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INTRODUCTION

The success and enthusiastic reception of Shenango I have underlined for those of us involved in its prepara­
tion some important truths, truths that should be self-evident but that sometimes need to be re-affirmed: that
there are great learning atmospheres outside the classroom; that real people can be (and usually are) better
“textbooks” than real textbooks: that (and this perhaps is less self-evident than the others) people who seem
not to have much in common can discover through dialogue that their common humanity cultivates mutual re­
spect. If learning is discovery, then there is no more important kind of discovery than that.
It is easy for the young to see the older as moving in a different world. It is as easy for the old to look with
puzzlement and suspicion on the world of the young. When the college student takes his tape recorder and his
camera to the home of a senior citizen, who sometimes has to struggle with the student’s language, different
cultures and eras confront each other. Usually both are enriched. In the strange story that he hears, the student
often discovers the human struggle and recognizes it as his own. The story teller, often amazed and pleased that
anyone should find his story interesting and important enough to record, may rediscover in the student his own
youth. A mutual respect develops.
The encounter of the young and old is not the only discovery that the Shenango Project affords. Sometimes
the encounter is between the young and the still younger. As high school students become involved — and it is
our hope that more and more will become involved — we see invaluable educational opportunities developing.
Still other kinds of encounter occur. High school and college faculty become involved with each other. The po­
tential here for growth on both sides is inestimable as ideas are exchanged and problems are worked out to­
gether. As the Project continues we hope that it will become more and more identified as a community rather
than just a college project, with area high schools participating and adding their potential to future issues of
Shenango. Still further, on both the college and high school levels, teachers from different disciplines — history,
English, sociology, anthropology — will continue to find in Shenango a common cause and reason for increased
respect.
Lastly, we have witnessed, and trust to continue to witness, in the community’s reaction to Shenango the
kind of mutual respect that should be present between a college and the people it serves. The people of the
Shenango Valley are what Shenango is about. They have shown through their support their appreciation of the
college’s interest in them; the college students and faculty have had reaffirmed for us, through the cooperation
of the community, the truth that discovering people is discovering self.
Here in this Bicentennial year we have the occasion to remind ourselves of the self-evident truths that
speak of the dignity of all persons, those older and those younger, those different from us in culture, profession,
and way of life. If Shenango in its preparation and in these pages in some way serves as such a reminder, we are
more than pleased.

Carmen Leone

DEDICA TION
A CKNO WLED GMENTS
Orvis Anderson, life-long resident of Mercer
County, is well-known and highly respected for his
contributions and dedication to his community.

FACULTY
Mr. Eugene Antley
Miss Caroline Daverio
Dr. Carmen Leone

Professionally, Orvis Anderson has taught at all
levels in the public schools. At his retirement in the
Spring of 1971, Mr. Anderson completed forty-six
years of service to his profession and to the many
students who were touched by his generous, unique
irifluence.

LIBRARY STAFF

OFFICE STAFF

Mrs. Carl Valerius

Mrs. Robert Myers
Mrs. Hugh Phythyon
STUDENTS
FALL 75

Mr. Anderson has also taught Sunday School for
fifty years, serves as a counselor for the Boy Scout
Merit Badge program, and still enjoys hunting and
gardening.

In addition to these activities, Orvis Anderson has
spent almost a lifetime pursuing a very special interest
— the history of Mercer County. In October, 1946,
he became a charter member of the Mercer County H
dent, and finally, curator, a position which has made hU

Mr. Edward Lindway
Mr. James D. Siar

orical Society for which he has served as director, presithe mainstay and inspiration of the Society.

Those who have worked with Orvis Anderson love him — love him for the genuine dedication which charac­
terizes him and all he does; for his willingness to help others; for his capacity to give unselfishly and unstintingly
of himself.

One of his fellow teachers comments: '‘One word describes Orvis Anderson — dedication.

Another friend, a fellow member of the Mercer County Historical Society, has this to say about him:
“There is no one who has given as much of himself to the Society as Orvis Anderson. He does a lot of work —
quietly. ”

In 1961, Orvis Anderson was honored as the recipient of the Valley Forge Freedom Foundation Award.

Because we, too, at Edinboro Shenango Valley Center, wish to celebrate the dedication of his service and
the generosity of his spirit, we dedicate this issue of Shenango to Orvis Anderson, teacher, local historian, curator,
friend.

— Caroline Daverio —

Borkowski, Ann
Burlingame, Karin
Cannon, Lynette
Cole, George
Dale, Mark
Early, Donna
Foster, Dana
Henning, Laura
Martin, Gail
Massey, Dorothy
Rock, Michael
Wilds, Thomas

SUMMER 75

SPRING 76

Antley, Corinne
Bock, Steve
Foltz, Carol
Frye, Mark
George, Mike
Grandy, John
Koscinski, Stella
Lauro, Gerald
Lazor, Paula
Vamosi, Dan
Williams, Penny

Benigas, John
Blank, Brian
Campagna, Anna
Conti, Lisa
Dale, Timothy
Dye, Rita
Emerick, Roy
Moder, Scott
Morgenstern, Rodney
Paoletta, Larry
Raver, Star
Wilds, Robert

VISITING LECTURERS
Rev. Jerome Kucan
Mr. Ted Lazorishak
Mr. Carlton Lehman
Rev. Michael Polanichka
Mrs. Nellion Ponder
Mrs. Pamela Wood

Rev. Raphael Biernacki
Mr. Frank Egercic
Mrs. Vincenzina Grasso
Mrs. John Gruitza
Mr. Peter Joyce
Dr. James Knightlinger
PATRONS
Beneficial Society of German Homes
Mr. Carl Bordy
Mrs. Susan Cornman
Professor Hugh Earnhart
Mrs. Edmund Finucane
Mr. Harold Gwin
Ms. Elizabeth Haller
Dr. William Herrmann
Hicks Office Products Center
Mr. Richard W. Hopkins

Ideas, Inc., Washington, D.C.
Leali Bros. Meats
Mrs. Alfred Longietti
Mercer County Bicentennial Commission
Mercer County Federation of Clubs
Mr. Louis J. Morocco
Pic Electric
Sharon Stationery & Supply, Inc.
Sharon Steel Corporation
Shenango Valley Council of Governments

We extend a special note of appreciation to Barbara Antley for her aid in fiscal matters.

SHENANGO

A HOME AWAY FROM HOME
Roy Emerich
AI Krochka

Introduction

INTRODUCTION

C

Dedication
Acknowledgments
Contents
A Home Away From Home

Way Of Life”

O
AI Krochka
Roy Emerich

5

Robert Wilds

8

Middlesex — A Mecca For Many

Dorothy L. Massey

13

''Full Steam Ahead”

Tom O’Brien

16

''I Felt I Accomplished
What God Was Wanting Of Me”

Susan Cornman and
Carl Bordy

21

The Bock Story

Steve Bock

27

It's Tommy Tucker Time

Mark Frye and
Pearl Ann Longietti

38

Pearl Ann Longietti and
Carol Foltz

43

Life Was Filled With Guns and War

Cooking Business?
I’ll Tell You What Happened!
Statue of Liberty

SHENANGO"
®Copyright 1975
Edinboro Shenango Foundation

Mike George and
Susan Cornman

The beginning of the twentieth century saw all previous records for immigration from Europe to the United
States broken during the first decade. Unlike the majority of the immigrants of the nineteenth century, the
new immigration was made up of poorer people, as a whole less well educated, most of whom remained either
in the port cities or went to factory towns where a relative or friend was awaiting them. Conditions of their life
often made them hostile to American institutions. This hostility, in turn, was reciprocated by Americans over
whom the tide of immigration swept. At best, most of these immigrants were looked upon as strange in language,
dress and customs, hardly acceptable for assimilation into the existing social structure. Consequently, ethnic
organizations known as Clubs, Unions, Alliances and Societies were established. Within these organizations the
immigrant and his family enjoyed social, cultural, recreational, financial, and educational benefits not always
available to them in the general society. By 1915 immigrants made up more than half of the work force in the in­
dustries located in the Shenango Valley. More than two dozen ethnic societies flourished by the early nineteen
twenties. One of the very prominent ones was "The German Home” located in Farrell. Pennsylvania. Chartered
in 1916, it has existed at its present location ever since that date.

N

utes of conversation, it became clear why inquiries
were directed to him. For, as a house does not become
a home until people abide within, so a home does not
thrive or prosper unless people like Jacob Schmidt
have a hand in shaping its destiny. The German Home
has been synonomous with Jacob Schmidt, and vice
versa. Immigrants came to America for various reas­
ons: freedom, fame, fortune, or for just a better way of
life. After hearing Jacob Schmidt’s story it became
evident that, for him, a better way of life was the op­
portunity to help his fellow man.

T

Jacob Schmidt, born in Hungary, January 15,
1899 arrived in America in 1912 with his father. When
World War I began, his mother and brother came to
the United States to join them. He became a citizen
in 1923, served the city of Farrell as Street Commis­
sioner until it became a third class city, was a foreman
under the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and
is now a retired foreman of the Sharon Steel Corpora­
tion.

E
N

Schmidt explained to us how the German Home came
to be established: “Well, first of all, it is a sick and
death benefit organization. The full name is “The
Beneficial Society of the German Home”. Like the
Polish, Italian and other clubs, when people joined,
they took out “A”, “B”, or “C” membership. “A”
is a sick and death benefit, “B” is not eligible for sick
benefits but he got death benefits, and a “C’ member
is only a social member. He doesn’t have any sick or
death benefits. Naturally, we had our club rooms
and served beer and whiskey in big glasses. We served
sandwiches and big dinners too.”

48
54

T

s

When making inquiries about the German Home
we were invariably told, “Ask Jacob Schmidt. He
can tell you all about it.” Who was this Jacob Schmidt
who was the considered authority on the subject of
the German Home? A telephone call arranged an
appointment for an interview and, after several min­

To have “A” standing, Schmidt explained, a

5

with the United States and we couldn’t become citi­
zens for five years after the War and proved we had
good reputations and didn’t get into trouble. I became
a citizen soon as the five years were over. Even during
World War II I was interviewed by a man from the
government who asked me about some of the men
he had listed in a book. He said my name was in the
book too but that I was a citizen in good standing. Our
son volunteered in the Second World War and was a
pilot of a B-24 bomber. He made 51 bombing trips
over France and Germany.”

Mr. Schmidt at Home
member had to join before age 45. After that age they
could only be “B” members, entitling them to death
benefits only.
Since most of them knew only their native lang­
uage, the Home was a place where they were ac­
cepted, could discuss problems and topical events,
and enjoy recreational as well as cultural pursuits.
Schmidt continued his explanation: “Well,
they built the present German Home in 1916. The
charter members paid for it by taking out shares.
There were 10, 25, 50, and 100 dollar shares. It was
like a loan to the club to pay for the building. And
when the home was built, they had quite a bit of ac­
tivity like dances and songfests, plays and things like
that. When I first became president of the home in
1921, we sponsored a basketball team. They put a
hoop in the hall upstairs and the young fellows had a
place to play, especially those who didn’t go to high
school had a chance to play. For many years the clubs
in Farrell and Sharon played each other and played in
tournaments all around. We also had a lot of picnics
and sometimes as many as 1500 people came to a pic­
nic out on a farm. Like the other clubs we had baseball
teams for the boys and men. At the club all the class
members could come eat, drink, play cards and dance,
or just talk with friends. Now that people have in­
surance and sick benefits where they work, most of
the members are “C” members.”
Schmidt then informed us of his personal back­
ground: “I went to public school in Hungary until I
was almost fourteen. After coming to this country I
sort of educated myself. Then when the first World
War broke out, I had to register as an enemy alien
like people from the other countries who were at war

At this point, we asked the difference between
the German Maennerchor Home in Sharon and the
German Home in Farrell. He pointed out that the
Maenerchor is strictly a social organization: “In
1870 a bunch of German people got together and
organized this club and called it, “Apollo-Maenerchor of Sharon, Pennsylvania”. The purpose of the
club was to perpetuate German songs and customs
in the United States. Now the main purpose is the
songs. I belong to that, too. They belong to the North
American Singing Society and travel to different
places to sing. Even today they have twenty six mem­
bers who belong to the singing group and have a di­
rector. Next Friday we are going to the Kennedy
Christian Senior Citizens Home and sing for the
people there. We go to different places to sing for
people like Youngstown and New Castle. We also have
a yearly Family Day and invite people from all over
so we can sing German songs. In the evening we have
a dance and dance German dances and American
dances. It lasts all day long.”

Picnic Group Mid-Thirties
We asked Schmidt how long he had been as­
sociated with the German Home before he became
president in 1921: “Well, I joined in 1917 when I
was 18 years old. I was president all together for 23
years and was on the board of directors for 42 years.
And currently I am an auditor of the home. Right
here is a picture of the charter members. The only

one besides me living is Peter Rommelfanger but
he is 86 years old and his wife is in the hospital. So
I don’t think you would want to bother him now. Two
of the women charter members are still living who are
in that picture. There is Mrs. Rose Nettinger and Mrs.
Frank Bayer, Sr. But they are up in their nineties, too.”

