- George Meade Easby
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George Gordon Meade Easby (1918 - December 11, 2005) was the great-grandson of U.S. Civil War General George Gordon Meade of the Union Army and a descendant of seven signers of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Easby's mother was a descendant of Nicholas Waln, who came to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1683 with William Penn aboard the ship Welcome and was later given the area now known as Frankford.[1]
Easby was a multi-talented person, from being a Hollywood actor/producer to a cartoonist after World War II, and from serving the government as a U.S. State Department employee for twenty-five years to being a radio talk host. He was also a major art/antique collector, who inherited more than 100,000 antiques and personal items, many of which had been in his family for centuries. His collection includes items belonging to Gen. George Meade, a chair and other high valued items belonging to Napoleon Bonaparte as well as jewelry belonging to Joséphine de Beauharnais. Many pieces from his collection have been loaned to the White House and U.S. State Department for its diplomatic reception rooms. Some of his pieces are also housed at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.[2]
George Easby lived nearly all of his life at his family's Baleroy Mansion in the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is said to be one of the most actively haunted houses in the United States.[3] His father, May Stevenson Easby, and his mother, Henrietta Large Easby, moved into Baleroy Mansion in the late 1920s when Easby was only about 11 years old. He also had a younger brother at the time named May Stevenson Easby Jr. who died mysteriously at the approximate age of 10.[2][4]
Easby was a graduate of Chestnut Hill Academy and studied illustration for five years at the Philadelphia College of Art. Easby has been known to many as an extremely kind and generous person. He died on December 11, 2005, at Keystone Hospice in Wyndmoor, PA, at the age of 87, leaving no siblings or children. He was buried at Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia.[1]
See also
References
- ^ a b Chesnut Hill Local - Visitors didn’t stand a “ghost of a chance” George G. Meade Easby, a one-of-a-kind Hiller By Len Lear, December 15, 2005 Issue.
- ^ a b Chestnut Hill Local - Obituaries (George Easby), December 15, 2005 Issue.
- ^ Baleroy Mansion - Chestnut Hill, PA
- ^ Sightings, Haunted Mansion (episode #3022 aired on TV April 23, 1995)
External links
- Sightings - Haunted Mansion (episode #3022 aired on TV April 23, 1995)
- Sightings - Alien abduction of twins; artificial intelligence; haunted mansion; intervention by angels
- People, Spirited Welcome, Halloween Treats October 31, 1994 Vol. 42 No. 18
- Meade Family Genealogy
Categories:- 1918 births
- People from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- 2005 deaths
- University of the Arts (Philadelphia) alumni
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