David B. Grubbs

David Barton Grubbs (January 28, 1942 - March 3, 2009), historian of Edgewood, Pennsylvania, (1) was Comptroller and problem solver for Mellon-Stuart Co. (later Baker Mellon Stuart Corp.) (2) and an authority on deltiology (the study of culture as documented in picture post cards). (3) He was a step-great-great-nephew of Andrew W. Mellon, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, 1921-1932. (4)
Contents
1. Early life
2. Mellon-Stuart
3. Edgewood History
4. Post Cards
5. Later life
6. Family
7. Writings
8. References
Early Life
David Barton (Dave) Grubbs was born in Edgewood, a borough in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, (5) one of three sons of Barton Grubbs II (1906-1979), an attorney and justice of the peace, and his first wife, Louise Hall Keeble (1914-1965), who divorced in 1945 (6, 7). His mother, who retained custody of her son, soon became the second wife of Edward Purcell (Ned) Mellon II, (8) and David was close to the Mellon side of his family. He was yearbook manager of his class at Edgewood High School, graduating in 1960, (9) and took a B.A. degree in Business at the University of Pittsburgh in 1964. (10, 11) By the time he was 16 he was an avid and careful acquirer of post cards (having begun at age 5) (12), and throughout his life he devoted half his residence to his collection.
Mellon-Stuart
His sunny personality, persistence, and ability to fix on the cause of a problem guaranteed him quick employment, and he started his career in Jones & Laughlin Steel Co.’s administrative offices in Pittsburgh. (13) Within months, Mellon-Stuart (later merged with Michael Baker Corp.) noticed him and took him on board to audit and to oversee construction projects. (14) His stepfather was the firm’s president. (15) Grubbs was respected for his own worth, not the Mellon ties, and he was repeatedly assigned to redirect wayward projects, including the Harristown/Strawberry Square complex adjacent to the state capitol in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in the late 1970s, and, for Baker, on Guam, autumn 1993 - autumn 1994. (16)
His half-brother, Thomas Alexander (Alec) Mellon IV of Rector, Pennsylvania described his value to Mellon-Stuart: “David’s solutions to a problem were clear and concise. He’d tell those responsible for the delays to get to the point and get the job done.” (17) All this was done, however, in a kindly and trusting spirit, qualities recalling earlier times in American business history.
Edgewood History
In 1934 his paternal grandmother, Caroline Foster (Gasaway) Grubbs (1874-19 ), published Once Upon a Time, (18) the earliest history of Edgewood, a place erected as a borough in 1888 but settled around 1800 and planned out as a village in late 1864. (19) Edgewood included the site of the Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf (1884). (20) The book, its author, and his mother combined to interest Grubbs in local history at an early age, and he eventually served as president of the Edgewood Historical Society (circa 2002-2006). (21) For several years he labored on an extensive revision of the book, but he was unable to publish before his death. (22)
He was a member of Edgewood Presbyterian Church. (22A)
Post Cards
During his last high school year he accompanied post card (postcard)dealers to a show in Chicago and there met Donald Raymond Brown (1930- ), important Pennsylvania collector and a friend for 50 years. His Harrisburg, Pennsylvania assignment coincided with that of Brown to the management staff of the State Library of Pennsylvania, and the friendship was sealed. Brown retired in 1991, incorporated the Institute of American Deltiology in Myerstown, Pennsylvania, in late 1993, and made Grubbs his first board appointee. (23) Meanwhile, when he moved to Yardley, Pennsylvania, after the completion of Strawberry Square (the project wound down in 1981-1985) (24), Grubbs had left his Harrisburg cards in Brown’s custody. Grubbs’s and Brown’s cards of the Pennsylvania State Capitol were placed on display in the rotunda on the occasion of the dilapidated building’s 75th anniversary and have been recognized as having sparked such interest in restoration on the legislators’ part that within a few months the Pennsylvania General Assembly created a Capitol Preservation Committee. In the succeeding quarter-century, the Committee gave structural integrity to and conserved the original grandeur of this significant building. (25)
All through his college, working, and retirement years he shared the vast knowledge of post cards he had accumulated. Cards brought together his interests in history, genealogy, cooking, and gardening. His mother founded the Western Pennsylvania Herb Society, (26) and he quickly learned to cook when his stepfather gave short notice of bringing business friends home for the evening. Grubbs became treasurer of the Three Rivers Postcard Club (27) and held programs at shows to educate the other collectors, emphasizing the cards’ preservation of 116 years’ evidence of every side of America’s culture, art, and physical environment. He was a key officer of the Washington Crossing and South Jersey post card clubs in the period 1985-1993. (28)
Later Life
At the time of the Baker Mellon Stuart merger, Grubbs was based as Comptroller (1985-1993) in West Trenton, New Jersey. (29) On his return from Guam he re-established his residence in Edgewood after 27 years. (30) The firm came upon hard times shortly after the dot-com bubble burst, and it collapsed in the recession of 2001. Thereafter Grubbs appeared at more annual post card exhibitions but was more dealer than exhibitor, finding that role more comfortable for sharing expertise as well as providing sufficient income for independence. He began to increase his usefulness as trustee of the Institute of American Deltiology. (31)
In his last years David Grubbs did not slow his schedule. He was on an annual swing through Florida on both family and post card business when he checked into a hospital in early 2009 believing he had a case of flu. The trouble was traced to his heart, and he underwent emergency multiple bypass surgery. Preparation for a show, as well as other unfinished business, drove him to ask Alec to transport him back to Edgewood. A few days after their return, Alec discovered him dead in his residence amid the cards he had been preparing. The strain of travel had been too much. His ashes were distributed on Mellon lands at Rector, Westmoreland County, Pa., in Edgewood, and at the Mellon compound south of St. Augustine, Florida. A private memorial service was held at Rector on June 27, 2009.
He was never married; there were no children. His full brothers, Thomas Scandrett Grubbs II and Donald Keeble Grubbs, predeceased him. (33) Surviving were a nephew and a niece, both children of Thomas—Timothy Barton Grubbs of Virginia and Stacey Grubbs Rhodes of North Carolina. (34) A public auction of much of his card collection was held at Overland Park, Kansas, on October 21-22, 2009. (35)
Family
David Barton Grubbs was descended from Adam and Rebecca (Young) Grubbs, early Butler County, Pennsylvania, settlers. Their son Barton Grubbs (1850-19 ) married Adaline A., daughter of Thomas (an Irish immigrant) and Sarah (Kimes) Scandrett, in 1872. Barton’s son Thomas Scandrett Grubbs, born in 1873, married Caroline Foster, daughter of John R. and Mary (Filson) Gasaway, in 1896, and Thomas’s son Barton (September 24, 1906 - August 19, 1979) was the present subject’s father. Through this line Grubbs was descended from John Filson (1753?-1788), the earliest Kentucky historian. (36, 37)
Not much is available as yet on the Keeble side. Louise Hall (Keeble) Grubbs (June 25, 1914 - June 30, 1965) was the second of three wives of Edward Purcell Mellon II (1908-1986), who was one of the children of Thomas Alexander Mellon II (1873-1948) and his wife Helen M. McLanahan Wightman (1871-1963), and grandson of Thomas Alexander Mellon (1844-1899) (brother of Andrew W. Mellon) and Mary C. Caldwell (1847-1902). (38, 39)
Literature
1. Unfinished MS. History of Edgewood, Pennsylvania
2. “The 400 and 300 Block of Maple Ave. Latter Part of the Twentieth Century (Based on the 1957 Edgewood Directory),” presented as the Edgewod Historical Society program for its December 2004 meeting. (Unpublished typescript)

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