Mr. Schmidt’s Son in World War II

Though 77 years of age, Jacob Schmidt is just
as interested in the German Home and its members
as he was through his 60 years of affiliation with them.
What he brushes over lightly is his total involvement
with the welfare of people who needed a helping hand.
When people were unemployed or ill he saw to it that
their death and sick benefit premiums were kept paid.
He used to canvas the town and browbeat merchants
and tradesmen to provide trucks so that all the people
could attend picnics and other functions requiring
transportation. During World War I, when the immi­
grant Germans were under suspicion, harassed, ridi­
culed and otherwise maligned, he worked hard to
provide a social life, recreation, sports and educational
opportunities for his fellow countrymen over a tough
few years. Within the home, instead of conspiring
with fellow Germans, (as many people suspicioned)
he was instrumental in providing citizenship classes
for the aliens. They learned about the American gov­
ernment, language, and customs so they could qualify
for citizenship. Following World War II many German
displaced persons came to the United States. They
became homeless after the partition of Germany and

the occupation of Russia. Jacob Schmidt once again
was able to help his fellow countrymen by providing
a temporary refuge within the German Home, while
the refugees were undergoing a difficult period of
adjustment and transition. He also helped many of
them to secure employment. Why was a “German”
Home felt to be necessary for people anxious to find
a better life in “America”? Why, for that matter,
the other two dozen various ethnic clubs which exist
in the Shenango Valley? Fleeing oppression, poverty
and lack of freedom in their mother countries most
immigrants became isolated and ridiculed by the es­
tablished community in the valley because they talked,
dressed and behaved “funny”. Residents looked upon
them with suspicion, or as a threat to their own secu­
rity. Consequently they formed their “Clubs” and
“Homes” where people could meet with their own
kind, wear old country dress, speak the mother tongue
and follow familiar customs without being persecuted
or laughed at. Too, they found a measure of financial
security: in the event of illness, death, or other mis­
fortune, all members chipped in to help those less
fortunate then themselves.
While participating in the activities of the Home
or Club, immigrants and their families learned the
American language, customs and requirements for
citizenship. As they became accepted into the main­
stream of American life they became less dependent
on the “Home” and began to participate actively in
politics, athletics and other institutions. As a result,
the immigrant did not lose his individuality by way of
a “melting pot” but was able to add the best quali­
ties, traits and characteristics of his ethnic heritage to
those he adopted or developed in America.
To all the “HOMES” and their “JACOB
SCHMIDTS” Americans, especially those of the
Shenango Valley can be truly grateful. Through their
tireless efforts we have proven to the World that people
from every nation in Europe, as well as many from
other continents can live in peace and harmony, pro­
fiting from each other’s differences instead of existing
in an atmosphere of constant strife as a result of them.
Though the ranks of the German Home have
been thinned with the death of the “old timers” as
Mr. Schmidt stated, so have those of the other ethnic
homes and clubs. But the German Home and Jacob
Schmidt can proudly share in their contributions to
the Shenango Valley in particular, and to America in
general. They proved that people can be loyal, pa­
triotic Americans and still be proud of their ethnic
origins.

“A WA Y OF LIFE’
by Robert Wilds

The Pittsburgh Erie Canal (1844-1871), in pass­
ing through Mercer County was not only a base for a
cheap means of transportation, but it played an even
more influential role in the development of the
county’s resources. In Mercer County the iron and
steel industry had its beginning after the coming of
the canal. Perhaps the canal played an even more
important role in the development of coal. Prior
to the completion of the Beaver-Lake Erie Canal, the
means of transportation were so imperfect that the
coal mined had to beg for a market. The consturction
of the canal gave new business the needed stimulus
by providing the much needed outlet. At first small
profits were made, but as the canal grew satisfactory
results to both capital and labor took place.
Although there is some question as to which
ethnic group had the most to do with the construction
of the canal, it is presumed a great deal of the actual
digging was undertaken by the Irish, English, Scotch,
Welsh, and German. Most of the construction during
the 1830’s was done in segments by many private
contractors who did their own hiring.
It was because of the lack of water transportation
that Mercer County was inactive in settlement and
commercial development. Since Mercer County was
situated midway between the Great Lakes to the
north and the natural highway to the west, the valley
of the Ohio River, these two great water routes es­
tablished the directions in which the settlement and
migration of Mercer County took place. Because
of the canal, settlers departed from the main courses
of travel and pushed their way up in lateral lines
through western Pennsylvania eventually occupying
it. One can, therefore, see the important role the canal
played. Not only did it have an influential hand in
the development of industry and commercial interest
here in Mercer County but its most notable effect was
in the rearrangement and re-distribution of popula­
tion. Along the route of the canal new life grew in
old settlements, such as Sharon and Greenville, while
others rapidly grew into prosperous villages because
of the ever growing commerce that daily passed by
their doors.
Settlements, such as Sharon, Clarksville, Shenango and Greenville were benefited by the canal,
and the result to the entire Shenango Valley was such
that it became the seat of a host of industries which
9

were later reinforced by the building of railroads along
the same river valleys.

sizable village. The borough of Wheatland is now
diminished to almost nothing in comparison to what
it used to be.

The Shenango Division, which comprised three
fourths of the main line between Pittsburgh and Erie,
was not completed until after the Beaver division and
the Pennsylvania and Ohio cross-cut canal had been
in operation for many years. In Pittsburgh and the
Beaver Valley, commercial interest was directed to­
ward that line by which Ohio trade could best be ob­
tained. Since this portion of the canal ran along the
Shenango River it was referred to as the Shenango
Division. This division extended to the outlet of Conneaut Lake; however, only three fourths of it was
provided for at this time.
Starting from the Western Reserve Harbor, out­
side of New Castle, the canal was dug and completed
through the town of Pulaski, situated in the northwest
comer of Lawrence County, by the fall of 1836.

Part of the "Old Lock" in Sharpsville.
Another Overgrown Part of the Old Canal in Wheatland.

The canal entered Mercer County in the south­
west portion known as Shenango Township. The first
lock built in the county, was just about one and onehalf miles north of the Lawrence County line, and lay
about two and one-half miles to the south of West
Middlesex. The village of West Middlesex supplied a
large amount of fresh produce for use on the canal,
and coal was its chief export until the construction of
the first furnace in 1845. The canal was, no doubt, in­
strumental in the establishment of the village.

The Beaver-Lake Erie Canal, still continuing on
the east bank of the Shenango River, passed through
the present city of Sharon, which was incorporated
in 1815 by William Budd. One of the first business
establishments on the canal was the Sharon Flouring
Mill, built by Giles Clar, obtaining its power from the
canal. Sharon was soon to be able to boast many
iron works, some of which got their start because of
the cheap transportation offered by the canal.
Leaving the borough of Sharon, traveling in a
northwesterly direction, the canal made its way along
the east bank of the Shenango River to a point two
miles north of Sharon where it curved back toward
the east following the contour of the land. Here it
struck the village of Sharpsville, which was originally
called Sharpsburg; the canal itself went through the
land which was plotted, thus both sides of the canal
were inhabited. Sharpsville was slow in building, but in
1856 General James Pierce, coming into the town and
using his time, means and energies, succeeded in
making it a most active business center.
The only intact lock between New Castle and
Erie still remains to be seen in Sharpsville, as one of
the most fascinating historical sites in Mercer
County. The “old lock”, as it is referred to, could
possibly function in a fully operational state since it
has been well preserved. The lock was one of twentysix in the Shenango Division and was constructed
in September of 1836 at a cost of $9,210. The lock lies
along the east bank of the Shenango River about
seventy-five yards from the bridge situated on High
Street. Access to the lock is due to the tow-path which
runs parallel to the river on the opposite side of the
lock. Although an excessive amount of growth has
covered up a good deal of the stone work, the walls

A Portion of the old Canal beside the Railroad that
superseded it.
Continuing in a northwesterly direction the canal
left the Shenango Township and entered Hickory
Township. The first village of any size on the canal in
this township was that of Wheatland. Wheatland was
non-existent during the constmction, but after the
canal had passed through this area, it became quite a

10

A Remnant of the Past.
of the lock have shifted. The stone work itself is by far
one of the more fascinating features of the lock. Each
stone was cut to precise measurements and simply
laid in place with no mortar or any other type of
adhesive material to insure stability. The lock is ap­
proximately one hundred and forty years old and
eighty-five percent of it is still intact.
Well Preserved After 140 Years.

The eight foot stone walls at Sharpsville can be
considered a remarkable feat of craftsmanship, but
even more significant they reflect the past history of
Mercer County exemplifying the tremendous role that
the canal played in the development of this area.

the canal and river then turned back toward the
north for a mile or so and then toward the northwest.
At the bend of the river, there was one of the most
industrial towns of the canal in Mercer County. The
village of Big Bend, located in the township of Jeffer­
son, was the site of one of the pioneer iron works of
Mercer County. Nearly all the merchants for the
county seat passed along the canal to this point, and
there reloaded on to wagons to be carried by wagon
road to Mercer.

The canal in following the east side of the She­
nango River, makes an almost perfect horseshoe
curve; it follows a northwesterly direction just past the
main part of the town, where it turns toward the east
and then comes toward the south. As it started on its
southern curve, the canal joined the river by way of a
head-lock. The river offered better means of trans­
portation, as there were no gradients to overcome.
The river then took another sweeping curve, heading
almost directly north. While in this direction, the
canal, still in the river bed, entered the Pymatuning
Township. Swinging toward the east and coming into
more hilly territory, the canal left the river bed about
a mile west of the village of Clarksville.

The canal re-entered the river bed a mile or so
to the north of Big Bend and continued its way toward
Erie. In this northward direction, the canal left Jef­
ferson Township and entered that of Delaware. As
the river made another jog toward the northwest, the
canal again became slackwater, leaving the bed of
the river on the east side, as usual. The first hamlet
to be reached in this township was that of Delaware
Grove. The canal didn’t cut through the village, but
was to the west above it. From the point that the canal
came out of the river bed, Delaware Grove is directly
east. With the abandonment of the canal and the es­
tablishment of a railroad some distance away, the busi-

The canal, as it left the borough of Clarksville,
flowed directly to the east. The Shenango River had
a large bend in it and the canal, of course, had to
follow the water supply. About five miles to the east.
11

I

by Dorothy L. Massey
“Where there is no vision, the people perish”
Proverbs 29:18a

The Ebb and Flow of History.

Cattle Now Graze on the Ancient Canal Bed With
the Towpath Seen on the Left.

ness drawn out of Delaware Grove, and it is now only
a reminiscence of its former prosperity. Flowing in
a northwesterly direction, the canal re-entered Pymatuning Township in the extreme northeast corner.
It then turned to the north into Hempfield Township.

the channel was not a large one, with the average
boat carrying only sixty-five tons. But the presence of
this navigable stream, through which boats passed
up and down for the greater part of the year, gave such
a boost to the activities of Mercer County as nothing
had since the start of any settlement.

There was only one good-sized village at the time
of the construction of the canal through Hempfield
Township, the town of Greenville. The canal followed
the east bank of the Shenango River to the junction
of the Little Shenango. It was at this point that the
canal had its second terminus, for construction on the
canal ended at this point in 1838. With the completion
of part of the Shenango division, the canal commis­
sioners placed the remaining 18.5 miles, that is, to
Conneaut Lake under contract in the same year.

The principle highway through the county had
been the overland road from New Castle on the
south, through Mercer, and north to Meadville. The
early caravans of commerce passed along this route,
and by their passing many taverns and shops were
established. Had nothing occurred to change the way
things were, it is quite possible that this central road
would still have continued to this day to be the great
axis of commerce and intercourse for the Mercer
County.

The canal as it approached the village was on
the east side of the Big Shenango River; and after
passing through the town, coming to the north part,
it crossed the Little Shenango Creek, and followed it
on its way north, thus leaving the Shenango River
after following it and using its water supply for the
distance of 91.75 miles. It was thought best to follow
the Little Shenango Creek to the mouth of the
Crooked Creek, a distance of 3.75 miles.

No Chronicle of American black people would be
complete without substantial emphasis on their relig­
ious activities. The story of the vision, founding,
purchase and development of the Church of God
Campgrounds in West Middlesex, Pennsylvania, and
one of the religious men who was a pioneer of this
development, may be designated as one chapter of
such a history.
Mr. Daniel Sowers Phillips of Wansack Road,
R.D. 1, West Middlesex, Pennsylvania, one of these
pioneers, was born in Elizabeth, Pennsylvania in

Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Sowers Phillips
1891. He came to the Shenango Valley in 1909, and
began working in the tin mill for one dollar and sev­
enty-five (1.75) a day, residing in the North Flats
area in Sharon. Mr. Phillips remembers the great
flood of 1913, when he had to vacate his home on
Franklin and Vine in Sharon because of the high wat­
ers. Although Mr. Phillips could have retired nearly
twenty years ago, he is still employed at Mott Robert­
son Ice Cream Company on Dock Street in Sharon. Of
his job he says, “The work is not hard, and Mr. Rob­
ertson is a fine man to work for. I’ve been with him
for twenty-nine (29) years.”

Slow and primitive though the canal boat was,
as compared with modern progress, it was far better
as a means of transportation for commodities than the
ox team and laboring wagon and far more comfortable
for passengers than the stagecoach, and except when
the roads were especially good, was quite as rapid a
conveyance as the stage.
Canal days came to a close soon after the con­
struction of the railroad. Efforts were made to improve
the waterway and at the same time continue con­
struction on the railroad. An enlargement was pro­
posed but never undertaken. In 1871 the aqueduct
that conveyed the waters of the canal over Elk Creek
was destroyed by accident, and the railroad refusing
to repair the damage left the canal abandoned. In
Sharon a railroad runs along the old embankment of
the canal. In some places where it ran alongside
the river all traces have been washed away, and only
here and there are to be seen unmistakeable evi­
dences of the old route which once played such an
important part in the affairs of Mercer County.

After leaving the Shenango River, the canal
followed the Little Shenango to a point just northeast
of Greenville and then entered the creek bed. It then
swung to the north, following the bed of the river to
the north of the Crooked Creek, located in Sugar
Grove Township.
For over twenty years the canal was the chief
means of transportation here in the Mercer County,
During most of that time it was useful for passenger
traffic as well as freight, but its great service consisted
in its use for transporting coal, iron ore, and mer­
chandise in and out of the county. As can be seen from
the half ruined sections of the canal which still exists.
12

In 1914 my wife and I were married and have re­
sided in the Valley all of our married lives, raising a
family of five boys and two girls. Our older daughter
is head nurse at Cumberland Hospital in Brooklyn,
New York; our younger is director of Gifted Children
Center in Chicago. One of our sons is a personnel man
in the Army Ordnance; one, a manager of Federal
Tube Plastics in Chicago; one, an employee of the
Chamber of Commerce in Rockville, Illinois; and one,
a doctor, chief of staff of Kaiser Foundation in Parma,
Ohio. Our one son who lives here is principal at Far­
rell Middle School.

Russell Phillips
13

Mr. Phillips reveals how the Campgrounds were
envisioned and purchased. “Around 1914 Brother
Elisha Wimbush related, to the church on Cedar
Avenue, a vision he had several years earlier. One day
while hunting Brother Christman came across a farm
that looked like the one Brother Wimbush had de­
scribed to the Church. He took Brother Wimbush out
to see it and they came back very enthused for they
were sure this was it. His vision was of crowds of
happy people worshiping God on a hill where beauti­
ful buildings were among the trees.”
In 1916, this small group of churchmen, together
with a group from the Church of God in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, closed the deal for the purchase of the
one hundred seventeen (117) acres of land located in
Shenango Township. The purchase was financed by
members pledging sixty (60) dollars per member.
This from people earning less than two dollars a day!
Mr. Phillips says he thinks his children’s success
in life is due to their adapting themselves and their
obedience to his way of life when they were at home.
He has never known them to use profanity, drink,
smoke or conduct themselves in an unseemly way.
“Refraining from these things”, he says, “adds to
life in many ways.”
Brother James Christman (Founder of Church and
Grandfather of Student Writer).

