of the Great Depression. Before too long he was fortunate to find work as a crane operator with the Pennsylvania Railroad Company (PRR).

His father George struggled to make ends meet and eventually had to sell off the farm in about 1937. The family moved into a house just north of Willow Grove at #502 Montgomery Avenue Extension on the extreme southern edge of Mahoningtown. This house sat on the southwest corner of the intersection of Routes 18 and 108, exactly where the bridge on Route 108/Mount Jackson Road currently spans the Mahoning River (an area known as “the Y”). All the while the Hake family continued to grow, with the eleventh and last child, June, being born in 1939.

In the early 1940’s Alvie was married to a woman named Virginia Smith, who was eight years younger than him. They soon took up residence in a house next to his parents at the Y. Alvie’s first child, a boy named Alvie Jr. (“Sonny”), was born in August 1943. They had another twelve children together over the next twenty-five years or so. A particular tragic moment for Alvie came in the summer of 1950 when his brother Paul accidently ran over Alvie’s two-year-old daughter Margaret (“Margie”). Alvie was very heartbroken when she passed away a few weeks later. Five years later, in early May 1955, Alvie’s father George was killed in a tragic railroad accident in Mahoningtown. His mother Margaret continued to live at the Y in Mahoningtown. She eventually moved to Houston, Texas, to live with Alvie’s brother John Hake and passed away in September 1969.

In June 1970, his uncle Alvie Hake, who had moved out to Portland, Oregon, and amassed quite a fortune, passed away. Even though the younger Alvie had met his uncle only once he was named as the sole benefactor of his fortune. Alvie, who had never been on a plane, flew out to Oregon to meet with a lawyer and sign the necessary paperwork. Upon returning home he soon received a lump sum check of $100,000. He also took control of his uncle’s other assets, including several barber shops and a ranch with about twenty-six head of cattle. Alvie was a down-to-earth and unassuming individual and did not even have a bank account. He was a bit naïve in financial matters and I have been told he took the $100,000 check to Joseph’s Supermarket and tried to cash it! One of the few real changes he would make in his life was to buy himself a brand new Cadillac.

It was about this time that Alvie and Virginia were separated and they later divorced. Alvie took up residence at #1909 East Washington Street in New Castle. In October 1975, Alvie, who fifty-nine years old, was remarried to a young woman named Veda Diane Covert, who I believe was still a senior at New Castle High School. They had two children over the next few years. Alvie soon bought a house at #210 Crawford Avenue off Croton Avenue in New Castle. They later settled in Edinburg.

Alvie passed away in Jameson Memorial Hospital on Wednesday, August 24, 1994, at the age of seventy-eight. A viewing was held two days later from 2:00-4:00pm and 7:00-9:00pm at the DeCarbo Funeral Home in New Castle. At noon on Saturday, August 27, a memorial service, presided over by the Reverend Ronald Milley, was held at the funeral home. After the service Alvie was laid to rest in Savannah Cemetery in Shenango Township, where two of his children and his ex-wife Veda, who died in February 1994, were previously interred. Several other of Alvie’s children would be buried at the cemetery in the coming years.