Oral History of Monroeville

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

“In Their Own Words”

Taken From a Series of Oral History Interviews of Long Time Patton Township and Monroeville Residents Conducted in the Mid 1980s.

School Days Churches and Cemeteries Neighbors & Neighborhoods Shopping Family Entertainment The Auction Barn Horses Making A Living The Mines Where Things Were Adult Entertainment Historic Buildings Odds & Ends

Coordinated and Edited by Dan Nowak Editorial Assistance by Kathy Nowak, Kevin Nowak, Bob Elms, Marina Elms, Louis Chandler & Peg Gomrick

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville Contents

Subject page

Introduction B

Summary of Interviews C

The Interview Subjects D

Chapter 1 - School Days 1

Chapter 2 - Churches and Cemeteries 16

Chapter 3 - Neighbors and Neighborhoods 23

Chapter 4 - Shopping 43

Chapter 5 - Family Entertainment 47

Chapter 6 - The Auction Barn 58

Chapter 7 - Horses 60

Chapter 8 – Making A Living 66

Chapter 9 - The Mines 77

Chapter 10 - Where Things Were 83

Chapter 11 - Adult Entertainment 103

Chapter 12 – Historic Buildings 108

Chapter 13 - Odds and Ends 122

Postscript 135

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville Introduction

Between October 2, 1985 and March 2, 1987, four volunteers from the Monroeville Historical Society conducted a series of twelve oral history interviews. The purpose of the interviews was to take advantage of the wealth of knowledge available through the life experiences of a group of people who were in the Patton Township – Pitcairn – Monroeville area during the pre-suburban growth era and the early stages of the transition from rural farmland to commercial center. The subject time span is roughly 1910 to 1955.

These interviews were captured on audio tape and painstakingly transcribed by volunteer members of the Historical Society (usually by the interviewer) either by hand or by typewriter. An attempt was made to have these transcriptions be as verbatim as possible, with all of the “uh”, “er”, “you know”, poor grammar, incomplete sentences, phone interruptions and so on included and noted. Each interview required between 8 and 12 hours to transcribe. While this method preserved the “raw data” for scholarly study, it often resulted in a transcript that was difficult to read and understand, particularly to someone not already familiar with the history of the Monroeville area.

At the time of these interviews, personal computers were rare. In 2008, the Society began a program of retyping the transcriptions into electronic form. The purpose is to allow integration of this information into modern computer based search systems and to produce a more readable edited version that would be, for lack of a better term, more entertaining. This paper is a presentation of that effort.

This work is broken up by various subjects. The subject responses are arranged approximately chronologically, based on either their birth dates, if born in the area, or the date that they moved into the area, if born elsewhere. This allows the reader to follow certain trends and changes with time.

Since many of the location references made in the interviews are, at the time of this writing, a quarter of a century old, an effort was made to include editorial notes to bring those references up to date (that is, the year 2010). There is also a series of maps at the end of each chapter (along with an occasional extra map as required) that shows the location of various points of interest on a 2010 map grid.

This Introduction also includes a summary of the original interview tapes and a brief background of each of the interview subjects.

The Monroeville Historical Society hopes that the reader finds this paper to be an informative and enjoyable experience and that it might inspire a few of you to carry on this work.

Dan Nowak Oral History Program Coordinator Monroeville Historical Society Monroeville PA September 2010

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville Summary of Oral History Interviews of 1985, 1986 and 1987

Tape Name Subject (s) Date Interviewers(s)

MHS-85-1 Arlene (Bateson) Scalise 10/2/1985 Dan Nowak

MHS-86-1 Jean (Winkler) Colbaugh 1/30/1986 Dan Nowak

MHS-86-2 Teressa Mirro 2/5/1986 Lois Lyman / Dan Nowak

MHS-86-3 Ed Bailey 2/13/1986 Dan Nowak

MHS-86-4 Mary (Piantiny) Winkler 3/3/1986 Dan Nowak

MHS-86-5 Paul & Madeline Aiken 4/24/1986 Dan Nowak

MHS-86-6 Paul Aiken 4/28/1986 Paul Damon / Dan Nowak

MHS-86-7 Charles Vercelli 6/11/1986 Lois Lyman

MHS-86-8 Helen & Richard Maxwell 6/23/1986 Dan Nowak / Lois Alworth

MHS-86-9 Helen & Richard Maxwell 6/23/1986 Dan Nowak / Lois Alworth

MHS-86-10 Sarah (Sylvis)Thompson 9/30/1986 Lois Lyman

MHS-87-1 Floyd Johnston 3/2/1987 Lois Lyman

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville The Interview Subjects

Paul Aiken, born Thomas Paul Aikens, was born in 1897 in Pitcairn and lived his whole life there. At the time of the interview, he lived with his wife Madeline at the top of Highland not far from the Monroeville border. Paul worked for the railroad or for railroad related companies all of his life. He was a veteran of the First World War.

Sarah (Sylves) Thompson was born in Patton Township in 1909. Her father, Thomas M. Sylves was a successful business man. His endeavors included mining (both as a laborer and an owner), dealing in cattle and real estate. He was also the owner of radio station WSPL which broadcasted from near the current Post Office and was a partner in the Auction Barn. Sarah was active in many of his endeavors, particularly the broadcasting.

Floyd Johnston was born in Patton Township in 1911. He is a descendent of some of the first settlers in the area. The original Johnston family lands included much of the area near the Old Stone Church and Cemetery, Miracle Mile, and along the current Monroeville Boulevard near Pitcairn Road. The Johnston Dairy was on this property just down the hill and across Monroeville Boulevard from the Old Stone Church (to the east).

Charles Vercelli was born in Patton Township in 1916. His parents emigrated from Italy and his father worked in the mines in Patton Township. His family lived for a while in the “Number 5” mining camp, named for the Oak Hill Mine number 5, that was located near where the Parkway leaves the Municipality heading west. Later, his family built a house on McGinley Road, where Charles was born. Charles lived his whole life in four different structures on McGilnely Road, sharing the last with his wife and children.

Mary (Piantiny) Winkler was born in 1913 in Trafford. Her family moved to Monroeville in 1919. She was a lifetime member of St. Coleman’s Roman Catholic Church in Turtle Creek. Her father contributed a great deal of his time and labors to St. Coleman’s, also. Mary is the mother of Jean (Winkler) Colbaugh.

Jean (Winkler) Colbaugh was born 1934 in Patton Township. She is the daughter of Mary (Piantiny) Winkler and has lived her whole life in the Bellwoood section of Patton Township – Monroeville. He husband, Ed, also grew up in the Bellwood area. At this time (2010) she still lives in the same house in Bellwood as she did when the interviews were conducted.

Arlene (Bateson) Scalese was born in Columbia Hospital in Wilkinsburg in 1940 while her family was residing in Patton Township. Her father was born in Rathmel, Pennsylvania. Her mother was born in the Aber’s Creek area of Monroeville and was a Glendenning, which is one of the oldest families of the area. While growing up, Arlene and her family lived in several houses (and one trailer), all in the vicinity of the Old Stone Church. The last house, which they owned, was located where the Eat n’ Park parking lot is currently located, directly across from the Old Stone Church.

Richard & Helen Maxwell moved to Patton Township in 1946. Richard was born 1889 in Empire Ohio. Richard and Helen lived in the East End of Pittsburgh for a while and then in Murrysville before purchasing 55 acres of land in Patten Township from a plaster

contractor by the name of George Smith. Richard (“Dick”) was an early member of the Gateway School Board and a longtime member of the Gateway Union School Authority. They lived on what is now Northwestern Drive in the Haymaker area in a log house that once belonged to Judge Haymaker that now belongs to their grandson.

Teresa Mirro was born in Delmont, Pennsylvania in 1915. She moved to Patton Township in 1950 with her husband, James (Jimmy) Mirro and their son. James Mirro was a Monroeville Councilman and was instrumental in forming the Monroeville Historical Society and obtaining the McGinley House. The Mirros built a house on a triangle of land between Haymaker and Mosside Boulevard.

Edward Bailey was born in Homewood-Brushton in 1921 and moved to Monroeville in 1955. He was an architect. He lived on Lilac Drive in the Garden City area and was among one of the first groups of people to buy houses in Garden City. Garden City was one of the first post Second World War planned communities and was written up in both the popular press and the trade magazines at the time. It included not only housing, but several churches, a swimming pool and recreation facility and a shopping center. Mr. Bailey was also a part of the group of people that established the Garden City volunteer firefighters, now company number 6.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Chapter 1 - School Days

{Ed: The locations of each of the schools mentioned in this chapter are shown on a series of maps at the end of the chapter.}

Paul Aiken (born 1897 in Pitcairn, school age of six years in 1903)

A: It was lot a people here went to Haymaker School. It was in that corner where, Haymaker Road goes to the right and the road to Saunders’ Station goes to the left. It was right in that triangle there.

Q: What did the school look like?

A: It was just a one room school.

Q: Was it log?

A: No, it was board. And, well that Gail Shifler, one of her clan, John, went to school there. And, he came back and taught for a while, then he became a doctor.

Q: Well now, Brinton School – what did it look like?