More important, however, than these physical
properties, are the spiritual benefits derived from the
meetings. Christian education for all age groups, in­
spirational singing and preaching, motivation and
training for ministers, missionaries and cnurch lead­
ers are but a few. Youth camp sessions have offered
worship, Christian education and camping experience
to an average of one hundred fifty (150) youngsters
each year since 1949. Mr. Phillip’s son, Russell C.
Phillips, has been Youth Camp Director for seventeen
(17) years.

Youth Counselors at Summer Camp 197^

In 1940 I began building my present home on
Wansack Road, West Middlesex. I bought a little
brick schoolhouse of North Buhl Farm Drive, tore it
down, and had it hauled out here. My sons and I
dug the cellar and laid most of the block. A friend from
the mill helped me do the framing from materials
salvaged from the schoolhouse and laid the brick. The
sheeting, floors, roof, windows, plumbing, wiring,
sewer and septic tank I also did with little help. It’s
not a fancy house, but we live here and like it.”

Recreation at Campgrounds

In 1915, wife and I were converted from a life
of sin to righteousness and today we are doing our best
to please our heavenly Father. Through the instruction
we received from a very, very dear lady. Sister Wimbush, (the founder of the Church of God at Cedar
Avenue, Sharon, then known as ‘The Brothers and
Sisters of Love’) we learned that there is only one
church, the Church of God. You become a member
when you repent of your sins, believe on Jesus Christ,
and live right.”

People from every state in the United States
think of the Campgrounds as a ‘Mecca’, a place where
they meet and have fellowship with God and with His
people. Truly, the fulfillment of Elisha Wimbush’s
vision has been, and continues to be, a blessing to
thousands, for many have been “converted from a life
of sin to righteousness” on those hallowed grounds.

“We believe that our living for God is one of the
Reasons for our good health and our living over four­
score years. Another reason is that we have been very
conservative in our manner of eating. Wife is very
health-conscious. She is careful in her choice of meats
and vegetables. We do not use white sugar and white
flour products and use very little candy, sweets and
starchy foods. We have eaten in this way for over
thirty (30) years.”

Church Leaders at Convention Time
Home of Daniel Phillips, largely built by Mr. Phillips

In August 1917, the first camp meeting was
held and every year wife and I have attended. In 1918
the first tabernacle was built and an electrical system
which we used until power was made available from
the P and O Company.”

Of his contributions to the local church at Cedar
Avenue, Mr. Phillips says, “I organized the church
choif and directed it for more than thirty (30) years.
Two members, my brother David from Mercer, and
Mrs. Amye Young of Sharon, from the old choir
are still singing in the choir. For several years I was
youth president and trustee and am presently a
deacon.

The talents of the pioneer members were uti­
lized in the building of the campgrounds. The volun­
teer work Mr. Phillips did there may have given him
the confidence to tackle the building of his own house.

14

From the humble beginnings in 1917 the camp­
grounds have been vastly improved. A new taber­
nacle valued at over two hundred thousand (200,000)
dollars was dedicated in 1974. There are large dormi­
tories, modern kitchen and diningroom facilities,
an administration building and many private cottages.
The attendance, estimated at over twenty thousand
(20,000) has grown so much that the lodging facili­
ties are not adequate. Area hotels, motels and lodges
are filled to capacity each year at camp meeting
time (eight days in mid-August) with pilgrims to Mid­
dlesex. Area restaurants and businesses benefit also.

Pilgrims at Camp Meeting 1974
15

’^HIPcAHOY...

Student Writer Admires Spanish Galleon

“FULL STEAM AHEAD"
by Tom O’Brien

shops in the cellar with what few tools they possessed.

Shipbuilding, a hobby not uncommon to child­
ren and adults is more than a hobby to Mr. George
Bandzak. It’s a love affair, a love affair fostered in
George’s youth during the days of the Great De­
pression.

George’s parents, who were of Slovakian back­
ground died while he was quite young, forcing him to
quit school in the eleventh grade. Fortunately he se­
cured a Job in a shoe shine parlor and survived on
seven dollars a week.

George grew up in Farrell, Pennsylvania, on
Emerson Avenue, in a mixed neighborhood of Slo­
vaks, Italians, Polish and a few Blacks. It was a diffi­
cult period for everyone, and George still has vivid
memories of this trying period. “It was Depression
and everybody just made the best of what they could,”
said George, “Everybody was in the same shoes.”
He remembers how the neighbors from the various
ethnic elements in the community would congregate
to make handmade carpets or work together in little

At the age of eighteen, George realized a life­
long dream. As a youth his great ambition was to join
the Navy. “1 figured if I joined the Navy it would be
a home for me, three meals a day. I wouldn’t have to
worry about anything, and it would be better than
living on seven dollars a week. So I enlisted in the
Navy.”
17

From the Great Lakes training center he was
transferred to San Francisco where he began a tour
of duty on the battleship U.S.S. Pennsylvania. This
was the beginning of World War II, and the Pennsyl­
vania saw plenty of action in the Pacific. Three days
before the peace treaty was signed, the Pennsylvania
was torpedoed by the Japanese at Okinawa. At the
conclusion of the war the Pennsylvania survived two
atom bomb tests but was finally scuttled by aerial
torpedoes from our own planes.

It’s got sixty guns on its main deck, just about
everything the old timers had on it. They even had
chicken coops on it to store their chickens, so that
they’d have something to eat. And it’s fancy, I mean
they believed in fanciness, a lot of gold and figurines.
Anything they found that was worth looking at, they
put it on. It wasn’t like the modern sailing ships.”

He has also made other models which he has given
away to friends and relatives.
George is not only a skilled craftsman, but is
quite familiar with the history and background of
his reproductions. “I do a lot of reading; it’s interest­
ing.” Along with learning the history of his ships, he
also searches for many ideas for his models. He
keeps abreast of new ideas in shipbuilding by reading
books from the Naval Institute in Annapolis, Mary­
land, to which he subscribes. He also subscribes to
Model Shipbuilding. Naval shipyards provide new
ideas and keep his enthusiasm running high.

Upon his discharge from the Navy, George re­
turned to Farrell, and then moved to Wheatland,
Pennsylvania, where he and his wife reared their son,
Donald, who is now a lieutenant in the United States
Coast Guard.
Model of U.S.S. Pennsylvania

As a young boy, George became interested in
shipbuilding. His love of shipbuilding stayed with
him and then he conceived the idea of reproducing
his “home away from home,” the U.S.S. Pennsyl­
vania. “I always loved the ship, thought she was a
great ship. She fought in World War I, World War II;
and Captain King — he was captain on it always
said that if he lived long enough to fight another
war, he would like to have the same crews. It was a
bloodthirsty crew.”

During the next two years and eight months, in
his leisure hours away from his job at the Sharon
Steel, George patiently reconstructed a model of the
ship from scratch. The end result was a four-and-ahalf foot reproduction of his beloved battleship, the
U.S.S. Pennsylvania. The ship is marked by precision
workmanship, some things so minute, one would al­
most need a microscope to see them. Every part is
hand carved from white pine and balsa wood. One
would wonder how such intricately designed features
such as these could be made so precisely by hand.
As George explained, “You need a lot of tools and
micrometers, inside and outside calipers, exacto blades,
knives, thread, tacks and glue.” Another important
ingredient in reproducing a ship is patience. As he
mentioned, “It is very tedious work and you have to
have a lot of patience. Using tweezers is not most
convenient to work with. It’s not like a pipe wrench,
and to spend time there with tweezers, you must have
a lot of patience.” Besides making these ornate little
pieces for his ship, he also spent many hours block
planing and sanding.

Initial attempts to reproduce the ship, however,
were stymied by George’s fruitless attempts to secure
blueprints from the Navy. “To get the blueprints was
a little tough. I had to write to different harbors and
they referred me to somebody else. Finally, I got to
Puget Sound, Washington naval yard, and they finally
found a set of blueprints where I left the ship.” After
the ship was sunk, it was removed from the restricted
list, and finally George received the prints following
an eighteen month attempt to secure them.

George estimated the cost of making the ship,
discounting many tedious hours of labor, about twelve
dollars. Asked to put a dollar value on the ship, George
responded, “That would be pretty hard to say; to some
people it would mean nothing, but to someone who
cherishes it as I do, it would mean a lot more. It would
be hard to put a dollar value on it.” It is obvious that
George is one to let his work speak for itself, because
research on the part of this writer found that such a
reproduction would sell on the commercial market
for as much as three to four hundred dollars.
The reproduction of the Pennsylvania is by far
the most fascinating of George’s collection, but not
the only one. He has reproduced, in the same manner,
beginning from scratch, a model of the Constitution
and the United States Coast Guard cutter, the Eagle.

Closeup of 4-112 ft. Model
18

Guns on Main Deck

George has often been offered jobs to go into
model making for different companies, to build and
design, but as he says, “I just never went into it. I’ve
been in the valley and just want to stay here and build
my own models. It’s tedious work, takes a lot of pa­
tience and is more of an art.”

Completed Galleon

Even though he keeps abreast of new ideas, he
is most fascinated with an era of history dominated
by the pirates. “The pirate days were real fascinating
because of the way they sailed the ships and handled
them. There will never be seamen, even today, as
good as the pirates.” Currently, he is working on a
pirate galleon which is partially assembled and will
be almost four feet in length when finished. George
said, “It’s made after the regular old time galleons.

Steve at Work on Galleon
19

Recently, George and his wife had a chance to
visit their son in Baltimore and had an opportunity to
board two new cutters. The Winona and The Midget.
A future project in George’s mind is to reproduce The
Midget.
George’s leisure time has not been confined to
shipbuilding, however. Hanging on the wall of his
souvenir room is a helmsman wheel, decorated with
each new shoulder bar his son has received in the
Coast Guard. Also, there is a Conestoga wagon in
the form of a night light, made at the great cost of
forty cents. Included in future plans is the production
of a dirigible. He has already produced one, modeled
after the U.S.S. Macon, made in Akron, Ohio. Of this
he says, “I engineered it myself, cut it out, stripped it,
covered it up with Japanese silkspan, and everything
and even had a nozzle on it to fill it up with helium.
It was four and half feet long, with a twelve inch dia­
meter in the center and it weighed exactly seven
ounces.”
Certainly George, a very talented man, has the
mind of an engineer, the skilled hands of a surgeon,
the patience of Job, and a boyish enthusiasm to build
ships. George has truly enjoyed a love affair with
ships, which he has transformed into an art. Looking
at the classic reproduction of the U.S.S. Pennsylvania

Another Project
brings to mind the command of David Farragut, who,
as a Union fleet stormed through Mobile Bay, ex­
claimed, “Damn the torpedoes! Full steam ahead!”
And even though the original Pennsylvania now lies
in the depths of the Pacific Ocean, sunk by aerial
torpedoes, its precision-constructed replica lies in
drydock in the home of Mr. George Bandzak, and
George moves on with new construction — “full
steam ahead.”

CHANGELESS TIME
As I stood upon a sandy beach
And looked far out to sea —
The noisy whitecaps rolling in
This message told to me.
Enjoy all this while yet you can
As thousands have before.
Because long after you have gone
These waves will beat upon the shore.
The lighthouse in the distance.
With white and shiny dome.
Ever faithful day and night —
Guides weary travelers home.
The graceful seagulls high above.
Unmindful of the ocean’s roar.
Like noisy sentinels on guard.
Fly to and fro across the shore.
All this beauty has been here
From the very dawn of time.
So truly GOD — not men like me —
Leave footprints on the sands of time.
— John J. Flynn '75

Bethlehem Presbyterian Church of Sharon, Pa.

Rev. Kovacs’ father, Paul Kovacs

Reverend Paul Kovacs, currently pastor the the
Bethlehem Presbyterian Church in Sharon, Pennsyl­
vania, arrived in the Shenango Valley in 1972 in the
course of a ministerial career that has spanned twenty
years and three continents. Reverend Kovacs, a highly
educated and articulate man, has studied, lived or
worked in seven countries; he has earned degrees in
theology, studied medicine and psychology, and speaks
or has studied nine languages. He has decided opin­
ions on the United States and the quality of life he
has seen here as compared to the other nations to
which his vocation has called him.

Reverend Kovacs was born in Nadudvar, Hun­
gary, on February 14, 1930. Although twelve others
in his family were ministers. Reverend Kovacs entered
the field only because of the difficulty he and others
experienced in being accepted in Hungarian universi­
ties.
“When I entered into the seminary, I had no
vocation as you call vocation, really. I entered it be­
cause, in 1948, when I graduated from high school,
the Communist Party was very strong and the only
governing party in the land. So they even decided who

21

would go to college. So every university had its lists
of whom to permit to enter.

know for sure if there is four or five hundred people
here, but we are here and we will work with you and
we are happy to receive you.”

It was all big for the communists so they pushed
only the children of the proletarian families to the uni­
versities. It was difficult for this reason to enter the
university. So my father told me to go to the seminary.

In spite of the rude awakening the Kovacs re­
ceived when they arrived in Montevideo, they re­
mained there for ten years, during which time the last
three of the five Kovacs children were born. Many
problems would arise during their stay in Uruguay.

Reverend Kovacs spent the first two years in
Theology studying several languages and subjects
which were to him “not very interesting.” But he
completed his exams and “learned how to play
billiards very well also.”

“The first important thing for us as we arrived
in Uruguay was how to get members in our church.
So the first thing we did, we got to the telephone book
and we tried to find out the Hungarians through the
telephone book. Then we called them and we visited
them and we invited them to our services. At that
time, we rented a hall from the First Methodist Church
in Montevideo and we held our services there.”

“When I really got interested, that was in the
end of the second year and in the third year. Then I
felt that I had the vocation and then I decided that I
would become a minister.”
“I finished with my theological studies in 1953.
Then for one year, I was an assistant minister in
Budapest. I received my Master’s Degree from The­
ology in February, 1955.”

