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Standard / by / April 4, 2016 / No Comments
The Crawford Weekly Messenger Meadville PA

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  • We had a great time hearing the stories of people who once worked or whose family worked for Talon or American Viscose...and some of us had a little more fun than others with their new copilot.
  • Celestia Tinker was a celebrated vocalists and concert singer who along with her two sisters, Juvinelia (“Juvia”) and Belle, performed from the 1860's thru the late 1880's. Celestia was born in 1844 in Yates County, New York. Later she married John Porter (1832-1906) a well-known Meadville businessman who owned the Porter Hardware Company and would later become the Mayor of Meadville 1888. Mr. Porter and Celestia had two children together—a son, Walter Gaylord Porter who practiced medicine in Scio, Ohio until he was killed by a train in 1899, and a daughter, Juvia who became a writer and dramatist. The family enjoyed traveling taking trips abroad to the Bahamas and other locations. At one point Celestia took the children to live for a while in Menton, a town in the French Rivera before later returning to Pennsylvania in 1877. Often referred to in the papers as the “Star Sisters” the Tinker trio were favorites at patriotic and even anti-slavery gatherings. In their early years, the girls were directed in concerts by their father, Captain Horace Tinker, noted for inventing Tinker’s Little Giant Rat and Mouse Trap. Celestia and her sister, Juvia, survived a particularly harrowing event during a performance in Titusville 1861. In the middle of their performance the floor of the singing hall collapsed. 300 people in attendance were suddenly dropped into the basement, some from the second floor balcony. The calamity was suddenly compounded by a fire that ignited almost immediately after, but a small portion of the floor on which the stage was constructed remained in place sparing the two sisters. Using scaffolding Celestia, Juvia, and audience members crawled out through the windows. Within 15 minutes the entire structure was engulfed in flames, yet miraculously no one died. Over the years Belle explored acting, leaving Celestia and Juvia. In 1887, Juvia founded the Conservatory of Music in Meadville, and guided it's growth as it became the Pennsylvania College of Music in 1911. Celestia, unfortunately died relatively young at only age 40 New York in 1884, and she was buried in Meadville's Greenlawn Cemetery. #womenshistorymonth #womenofcrawfordcounty

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