Happy 100th Birthday Granddad!

My Father's Dad, Harry Edwin Mousley was born to Harry David and Emma Louise Mousley on July 6, 1909 in Philadelphia neighborhood of Tacony. He had three sisters, Marian, Anne, and Mary (all now deceased).

He went to Frankfort High School and he dropped out to go to work.

He owned and operated Atlas Bronze, a non-ferrous metal foundry in Kensington area of Philadelphia beginning in the depression years around the age of 20 and notably cast materials for the war effort in WWII, primarily Navy ships and fire fighting parts. He worked there about 70 years before retiring at the age of 90!

Atlas Bronze moved to Cedar Street in 1924. It was incorporated in 1933 by Harry Mousley several years after his father died.

He takes much joy in regaling his grandsons (including me!) with tales of his early working career - like the times he caddied for golfers at the swanky Torresdale country club in Philadelphia, where he earned 30 cents an hour. The round of golf would last 3 hours, and he would get a one dollar bill (10 cents tip). He would walk home rather than take the streetcar and break the dollar bill!

He also tells stories of Ajax Metals, where he first worked, where he would hide his lunch in an unused metal furnace so no one would steal it. And a story of Atlas Bronze, where he told of a helping a customer that made baking ovens and had a chain-link conveyer that circulated through the oven, and the conveyer would be dragged through some kind of edible lubricant oil to keep the food from sticking to the conveyer.

His was one of the first families in Philadelphia to have a car. He started a life-long passion with the automobile at a very early age driving by the time he was 14 (or earlier but don't tell anyone!) He recalls driving down to Cape May, New Jersey on the one lane, deeply rutted dirt road that had a hump in the middle of it and having to steer over the hump and half off the road to let the on-coming cars past. In addition, if someone passed you and was going fast, you could count on catching up to them because they would be fixing a flat tire.

He is a person of patience and courage in that he was the only one who *wanted* to teach his daughter-in-law and grandchildren how to drive. His grandson Kirk remembers going to a bed and breakfast deep in the Poconos with his grandfather, Grandmother, and his grandfather's sister Marion where his grandfather let him drive the twisty narrow (often guardrail-less) mountain roads for the weekend when he was only 16.


Married for 56 years to his first wife Edith Anna nee McClurken (pictured) and subsequently married for 18 years (so far!) to Jocelyn Mousley. He has one son, Harry Robert Mousley and three Grandsons, Keith, Karl, and Kirk. He has three great-grandchildren.

He traveled extensively for business and pleasure with his wife and grandsons and other family members to the Orient (Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore), Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland), the Mediterranean (Greece, Yugoslavia and Turkey), the Baltics, Russia, and much of Europe (England, Germany, Austria, Yugoslavia, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, and Portugal). Note - not all the countries he visited are named here!

He taught all of his grandsons how to take pictures with his (at the time, newfangled) 35mm camera and there are many photographs taken during his travels in my attic.


He enjoyed going to the beach in Cape May and Long Beach Island, where he enjoyed fishing for sea trout (weakfish), blue fish, fluke and flounder. He also enjoyed many trips to the Sterling Inn in the Poconos.


Today he enjoys his retirement living in the old log house in Quakertown, PA.

Happy Birthday Granddad! I love you!