Although his congregation was initially com­
posed of Hungarians, Reverend Kovacs had a wider
mission in mind.

hundred fifty to one hundred eighty different kinds of
buildings and properties, but our money was not
enough, not even for a garage. One day we found a
big building, a ruined big building which was a meet­
ing house for the White Party in Uruguay. And,
as they lost that year the election, they sold their
house. Our money was enough for the down payment
and in two years’ period, we had to pay the whole
amount.”

“It was a very hard year. Every day I looked
up people and I pointed to people that now I know you
are not working tomorrow or you are retired and I
will pick you up on this day at this time and with my
car I went after people. I put in my car four or six
people every day and I took them to rebuild this build­
ing.
It was ruined completely. There was no elec­
tricity, the water pipes were robbed and taken away
and first we had to install the electricity line and the
water, then the plaster on the walls. And we had to
take out walls and we had to fix the roof because the
water came in and we have to put in three bathrooms
. . . et cetera.”

“That was a very hard time. The building was
totally ruined and I never will forget the first worship
service. The people came together in high plaster on
the ground; it reached almost our knees. We were
standing there and we were singing and reading the
Bible and praying and I had the sermon. I was talking
about our plan to rebuild the building and transform
half of the building for a chapel and the other half
for Sunday School rooms, and an office, and meeting
rooms, etc.

“This poor man who was working on the roof
got a heart attack and after two or three days, he died.
Then his wife cursed me because she told me that I
killed her husband. Naturally, I was the one who had
to hold the funeral service for him. And in the service
I told that, yes he died and he was very faithful to
his church and we have to have the example he
showed us and this would be a beautiful death for all
of us if we would die in duty.”

“The main idea was that as we can organize a
small group of Hungarian Protestant people, through
this small group we can reach out and perform a
mission for the Spanish-speaking people.”

Reverend Kovacs decided to leave Hungary in
1956 during the revolution because “there was no
future for us there”. After leaving Hungary, he went
first to Austria where he worked at a refugee camp,
“visiting people and holding services.” During that
time, he received a scholarship from the Reformed
University in Amsterdam, Holland.

“Well, in short, after a year we finished rebuild­
ing our church building. This was in 1968 — December
8th.”

Reverend Kovacs found that economic condi­
tions were not entirely favorable to the establish­
ment of his church.
“From the beginning, it was our wish to have
our own building but the financial situation in Uru­
guay was a disaster and our money was not enough.
In that time there was a terrible inflation. So we
asked for money and help from outside of Uruguay;
from the United States, especially from the churches
with Hungarian backgrounds, from Europe and from
the World Council of Churches. During these years,
the money we got from the United States and Europe,
we put in the bank and that maintained its value be­
cause it was in dollars. But even the membership
was growing very slowly because of the financial
situation of the people. Sometimes it was a problem
to come to church because of the bus rates and tickets
and people were not accustomed to go to church like
here in America. So we had to bring the religion to
these people and not the people to the church. We
organized, in several areas, Bible Study groups in
family houses and they, in the family, invited neigh­
bors and relatives together. As they became stronger
in their faith and in Christian knowledge, then they
came to our meetings and our services.”

Reverend Kovacs and his family spent the next
four and a half years in Holland where he studied to
become a missionary. While there, he studied medi­
cine and mission history and mission science.
Then, in 1960, Reverend Kovacs was offered
his first mission.
“I received a letter from the Secretary of the Fed­
eration of the World Reformed and Presbyterian
Churches asking me if I would be interested to go to
Uruguay to organize a church. I answered him that I
might be interested but I would like to know more
about this. So he sent me an airplane ticket and one
morning I went to Switzerland and we talked over
this Uruguayan situation. The same day I decided to
go to Uruguay. After three months, we left Amster­
dam to Uruguay.”
Reverend Kovacs received something of a shock
when he and his family arrived in Montevideo, Uru­
guay. He had been told by the Secretary of the Fed­
eration of the World Reformed and Presbyterian
Churches that there were four or five hundred people
who would like to form the first Reformed and Pres­
byterian Church in the history of Uruguay.

But Reverend Kovacs persevered. Combining
faith and hard-nosed practicality, he finally succeeded
in acquiring a permanent home for his church.

“So in 1960, I believe it was on April 28, when we
arrived in Montevideo, there were waiting seven
people at the harbor. And when we arrived they told
me that inviting you, it was a lie because we don’t

“After about six years, we had the amount that
we were able to look around to find some building
or property for our need. So we saw around one
22

Many things American churches take for granted
were luxuries to the Uruguayan Congregation.
“Our church was very primitively built. For
example, the pulpit was made from the wall we took
out from the building. We couldn’t even dream of an
organ. I wrote to the Badapest Seminary and asked a
friend to tape several hymns. A choir was singing the
Psalms and other hymns they taped for us and we used
this tape for our worship services.”

Church Building bought in 1966 (Montevideo, Uru­
guay)
So this man said that if you will ever finish this
plan you talk about with this people here, then there
is a God in Heaven and so he left. You can imagine how
encouraging this remark was for our people. They be­
gan to alugh and I felt they believed what this man
said. In the first moment I became very angry, but
then I realized that maybe this man was right; that
maybe I would never finish my plan with these people.
I don’t know why I said, ‘Now from this day forward,
I won’t deliver to you a sermon for a year. And our
worship service, Sunday by Sunday, will be here in
our church - a short Bible reading and a short prayer —
and everybody should roll up his sleeves and work
and that will be our worship service every Sunday.
And I won’t ever put on my robe until this building
will be finished and we will do it a year from now.’
Even though Reverend Kovacs himself had
doubts about the congregation’s ability to fulfill the
pledge he had made for them, the work was completed
in one year.

Church after being rebuilt in Montevideo, Uruguay.
23

During the time when the Hungarian Presby­
terian Church was in Farrell, they kept their heri­
tages more effectively and strongly than they do it
right now. In that time they celebrated their Hun­
garian holidays and they had a dance group and
grape dances, Hungarian plays with Hungarian
costumes. They were taught to talk, read and write
in Hungarian. I think that that school was very ef­
fective because the second and third generation in
our church today, after fifty years, are still talking
about the Hungarian school where they learned how
to talk and write Hungarian. Even their catechism was
in Hungarian at that time.”

of Buenos Aires who asked me to help in his mission.
Now, in northern Argentina, there is a territory —
its name is Chaco. Now Chaco is a province with the
territory of half of Pennsylvania, and in that territory
lived a thousand Hungarian families. There were only
two towns in this big area and a thousand families
living in farms scattered in the whole area. So if I
visited a family, it took me a day to visit one family
and when it was the rainy season, the mud was so
high that it was impossible to go with cars. So we had
to go with horses and wagons. There they lived in
very primitive circumstances. They had food planted;
their main harvest was cotton. About forty or fifty
years ago when they began this work, they lived in a
cave they made in the ground. The children were born
there also. Little by little they had enough money to
buy the materials to build a little house or something.
They received their ground for nothing from the state.
They just had to buy the wire to fence it and how long
wire you could buy was how much land you could
have.”

“There the materials are very expensive. I some­
times had to smuggle materials which we couldn’t
buy in Uruguay across the borders of Brazil and Ar­
gentina. It was, for example, impossible to get velvet
in Uruguay and we needed it to cover the Lord’s
Table. So I went to Brazil and I bought it and under
my jacket — I looked like I weighed two hundred
pounds — I snuck it into Uruguay.”
“We also had to paint the inside of the whole
building. I went to Argentina and explained about our
struggles at a Sunday service and twenty-five gallons
of paint was donated to us. In order to bring it back to
Uruguay, I had to bribe the custom’s official and he
was happy about it.”
In spite of difficulties, the church did grow
steadily.
“In the beginning, it was very difficult to get
people together but during this seven or eight years
we worked there, we had two hundred and thirty-five
membership — families — so that was, if we include the
children, a good size of a church. We felt it would be
time, after six years, that we should have our first
bilingual services. So then we began our Spanish
services also.”

After seventy years, the Hungarian heritage,
although still noticeable, has waned.
“In the church life, we don’t have any Hungarian
tradition, except one Hungarian song we have every
Sunday morning in the worship service, that’s all. We
have around sixteen or eighteen people who comes
once a month, every second Sunday, to a separate
Hungarian service for those people who speak Hun­
garian.”

Reverend Kovacs left Uruguay because he felt
his work there was done.
“I felt, after ten years of work, that I accomp­
lished what God and the Reformed and Presbyterian
Churches was wanting of me. I strongly felt that there
had to come another minister who would take over.”

“Once we even tried to have an Evangelism Ser­
vice. At that time we were very good friends with the
Mennonites’ Seminary there. And they promised me
to come, the students from the Mennonite Seminary,
with a choir and with guitars to help with this event.
So we visited one hundred fifty families in a week.
Now, how many people do you think came to that
Sunday service? Two! And we three pastors and a
choir with guitars and everything were waiting to
begin this big, well-planned and well-organized
evangelism service. And two people came after a whole
week of visitation and inviting and we left in their
houses Christian literature and everybody promised
that they would be there.”

Reverend Kovac’s church had been supported
for seven years through missionary funds from the
United States. This was instrumental in his decision
to come to America.
“In 1970, November 30, we arrived at Kennedy
Airport and the President of the Calvin Synod of the
United Church of Christ was waiting for us. He told me
that in that time there was only one vacancy and that
was in the Johnstown, Windber and Vintondale area
in Pennsylvania. In Vintondale, only Hungarian ser­
vices; in Windber, I had to deliver every other Sun­
day, a sermon there in Hungarian and English; and
in Johnstown, every Sunday.”

“But their promises, you have to know these
people because if they say that tomorrow morning I
will be there, you can be sure that they won’t be there.
They just say it to be nice because they are very nice
but they never do the thing they promise.”

“So the same day we went to Ligonier, Penn­
sylvania first. There is a *Bethlen Home there for
Hungarians and we stayed there for a month. During
that month, the first week — from Johnstown — the
pulpit committee came and told me that they needed
a bilingual minister who can talk Hungarian and
English. Now I never spoke English before that time
in my whole life but I told him — why not, I will have
your English sermon for next Sunday. So in this first
week when we arrived in the United States, I was
studying day and night an English sermon, half of
which I didn’t understand myself. But I delivered
the sermon. After the sermon, they had a meeting and
I was waiting outside. They came and told me that
you know you were better than the other man who

Reverend Kovac’s missionary work was not
confined to Uruguay alone.
“I was charged also to visit the Protestant and
Reformed people in Paraguay. So at least twice a
year, I went and visited them in Asuncion, Paraguay.
Oh, that was a beautiful city and there were about
thirty-five families whom I visited in that time and I
spent every time a week there, having services and
Lord’s Supper and social events with them. They were
very nice and very thankful for every visit.”
“1 visited Argentina too, together with the pastor

“About twice a year we have the traditional
chicken paprikas dinner. We butchered a pig lately,
about a year ago, and made kolbasz and hurka (liver
pudding). And right this year before Christmas, we
made and sold Hungarian kolbsz (sausage).”

Rev. Paul Kovacs

His church no longer observes activities which
require wearing the Hungarian national costume.

was serving here for five years. Then I became a
minister there for three little churches.”

“Not here in our church; although in the Holy
Trinity Catholic Church, they have sometimes Hun­
garian programs with costumes and children will
come forward in Hungarian costumes. The last time 1
saw them was when Cardinal Mindszenty was here
in the Shenango Valley.” Likewise, few Hungarian
holidays are celebrated.

Reverend Kovacs remained in Johnstown for a
year and a half and then assumed his present po­
sition as minister of the Bethlehem Presbyterian
Church in Sharon.
“Naturally to come over to the Presbyterian
Church, you have to have the requirements — filling
out the forms and sending them to the United Presby­
terian Church to the main office and I had to appear
before the Ministerial Relationship Committee of the
Presbytery. Then, because I came from the United
Church of Christ, they had to revalidate my diploma.”
“The Bethlehem Presbyterian Church was orig­
inally a Hungarian church. They were organized in
1904. In 1950, when they sold their building in Far­
rell, they came to Sharon and built this beautiful
building here.”
“In the old times when the Hungarian people
came to the New World, as I assume that the other
ethnic groups felt the same way, they got together
because they needed each other. They couldn’t talk
the language first of all, and they had their social
and congretational life together — that was all in
Hungarian — and they had suppers and dinners with
the typical Hungarian foods.”

Rev. Kovacs (at mike) greeting Cardinal Mindszenty
(seated) when he visited Shenango Valley.

♦charitable institution for the aged and orphans.
24

25

“Naturally we have our historical holidays. But
the only one we celebrate here in the United States
is on October 23, when the revolution was in 1956
in Hungary.”

something wrong with them. The main difference
here is freedom. And freedom in life is nice and there,
(in Hungary) there isn’t freedom and the life isn’t so
nice.”

“March 15, that was the greatest holiday for the
country. That was for Kossuth. In 1848, he was a
great freedom fighter in Hungary. Also, August 20,
in honor of St. Stephen, the first Christian King of
Hungary.”

Religious practices are
Communist Party in Hungary.

discouraged

by

the

Being religious, it’s not a good thing for the
Communists. You have to be materialistic and not
believe in anything, just the almighty Communist
Party.”

“The Christian holidays are the same as here,
except at Christmas we had two days’ celebration:
The First Christmas Day and The Second Christ­
mas Day. Both are celebrated in church with ser­
vices. In America, they celebrate Christmas Eve
with a Candlelight Service and we didn’t have that
in Hungary.”

by
Steve Bock

Reverend Kovacs sees in the materialistic phi­
losophy a warning for the future.
“Some people in the United States are practic­
ing religion because of custom, because of what
would people say if I don’t belong to a church or
something like that; and such people are material­
istic to a point. And maybe even the other people
whose lives are involved with other comfortable luxu­
ries — cars, refrigerators, houses — they work for it
and they spend their money for such things and their
only interest is usually how much do I have, how
much in my bank account, or what kind of car I have
or how often can I change my car, things like that.”

“Now in this time, the national holidays in Hun­
gary are different than they were before World War
11 because it was then everything free. The whole
country was free and now the holidays are obligatory
for the people, especially the Communist holidays
when the Russians took over. They have to celebrate
every year that day and everybody has to go out in the
street and celebrate because if you won’t be there,
then you might lose your job or more.”

