William Edward Beardsley Manning

William Edward Beardsley (or Beardsleigh) Manning was born in 1878 in Connecticut to William Carnes Manning and Josephine Scott Manning. He grew up in Fair Haven and on Ashmun Street in New Haven. According to the 1900 census, he was then working as a janitor in New Haven. By 1910, he was working as a sign painter in Providence, Rhode Island. At that time, he was married to Minnie Manning and had one young child, Edna. He returned to New Haven, where he continued in the sign painting business and attended the Yale School of Art from 1912 to 1914. In 1919 he married Grace Webster. He managed Atlas Display Company, which was first located on Chapel Street and then moved to State Street, and lived on Ashmun Street with his wife, children Edna, Mabel, Dorothy May, Edwina Josephine, and Edward, and his parents. He died in 1928.