A: It was the same way.

Q: A one room?

A: Yeah. And there was one diagonal across from the Stone Church where that gas station is too. Same way. An’ there was one over in Rosecrest. And McKinley was over the hill from – from Burke Glen at the back end of Boyce Park. [Ed: The McKinley school was in Plum Township. The school “over in Rosecrest” most likely was Mt. Pleasant School.]

Q: Unity School – was there a Unity or something like that?

A: Unity – yeah. Well, there was a Unity – was down in where Burke Glen is and Breakneck was up where Shangri-La is.

Q: Were these schools all the same construction?

A: Yeah.

Q: And, they were all one-room school houses?

A: Yeah, one room. Except, there was two at the top of the hill where you went into Center and they called them the Twin Schools, cause they were two separate buildings. [Ed: The “Twin Schools” most likely was the Centre School in Plum Township.}

Q: Did they all have women teachers?

A: Yeah. Oh, no. After Gail’s one of her clan, that John Tilbrook, he taught school in Haymaker once.

Q: Well, did they generally just have one teacher at a time?

A: Yeah, one teacher at a time.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Sarah (Sylves) Thompson (born 1909 in Patton Township, school age of six years in 1915)

Q: Were there any Carothers in the area when you were little?

A: Yes, the name Carothers was familiar. Although I had no contact with them, I would hear my father talk about them occasionally and there was a school that was named Carothers School for that family.

Q: Where was that school?

A: It was on what is now James Street. It was, you know, very close to the border of what is now Monroeville and Turtle Creek.

[Ed: the 1907 map, shown at the end of this chapter, does not show a Carother’s School but does show a McCann School at the location referred to by Mrs. Thompson.] ------

Q: Where did you go to school?

A: I went to school in old Mt Pleasant School. And it was about half a mile from our home, right up, you know, Mt. Pleasant Road. And it was a one-room. My father had gone to it, too - a one-room school. And, they say that, uh, I guess the one that I attended was the third one to be built on that site. The first one could have been log. I don't know. The second one was, they said, an up-and-down board, with wide boards placed, you know, for sheeting and then narrower boards used to close the seams. And, it had no water, and, of course, that's the reason it caught fire, that it burned and burned quickly - pot-bellied stove, uh, the seats were in rows nailed down. The taller pupils sat in the back, the shorter ones in front. One teacher and she taught all subjects and all grades. The thing that I remember most about it, and I was just fascinated by it, and probably always will be, and if I ever see one, I’ll buy it, was her desk. The desk was not an oversize, but it had a railing around three sides of it, probably eight inches tall, then in the middle was an elevated desk - like, you could open it up, use the other part for storage, and it was the most fascinating thing as a child. I can remember she had her books stacked between that elevated part and the rail on the sides, you know. Her grades books were on one side and some on the other. But the thing that I think I remember most, about that building, and I went there - let's see, well, for six grades – was the pot bellied stove and the huge storage cupboard, and no cloakrooms. There were just hooks where you hung your coat and hat. I don't know whether it was a frightening experience or just what it was, but I shall never ever forget the flash cards she used to teach reading. It seemed to me that there was a stack, um, a foot high, and, you know, when you went to class - maybe there'd be only two or three in a grade - you sat on a long bench and she stood and, I can't ever remember her using a chalk board, you know, to put anything on a chalk board. But I do remember her - we were taught from the Ward Readers, and the Ward Readers were phonetic, and you had to learn all the sounds. Of course, that doesn't hold true, because sounds vary in different situations. But that's how we learned to read, and I have some of those Ward Readers.

Q: Did you have one teacher the whole time or did you have a number of teachers? Do you remember any of their names?

A: We had several. My first grade teacher's name was Isabel Young, and her father was the principal of the school. Oh, I'm not sure who I had for second grade. Third grade I had somebody by the name of Sue Moore, and Sue Moore was an elderly woman. And she wore wool skirts and plaid taffeta blouses, and she wore glasses that fit on her nose with a gold chain and hairpin into her hair. She was terrific. I probably had her for third and

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

fourth grades. Then we had somebody by the name of Carmella Stairs, and she was a little bit more on the modern side. But nobody ever came to help our teachers. They were totally on their own. If they did a good job, fine. If they didn't, nobody knew anything about it. Then in seventh grade, you know, the area was growing, and they were building more buildings, and they built the Bellwood School, and it was two rooms. And, I went there for seventh and eighth grade.

Q: Then how about after eighth grade?

A: Turtle Creek High School.

------

Q: Let's go back to your elementary school. Do you remember any of your classmates?

A: Oh, yes. There was a family by the name of Wilsons, and there were at least three of them in the Mt. Pleasant School. A family by the name of Ciao and they still live somewhere in the area, probably over in the area near Restland Memorial Park. Uh, a family by the name of Troglione. He was a tailor who drove to Wilkinsburg everyday. In addition to his own children he picked up as many others as the car would accommodate who were walking to Turtle Creek High School.

Q: How many kids were in the class on the average?

A: The whole building?

Q: Yeah.

A: I'd say anywhere from eighteen to thirty sometimes, and, you know, that became very difficult for a teacher.

Q: Yeah, yeah. Six different levels (laugh).

A: Yes, yes. And, you know when they complain about 35 in a class room, I have no sympathy because the first year I taught, I had 67.

Q: Where was that?

A: Mellon Plan.

Q: What grade was that?

A: Uh, second.

Q: A second grade with 67 (laughs).

A: Sixty-seven kids. Now this was in an area where you had a very large foreign population. Many of the children heard nothing but a foreign language at home, and I swear that I spent two-thirds of my salary buying food and shoes. The parents of these children were most supportive and cooperative. They wanted their children to have the education they themselves did not have. The area known as Mellon Plan and Boyd Hill was comprised of families who were brought in by Westinghouse Airbrake during World War I. Houses were built and rented to the employees at a very minimal cost. After the war when the demand lessened and jobs were fewer, some of these employees looked elsewhere for employment. Airbrake then offered these houses for sale to the employees who remained. The cost was low and Airbrake assumed the mortgages with no down

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

payment and low monthly payments. By 1932 the school population began to drop and children from other areas of the school district were transported to Mellon Plan. By 1940 the enrollment in my second grade had dwindled to 18. Then as now there were pupils in upper grades who could not read. Since primary grades were dismissed at three o'clock, I took this opportunity to do remedial work with some of the pupils who were having difficulty with reading. In 1942 I became Reading Supervisor for the district- the first in Allegheny County- a position I held for the next thirteen years. At that time I became Elementary Supervisor for Primary Grades until my retirement in 1969. While Reading supervisor, Christine Allen, the daughter of my first grade teacher, came to teach first grade at Mellon Plan.

Q: What year did you start teaching?

A: '29, that was the Depression.

Floyd Johnston (born 1911 in Patton Township, school age of six years in 1917)

[Ed: this discussion of some schools in the area appears to begin by referencing schools that were in use before Mr. Johnston attended school or in his earliest years. Later he discusses Monroeville School when specifically asked about the school that he attended.] …We had the Hall Station School That is, they all went to Hall Station School for years. It was a one-room school. And I guess I was in fifth grade when they done away with Hall Station School. Then everybody walked up to Monroeville which was a mile to walk to school. And then kids came as much as a mile and half this side which would be out Northern Pike - Martins out as far as the Glew property. They come to Monroeville School, and the other ones, then they went to a little school on down what is - that building is still standing, I believe, or maybe it isn't. I'm not really sure. It's what they used to call the Unity School. It was down on the old first William Penn Highway that was built. It was right down in a trailer court on Route 22 to the left as you go down - you know where Scotty's Diner is?

Q: Yes.

A: Well, it went right past there. It went down into the left back of those gas stations. There are several trailers still in there - back of the trailer court there was a schoolhouse in there, and they called it the Unity School. And that took care of the hills out in that end. It was a one-room school.

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Q: Where did you go to school when you were little, grade school?

A: I went to Monroeville School, which was a brick school. It was torn down. It was only three rooms. I went there in first grade and second grade and on up to eighth grade in a three- room school, and they built - the year of my eighth grade - they tore the school down and remodeled it so I could get out of school in time for my eighth grade. (laughs) I graduated from a three-room school.

Q: And this one preceded the later two-story brick school?

A: Yes.

Q: What was that building like? Three rooms - wood?

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

A: It was brick. Just exactly like the first - when you went in the front door of the former three- room school, why you went to the right to one room and to the left to the other room, and there was one in the back - the two end rooms was the full width - the one in the middle it was oblong the other way. It went crosswise or longwise to the school. In the other it was crossways to the school. They were all about the same size rooms, but you went in the vestibule and that is the doors and the basement steps and so on and come up into the reception hall and the three-room school as it were when I went to school.

Q: Did it have a porch?

A: It had a porch on it, and it had a - when I was there why a - that was when I was in third grade - they bought a school bell for on it. For the school, the three-room school. It was bought by the children, uh, socials. They used to have pie socials where the young couples would come and buy the pie that the, the fairer set brought in, pie socials.

Q: Where did they put the bell? On top?