INTRODUCTION
If you can, try and imagine yourself at the age of twenty-six with a wife and child. Your
country has just lost the war and you’ve lost your home and everything that you’ve saved for
twenty-six years. You have to start from scratch again, so what do you do now? Where do
you go ?

If, among these things, you have spiritual values
too, that’s all right, but if you don’t have spiritual
values, only material values, that is wrong then. I
think that right now in this country that is the great
sign for everybody that they have to change their at­
titude, their life style, their philosophy on how to
live in the United States and what are the values that
will maintain this country.”

Reverend Kovacs feels there are differences in
the quality of personal life in America as opposed to
Communist Hungary.
“First of all, there is no freedom and that means
even for the family there is no freedom because the
individual life is controlled by the Communist Political
Party. So the life is under pressure; not only the
individual life, but the family life. There are several
requirements that the State expects of the family:
they have to attend several courses, for example, on
how to become a faithful member of the Communist
Party or such crazy things. And they have to attend
these meetings and through these meetings
and through the control of the Communist Party,
the family life is controlled also. So the life style is
such that they have to close the doors and the win­
dows to live their own private family lives, because
they are afraid that the Communist Party would find

Reverend Kovacs feels that retention of tradi­
tion and heritage is vitally important to American life.
“I think personally that I would try to practice
in my family, as long as I lived, to maintain all the
heritage I have and I brought over to this New World,
because as long as we have our heritage, which is
rich in a thousand years’ background, our lives are
more valuable, more rich, more bountiful and if we
mix our lives with our new values from our new coun­
try, that will contribute more effectively to our life
in America.”
The Old Country

Other than the United States there isn’t another country in the world that you would
consider as "the land of opportunity”. Throughout the years immigrants have been attracted
to America more than any other country because it is still the land that offers a better life.
In this story Til be telling you what life was like for my parents in the old country and
how they came to the decision to come to America. What they found once they got here and
Rev. Paul Kovacs and his mother, Mrs. Judith Nagy, from Budapest Hungary.
26

how they feel about it now.
27

John and Helen Bock were both born
in a small town in Yugoslavia and came to
America in November, 1951. John desscribed their life in Krndia:

barber shops. They would get up early in the
morning and pack their briefcases and go to
their customer’s houses. They would go from
house to house and give you a shave or a hair­
cut and so on. Also, they wouldn’t get a dime
for this. They would get paid once a year and
that was about a hundred kilograms of wheat.
A hundred lilograms is about 250 pounds.
That was their fee.

“We had about 1,500 people in our
town. The town consisted mostly of farm
workers. No one in town was rich in the mon­
ey sense, but the more land you had the bet­
ter off you were. The poorer people in town
who didn’t have any land would go and
work for the people who had a lot of land.
We had tailors, shoemakers and wagonmakers who would make the wagons that we
would use everyday. We had blacksmiths
who shod the horses. The barbers didn’t have

We didn’t have any electricity or radio,
TV or even newspapers in this town. The
only way that we would get any news at all
was by this man that the town hired. He would
go down the street with his drum and beat
it until the people would come out. Once the
people came out, he would stop beating the
drum and announce the news. If there wasn’t
any news, he just wouldn’t come around.”
John then talked about the educational
system in Yugoslavia.
“I started just like the kids started here.
There was no kindergarten. When I started,
I was six and a half years old and I went
through four grades. In first and second
grade, they let us speak German, but in the
third grade they started teaching us a Yugo­
slavian language which was either Serbian
or Croatian. It was very strict. Whipping
was a daily routine:
Helen also went to school for four years:
“Yes, I went to school for four years, too.
But I didn’t have to learn Croatian. Just
German. When I went to school, learning
Croatian wasn’t important anymore. I grad­
uated when I was eleven years old and I had
to go and work in the fields and help with the
chores at home also.”
Farming was the main source of income
in this Yugoslavian town. John quit school
to work on his father’s farm:
“My dad needed me to help him work
the fields. We were just poor farm people
and we couldn’t afford to hire anyone. If
you had your own kids, you never hired any­

Sweethearts
28

one because eventually they would take over
the place and you had to learn to run it
yourself. You had to raise corn, wheat and
oats for the animals, and potatoes. You
could sell what you had left over. Like eggs,
you wouldn’t get up in the morning and eat
an egg a day. You would use the eggs in
cooking, such as noodles and strudel and
stuff like that. The balance you would sell.
We had these ladies that we called eggwomen. They would walk with their baskets
down the street and call: “The eggwoman is
here.” Then we would go out and sell them.
Eggs were sold by the piece, one or two, not
by the dozen.

Helen added: “And you never saw a man
in the kitchen cooking or anything. That was
strictly woman’s work.

The other products . . . this you would
pack upon your wagon, hitch your horses
and take it to town. It took about eight hours
to get to this town. Once you got there, you
would sell the goods. Then, while you were
in town, you would buy cloth or fabric in
order to make the clothing you wore. You
never bought ready-made pants or shirts.
The women always made them.”

Their way of life was soon to change.
In 1941, Hitler invaded Yugoslavia. John
described the change:

My parents did all the farming. We just
had a small farm and didn’t need anyone else.
They would get up at four in the morning
and go out to the fields, and they wouldn’t
come back till late at night when it was dark.
When I got out of school, I started going out
to the fields. I would do little things before
I got out of school, but once I graduated I
had to go out every day with my parents.
I didn’t have to do the heavy work but I
had to help with the little things.”

“People were happy and content in our
town because we just didn’t know a better
life. Even though we were poor, we felt that
we were rich. Then came the war and a lot
of sad things happened to the town. It all
started when Hitler took over Yugoslavia
back in April, 1941. The following year, in
1942, he called on all the German people
throughout Yugoslavia to serve in the German
army. Everyone that was from the age of
eighteen to forty had to serve in the army and
there was no getting out of it. Since Hitler
took over Yugoslavia in 1941, many of the
people who were still loyal to the king
started an underground movement. We
called them the Bandits. Tito, who is the
leader of Yugoslavia today, was also the
leader of the Bandits. In time, the Bandits
grew stronger and stronger and eventually
became stronger than the Germans in Yugo­
slavia. They burnt down our town in 1943
and from then on, our people just scattered
and went every which way. In 1944, when the
Russian front was in Rumania and coming
closer, we had to move out. Ninety-nine per
cent of our people moved out. Many when to
Germany and many went to Austria. If you
stayed, it meant being ruled by Communism.
My family packed up the wagon and went to
Austria.”

John recalled that the men and women
in Krndia had their own work to do:
“In our area, women were treated like
slaves. The livestock we raised consisted of
horses, cows, pigs> chickens, geese, ducks
and sheep. The horses, cows and the sheep
were the responsibility of the men. The wo­
men took care of the pigs, geese, ducks and
chickens. They had to feed and clean them.
The women would have to go out to the
fields with the men and work there all day.
When they got back they would have to cook
dinner, take care of the animals I mentioned,
and clean house. The women had to do a lot
more than the men. The man was the boss
of the house and they both had their duties
and that’s the way it was. That was tradition.
You could not, as a boy, go out and feed the
chickens, geese, or ducks because if another
boy saw you he would go and tell everyone
that you were a sissy. You did your job and
the women did their job and there was no
changing.”
29

there. By this time, my vacation had run out
and on New Year’s Day, 1945, I had to go
back.

Bandits fought only in Yugoslavia. They ter­
rorized the people”

Helen remembered: “Yes, but you forgot
something. During the war, we had a ring
around our town and at nights we all had to
stay together inside the ring to sleep. We
weren’t even allowed to sleep in our houses
because every night, practically, we would be
attacked. Our soldiers would chase every­
body in the ring every night and sometimes
there would be almost fifty people sleep­
ing in one house. Sometimes when the Ban­
dits would attack, they would bore holes
through one house to another so that no one
would see them until they came real close
to the bunkers.”

Helen said: “Just in the evening they
would come and attack the town. They would
steal the peoples’ clothes and, of course,
kill. We were watching while they killed my
second neighbor one night. They beat him
to death because he had a gun and they
wanted it. He told them that he didn’t have
one, but they knew that he did so they killed
•him right there. They burned his house down
and everything.”

I got back to my base and they told me
that my unit was gone. I thought that
they would send me back to Yugoslavia where
my unit was, but instead they put me on the
Russian front. The fighting was a lot differ­
ent on the front. Instead of facing just one
hundred or two hundred men, you had the
whole front and you never knew how many
there were. We had trenches all along the
front. The outfit I was in was a mortar outfit.
We had eight centimeter mortars. In the be­
ginning, there wasn’t too much action, but
then in April the Russians put on the offen­
sive and that’s when it really started going.
We just kept on backing up and I was wound­
ed for the second time. It happened in April,
just a month before the war was over. I was
only there for four months before I was
wounded. From January to April. So when I
got wounded I was transferred to Austria. I
was shot in the shoulder and it came very
close to my lung and it came out through my
shoulder blade. I thought that I was going
to lose my arm, but thank God, it came out
all right.”

When John turned eighteen, he was
called to serve in the German Army:

John continued: “There were hardships
and, like I said before, if you were eighteen
to forty you had to join the army. My dad
was forty, so he had to go and when he did, I
became the boss at home. I had to fill his
shoes. That was in 1942. I was only sixteen
and a half and it was hard on me because I
had to stay in one of those bunkers. We had
to stand guard in these bunkers. There were
four or five of us in each bunker and we had
to stand guard for two hours. I would stand
guard from twelve 'til two and then I would
have to get up at four. That was just too much
for a young person. All the boys my age had
to do this. I wasn’t the only one. Those left
in the town were just the people over forty
and under eighteen. Everyone else was
gone.”

“I got called in 1944 and I wasn’t too
happy about going because everyone knew
that Germany was going to lose the war.
But there was nothing I could do, so I put on
the uniform and gun and went. At first we
fought in Yugoslavia when we had to go fight
Tito’s Bandits”.
Helen said: “When he turned eighteen,
he was called into the Germany army and he
had to fight in Yugoslavia again. Afterwards,
he had to go to Hungary on the Russian front.
Most of the people in Yugoslavia had to leave
because the front was coming closer. So,
it was either be killed or move out. We took
just what we could carry, everything else
had to be left behind. Because of the Russian
front they were even calling boys that were
only seventeen years old. After we left the
town, it was all torn and burnt down. There
were just a few houses left.”

During this time, the Bandits were at­
tacking the town of Krndia. John said:
“The underground movement, Tito’s
Bandits, were attacking us. They were attack­
ing and terrorizing any German town in
Yugoslavia. They were all mixed; women
and men, Servians mostly, Croatians, even
Germans. They were any nationality. Ger­
mans fighting against Germans. Everyone
who didn’t know what they were going to
do went with them. In the daytime, we went
and worked our fields just like any other
normal day. We would see them walking on
the streets. We knew who they were, but they
wouldn’t do anything in the daytime. Tito’s

John was wounded twice during the time
he fought in the German army:
“I was in the northeast part of Yugoslavia
fighting the Bandits. It was close to Hun­
gary’s border. I was wounded then and I
had to go to a hospital in Germany. I was
there for about three or four weeks and in
the meantime I had found out that the people
in my town had left. When I recovered I was
given two weeks leave. I asked this officer
30

World War II ended in May of 1945 and
John spent the next thirteen months in a
P.O.W. camp:
“On May 8th, the war was over and I
was still in the hospital. I was released in
June. In order to go home, we had to have
discharge papers and we had to go to a
P.O.W. camp. The reason for having the
discharge papers was that if you didn’t,
you wouldn’t be able to get a job. So we
had to go to a P.O.W. camp and they held me
there for thirteen months. Just because I
was in the German army I suppose, I don’t
know for sure. We were constantly starving.
It got so bad that most of the young guys
like me — I was only nineteen — had to use
two sticks to walk with. I couldn’t walk with­
out them. The older men were a little stronger
and didn’t need them. In time, the food and

what should I do with my vacation and
where would I go. He asked me if I had any
folks and I told him that I didn’t know where
they ^yere. He then gave me three days ex­
tension on my leave and told me to go to
Munich, Germany, and Vienna and Graz in
Austria. He gave me addresses to go where
they had the names of families and where
they went to. So first I went to Munich
and didn’t find anything there. Then I went
to Vienna and I found out where they went.
They had gone to an area close to Graz in
Austria. It took me two days to find them
31

we got better. We finally saw some beans in
our soup and after a while, we were allowed
to receive visitors.

to write letters. How I got this matchbox, I
don’t know, but I wrote a note and put it in­
side the matchbox along with a stone. When
we went by the camp I threw it out. I still
don’t know who sent it to my parents but
they got the note. That’s how my mother
found out where I was. It took her about
three days and nights to get to the P.O.W.
camp. She had a lot of walking to do and she
also had to go through a Russian zone. At
this time you weren’t allowed to just go any­
where when you felt like it. It was very
strict. She walked a lot. She went a ways by
train, but to prevent the Russians from get­
ting her once she got in their zone, she had
to walk over many hills to get to me”.

I never expected anyone to visit me, but
one day the guard came and told us that
there was a woman out at the fence and if
anyone knows John Bock. Whenever a visitor
would come, it would spread life a flash fire.
They would spread the word around camp
and in no time at all, that guy is located. So
I heard there was a woman looking for me
and I went to the mess hall because we were
not allowed to go to the fence and talk to
anyone. I looked out through the window and
I recognized her, so I called; “Mother”, and
she asked, “Is that you?” and I answered
yes, that it was me. At that time I didn’t
know if my father and my brother were home
from the army and safe, so my first question
was if they were all right and luckily they
were. She said that everyone was worried
about me and I told her not to. The conver­
sation was short and she had a knapsack
with some dried meat and bread in it. She
was allowed to give it through the gate and
then the food was inspected and finally I got
it. Everyone was happy that day because we
all got a mouthful to eat. Finally, after
thirteen months, I got my discharge. I went
home and I was one of the happiest guys in
Austria.

make it sound like another nationality. I
wouldn’t do this. So the only thing I could do
was to make the application only to the
United States.”

“In the meantime, I had plans to get
married, which I did in 1947, nearly a year
after I was discharged. Then I started to work
in the coal mines. We were in Koeflach,
Austria. It was close to Graz. We got mar­
ried on November 11, 1947 and we both
started working in the mines.”

