The Kitchen in the Watson-Curtze Mansion contains a small sampling of the ECHS’s Griswold collection. The Griswold Company manufactured cast iron and later aluminum cookware in Erie for nearly 100 years.
Aside from its importance to Erie’s manufacturing history, the Griswolds and the Watsons were related by marriage. In 1910, Winifred T. Watson, daughter of paper and roofing material magnate H.F. Watson and his wife Carrie, married Ely Griswold in
the Watson mansion on Millionaire’s Row.
A photograph of Winifred in her wedding gown in the mansion’s library is shown at right.
Ely and Winifred went on to have four children between 1912 and 1926. Sadly however, only their son Tracy, named in honor of Carrie Watson’s maiden name, would live to adulthood, passing away in 1997.
The loss of the three other children at young ages must have been hard on Ely and Winifred. The loss of a young child was not uncommon in the early 20th Century as the state of medical science had not yet produced the techniques and medicines we take for granted today.
Visit the Watson-Curtze Mansion soon and learn more about the people who called it home.