A: It was on the top of the - a belfry built on top - it was sort of, a little cone top on it. I don't have any pictures around. But it was, uh, it was a vestibule, it was the cloakrooms was on each side of the, of the - that is you come in out of the hall, out of the rooms into the cloakrooms and then it was the vestibule and the steps up into main part of the building. Then there was a big basement on each side - girls and boys basements with a stockroom in between.

Q: What did they ring the bell for - to start school or...

A: Well, to start school in the morning, and well then they had recess at 10:30, and you went out fifteen minutes, and then they rang the bell again. And then recess again in the afternoon; why it was short; it was about fifteen minutes, to about 2:30, and then you get out at 4:00. And we had to walk home; we didn't have school buses.

Q: And this was called Monroeville School?

A: Elementary School. Three rooms.

Q: Do you remember your grade school teachers?

A: I can remember my first grade school teacher was named Miss Keith. She boarded across the road with people by the name of Vero that had a big greenhouse over there, that is, they sold flowers, had a greenhouse, sold plants and so on, and they had a big home that she - one of their daughters - one of their daughters was a school teacher. Ruth was a school teacher, and she taught in Monroeville, but I never had her for a teacher, and, I had, uh, Mr. Roaf. A man by the name of Gomer was another teacher. He was originally from Wilkinsburg. In fact he traveled back and forth from Wilkinsburg to Monroeville, come out from Turtle Creek on the, on the Pennsylvania Railroad - that is the Union Railroad had a, an engine - and a caboose - or a coach that come up - the Union Railroad. He would get off the Pennsylvania Railroad and get on the - walk over and get on the Union Railroad and rode up to Hall and walked up the road to the school. It was a mile from Hall Station to the school yes. He walked there every morning--he walked there and got there about 8 o’clock.

Q: And this is elementary school. You had two men teachers. Nobody else has..

A: Fellow by the name of Straitiff from Pitcairn. He was a teacher, and, I guess that's about all I can remember.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Q: So you went to eighth grade in the three-room schoolhouse, and then they tore that one down and then put the two story...

A: They put two more rooms on the back, and then, of course, it had the hallway through, and a big hallway through, and then they had steps upstairs, and they had four more rooms above.

Q: I remember seeing that school before they tore it down.

A: That was a couple years ago, and that was Monroeville Elementary, too. But that was an eight- room school at that time.

Charles Vercelli (born 1916 in Patton Township, school age of six years in 1922)

Q: Where did you go to school?

A: We went to school in a one-room schoolhouse. Its name was Haymaker School. Because it was on the Haymaker farm. And we took a shortcut through the woods, and therefore it was only a mile. If we'd have went around, it would have been about three miles.

Q: Is that where the Haymaker-Saunders Station intersection is today? Because we've seen on a map there was a school there.

A: Yes, a one-room school. They had an outside coal shed, and first the bathrooms were in the inside, then they decided to put them on the outside, and the pump was outside for water. And the bigger boys took care of the furnace during the day, but in the mornings a janitor came and cleaned up the building - swept it, dusted, started the fire in the furnace, probably got a bucket of water, brought a bucket of coal in. And, at one time my sister was the janitor, and she was only, like about 15, 16, and she was telling me about it, and I think she got $3.00 a month. She would go up every morning and light the fire, for dusting and so on, and then there was the lady that lived here, Bessie McGinley; she did it for the longest time. I think she was the last one, and before her there was a Lady named Bessie Moose that did it. And they lived in that, uh, Maxwell house. They lived there.

Q: Yes. Do you remember your teacher’s name? Did you have just one or were there a number of them?

A: Oh, yeah, we had one each year, and I went six years there. Sure, I remember. Blackburn was first grade. Uh, Steinbren was second grade, Third grade was, uh, Meyers. Fourth grade - I can’t remember. Fifth grade was Champion, and sixth grade was Palmer. [Ed: later Mr. Vercelli supplied a corrected list of teachers as: Grade number 1 – Blackburn, Grade number 2 – Meyer, Grade number 3 – Steinbren, Grade number 4 – Maddock, Grade number 6 – Palmer]

Q: Were they all women?

A: Yes. And they were all like first time teachers, and they were all like 19, 20 something like that because at that time you didn’t need the education you need now - the whole four years of college.

Q: So you went six years..

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

A: Up to Haymaker, and then they eliminated the one-room schoolhouses, and then I went to the Monroeville school where I was saying that - across from Warner’s - for seventh and eighth grade,

Q: And was that all?

A: I went one year to high school, in Turtle Creek.

Q: What happened to the Haymaker school? Was torn down?

A: Someone burned it down.

Q: Someone burned it down! Do you remember what year, obviously it was after you were in sixth grade, correct?

A: Oh, yeah. Probably at the early 30’s. Probably between ’30 and ’35.

Q: What did it look like?

A: It was just a big more or less square building with what we called a storm porch in front of it and it was covered and we put our dirty boots or whatever in it and then there was a door that went into the main building. There was about 35 or 40 desks in there, and then there was a rise about the size of a step rise and a platform all the way across the front, and there was a teacher's desk up there. And there was a blackboard. All eight grades were in the same room. So I couldn't do anything bad because my bigger brothers and sisters would tell on me. So I'd get a beating at school and a beating at home.

Q: Was the school always filled? Were there always about 30 kids or...

A: Yes, always around - pretty well filled up - some grades would have five or six, some grades would only have two or three. And there was, we were mostly what you would say immigrant families, and there were a lot of children. Well, at that time most foreign families were large. There was eight in ours.

Mary (Piantiny) Winkler (moved to Monroeville in 1919, school age of six years in 1919)

Q: Where did you go to school?

A: St. Coleman’s. In Turtle Creek.

Q: That was in grade school?

A: Grade school, yes.

Q: And then, after that where did you go?

A: Ah… well, see, St. Coleman’s had a high school in the grade school. And then, after you were in there two years, you had to go over to Turtle Creek High School. That’s how it continued. Now, I went to – I don’t know why my mother changed us – for some reason – us older ones went to St. Coleman’s, but when my sister Ester came along, my mother sent her over here to Bellwood School – I don’t know why. She did go over there.

Q: How did you get around? How did you get to school?

A: Walked!

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Q: To St. Coleman’s?

A: Yep! Back and forth everyday. Never missed a day. There just wasn’t any busses.

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So, I don’t know what else I can tell ya. Jean went to school, now she went to school over here at Bellwood. And from Bellwood – they had two classes in each room. Well, then when it came time for her to go to high school, she went out, a couple of years out here, then she went a couple years down in Turtle Creek. They just shifted you around a little because, I guess, there was just too many students for one school, I guess, you know. And they used to get the bus out, the bus took them – they’d walk up the top of the hill there and get the bus. But, it went to Young’s Corner over there. They had to walk, over to the school in the morning and back over to get the bus – and many a times they missed the bus and walked home – but, like I said, there wasn’t much traffic. The kids were safe. You didn’t have to worry about them. But, today you can’t do it. I think busing is – it’s an expense to taxpayers, but I think your children are safer. I think it was a good thing, really. And, like myself – even when Jean was just, when she just started school, I went up there all the time and got the bus and went to St. Coleman’s with them. And we had nothing but morning masses. You couldn’t go – now-a-days you get a break, you could go Saturday evenings with the family. But then you had to get up and go early in the morning. Oh, we’d go when it was snowing and pouring down rain and everything. We’d never missed. But we survived. But the children don’t want to do those things today. They want to get in the car and go in the car.

Jean (Winkler) Colbaugh (born 1934 in Patton Township, school age of six years in 1940)

Q: Where did you go to school?

A: OK, well, right at the top of the hill, that’s Bellwood, and that’s where I went to school and I walked to school.

Q: How far was it to, approximately?

A: Oh, probably maybe like half a mile. But, there was no bus service then. All of the kids had to walk.

Q: That was for grade school?

A: That was for grade school that was up to sixth grade. And, there were two grades in each room. There was a first and second grade, second, third and fourth grade and the fifth and the sixth grade. Then, after the sixth grade, you went to the Patton School and that was junior high, that was 7th, 8th and 9th, and at that time we had no high school in Monroeville. So when high school time came I had to go to Turtle Creek. And, I went to high school and that’s where I graduated, from Turtle Creek.

Q: Did you enjoy your grade school?

A: Oh, I loved it!

Q: Do you remember any of your teachers?

A: Yes, I had a teacher in first grade and her name was Miss Waltz. And, I can remember things that we had in school that you don’t have in school now like in first grade, they had tables

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

like this… they were made out of, um, just like, pieces of plywood with an edge around them and there was sand in them, OK? And, there were, we had cars, and busses and trucks and things like that to play (with). That’s what our play time was. Whenever we had, you know, days that we couldn’t go outside, we played in the sandbox. But, it wasn’t on the floor. It was table level. And, I think it was one of the most enjoyable things in school, I really do. And, I think the kids should have it now. I think it’s great, you know. And, we had recess, like we have here. Uh, another memory of school was, uh, back in the time whenever they always thought, you know, that there should be some precautions for like, air raid attacks in school, and they didn’t call them, I don’t know what you call where you put your coat in school, but they called them clothes closets back then and they were just like the folding doors are now. And, that’s where we put our coats and our lunches. But, whenever there was a siren sounded, everyone immediately left their desk and that’s where we would go, into those little clothes closets. For protection if the schools, something would happen, you know, if the school was blown up or whatever.