Helen said: “First we had to go to Salz­
burg for a whole week. They showed us all
kinds of films about America and they tried
to teach us a little bit about the language.
After that we went to the doctors and then
to the American counsel. They sent us back
home again and said that they will call us if
we passed. They called us and we had to go
to Salzburg again for a week. From there
we went to Bremehaven, Germany. We were
there for a week till we finally got on the
ship. John, me, Joe and Grandma. The four
of us.”

Helen said: “I was only sixteen years old
when I started to work in the coal mines.
They wouldn’t hire anyone under the age of
eighteen, but my father was killed in the war
and since we had no one to support us, they
let me work there. I worked there till our
first child was born. The women worked on
top of the mines, not down in it. We had to
do a little farming and separate the bad coal
and do different odd jobs.”
It was at this time that John and Helen
first talked about coming to America. John
recalled:

How my mother knew where I was, well,
that was a story. The camp I was in was in
Hallein, Austria, and we went to work by
train everyday in Salzburg, Austria. We
were in boxcars and we would pass two
camps who had people who had lost their
homes. We could tell, by the way that the
people dressed, where they came from. I
noticed some people who dressed exactly
like the people from my town or that area.
The train would go too fast to recognize any­
one. Someone got the idea to put their names
down on a piece of paper and say I’m so and
so and I’m looking for my family. Or if they
knew where their family was, they would
write and tell someone to send them a line.
I don’t know why, but we were not allowed

Early Picture of Writer’s Parents

After John was released from the
P.O.W. camp, he got a job working on a farm
for a priest:
32

“I worked in the coal mine for four years
until it finally ran out of coal. When this
happened I had to go work labor and I didn’t
like that at all. The job I had was an easy one
and a good one. When I went to labor, I de­
cided that I had to do something about it.
People were talking about making applica­
tions to go to the United States. I thought
about it and I decided that it would be better
than working midnight all my life. So one
day I went home and told Helen that we were
going. She was surprised, but I told her that
I just couldn’t stand working midnight turn
anymore. We all talked it over and we de­
cided to do it. So I went to town and picked
up some application forms. We didn’t get to
go until November 1951 and we applied in
January. During this time they would check
up on you to see if you were a trouble maker
or something or if you had anything to do
with the Nazi party. If you had any faults
you would not be accepted. You also had to
be in perfect health. There were many people
ahead of us that were applying for Australia
and France, but you had to be another na­
tionality other than German. So a lot of peo­
ple changed a few letters in their names to

On The Way to America

33

John added: “We got on the ship in the
evening and I told your mother to turn
around and take a good look at this part of
the country because you may never see it
again. And to this day we still haven’t gone
back to see it.
Now let me tell you about coming from
Bremenhaven and over. It sure wasn’t a joy­
ride. The boat was going up and down and
all the people were getting sick, especially
Helen.”
Helen said: “It wasn’t a liner, it was just
an old army ship. We all had to stay in dif­
ferent parts of the boat. There weren’t any
beds on the ship so we had to sleep in hang­
ers. One day we went up to eat and the ocean
was real bad. Mothers with children under
the age of ten had to eat in a different room.
I was supposed to go down with Joe to eat,
but I was sick so someone else took him
down. They had the deck roped off so that
no one would get too close to the edge of the
boat because it was such a bad day. They
finally brought Joe back and I was sitting on
a bench on the deck. I was so sick that I
passed out and I slid past the ropes and
luckily, a guard came and picked me up
before I went overboard. John stayed in the
middle of the ship and it wasn’t as rocky as
where I stayed so he never got sick. Finally
it got better as we went farther out to sea.

waves. Then one night we could see the lights
from New York City and we were all happy
that we finally made it. When daylight broke,
we could see the Statue of Liberty and all the
big buildings and skyscrapers. That was on
November 11th, our anniversary. But they
wouldn’t let us land that day because of the
holiday. We didn’t go on shore until the
12th.”

just send you where people are needed. So
this man had a farm and he needed someone,
so that’s where they sent us. We were on the
farm for five months. They tried to do the
best for us but it was hard to understand each
other. There was a neighbor who would come
over in the evenings and help us to learn
English. He knew a little German. The people
there were very nice to us.”

Helen said: “When we came, all we had
were just a couple suitcases and one big
trunk. Just our clothes. And we had no money
at all. After they unloaded us, they took us
to a hotel in New York City and we stayed
there until they contacted us. We had to have
a sponsor in order to come to the United
States. So we stayed in the hotel while they
contacted our sponsor. They made arrange­
ments for us to go from New York to Tennes­
see by train, where our sponsor was. Then
they gave us twenty dollars. That’s all the
money we had. They put a badge on us be­
cause we didn’t know English or the value of
money over here. So they took us to the rail­
road station in New York and told us where
we would be stopping. At every station, they
had people from an army there.”

John then described how they lived when
they first went to Tennessee:

All the people had to work on the boat.
Everyone that was healthy had a job. The wo­
men with small children and the older people
were the only exceptions. You had to work in
the kitchen or clean up. John had to work a
couple of hours everyday but I didn’t have to
because I had a small child. John wasn’t even
allowed to come where Joe and I were stay­
ing. We had to go up deck so that he could
take Joe.”

John said: “You might call it like the
Salvation Army, but it wasn’t them. We
came through the N.C.W.C. The National
Catholic Welfare Conference and these
people were at the railroad stations and once
they spotted our badges, they would ap­
proach us and show us where to go to catch
the next train. We didn’t have any plans when
we got here. I came over as a coal miner
but I couldn’t get that kind of a job. So we
went to Tennessee and I worked on a farm.
It was rough for a while because I couldn’t
speak the language and I was only making
three dollars a day. There were four of us
and three dollars a day just wasn’t enough.”

John said: “There wasn’t one day that
we saw the sun throughout the trip. It was
the whole time. I was expecting to see
the nice blue sea and lots of ships and things.
But all we saw was our own ship and the

Helen remembered: “Our sponsor’s
name was Mr. Scott, but we hardly knew
him. They have people in America who need
workers, so when you apply they assign you
a sponsor. When you get to New York they
34

“John had a friend here in Farrell and he
wrote us a letter and he told us that he was
working in Sharon Steel and how much mon­
ey he was making. He told us how good it
was and asked if we wanted to come up.
Then Grandma got a job in Pittsburgh with
a priest. John took her from Tennessee up to
Pittsburgh. So we decided to go up to Sharon
and we stayed with a friend of John’s for a
week. We couldn’t get a job right away so we
stayed with him until we got our own place.
The place was real expensive and we had to
borrow money for it and for food. That’s the
only way we made it until John got a job.”

“Well, it wasn’t easy to talk with the
farmer when I didn’t know English. I had to
go over in the morning and feed the horses
and cows and he would tell me things. I
had a pair of overalls in which I would keep
a notebook and pencil at all times. Some of
the words which I couldn’t understand I
would ask him to write it down. Before this,
I would write it down the way I heard it.
Then I would compare them. In the evenings
I would get out my German-English diction­
ary and study the way I heard it and the way
he wrote it. I was determined to learn the
English language so I studied about two hours
a night. In time, we could understand each
other well enough.

John said: “When we came up here there
were strikes going on. This was in '52. They
would work a couple days, then they would
strike a couple. So they weren’t hiring. I
just hung on and borrowed more money for
the rent. I even had to borrow seventy dollars
from a friend in Tennessee in order to get
here. I finally got a job in the mill. I worked
for one month and they had a two month
strike. In the meantime, our second child
was born. At that time I was covered by Blue
Cross but they didn’t pay as much as they do
now. I had no money to pay the doctors.
Finally the strike was over and I worked. I
worked overtime any chance I had. Sundays,
holidays, off days. I just worked, worked,
worked to pay back the people I owed money
to. Finally I caught up. So in 1953, we bought
a house on Malleable Street in Sharon. On
January 5, 1954, our third child was born and
on January 22, I was laid off for the next
eleven months. That was the toughest year
in my life. I only collected thirty-five dollars
a week. There wasn’t any sub pay like there
is today. Just thirty-five dollars a week for
only six months.

We only lived in the farmhouse for the
first two weeks. Then we moved into a little
shack. They used it to store grain. So we
cleaned it out and we moved in. We had a
little stove to heat the house. This little house
was up on stilts and believe it or not, we
had skunks living underneath us. But that was
the best we could do.”
Helen said: “When we first moved in,
the wind would just blow right through the
house. There was nothing on it. If we would
have had the money at this time, we would
have gone back to the old country. We were
very disappointed. We couldn’t speak the
language. We had nothing to go on. But
since we didn’t have the money, we knew we
couldn’t go back.”

During the summer, I had a little money
so I decided to paint the house. This is where
I got lucky. Soon afterwards, a lady from
Cleveland, Ohio, who owned a house in the
neighborhood came over one day and asked
Helen who painted the house. The lady liked
it so much that she asked me to paint her
house the same way. It was a fancy job be-

Helen explained why they decided to
come to the Shenango Valley:
35

cause I had all the time in the world. So I
did the job and the lady paid me more than
I asked for because I did a few extra things
for her.

cooking habits change quite a lot. There are
still many things that I cook the same as I
did over there”.

My unemployment ran out in August and
I could have gone on relief but since I owed
money on the house, I would have to pay it
back. So I decided to go to New York City
to do some painting. I worked for two months
there and I didn’t like the city so I came back.
Soon afterwards, the mill started operating
again and I got called back. And I haven’t
been laid off since.”
Helen also went to work to help out: “I
would get up at five in the morning and I
would go and clean up a beer joint. At seven,
I had to be done with it. Then I would go
home and take care of our three boys and at
nine I would go out and do housework till
five in the afternoon. I’d come home and cook
dinner and clean our house then. We got a
little money that way.”

Mr. and Mrs. Bock

John said: “For about the first five years
that we were here, the parents would put a
lot of pressure on their kids to marry some­
one they approved of. Then after a while,
they slacked off. Religion played a major
part in marriages in the old country. Some­
times the parents would start out when the
kids were only ten years old. If the parents
liked a certain girl, usually because she was
an only child and she would inherit every­
thing, they would give him hints or ask him
who he would marry when he got older. Of
course, he wouldn’t have any idea so the par­
ents would say, ‘Why don’t you marry so and
so? She’ll get all the land.’ If he liked some­
one else they would try to talk him out of it.
Some people would grow up listening to this
all the time and end up marrying someone
that their parents picked for them. There were
no divorces in our town, but there was trouble
in some marriages.”

John said: “In 1954 we didn’t eat junk
because we didn’t have any money. We would
go to the butcher’s and buy bones with a little
meat on them. Helen would cook the best old
country chicken and beef soups that you could
imagine. That makes the best soup. We didn’t
starve, but we couldn’t afford steak. Steak
was out of the question.”
John and Helen both agree that there
have been many changes in their life style
since they came to America. Helen said:
“My cooking has changed a lot since we
came to America. Especially because of our
boys. They wouldn’t eat a lot of the stuff that
I would cook from the old country. At home,
we wouldn’t eat as much meat as they do
over here. Just maybe on Sundays we would
have meat and during the week we would
eat all homemade stuff. There was nothing
that you could buy at the store like over here.
You had to make your own noodles and every­
thing. Over here you get a little bit lazier and
you go to the store because it’s there. So your

Helen added: “Sure there was trouble
when the parents put a marriage together.
But they weren’t allowed to separate. When
you got married over there, you always lived
36

with his parents. Sometimes the parents
would still tell them what to do even when
they were thirty years old. It was rough on
the young couples over there. Over here you
move out right away, but over there your par­
ents had control over you in some cases till
you were forty.

Helen said: “You wouldn’t be seen on
the street with what we had to wear. No way.
There were no low cut dresses. Everything
was covered up. No sleeveless blouses and we
all had babushkas. We never had nylons like
over here. We had to make our own wool
socks.”

When we first came over we thought it
was all wrong. We thought our way was right.
We didn’t think it was right that people would
get married and just take off right away. So
it was hard for us to adjust to everything, but
in time, you learn to accept it just like every­
one else.”

John continued: “Our town was mixed
with a lot of different people. So we all
blended in to make our own style. Then in
the late thirties, the Germans wore their hair
short so we started to. The shorter the hair,
the more German you were. No mustaches
or beards, either. In the wintertime, we had
wooden shoes which we called klumpen.
Like the Dutch people, we had a metal band
around them and straw on the inside. You
could go through snow all day and stay dry on
the inside. Those shoes were a must in the
winter. I wish I had a pair now.”

John said: “That was the custom. The old
people ruled. If you were walking down the
sidewalk back home and an old man walked
by, if you didn’t greet him, he was allowed to
smack you. That’s the way it was. The young­
er people had to respect the older people.”
John also talked about the different
styles of clothing that were worn in the old
country:
“The way we dressed, while working or
on Sundays, had a lot in common with the
Dutch people over here. No one went any­
where without a hat. A hat was a must, until
in the thirties when we started picking up
German customs. The women wore dresses
all the way down to the floor.”

Helen said: “I wouldn’t want to go back
now for anything in the world. I’m used to
this kind of life and I’m sure that I wouldn’t
want to go back and start a fire everyday and
everything. We’re spoiled now. We’re used to
everything over here now. This is my home
more than the old country was because I’ve
been here longer.”
John added: “There is one thing that I
have on my mind that I’d like to say, and that
is ‘God bless America!’ ”

i=\V6 TOMMY TUCKER TIME J*J
by Mark Frye
Pearl Ann Longietti
When today’s generation of teenagers recall the
music of its younger years, names such as the Beatles
and the Rolling Stones will be mentioned as leaders
of popular rock music. When the parents of this gen­
eration recall the music of their younger years, names
such as Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, and Count
Basie will be remembered as leaders of the big band
era. One local resident who was part of big band
music at its inception is Mr. Karlton “Bus” Brown.
As a member of the Tommy Tucker Band, he was
known as one fo the finest lead trumpet players among
the nationally known dance bands of that era.

asked to describe a typical tour, Mr. Brown chose to
describe what was known in the music business as
the “M.C.A. (Music Corporation of America) course
in geography”. He continued, “A band would play an
engagement for one night which would end around
eleven o’clock. They would then pack their instru­
ments and personal belongings into one or two cars,
depending on the size of the band. Then it was an all
night drive to the next concert.” Mr. Brown explained
more emphatically saying, “They booked such im­
possible jumps, if you weren’t young and healthy
there was no way you could stay alive ... for instance,
they’d book you on a tour where you might have a
three or four hundred mile jump and the next night a
five or six hundred mile jump, and then the next night
maybe you’d come back past the place you were two
nights ago, a thousand miles back, and maybe they’d
give you one extra day to be able to make that jump
. . . and it was a real tough thing to do.” This hectic
traveling life, however, was no excuse for missing a
playing date. In fifteen years on the road, not one
day of playing time was lost.”

