Mary L. Gleason

Mary L. Gleason

• Mary L. Gleason was born circa 1874 in Rhode Island.
• She married Frank H. Stevens, son of Franz Hofner and Anna Paulina Waldheger, in 1897.
• Frank H. Stevens and Mary L. Gleason appeared in the US federal census of 15 April 1910 in Manhattan, New York, at 418 West 35th Street. Other members of the household included Lawrence Hoffner Stevens, Anna H. Stevens and Francis H. Stevens.
• Frank H. Stevens and Mary L. Gleason appeared in the US federal census of 1 January 1920 in Bronx, New York, at 985 Jackson Avenue. Other members of the household included Lawrence Hoffner Stevens and Anna H. Stevens.
• Frank H. Stevens and Mary L. Gleason appeared in the US federal census of 1 April 1930 in Bronx, New York, at 985 Jackson Avenue. Other members of the household included Lawrence Hoffner Stevens and Anna H. Stevens.
• Frank H. Stevens became a widower at her death.
• Mary L. Gleason died in 1952.
• The following appeared on 25 September 1958 in The Otsego Farmer: Frank Stevens of Flushing, Queens, brother of the late A. Leo Stevens of Fly Creek, and board chairman of the New York Awning Company, Inc., died Friday in Bayside Gardens Nursing Home after a long illines. His age was 85.
       Mr. Stevens and his brother, who died in 1944, began a career in aeronautics and were billed as the "Boy Wonders of the Air" during the Eighteen Nineties. They made many balloon ascensions and parachute jumps in the United States and Canada.
       After his first parachute jump, at the age of 15 at a circus in Ohio, Mr. Stevens made many others at the once famous El Dorado Park in the Palisades of New Jersey, at the World's Fair in St. Louis and at President William McKinley's inaugural celebration.
       He was believed the first balloonist to make a parachute jump in Manhattan-- at the mail carriers' picnic in old Schutzer Park in July, 1893. He then just missed alighting on the rails of the old Third Avenue elevated railway.
       Mr. Stevens, who founded the New York Awning Company in 1893, was a pioneer in developing and introducing the modern type of concealed or recessed awnings. In 1940 he absorbed F. J. Kloes, Inc.
       A charter member of the Canvas Goods Manufacturers Association of Greater New York, which he helped to organize in 1907, Mr. Stevens served as its president for twenty-one years. He was a former director and president in 1931-32 of the Canvas Products Association International.
       Under the National Recovery Administration, Mr. Stevens was a regional director for the canvas products industry. He had been a consultant to the armed services on parachutes in World War I.
       Mr. Stevens was a member of the Holy Name Society of St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church, Flushing; a former director of the Kiwanis Club of New York, and a former member of the Bronx Grand Jurors Association.
       In 1897 he married Miss Mary L. Gleason. She died in 1952. Surviving are three sons, Lawrence, Leo and Vincent; a daughter, Miss Anna Stevens, and three grandchildren.

• Last Edited: 15 Mar 2011