Q: Was this during the Second World War?

A: Uh-huh. And, playtime, the teachers went out with you then. Back then the teachers stayed with you all day. She never left you. You came in the morning and that teacher stayed with you all day. And, I like that idea (laughs).

------

Q: Well, moving on then, into your teens, you went to junior high at…

A: Patton.

Q: And, high school at Turtle Creek?

A: Turtle Creek, yeah.

Q: At that time, did they have all the regular Friday dances and football games and that stuff?

A: In junior high?

Q: Yes.

A: No, they had some dances. I belonged to a gym club at Patton Junior High and they put a gym show on every year, which was really a nice gym show.

Q: When you got to high school, then you went to Turtle Creek. Did you have all the activities that they do today with the dances and such?

A: Yeah, they had dances. Turtle Creek was one of the few schools in the area that had a swimming pool, too. And, that was kind of different. That was a regular gym class. It was like, you know, you’d have a semester of swimming and then you’d have a semester of regular gym class. They had dances on Friday nights and field trips. We went on field trips every year. Which, even in high school, they would take us different places. Which, they don’t do too much of today. And, football games. And, that was the big thing in the valley. And, let’s see, Turtle Creek’s real rival was New Castle. When there was a New Castle-Turtle Creek game, that was the best (laughs). Everybody turned out for that game. And, again, there was no school transportation. We had to get on the public bus and ride, or you walked. Either one or the other. And, that was the same thing when I went to Patton. There was no transportation. We walked from a little farther than this area to Patton and back every day or you got the bus that came, the public transportation.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

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Q: When you were going to school in Turtle Creek, was there much delineation between the Monroeville kids and the Turtle Creek kids?

A: No, none at all. Everybody blended together. You had a choice of, depending on where you lived. Some kids that graduated from Patton School, some of them went to Wilmerding, because it was more convenient for them to get there than to Turtle Creek. Some of them lived in the Pitcairn area and it was closer for them to get to the Wilmerding area school. So, you lost some of your friends in that transition there, but you met new people. No, there was never any kind of feelings that you were from one area or another. It made no difference. I think everybody got along pretty well, they really did. I mean, there were very few instances in school that I can even remember of, other than one time we won a football game and they didn’t give us a day off so everybody walked out of school (laughs). We just had to have a half a day (laughing), so at lunch time everybody left school. But, I mean, other than that, you know, things really ran pretty smoothly with very little… and, after school, there were a couple places, there was an Isaly’s store in Turtle Creek, and there was a drug store, and the kids would stop off and have an ice cream or soda or something and then get the bus and mosey home. And, I had driving lessons in school, too. I don’t know if you thought of them back then, but they did have the driver ed’s teachers came in and taught the kids that wanted to take it. And, they took you for your test and everything. Sometime I told that to someone and they told me “You’ve got to be kidding! They had those way back then?” I said, “Oh, yeah, they did!”

Arlene (Bateson) Scalese (born 1940 in Patton Township, school age of six years in 1946)

Q: Where did you go to school?

A: Monroeville. I went to the old elementary school down… I don’t know, what do you call that, where that new building is now?

Q: What, the big white building? [Ed: One Monroeville Center in 2010.]

A: Yeah, it’s off old Northern Pike. I went there, then I went over to Mellon Plan for two years. Then I went to school at Patton Heights for junior high, then down to Turtle Creek for high school. We were the last year of Monroeville kids that graduated from Turtle Creek High School.

Q: When you went to school at Monroeville, did you walk to school?

A: I walked to the elementary school. Everyplace else, I was bussed. I went to South Junior High for a year in ninth grade. They just opened that school that year, so we only went half days.

Q: Did you enjoy going to school?

A: Why, sure. Why not?

Q: Did you like your teachers?

A: Yeah, as much as any kid does.

Q: Did you remember any particular one?

A: Do you want to know who I had?

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Q: Yeah.

A: OK, first grade I had Miss Martin, second grade I had Mrs. Shafley, third grade I had Mrs. McDowd, fourth grade I had Mrs. Tarr, fifth grade I had Mrs. Beckwith, sixth grade I had Mr. Rush, seventh grade I had Mr. Forte, and that was the year we started changing classes. In eighth grade I remember Mr. O’Leary and Mr. McWherter, Mrs. Smith. Ninth grade we changed teachers, too. I was in Mrs. Dougherty’s room. And then, I went to high school. I remember most of the teachers.

Q: Any in particular that stand out as being exceptional?

A: Miss Martin I remember. Number one, she was a friend of my Mom’s, and, um, your first grade teacher, I think, always makes an impression on you. Like I said, I remember most of them. I don’t, don’t really know about being exceptional or not. Some of them I remember mainly because they were my mother’s friends. Mrs. Aiten was the art teacher and Miss Gillespie was our music teacher. And when I was in elementary school, Mr. Parker stood out simply because he was the only male teacher in elementary school. And nice looking teacher at that! We didn’t have many male elementary teachers.

Q: When you got older, into the high school, were there dances at the school?

A: Oh, yeah. Turtle Creek was a fairly large high school at that time and they had the regular things like they have now, you know, we had the Friday night football games and the dances and homecoming and all the regular stuff.

Q: When you were in high school, did they have the annual Kennywood picnic?

A: Oh, yeah, sure. We always had them, ever since I was in first grade.

Teresa Mirro (Born 1915 in Delmont, moved to Patton Township in 1950)

Q: You had one child?

A: Yeah, one boy.

Q: And he went to school where? [Ed: based on his high school graduation date, her son would have started kindergarten about 1947]

A: Well, he went to kindergarten and first grade in Wilmerding, and we moved up here in 1950. He went to second, third, fourth, and fifth grade. They were building a junior high {Ed: currently the Gateway Middle School}, you know out there on 22 there, old 22, and when he was in the fourth grade, they rented rooms in Wilmerding for our kids to go to school because they didn't have any place to put the fourth graders. Uh, fifth grade he went to the Johnson School in Wilkinsburg - they rented rooms there for fifth graders. When he was in sixth grade, then the junior high was completed. He went to the junior high. You know, you had to go like seventh grade, but then they put the sixth graders in, and that's where he went to school, sixth grade. And then the junior high was built, and the seventh grade, he went to junior high, and his class was the first class graduate from Gateway.

Q: What year was that?

A: When he was finished with junior high, he went into Gateway, which was the first year. He graduated in 1960 from Gateway.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Q: Was your son bused to school?

A: Yeah, when he went to Wilmerding, and, well, when he went over South to junior high, then when he went to Gateway, he had to walk.

Summary of the Schools Attended by Each Subject (Dates are estimates based on the subject starting school at age 6)

Paul Aiken: Pitcairn (dates not known)

Sarah (Sylves)Thompson: Mt. Pleasant (grades 1-6, 1915-1921), Bellwood (grades 7-8, 1921- 1923), Turtle Creek High School (grades 9-12, 1923-1927)

Floyd Johnston: Monroeville2 (grades 1-8, 1917-1925)

Charles Vercelli: Haymaker (grades 1-6, 1922-1928), Monroeville3* (grades 7-8, 1928-1930), Turtle Creek High School (grade 9, 1930-1931)

Mary (Piantiny) Winkler: St. Coleman’s (grades 1-10, 1919-1929), Turtle Creek High School (grades 11-12, 1929-1931)

Jean (Winkler) Colbaugh: Bellwood (grades 1-6, 1940-1945), Patton Junior High School (grades 7-9, 1945-1948), Turtle Creek High School (grades 10-12, 1948-1951)

Arlene (Bateson) Scalese: Monroeville3 (grades 1-4, 1946-1950), Mellon Plan (grades 5-6, 1950- 1952), Patton Junior High School (grades 7-8, 1952-1954), South Junior High School (grade 9, 1954-1955), Turtle Creek High School (grades 10-12, 1955-1958)

James Mirror, Jr.: Wilmerding-out of district (grades K-1, 1947-49), Uncertain (grades 2-3, 1949- 1951), Wilmerding- contracted by Monroeville School District (grade 4, 1951-1952), Johnson School in Wilkinsburg- contracted by Monroeville School District (grade 5, 1952- 1953), South Junior High School (grade 6, 1953-1954), Uncertain (grades 7-8, 1954- 1956), Gateway High School (grades 9-12, 1956-1960)

Note: The first Monroeville School refers to the one room wooded school that was located at the corner of Stoschein and Monroeville Blvd./Northern pike and is on the 1907 map. Monroeville2 and Monroeville3 refer to the later brick buildings, one being a 3 room and the other containing 8 rooms, both located where One Monroeville Center is today.

