Ran across this lovely tomb in Troy’s historic Oakwood Cemetery a few weeks back. It’s a monument to Elmer Strope, and it seemed to me that someone with a monument this grand ought to be better known to me. Usually there’s a town or a street or a park or something that you can associate with the names on these tombs, but in this case, the name of Strope meant nothing to me. A quick look at the old city directories turned up an Elmer Strope who was a clerk at Frear’s Troy Cash Bazaar from at least 1890 well into the teens. His home was listed as Wynantskill. As late as 1914, he is listed simply as a bookkeeper. But it doesn’t seem like bookkeepers usually end up with custom doors on their mausoleums. So how did this come about?
Well, it would appear that Elmer E. Strope struck oil. Not literally, but he somehow got into the oil business by 1922, setting up the American Oil Company of Troy, NY, which sold canned lubricating oil and grease at just such a time as automobiles were starting to boom. (It was one of many “American Oil” companies, unfortunately for researchers.) In 1910, he was just a “dry goods salesman;” by 1915, he was an “oil jobber.” In the 1920, 1930, and 1940 censuses, Elmer listed himself as the proprietor of a service station, but it seems more likely his fortune came from the oil cans.
You can see some of American Oil’s collectible cans that helped put Elmer into some swanky digs for the afterlife, by clicking here.