Mr. Brown began his musical endeavors at the
early age of seven when he began to take trumpet
lessons. He was encouraged in this pastime by his
mother and father. Both were accomplished musi­
cians, playing the piano and violin respectively. At
age eight, he entered the Croton School in New Castle
where he played the coronet in the then famous
Croton Band. It was one of the first bands featuring
only grade school youngsters in the entire country.
Playing in an organization such as this was very en­
couraging for a beginning musician and was also
good experience. Continually improving his capabi­
lities, at age twelve, Mr. Brown began to play in dance
bands in the New Castle area. There were many
dance halls in the area and Mr. Brown feels, “I fell
into an era when there was a need for this type of
entertainment.” Accordingly, he was one of the young­
est musicians to be playing this type of music. He con­
tinued in more serious music by playing in both the
high school band and orchestra. At age eighteen
came graduation from high school and time for a ma­
jor decision about his future. Mr. Brown decided to
go on the road and play the dance hall circuit as a
member of some of the most popular dance bands of
the day. Music was the only life he knew and because
it had been so lucrative for him in high school — “I
was making as much when I was in high school as
most people supporting a family were making” —
going on the road was not a difficult decision to make.
He says he has never regretted his decision. So in
1928 he began playing in theaters and hotel dining
rooms across the country.

There were no excuses, Mr. Brown says, for not
playing because he was often the lead trumpet and
his absence would greatly affect the quality of the
performance. Mr. Brown also pointed out that
nobody else from the band ever missed a date, so he
could not be the exception to take leisure.
The disadvantage of this moving about was the
inability to maintain lasting relationships with other
band members and also, as Mr. Brown stated, “You
never seemed to stay in a place long enough to get
acquainted with living conditions so as to live with the
greatest advantages financially. So you had to like
your work to be able to stay in and keep plugging
away and find places that were enjoyable to work.”
Mr. Brown was quick to point out that the lethar­
gic look of many of the musicians of that era led to
their being accused of being drug addicts and alco­
holics. Nothing could be further from the truth. The
fact remains that they were so physically and mentally
tired that they often had a difficult time just staying
awake. Through fifteen years in the business, Mr.
Brown says that he associated with no musicians who
were under the influence of any type of artificial
stimulants.

Playing with these bands meant that a great deal
of traveling had to be done. It amounted to a long
series of one-nighters and was a very tiring life. When

39

As Mr. Brown stayed on the road, he related,
“I kept going and going, building myself up in better
bands until I attained a seat with the Tommy Tucker
Band, a very popular band of the era. Of course,
the traveling never did stop; but as radio came in,
that was the way of becoming popular. Many of the
bands would play in a particular place because it had
good air time. This was a great advantage to a band
because they would become more popular.”
If a band was not seen and heard in a live per­
formance during this era, they often achieved their
popularity through radio rebroadcasts on the various
national networks. The radio was the key to popularity
in the big band era and as previously mentioned,
it could be the band with the best air time, not neces­
sarily the best band, that became the most popular.
The show was picked up from the site of the per­
formance and they played nationwide through the
base station in New York. As the band became more
popular, it received better air time. It was then re­
quested for more frequent road appearances, and
hopefully, recording sessions. When appearing as part
of the Tommy Tucker Band, Mr, Brown recalls
recording in the studio for Columbia Records at least
once a month and even as much as once every two
weeks. This was, of course, a very profitable financial
arrangement and was the goal of the bands of that era
as it is of bands and musicians of today.
References have been made to the big band era
and it is necessary to qualify this term and explain
some of the musical changes that took place at its be­
ginning, The basis of the big band era, according to
Mr. Brown, was the Dixieland jazz of New Orleans,
which was refined in such cities as Chicago and Kan­
sas City. Instruments were added, other changes in
style were made, and the New Orleans jazz sound
became the big band sound.

Bus Brown at Home
This type of traveling schedule led to another
surprising revelation by Mr. Brown. Since all of the
well-known, popular bands were continually playing
on the road, they did not have much opportunity to
hear each other play. So many of the big name bands
had no idea what their contemporaries sounded like.
If two bands were playing in the same city, they
would often juggle the starting time of the shows
so they could leave immediately after their perform­
ance to see the end of the performance of their com­
petition. Sometimes this was a delightful experience.
When they liked what they heard, they were the first
to compliment the entertainers, and a mutual respect
grew between the two groups of musicians. Some­
times, however, the ability of the performers was not
what was expected and therefore, the show was a
major disappointment. As often is the case today, it
might not be that the most well-known band is the
most talented, but only that it has been well adver­
tised and well promoted by a sharp business manager.
This is not to say that the musicians of the big band
era were total strangers to each other. Mr. Brown re­
calls many instances of events such as softball games
between bands which served as acquainting sessions,
as well as much needed recreation.

One of the first changes in musical style that
was made involved the rhythm itself. New Orleans
jazz was definitely two beat rhythm which is consid­
ered the basis of authentic jazz. This was changed to
a four beat rhythm” — which gave it more of a lift and
less of a honky tonk sound.”
The next important development was the ad­
dition and expulsion of some of the instruments. A
typical Dixieland band would have had a banjo,
bass, drums, and a piano, one of the most prevalent
instruments being the banjo. The banjo was replaced
by the guitar, which “—is more of a blending instru­
ment and which in turn made a more musical sound.”
As this refinement continued, the trumpet, trombone,
saxophone, and clarinet were added. The trend to­
ward blending of instruments continued and became
more popular. Eventually this pattern evolved into the
big band which might include three trumpets, two
trombones, and four or five saxes. This was the way

0

ajuu^,.
cXi,f

40

Arriving in New Castle, Brown organized his
own small group and played around town for a couple
of years. “I was very happy with the acceptance of
the type of music I was used to playing. I carried this
on for awhile and then I got busy at other things and
in fact, I was trying to wean myself away from the
music business into something more stable.” At this
point, he became part of another innovation, the
Westinghouse data processing staff. He remained in
that capacity until his recent retirement.

The Tommy Tucker Band (Mr. Brown — Third from
right, next to last row).
in which Dixieland jazz moved northward and was re­
fined and altered to a more melodious style of dance
music. Mr. Brown was careful to point out that New
Orleans jazz has not been replaced or phased out. He
stated that if one was to venture to that city even to­
day, the bands could still be heard playing the music
that is so much a part of its heritage.
While playing on the Atlantic coast, Tommy
Tucker’s band received a request for an engagement
m California. An easterner by birth, Mr. Brown
hesitated to move west but was convinced by his band
leader to travel once again. The engagement was at
the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, one of the
finest hotels in the world. So the Browns took their
eldest son out of school and moved to the Pacific
coast. This engagement proved to be the last for
Karlton “Bus” Brown. “Pearl Harbor had been
bombed and there was a scare of possible Japanese
submyines plopping some shells up on the west
coast.” Because of this scare and because he didn’t
want to keep changing schools for his son, Mr. Brown
decided it was time for him to leave the music world.
“I decided to give up the whole deal and I had to
start someplace and since I was originally from New
Castle I decided to go back. Looking back it seems
ridiculous. I had never done anything but play. I had
never worked another job in my life. I didn’t even
know how you went about getting a job, but I knew
I had to start looking for another type of work because
of the conditions of the country and because my son
was of school age.”
So after fifteen years on the road with various
bands, Mr. Brown decided that it was time to return
home to New Castle and settle down to a more stable
life style. With this decision he faced his new problem
that of trying to find some type of permanent em­
ployment outside of the music business.

42

In retrospect. Brown stated, “I was very fortu­
nate to be able to get from one interesting type of work
into another interesting type of work. I suppose the
music end was the most interesting. There are so
many things that can happen. It’s such an education
jumping all over the country all the time. Nobody can
supply an education like that from books or anything.
I enjoyed every minute of it, but it’s nice to look back
on. It was a pretty romantic, adventurous time and
I wouldn’t give up the memories of it for anything.”
Looking ahead, Mr. Brown says, “I think there will
be a big recovery of what is termed big band music.
It will be a revision of the cream of the big bands.
The good usually comes back.”
Being on the ground floor of an important Amer­
ican entertainment innovation, the big band era of
jazz, and also an important American technological
innovation, data processing and later computer
processing, Mr. Brown has led a self-educating, en­
tertaining, and fulfilling life. He readily admits, how­
ever, “—retirement is probably the best job I ever
had in my life.”

Ufe Wttt HIM Wth GtmsAMMr,,.
Pearl Ann Longietti
Carol Foltz

Life in Italy during World War II meant poverty,
hunger, and war. It was a difficult time for all of the
inhabitants, but especially difficult for those whose
husbands or fathers were in another land seeking
stable incomes and moderate lifestyles. This is an
account of life under these conditions during a
time of guns and war.

something to share with the neighbors, we did. There
was no shortage of luxuries, we just didn’t have
them. We struggled from day to day just to have a
piece of bread on the table. Things were shut off and
Father couldn’t come back to Italy and we couldn’t
come to America. He couldn’t even write us. We
didn’t know the two countries were against each other,
were enemies. My grandfather died in 1942 and my
father knew nothing about it.”

Mrs. Sebastian (Vincenzina Spadafora) Grasso,
of Sharon, was born in Rogliano, Calabria, in the toe
of Italy. All communication with her father in Monessen, Pennsylvania, ceased when the war broke out.
Mr. Frank Spadafora had gone to America to get a
job and eventually bring his family to America.

Mrs. Spadafora (Mrs. Grasso’s mother) recalls,
“I saw my husband in 1935 and not again until 1947
when he got papers to come back to Italy.”
Being the head of the household, Mrs. Maria
Spadafora was responsible for providing for her
three children and mother-in-law, whom she was liv­
ing with while her husband was away. Mrs. Grasso
says, “As World War II started, I was a small child
and I had a twin sister and a brother. He was a little
older than I. My mother was trying to raise three
children plus we had her parents and her in-laws. She
had to shoulder all the responsibility herself. She could
see children dying in the neighborhood from starva­
tion and she made up her mind that she would never
let that happen to us.”

Mrs. Grasso recalls, “He followed in his father’s
footsteps. His father had been to America years
ago and he had heard about America, so he decided
he was going to save his money. He went to work when
he was eleven so he could save his money. When he
was sixteen, he had enough money to pay for his trip.
(In America) he worked in the steel mills. He went
back to Italy in 1929 and married my mother. That
was the time that the depression started and so he
knew for sure that he couldn’t bring a bride to the
United States without work. So he left her with his
mother. My mother stayed 18 years with her motherin-law. My father made many trips back and forth
because he couldn’t find work. He was undecided
whether to stay in the United States or Italy. In 1935,
things were picking up and he got work and was sav­
ing money so he could pay for our trip. Then World
War II broke out.”

Mrs. Spadafora knew the trade of weaving cloth,
so she bought a loom. She would plant linen on her
small farm. When it came time for harvesting the
linen, the entire family would go into the fields, cut
the linen plants and tie them in large bundles. They
next laid the bundles in a stream for twenty-four days
so that the inside fibers would become moist
and soft. Then the ladies would run the bundles of soft
linen through a machine that would smash the plant.
This caused the harder outside part of the plant to fall
away from the softer inside. Next, the ladies would
gather the soft inside fibers and tease them with a
special wooden comb, making the mass softer yet.
They also boiled the fiber five or six times. This
helped make the fiber whiter and softer. After this
was accomplished, they would twist the soft fibers
together to form a thread. They would then wind this
thread onto a spool. Each spool held almost five
hundred yards of thread. After the spools were filled,
they would put the thread on a spinning wheel and
spin it into a large bundle. When this was completed,
Mrs. Spadafora was ready to prepare the loom.

“We were playing on the road and the neighbors
had a radio on, the only one in town. I knew there
must be some important news on because all the
people were gathered about the radio listening. It
was Mussolini. He was announcing that Italy had
declared war against United States and Great Britain.
We children didn’t realize what serious news that
was. We could see some people cry, an old lady who
wiped her eyes. It didn’t dawn on us how really ser­
ious it was. But these people were so bogged down
with burdens. Everything imaginable was on their
shoulders and thinking about a war was unbearable.
The population in our town consisted of old men,
young children, and sickly people. The youth had left
either for war or to go to other countries. So we had
to gather together and support each other. If we had
43

Mrs. Spadafora would first set the width of the
loom. Next she would thread the loom. Threading the
loom was a day’s work. She was now prepared to start
weaving the cloth. In a day’s time, she could weave
ten to fifteen yards of wool or five or six yards of silk
or linen. More wool could be woven in a day’s time
because it is thicker and easier to work with. The silk
was difficult to work with because the thread was
fine and could easily break. If this occurred and it was
not mended immediately, there would be a flaw in
the cloth. The linen took a longer time to make than
the wool because of the intricate designs that were
often woven into the cloth.

Spooling the Thread for Spinning.

Bolt of Linen Cloth Spun in Intricate Pattern.

Mrs. Spadafora soon became well noted for her
weaving ability. She wove basic patterns that almost
every weaver knew, along with many of her own de­
signs. Iler ability to create new designs won her the
patronage of many people who could afford to pay a
higher price for a novel pattern. Her competition would
soon learn patterns that were similar to hers and she
would have to create a new design. Her ability to be
the first to create a new design won her the recogni­
tion of being one of the best weavers and this fame
helped her to support her family better.
Even though Mrs. Spadafora worked long hours
and was truly dedicated to her work, her family was
still not well taken care of. At one point, Mrs. Spada­
fora paid an extremely high price for a light bulb
so that she could weave well into the night. Her house
was equipped with electricity, but she felt lucky to
have an opportunity to buy the bulb since they were
so scarce. After she bought the bulb, she began work­
ing day and night trying to weave more cloth. “I
can remember,” says her daughter, “her sitting by the
loom. I don’t know how she ever came out alive.