*The Monroeville School that Charles Vercelli attended is presumed to be the third version, however this is not entirely clear from the interview.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Summary of the Attendance by Individual School

Mount Pleasant: Sarah (Sylves)Thompson (1915-1921) Monroeville2: Floyd Johnston (1917-1925) St. Colemans : Mary (Piantiny) Winkler (1919-1929) Bellwood: Sarah (Sylves)Thompso (1921-1923), Jean (Winkler) Colbaugh (1940-1945) Haymaker: Charles Vercelli (1922-1928) Monroeville3: Charles Vercelli (1928-1930), Arlene (Bateson) Scalese (1946-1950) Mellon Plan: Arlene (Bateson) Scalese (1950-1952) Patton Junior High: Jean (Winkler) Colbaugh (1945-1948), Arlene (Bateson) Scalese (1952- 1954) Turtle Creek High: Sarah (Sylves)Thompson (1923-1927), Charles Vercelli (1930-1931), Mary (Piantiny) Winkler (1929-1931), Jean (Winkler) Colbaugh (1948-1951), Arlene (Bateson) Scalese (1955-1958)

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Old PA Thompson Frankstown 286 Run Road

Thompson Old Frankstown Run Road BEATTY Road SCHOOL

PA Turnpike Old Wm Penn Highway BREAKNECK Old Wm SCHOOL US 22 & I-376 US 22 / I- Penn Highway UNITY Northern Pike SCHOOL MONROEVILLE US PA SCHOOL (1st) Monroeville 286 Blvd. Northern N. Pike Pike Business Stroschein PA US 22 Road 48 US 22 McCANN Thompson Pitcairn SCHOOL Run Rd.

McGinley Abers Rd. Creek Lariner Monroeville James Pitcairn Ave. Blvd. St. Rd. PA

Turnpike Saunders Tilbrook Station Rd. MT. Rd. PLEASANT Wall Monroeville Ave. HAYMAKER Rd. SCHOOL SCHOOL Patton Mosside Lynn St. Ext. Blvd. & Ave. PA 48 Haymaker PITCAIRN Rd.

PA SCHOOL Abers Turtle Creek Creek 130 Turtle PA Creek 130 BRINTON SCHOOL MELLON SCHOOL

PA 130 PA 130 The Location of PA 48

SCHOOLS SHOWN Turtle on the 1907 Map Creek Displayed on a Network of 2010 Roadways

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

GATEWAY MIDDLE SCHOOL, Old PA Thompson formerly MONROEVILLE JR. Frankstown 286 Run Road HIGH and GATEWAY JR. HIGH

Thompson Old Frankstown Run Road Road

PA Turnpike Old Wm Penn US 22 & I-376 Highway Old Wm US 22 / I- Penn Highway MONROEVILLE Northern Pike

SCHOOL US PA (2nd & 3rd) Monroeville 286 Blvd. N. Pike Northern Pike Business Stroschein PA US 22 HALL Road 48 US STATION Thompson Pitcairn 22 Rd. Run Thompson (School not Run Road PATTON Abers Verified) McGinley Creek SCHOOL Rd. Lariner James Pitcairn Ave. St. Rd. PA

Tilbrook Turnpike Monroeville Wall Blvd. Rd. Ave. Saunders Station Rd. Monroeville Rd. BELLWOOD

SCHOOL Mosside JORDAN Haymaker Blvd. & Lynn Rd. SCHOOL Ave. PA 48 Patton St. Ext.

PA Abers Turtle Creek Creek 130 Turtle PA Creek 130

The Location of PA PA PA 130 130 SCHOOLS MENTIONED 48 Turtle in the Oral History Creek Interviews in Addition to Those Shown on the 1907 Map

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Chapter 2 - Churches & Cemeteries

{Ed: The locations of each of the churches mentioned in this chapter are shown on a series of maps at the end of the chapter.}

Paul Aiken (born 1897 in Pitcairn)

Q: When you were young, where did they everyone in the area go to church?

A: Bethel. They went to Bethel Church. But then Bethel Church was up there where that industrial park is now. And there was coal in the land where the Bethel Church was and Cunningham bought them out to get the coal.

Q: So they moved the church?

A: Yah, they moved the church down where it is now [Ed: on Beatty Road near Center], then. The fella that had all that, Margaret Beatty's husband - after she died, they come back here, he wanted to give Monroeville Church that place where the Miracle Mile is. It was a big grove of big oak trees. They wouldn't take it. And that woman that was with us out there at the church, her mother was a Tilbrook. And this Tilbrook lived out here. He was a trustee in the church. I told him, "Well, if the church ain't growd it, the cemetery would." He said, "Oh, we don’t want any more property." Well, the same way with Bethel. When Cunningham got that with the coal he would've gotten them a farm. And they would like to have more ground now for parking and so on. But they couldn’t afford to buy it now, but he would've give it to them then.

Q: When was that move?

A: Well, I can't tell you exactly. Well, I don't know when they stripped that coal. ‘Round World War I they were stripping it.

Sarah (Sylves) Thompson (born 1909 in Patton Township)

Q: Where did you go to church?

A: We went to the Lutheran Church in Turtle Creek which was interesting because my mother was Presbyterian and had always gone to the Presbyterian church. And then because we lived among my father's people, and they were Lutheran, it was much more convenient to go to the Lutheran Church.

Q: What was the name of the church?

A: Alpha Lutheran Church. It’s gone. It was the Lutheran Church in Turtle Creek.

Q: Did you go to Sunday school?

A: Not really. It has only been recently that we have become aware of children as such. You know they were part of a family, and that was about as far as it went.

Q: Were there church social events that your family participated in?

A: I never remember any social events in that church. You know, maybe Confirmation or something like that, but outside of that…

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Floyd Johnston (born 1911 in Patton Township)

Q: How about up at the Crossroads near the Church- what was up there? Was that a little settlement of some sort? Were there stores?

A: Nothing. There was nothing up there. Only in the beginning of the graveyard and so on which was - a child was found l799 - in the winter of 1799. It was decayed. They don't know whose it was- whether it was settler's child or whether it was an Indian child, or what it was. Lot of people said it was from the Johnstons, but it wasn't. It was just happened to be on my ancestor's land grant which was the, the west side of the land grant at the corner of the Stone Church of the graveyard. And, they just dug a.hole and pushed the child in there and covered it up. And there is still a fieldstone marker there, yet, that was put in at that time, and it's still there. And that's where the Johnstons - the plot of the old Johnston's graves were kept - Robert Johnston and his wife and William- which would be Captain Robert Johnston's brother - no it wouldn't be his brother - now what would it be - a nephew is what it would be of his - was buried. His name was Robert buried right beside Captain Robert Johnston. There's another Robert Johnston buried there. That would be his nephew. He was a mute, and he lived with- he was a brother of my Dad's father. He was an uncle of my Dad's, and he was buried in the old plot. And the new plot - the next plot down was some distance away at the lower edge, of the whole Johnston, the cemetery, that was donated by my - by Captain Robert Johnston in 1800. And his, uh, would be his grandfather William Johnston- Captain Robert Johnston. Or it would be Captain Robert Johnston would be my great- or my grandfather's- his grandfather. Captain Robert Johnston's dad's name was John which was the homesteader.

Q: Did you witness any burials when you were little?

A: Yes.

Q: I want to know how they were handled. Were there funeral parlors, were people laid out at home?

A: Oh, there were no funeral parlors; they were handled from the home. Always, all the funerals up until - well I was fifteen, sixteen years old before there were any of the local people buried from the funeral parlor. They were all buried from their homes.

Q: What about the coffins and headstones. Was there somebody who made those?

A: No, coffins in my time were all factory made or that is a coffin supplier, the undertaker got the coffin. Where he got them I don't know. There was a place in Connellsville. There was a big place up there that made coffins and in Pittsburgh there was a place that they made coffins.

Q: When you say in your time - is this when you were grown? Now when you were little, did people make their own or was there still a place where they were bought?

A: No, they were, as far as I know, I don't remember anybody making or having their own coffin made - since I can remember.

Q: Was there a gravedigger at the Cemetery or did a family arrange for that on its own?

A: The graves were dug in Monroeville Cemetery by the neighbors and if there was somebody from say - there were people in there buried from Wilkinsburg and there's people buried in there from Turtle Creek and Pitcairn and everywhere around. They would send a man or somebody to see that the grave was dug. Now there used to be one man by the name of Dave Beatty when I was a young kid - why he dug a lot of graves. Everybody that I know of that was residents in Monroeville had had a hand in digging graves.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Q: They just helped one another out?

A: They'd call this one and that to dig a grave and that was only a matter of a few hours they would dig a grave because they weren't afraid to work.

Q: Were any parts of the Cemetery ever disturbed by any road construction?

A: As far as I know the Cemetery was never disturbed by any roads - other than the road across for the use of the Cemetery. But as far as having any county or township, no. It's exactly the same as it's always been.

Q: Now your family belonged to Old Stone Church - or did they?

A: My father and mother belonged to McGinnis Presbyterian Church in Pitcairn. That's where they went to church because they started to go to church when they lived in Pitcairn before he came back to the farm. They started to go to Church there and then we kids - my older sister and, of course, down the line - all of us went to the Crossroads Church and Sunday school and so on. My older sister belonged to the congregation. And then when I got married I joined church; I joined the Presbyterian church in Monroeville

Q: Crossroads?

A: Crossroads Church, that is the former Crossroads Church not Crossroads - but, my younger sister, though, she never joined. She went to Sunday school, but she never joined church.

Q: You mentioned Sunday school - did they run any other kind of programs for kids that you participated in or any kind of activity?

A: Oh, they had Sunday school, and church was in the afternoon. It wasn't in the morning. There was no church in the morning, and then there were some ministers - sometimes they would miss a day or a week every now and then, and there would be nobody to preach. They would have Sunday school, but they didn't have church. They'd have church or Sunday school - I think it was 1 o'clock - you went to Sunday school, and then there was church you took up afterwards at 2 o'clock.

Q: Do you remember any of the ministers?

A: Well, the first minister that I can remember, his name was Reverend Getty. He was a minister at the Presbyterian church in Murrysville. That was his regular charge in the morning. He had services there and then he come to Monroeville and had services in the afternoon in Monroeville. That was in Model T days times 1913, 14, 15 along there. He used to drive his old Model T to church. He'd travel back and forth to church. And then there was a Reverend Smidley and a Reverend Lysle and a Reverend Gumpher and I guess that's all I can remember. Reverend Getty preached there for many years.

Charles Vercelli (born 1916 in Patton Township)

Q: How about church - did your family belong to a church?

A: Not on a regular basis. We would have belonged to the Pitcairn Catholic Church, but uh…

Q: Because that far back there wasn’t a Catholic Church out here?

A: Yeah.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

[Ed: Mr. Vercelli subsequently was a member of North American Martyrs Catholic Church]

Jean (Winkler) Colbaugh (born 1934 in Patton Township)

Q: Were there churches in the neighborhood?

A: The Stone Church was the only church that I can really remember in Monroeville, because, we went to St. Coleman’s in Turtle Creek. There were other churches in Turtle Creek, probably pretty much the ones that are here right now. St. Colman’s is new now but it was the older church then. But, everyone that was Catholic went to Turtle Creek because there were no churches in the Monroeville, Catholic churches at that time. And then, when they did build North American Martyrs and St. Bernadette’s they split the people in the area as to, they told you which church you should go to. And the ones on this end, I think from Young’s Corner down, you went to the Turtle Creek area, then from Young’s Corner out, they tried to get those people to go to the new church, that they would have some families going out there. But, we remained going to Turtle Creek. If we would have wanted to go out there we could have. St. Coleman’s church had a lot of memories for our family because my grandfather, he was a stone mason and he did a lot of the stone work that was done on St. Colman’s church when it was originally built. You probably don’t remember the old church, do you? No, you weren’t here. There was a big, stone wall around it, and it had spikes, metal spikes, coming up out of it. And, it was really a unique fence, and my grandfather built that. And, that stood there until they built the new St. Colman’s church and then, of course, that all was torn down. That was one reason we remained going to St. Colman’s, and we still do.

Arlene (Bateson) Scalese (born 1940 in Patton Township)

Q: Your parents attended church regularly?

A: Of course! (Laughs.)

Q: And, which church did they attend?

A: Bethel United Presbyterian.

Q: And that was located where?

A: It’s on Beatty Road, in Monroeville.

Q: What about either church sponsored activities or, when you were kids, scouting of any type?

A: Basically when I was growing up I get the impression that most everybody’s lives in Monroeville, not just ours, revolved around the church. The church was the central type of thing. The two churches that I remember basically were both Presbyterian. If you were Catholic you had to go to Turtle Creek to church. But, your life revolved around the church schedule, and the church activities, and you went to your Halloween parties, and your dinners, and fellowship meetings and kids were involved in church from six months on. They had programs for kids and fellowship things for kids. Even as you got into the high school, it basically was almost your whole life. Which was good, because there wasn’t that much other stuff to do out there. We had Girl Scout troops, but they met in the churches. We met up in the Crossroads Church for a while and then we went over to Mrs. Fox’s house for a while, but they weren’t basically tied in with the church, they were there but they weren’t tied in with the church at all. They had a really, fairly active Girl

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Scout troop. I don’t remember… well I had three, you know, there were three Girl, I really couldn’t tell you what Boy Scouts, I can’t remember any Boy Scouts. But, with the three girls, I really wouldn’t know.

Q: What about cemeteries?

A: Crossroads was probably the main cemetery in Monroeville before Restland opened. And, it’s funny because when I think of it now, it was, it’s basically a Presbyterian cemetery, I don’t know where the Catholics buried. You know, like I said, they went to Turtle Creek to church and I have no idea where their cemetery was unless parts of Restland’s older than I remember.

The guy that dug the graves at the Crossroads cemetery’s name was Johnny Dover.

Teresa Mirro (Born 1915 in Delmont, moved to Patton Township in 1950)

Q: Where did you go to church?

A: Well, when first moved up here, we were going to Wilmerding, naturally. So, when Jimmy was making his Communion, we thought, well, we'll continue to go down to Wilmerding. He got Communion in Wilmerding.

Q: Which Church was that?

A: St. Aloysius in Wilmerding - and then, uh - did we move up here? We moved up here and then we went to Pitcairn. We went to Pitcairn church, and Jimmy made his Confirmation here, and then that year - was that on my anniversary?

Father McMahan called one day here and wanted to talk to Jimmy, and kiddingly I says, well, what do you want to see Jimmy about? He says, uh, about some property for our church. And I says did you want to buy my property, and he says no, I don’t think we can afford it. So, they then decided to buy that property where the church is now, our North American Martyrs Church. But before the church was built, we went to Pitcairn, and then later the church was built - well before that, while they were building - we went to Burke's Glen {Ed: officially Burke Glen, many long time residents called it Burke’s Glen}. They had a big hall, ballroom. That's where they had dances, and that's where we would have our masses on Sundays. We'd bring these portable kneelers in, you know, and put them up and have services, and then the fellows would put them back, you know, because they would have their dances there. And then the first mass was held - I should know this, but I forgot - right on my anniversary, June the 12th was our first mass we had up at the church. I think we must have been married about 20 years, or something. And that's how North American Martyrs came into existence.

Q: So, you were in on the ground floor?

A: Yes, Jimmy was in on that, yeah. He talked to Mrs. Kuehn about selling the church some property, and she was hard to deal with. She didn't like to sell any of her property. So finally then she said O.K. So they bought it from the same people we got ours from, and she said she would sell them the property. That's how they got the property.

Q: Did you belong to any organizations?

A: Oh, yes. Garden Club, um, um, and our Church Catholic Daughters in Church. Jimmy belonged to the Lions. He was very civic-minded. I mean, like he started the Historical

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Society, oh gee, I can't even think now. Oh, he was on the School Board for North American Martyrs.

Edward Bailey (born 1921 in Homewood-Brushton, moved to Monroeville in 1955)

Q: Did you attend church?

A: Yeah, as soon as we got here, why, we went up to, we went up to the little, little farm house on the, right across from Kenmore Drive. They were just starting a United Meth, a Methodist church at that time. We were contacted, I think we were contacted by (Rev.) Bob Seiss, and my wife being a Methodist from, all of her life, well, we just naturally went to that church since it was in our backyard you might say. And, we were one of the first members in that Methodist church. We joined, we actually joined the church about one week before they closed the book on the charter members. So, we actually are a charter member of the United Methodist Church.

Q: Was that the only one Methodist church in the area?

A: I think at that time, the Garden City Methodist Church came into being after this United Methodist church started up. It was just called Monroeville Methodist Church, I think, at that time. It’s now called Monroeville United Methodist Church. That’s the big church next to, on Center right off, right in front of Kenmore Drive. Across from Stop-N-Go.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Legend

BC = Bethel United Presbyterian Church, Current Location BO = Bethel United Presbyterian The Location of Various Church, Original Location POINTS OF INTEREST BG = Burke Glen Mentioned in This Chapter and CRC = Cross Roads Presbyterian Shown on a 2010 Road Grid Church Current Location CRO = Cross Roads Presbyterian Church Original Location (Now Old BC Stone Church) GM =Garden City Methodist Church MN = McGinnis Presbyterian Church GM Center Logans Rd. NAM = North American Martyrs Ferry Rd. Beatty Rd. Catholic Church SB = Saint Bernadette’s Catholic BO Beatty Rd. SB UM Church Old William Penn Hwy. SC = Saint Coleman’s Catholic PA Turnpike Church UM = United Methodist Church Center US 22 & I-376 Old William Penn Hwy. Duff Rd. Rd. Y = Young’s Corner Northern Pike

US 22 CRO Business BG US 22 Monroeville Blvd. Northern Pike NAM

Northern Pike Monroeville Stroschein CRC Blvd. Rd. Mosside Blvd / PA 48 Pitcairn PA Rd. James McGinley Turnpike St. Rd. Y Saunders Station Rd. Monroeville Tilbrook Haymaker Rd. SC Wall Rd. Rd. Ave. MN

Turtle Creek Boro Pitcairn Boro

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Chapter 3 - Neighbors and Neighborhoods

{Ed: The map below shows the location of each subject’s home and neighborhood. Also, a map located at the end of the chapter shows the location of various points of interest mentioned in this chapter.}

Old PA Thompson Frankstown 286 Run Road

Thompson Old Frankstown Run Road Ed Bailey Road

PA Turnpike Old Wm Penn Highway Old Wm US 22 & I-376 Penn Highway Northern Pike Teresa Mirro US PA Monroeville 286 Blvd. N. Pike Northern Pike Business Arlene Stroschein PA US 22 Road 48 Jean (Bateson) US Thompson 22 Colbaugh Run Scalese & Mary Monroeville Abers McGinley Charles Winkler Blvd. Creek Rd. Vercelli James Pitcairn Rd. St. Floyd Tilbrook PA Johnston Wall Rd. Turnpike Ave. Saunders Station Rd. Monroeville Rd. Sarah Mosside Haymaker (Sylves) Blvd. & Lynn Rd. Ave. Thompso PA 48 Richard & Patton St. Ext. Helen Turtle PA Maxwell Creek 130 PA 130 Abers Creek Paul Aiken

PA PA PA The Location of the 130 130 48 HOMES and Turtle NEIGHBORHOODS Creek of the Oral History Interview Subjects Shown on a 2010 Road Grid

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Sarah (Sylves) Thompson (born 1909 in Patton Township, grew up on Mt. Pleasant Road.)