Mrs. Spadafora’s Present Loom.
45

She was just skin and bones, working day and night.
She worked so hard so that we could have bread on
our table, but many nights we went to bed hungry.”
Soon many of the neighbors would go to her
house at night and work on their projects. This con­
stant weaving depleted Mrs. Spadafora’s energy and
her mother-in-law became upset with her obsession
to provide for the family. A few weeks later, however,
the bulb blew up and things were restored to their
original state.
Mrs. Grasso remembers clearly, “My mother
would be too busy at the loom to go to the bread line,
so we children would wait in line for a loaf of bread.
Many times, by the time our turn would come, the
bread was finished. And how many times 1 went to the
line and got a loaf of bread which had to last us two or
three days and I’d be so hungry that by the time I got
home, half a loaf would be missing. I was like a little
mouse. I would dig a little hole in the bread and eat
the middle. I knew that I was doing wrong, but when
you’re hungry you just try to have something in your
own stomach. My mother never despaired in front of
us, but at night we could hear her complain about
Mussolini to my grandmother.”

war, there were almost no soaps, shampoos, or tooth­
pastes to be had. As a result of the lack of cleansing
products and unsanitary conditions, disease was prev­
alent. It was practically impossible to be immune from
the existing conditions.

back for herself. She believed that she was to worry
about today and God would provide for tomorrow.
So whenever she received a package from her hus­
band she held no reservations about retioning it out
to those in need.

Because of this lack of good sanitary conditions,
a typhoid plague soon broke out. The animals were the
first to be affected. If an animal showed early signs of
the disease, someone would kill it and use the meat.
The disease soon spread and many of the people were
contracting it. “There were so many people dying.
You heard the church bells constantly. That was the
only way we had to announce the deaths. Finally one
of the doctors told the priest, ‘Please stop ringing those
church bells because they’re so depressing on the
rest of the people that are living.’”

“I’ll never forget the thing that he sent that I
treasured most — tennis shoes. My sister and I were
so thrilled. We were so tired of wearing wooden dog­
gers. They were so clumsy looking. When we got those
tennis shoes we saved them just for church. All our
girlfriends envied us. When we left for America,
one girlfriend of mine said, ‘When you go to America,
please send me some tennis shoes.’”

The poverty of the land put a strain on life,
but the reminders of war made life close to unbear­
able. The inhabitants became accustomed to rising
early in the morning to the sounds of blaring sirens.
“The thing I used to hate the most about the war
was the sirens blaring in my ears.” These sirens
warned them of a possible attack and they immedi­
ately took refuge. They returned home only after they
were reassured that the fighting had passed.

Other times the children would go through the
streets like scavengers, searching for anything they
might be able to use. On trips like this, they would
sometimes bring home olives, figs, or chestnuts. On
one occasion, Mrs. Grasso excitedly brought home a
shiny tin can. She knew her mother would be pleased
with the treasure she had found. From the tin can,
Mrs. Spadafora had the blacksmith make a coffeepot
to be used whenever they were able to get coffee.

One day, Mrs. Spadafora received word that she
was to go to Naples to board a ship that was sailing
for New York. Although she wanted to join her hus­
band, she wrote and indefinitely postponed the journey
because she was weaving some silk for someone im­
portant and she knew she could not finish the order
by the time she was to be in Naples. Her husband
found out she postponed the trip and wrote to Naples
and explained the situation. She received another

notice giving her a later date to be in Naples. She met
this deadline and boarded the boat to meet her hus­
band a few short weeks later.
“We left Italy on April 1, 1947. It was Palm Sun­
day. We spent Easter on the boat. It was real stormy
day. When we finally arrived in New York, my father
was there to meet us.”
“My mother was so happy to come to America.
She could be rid of all the poverty. And what she
couldn’t get over was how people would waste food
like on picnics. The people would drop food in the
waste baskets. We used to get so disgusted. If the
people in Italy could have just had this food the people
were throwing away, they’d be happy. There were
people dying to come here.
“My father came to America to find a job so he
could return to Italy and marry his childhood sweet­
heart and bring his family here,” states Mrs. Grasso.
“Many Americans just do not realize what a wonder­
ful country we have. There’s nothing like being citi­
zens of this country. My mother and I are very proud
to be here.”

On one flight to the north, Mrs. Spadafora and her
family took refuge in a friend’s home in the hills. One
night they saw lights in the sky. They soon discovered
the lights were bonfires made to proclaim that peace
had finally come. With a new ray of hope, they slept
that night dreaming of the return trip home. They
awakened the next morning to the sounds of war.
They discovered that Italy had surrendered, but their
homeland was still being ravished by war because the
Germans had ammunition stored in Rogliano, their
hometown.

“We had an outside oven that we baked in. My
mother had these hugh wooden trunks she would
store food in. She would say, ‘—this is for the months
of October, November, and December, and this will be
for January and February.’ She had them marked so
that by the time spring came we would be sure to have
something to eat. She would nail them down so no
one could open them”.

As the Germans were pushed back, Mrs. Spada­
fora was hoping to contact an American soldier who
might be able to tell her about her husband. “We
finally heard of one soldier who was from Monesson,
Pennsylvania, where my father was living. So we went
to talk with him. He spoke very little Italian,
but he made himself understood. He had known my
father and said that he was doing all right. And you
could imagine, my mother hadn’t heard from him in
years and that was the best news that she could ever
hear. Not long after that, my father contacted us
through the Red Cross. He was glad to hear that we
were well and as soon as communications opened he
would send us things.”

Bread was the main food supply for the family.
Occasionally, they would have cheese or figs to eat
along with the bread. “When we had an egg, my
grandmother would eat the yolk and my sister and I
would split the egg white. To us that was Heaven. If
my mother had something cooking, she would say,
“Close the windows and don’t go outside and eat,”
because there were hundreds of kids gathered. They
could smell the food cooking and they would gather
by our house. However, my mother always ended up
sharing what we had.”

Mr. and Mrs. Frank Spadafora, Mrs. Grasso’s Parents.

Mrs. Spadafora and Granddaughter

Not long afterward, Mrs. Spadafora began receiving
things from her husband. Once the neighbors found
about the aid, they would ask Mrs. Spadafora for
some food supplies. Mrs. Spadafora would give what­
ever she had to those who asked her. She held little

Along with poverty and hunger, there was a lack
of sanitary facilities. The people of Rogliano had to
go to the outskirts of town to get water. Because of the
46

47

, _ .OOKING BUSNESS?

III Tell You What Happened!

“I had a nice business there at the Sharon Dairy
Lunch. I had a desk with a cover (roll top desk). I
had that desk filled with dollar bills and fives and
tens. We had so much business we didn’t even know
what we was making.”

George Boyadjis, now eighty-three, is well re­
membered around the Shenango Valley as the former
owner of the Blue Moon Cafe which for many years
was the restaurant highly frequented by Sharon busi­
nessmen. George opened the Blue Moon Cafe in 1936
and finally sold it in 1961, How George became a res­
taurant owner is quite a story.

George’s career in the Sharon Dairy Lunch was short­
lived. After a few years in the restaurant business.
World War 1 broke out. George enlisted in the army
and left the busines to his brother. George quickly
realized that the time he spent in the army would
not put a halt to his career as a cook, but would serve
to further it. When George went to Pittsburgh to en­
list, he was asked what his occupation was before he
enlisted. “1 said I was a businessman and I ran a
restaurant.” George was then shipped to Augusta,
Georgia, where he found himself in charge of the
kitchen. While there, he was told to attend the cook’s
training school.

George was born on Inbros, a Greek island in
the Mediterranean right across from the Dardanelles,
When George first left Inbros, he went to Cairo,
Egypt.
“Egypt, it’s international. You speak different
languages and no one insults you. I had to work in a
shoe store, I spoke English, French and Egyptian.
In this country, it’s different. Not so much now, but
in years back. They used to call you a Greek or a
Polack.’’
In March or April of 1909, George came to
Sharon to get a job with an uncle who worked at the
gunworks here, George tried his hand at several dif­
ferent jobs before he began his career in the restaurant
business.

“I took the roll on my back and off I went. 1
walked in there. Someone asked me, ‘What’s your
outfit?’ and I says, ‘107 Field Artillery, Battery B.’
He says, ‘You own a restaurant,’ and I says, ‘Yes.’
Then he says, how many kinds of potatoes can you
make? I looked at him kind of funny and says, I
can make any kind of potato you like. I can call them
any name that I want — mashed potatoes, fried po­
tatoes, boiled potatoes, baked potatoes, cream po­
tatoes and home-fried potatoes. Any kind! He says,
how long do you think (it takes) you to prepare po­
tatoes and 1 says twenty minutes. He said, you know
more about cooking than I do. He gave me my certifi­
cate and out I went. I went back the same day. I
was supposed to be in class with a teacher. The
captain looked at me and said, what are you doing
here? I says, I passed the examination.”

“Cooking business? I’ll tell you what happened.
This is a funny thing. There was a barber shop on the
bridge here, John Wellman’s Seven Chair Barber
Shop. I was shining shoes there, I was only about
seventeen or eighteen years old. There was a fellow.
He had a place on Shenango Street, a saloon, Tom
Davis Saloon. And he had a boy about the
same age as me, Harry, and we ran around together.
So there was another fellow there too. He told me that
he was going to open a restaurant. And the place is
down on Dock Street in Sharon. On the corner of
State and Dock. Well, there was an empty space there
and on the corner there was a fruit store. Big, big
fruit store, had all kinds of fruit there, candy and
stuff like that.”

After George left Augusta, Georgia, he was
sent to France. There again, George was in charge
of the kitchen. After leaving France, George went to
Belgium where he received a certificate from his of­
ficers for his cooking abilities.

So, with the help of his friend, Fred Lockman,
George opened his first restaurant, the Sharon Dairy
lunch. George will be the first to tell that he wasn’t
quite ready for the cooking business when he opened
the Dairy.

“This certificate I got in Belgium from the
officers. It’s from all the officers in Battery B at Regiental Headquarters. That’s where the certificate
comes from. It’s from the Colonel and all the rest.
On a Tuesday night, they had a big dance for the am­
bulance girls. They didn’t have no way to treat them,
but they had lots of coffee. So they ask if I could make
some doughnuts and I made them. So they gave me
this certificate just before we were discharged.”

This inexperience led George into a few blunders
in his debut. TTie one he most remembers is the first
time he made a chocolate pie.
“I decided to make chocolate pie. I made choco­
late pies. I got the crust and I made the pie. I didn’t
put no sugar in the chocolate pies. So one of my friends
I used to run around with says, “George, what the
hell’s the matter with your chocolate pie?’ I says,
‘What?’ He says, ‘You didn’t put no sugar in it.’ I
says, ‘You supposed to put sugar in the pie?’ We had
a lot of fun. But, today a little bit, next day a little bit
and you learn to cook. You learn how to manage,”

After George was discharged from the service,
he worked as a cook in his brother’s restaurant.
“My brother had a restaurant on West State
Street, the Erie Restaurant. So I went into the Erie
Restaurant with my brother. My brother and I and my
uncle were partners. And that’s when all my friends.

49

Judge McKay would come in from the courthouse
every Tuesday. I would serve him and four other guys
the special of the day. I served the special of the day
for sixty cents and everybody was happy. I’m telling
you, that beef stew! You couldn’t get it no place for
that amount of money.”

George and Frances sold the Blue Moon Cafe
in 1961. George said, “Well, I had that place for
twenty-four years. I’ll tell you. I’m eighty-three
years old now and I was in my seventies then. So the
doctors, (my friends) they used to tell me all the time,
what you want to do? You want to die on top of that
stove? Get rid of the place and go out and enjoy your­
self. Go out and get a set of clubs and go to golf every
morning and have a lot of fun. The doctors got to­
gether and bought me the clubs. These doctors were
in the same building as the Blue Moon. This was the
Dollar Title and Trust Building. Once it was called
the Harmony Building. That was the best building
they had in town.”

“Our menu included: Monday — Stuffed Pork
Chops. Tuesday — Beef Stew. Wednesday — Spare
Ribs and Sauerkraut. Thursday — Baked Short
Ribs. Friday — Blue Pike. Saturday — Roast Turkey
and Baked Ham. On Sunday, I wasn’t open much. I
was open for about four or five years, then I got tired
and didn’t open up on Sundays.”
Frances said: “It was a small place. The food
was plain but it was good. No fancy names for anyhing and it was good. Everything was used, nothing
was wasted.”

Frances answered, “In 1961. We had it opened
twenty-four years and closed it fourteen years ago.”

George said, “I took the extra meat from the pork
and made sausage. I used the bones to make soup.
I give them exactly what they ought to eat. You know
how a sirloin steak is. There is an extra cut of waste
on the end. Nobody’s going to eat that, so I don’t
give it to them. I cut it off. I cut that up and make ham­
burgers.”

George said, “It was a nice, clean place. Closed
nights at eight o’clock. After eight o’clock, no go. I
opened at six in the morning and I work all day.
Sometimes I didn’t know what was coming or going.
I have people stop me on the street and ask me if
I’m ever going to open another place and I say no.
You ask people downtown. They’ll tell you.”

“Hey Frances, when did we sell the restaurant?”

Evening Enchantment
The magnificent beauty of the autumn sky
After the sun has ceased to shed its light
And the shimmering stars along the milky way
Arrayed in splendor on this lovely night.
The lonely vigil of a silent moon
Inspiring lovers of every land and clime
To pledge this love of theirs will long endure
Unaware that dreams will fade with time.
But man’s mind can see way out beyond the stars
To visions only known within the soul
And so the struggle to achieve the next horizon
The constant gift of challenge the elusive goal.
The magnificent beauty of the winter sky
Or indeed the spring or summer if you will
Does it really matter what the season is
The restless yearning heart will not be still.
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John J. Flynn
380 Cedar Avenue
Sharon, Pa. 16146

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4

STATUE OF LIBERTY
Oh beautiful Statue of Liberty,
Serenely standing in New York Bay,
The hope of millions who seek to find you.
A thrill to thousands who arrive each day.
With out-stretched arms you offer strangers
The torch of freedom for all to see.
This is no dream they see before them
But our famous landmark — Miss Liberty.
There are those among us who squander freedom
As though it were gained by some magic wand —
Forgetting the struggle of our founding fathers
Who gambled all, just to free this land.
Magnificent statue standing straight and tall.
Undisturbed by storms from land or sea.
Unselfish symbol of liberty and justice
Embracing all who hunger to be free.

75

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