Q: Would you tell me where Mt. Pleasant is today? I can’t exactly place it.

A: When you go down Monroeville Road toward Turtle Creek, Wilmerding Road goes off to the left, and these is a stone wall from where the beginning of Wilmerding Road is, across where our home was. And then Mt. Pleasant Road runs parallel with Monroeville Road.

Q: So your childhood home is not in existence anymore?

A: No. No.

Q: Well who were some of your neighbors?

A: Oh, McGuires were neighbors, and Mrs. McGuire was my father’s aunt, and she and her husband had been captain and cook on a ferry between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg, and I have a plate that was theirs. Other neighbors were Rothraufs and Golightlys. Now Golightlys were miners form this area, too, who had gone down there. And then, of course, there were the Speelmans who were our relatives, and the Tressers who had the house right on Monroeville Road at the corner of Wilmerding Road and Monroeville Road. And, before Tressers came there, and this was before my time, it was Brisbane. Brisbane was an old family. Boyd was a familiar name, and Boyd had a lot of acreage in Monroeville, but they did not live in Monroeville.

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Q: Who were your playmates or your best friends when you were little?

A: Oh, somebody by the name of Ruth Schute who lived in the house that the Brisbanes had, and we played together a great deal. And then there was Catherine Bachman who still lives in the area. And outside of those two - the Wilsons - we played with them, too. ------

Q: Do you mean that when you were little, the mail came to your house?

A: No, it came to the box on Monroeville Road.

Q: It didn't come to the post office, though?

A: No. Our address was R.D. 1, Box 48, Turtle Creek. I suppose that will always stay with me.

Q: So there was not a post office in Monroeville when you were little?

A: No, that was over and done with.

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Q: You told me a little bit about the log house on James Street that’s being restored. Who lived there?

A: Oh, all right. I can remember when it was log and before it was covered. And these people were German, and their name was Nonamaker. And they had a truck farm, and were really and truly very successful. I can't remember anything about the interior of the house because I think I was too little to even notice. But I do remember the farm itself.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Q: How about the Speelman house, how were you related to them?

A: Mrs. Speelman and my father were brother and sister. And that house- that stone house- I don't remember the history, but I remember the house very distinctly because we went there often, and Mrs. Speelman treated us the way she treated her own. If you did something you hadn't any business to be doing - smack. And, there were - let's see one, two, three- there were four boys and the one girl. And, even the youngest of the boys were older than I, but we played. And, oh many, many things, you know went on, but the youngest member of the family was babied. My mother babied him as well as his mother babied him. And the next oldest brother - his next oldest brother - and I disliked that terribly. And I know now we were jealous, but as youngsters, you know, that never occurred to us. And, he had some of the most beautiful marbles. So, to get even with him, we took the marbles - the shooters mainly or whatever they're called - and by that time they had a coal burning furnace, and the big radiator was in the hallway. We'd get in the hallway to shoot marbles, and then we'd get to squabbling, dropped the marbles in the radiator, and, oh, thoroughly enjoyed hearing it roll all the way down to the furnace. And if there was a good, big fire in the furnace, you could hear it pop. And I don't know who did it, but either my mother or my aunt who would really reprimand both of us for doing things like that The house was interesting in that it was cut stone, and I think - if I'm not mistaken - it was twenty-four inches thick. And, it was laid out in an odd manner. It had this long hallway, and then at the end of the hallway was a room. To the right before you got to that room was another room, and then another little room. And the upstairs was all chopped up, it seemed like to me. There were no big rooms. It was all small rooms. And then they had added to it later on, a sun porch, which spoiled the whole thing, but it was interesting.

Q: Did they have a farm?

A: Yes. I'm not sure, but I think it was like about 40 acres in that farm. Where the Presbyterian Church is on James Street, that, was part of their farm, too.

Floyd Johnston (born 1911 in Patton Township, grew up near Crossroads Church.)

Q: Who were your neighbors back when you were a little boy?

A: Neighbors were few and far between.

Q: Yeah, I realize that because of the farms.

A: Few and far between. But, the Beattys - there was a Beatty family that lived north of us. I'm trying to think what that name was. The Beattys had either William or Henry or something like that. And the Johnston family was John and William and Robert and so on. That was the names of everybody either one or the other, but I think it was a William Beatty that had the big farm where the big shopping center - Monroeville Shopping Center is, the location of it.

Q: You mean the Mall or the Miracle Mile?

A: Monroeville Miracle Mile was the shopping center - Miracle Mile. That was all built on - north of our boundary of our farm, and that was the Beatty farm - William Beatty.

Q: Anybody else? What other farms?

A: After the log cabin burned down, why there was a family by the name of Snodgrass which lived where the Caruso Plan is now - what is called the Caruso plan. They lived there, and give my ancestors down the way, I don't know which one it was, I think it was my

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Dad's great-grandfather - I believe was who it was. When the cabin burned down, why they gave him the meat from nine hogs and a half a beef, and they in exchange transferred the property which is now the Caruso Plan - extended from Northern Pike to Pitcairn Road. They give that to him in exchange for this meat - 102 acres.

Q: Good price, huh?

A: Great price. That helped them over the winter, through the winter because they had lost their storehouse of food - with the exception of potatoes and things of that nature. They still had that to harvest.

Q: Where there any people with special skills - was there still a blacksmith around when you were little or other kinds of craftspeople?

A: There was crafts, there was a man on the Northern Pike - or, yes, it is the Northern Pike yet from Pearce's corner east to the end of where Northern Pike comes out on Route 22, there was a blacksmith about, well just practically at the corner of our farm near the line, a man by the name of Glew. I can't tell you what his name - whether it was Bill Glew or whether it was Tom Glew - I don't know. I don't remember. I've heard the name, but I don't know. I was rather young, but that blacksmith's shop - the old chimney stood there when I was a little boy. There where the bricks had fallen down, but the building was gone.

Q: So he wasn't in business when you were little?

A: Not, not when I was little. But our blacksmith work was done in Pitcairn by a man the name of John Warner, which was a relative of the Warner family in Monroeville.

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Q: Who were your playmates or best friends or classmates? Who'd you spend your leisure time with when you were a kid?

A: Well, there's very few of them left any more.

Q: I'll bet, yeah.

A: Yeah, but my cousin lived down Pitcairn Road where Tillbrook Road goes off Pitcairn Road toward Pitcairn where the road goes up. Right there was an old watering trough, a big watering trough, and they lived in a white house above the watering trough. In fact, my uncle built it, and then two of his cousins - their mother died - and they lived with their grandmother who was like next door to them and Ruth Elliott, she lived in a little house across the road from Singer Learning Center [Ed: Early Childhood Learning Center] - a white house, well it isn't white any more – but it's a frame house, but it's still there, and then I had a whole lot of friends in Monroeville - that is, everybody was my friend.

Q: Your cousins were Johnstons?

A: Johnston - Howard Johnston - his cousins were Shaffer boys. His mother was a Shaffer, and, of course, was married, and her brother's children - when his wife died why they lived with the old grandmother which is - lived in the next brick house there. I had a cousin Clarence West who lived up around Pearce's corner there and Wesley Stark who lived on Northern Pike on east of Pearce's corner. He'd become an undertaker and for several years he had an undertaker establishment over in Springdale. And then I had a lot of friends - Lane Jameson, he lives over by Van Horn Funeral Home. Lane lived where the U. S. Steel buildings are.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Q: Yeah, Jameson Lane, huh?

A: Yeah. That was where they came from. He and I were very good friends - the Kimmick boys

Charles Vercelli (born 1916 in Patton Township, grew up on a farm on McGinley Road)

Q: You mentioned neighbors. Who were your playmates other than your brothers and sisters. Do you remember any of their names?

A: There was Bessie and Joe McGinley only had one daughter and we would play with her sometime. Then when Tinsleys moved in here, there were three youngsters then, and we played with them. And when they weren’t around why we went a little farther to the neighbors or the neighbors came to us.

Q: You mentioned the two McGinleys - is that the earliest you can remember someone living here [Ed: interview took place at the McGinley House]. What were their names again?

A: Oh, their first names. The ones that I remember was Joseph McGinley, and he married Bessie Jewel, and their daughter's name was Anna. At that time there was also his brother living here, and his name was James. And when James died, they could no longer handle the farm. So that's when they thought about selling it, and they finally did sell it.

Q: And they sold it to Tinsleys?

A: Tinsleys.

Q: What were their first names?

A: Joseph and Cora.

Q: Do you remember the kids’ names?

A: They had three children, Sarah – I’m trying to get them from the oldest - Sarah, Isaac and Esther.

Q: Then after Tinsleys?

A: Miller/Solomon bought it. Elizabeth Miller and David Solomon bought it. And there again her sister lived here and her two other brothers - Harry and Julius.

Q: How about neighbors anybody farther down the road?

A: Not permanently. I told you about the log cabin.

Q: So you say this cabin - somebody burned it down, and then they built another one?

A: Yes.

Q: Tell me about that one.

A: Well, it was only one-story and, like I say, was probably built around 1935, and they used the original logs, and in between they used mortar - so they didn't use the mud. They used mortar. And there was a kitchen, two small bedrooms, and then a very large general room with the big fireplace.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Q: And this also was just used like a summer cabin, and then this one also was burned down?

A: Yes, and this one was burned down.

Q: Like in the early ‘50’s?

A: Yes .

Q: How about other families in the area? You mentioned you knew Haymakers?

A: Well, I didn’t know the Haymakers because Bessie and John Moose and their daughter lived there. And they were the caretakers - let’s say they rented the farm or were caretakers,

Q: So Haymakers were already gone?

A: At least they weren’t here to my knowledge,

Q: So they might have owned the property, but the Moose's looked after it?

A: Yes, and it was a log cabin also, and it was a two-story. It had a kitchen and a living room, and I think there was another room then – I can't quite place it. And then there was a loft – I suppose it might be that the bedrooms might be up there. I'm not sure. I was never up in the upstairs. [Ed: this “Haymaker house” is the same house that the Maxwells lived in at the time of these interviews and is located on Northwestern Drive today.]

Q: How about other log homes around here? Were there any other log homes that you recall?

A: Well, yes, there was one over on Ramsey Road but I just saw it, and I know nothing about it. Well, there was the one right here on this property that Westinghouse Nuclear bought - the McClay property. There was an old log cabin there that they just tore down when Westinghouse built.

Q: When I was down there (off of McGinley Road), I noticed like a picnic shelter. Who built that and what was that for?

A: That's my sister's - Scanlon - and her husband built it.

Q: How far back?

A: Probably in the late '40s or early ‘50s.

Q: Was it just for the family to use?

A: Yes, for family and friends, and they had picnics out there. They take real good care of it. They have such beautiful flowers.

Q: Tell me about who owned the house that burned down - the chimneys just left there now - on the right side of McGinley up on the hill.

A: Starting from the very beginning, McGinley Road was a fairly good road down to about 1/4 mile past where this chimney is and then there was a road that turned to the right and up in there, there was no longer a house that I saw, but there was foundation stone and so on. So at one time there was some sort of building there - like a log cabin or barn. Well, I don't know the people’s name that owned it. The people that bought it then was Hobe, and they built this house that you see the chimney, and then their - as their children grew up – after their children grew up - they quit coming out there. And then first thing you know someone burned it down.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Q: So it was a summer home?

A: Yes. And that was built in the '40's like I told you.

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Q: What do you think of all the changes that have occurred in Monroeville since the time you were a little boy on a farm to now we’re practically a city?

A: I believe in progress, but sometimes I feel sad, like when there no more fish in the creek, and even as late as in the late '60s and early ‘70s - in the ‘70s my daughter had a pinto pony, and her and her friends would ride all around the properties here. You know, no one would say anything. But progress is necessary and progress pays taxes, improves roads, and keeps people employed. And it’s real nice for us. We're right in town in the country. No one can believe that this close we’d be out here. How close we are to church. I could walk to church. I could walk to the hospital. I could walk to shopping. It's very convenient. But it sometimes does make you sad, when I sometimes think of some of the things that aren't here. The walks through the woods and all the wildflowers, but one thing we do have more now than we did before is deer. I used to see a deer, oh, maybe once every five years or something like that you'd happen to spot, and now, oh my, they just eat our shrubs all up. One day two winters ago in February, there were 18 just in our backyard. That’s like in a 100 by 200 foot area. That's 18 of them.

Q: I guess they're being squeezed you know, down into this is the last refuge.

A: Yes, right.. But there is plenty of eating as long as there's not a deep snow for an extended period of time, then they come right up to our porch and eat our rhododendron bushes.

Q: Well, you have a good attitude about what's happening here in Monroeville . A: I don't want to go back to the good old days - go back to the square wheel. Round wheel is just fine with me and I like modern conveniences.

Mary (Piantiny) Winkler (born 1913 in Trafford, moved to Bellwood in 1919)

Q: Do you remember any of your neighbors when you first moved to Monroeville?

A: Well, Salamons were the ones I can really remember. They were there maybe before we came there. And then I think there was a little house across the road and people by the name of Nelsons lived in there. There was a couple other families and there was a couple other houses but I can’t remember their names. The last one that I could remember before these people bought that home – their name was Mr. & Mrs. Oliver Meyers. But, they’re both deceased too now. And let’s see who else could have been around there. There was a man and woman that lived down below us. We liked them all the time because she was such a dear old soul, this woman. Her name was Mrs. Roberts. And, they were old timers, too. They’re done gone. And, who else can I tell you about? Let’s see. I don’t know – you wouldn’t know McClintock Lumber Company that was in Turtle Creek. They had a big lumber company. They also lived on Monroeville Road there. But, they’re all gone too, now. You see, they were older people, you know. I don’t know, that’s about all I can pinpoint right off hand.

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Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

I will tell you one thing, that the people that owned that McGinley house – Solomans – did you hear of them? Now, this is a different family altogether. [Ed: different from the Salamons that owned the first supermarket.] They lived down there right below my mother. And, they bought a farm out over there on McGinley Road. No, that’s years and years ago, ‘cause I was just little, ‘cause I know what we used to do – they had berries by the fence and we used to snitch them. They were goosenberry. But, us kids liked anything sour. So, that building is – I think they tore that building down, it’s not there anymore. And I can remember that as plain as day.

Jean (Winkler) Colbaugh (born 1934 in Patton Township, lived in Bellwood)

Q: Growing up in this region, did you identify yourself as being from a specific neighborhood?

A: Yeah, yeah, I would think so. Just the Bellwood area, that’s all really what it was called. There was very little at the other end of Monroeville. Everything was down here. Which, at that time, as a child, in the way that a child thinks, this was the only Monroeville. Right here. And it wasn’t called Monroeville. It was called Patton Township back then. I’m sure you know that. Things have not really changed a whole, whole lot here. I think the families have stayed pretty much the same. And, I don’t mean this to be offensive, because you come from the other side of Monroeville but a lot of the kids that grew up with me, they have remained in this area and they have raised their families in this area. And, their parents still live here. Now, you will not find that on the other end of Monroeville. You know, it’s people that are coming and going, people coming here to work, for a job maybe three or four years and then leaving. But, in this area the people pretty much stay. And, people that live on my street, some of the older people, I can remember them as a child. They were probably like in their 30s or 40s at the time and they’re still here! You know, they have not moved away. Most of them just pass away and the area stays pretty much the same. I feel it does, anyway. I think this is really a nice part of Monroeville. I’m not sorry that I live here. I really feel that this part has not been developed, where we still have some trees and some beauty. They have really destroyed some of Monroeville. And, that makes me feel really sad. There’s just too many buildings. And, they’re going to continue, I think, to keep building them, and I think it’s destroyed a lot of it. Our kids, like, don’t really, like over where you live, I don’t know exactly where you’re at, but I’m sure they can’t romp in the fields and play, and our kids are still able to do that down in this part of Monroeville. And, I hope that it continues to stay like that. I feel that there should be something where they decide they’re gonna stop building on the parts that are, the pretty trees and the grassy lands. I think that some of that should remain in Monroeville for our children to enjoy, and her {Ed: referring to Katherine Nowak, age 10 at the time of the interview} children to enjoy, if she’s still here. If they keep building, this will never happen. It’s going to be like downtown Pittsburgh now like from what I can see, you know, what has happened already. It will just keep growing and growing and I hope that doesn’t happen.

When we first moved here the pheasants used to fly from this side of the hill to the other side of the hill. Above Joann’s (the house below at 2203 Monroeville Road), they used to fly to the other side of the hill over there and fly back. Every day they would do this, it was like a ritual. And, you’d hear the cackling. And the rabbits, there were a lot of rabbits. And, one time, there were, I think, three or four deer up in the field up there. Up where the church is now. But, as they built houses, of course all this stuff gets killed or driven out of the area. Which is a shame, because it was kind of neat to have those around. We still have a few ground hogs. And, once in a while we see a raccoon, but there’s not as many as there used to be.

Q: This was 1959, and you were still allowed to hunt here?

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

A: Yeah, you were allowed to hunt in the Monroeville area.

Q: In your mind, when do you feel the transition took place from rural to suburban?

A: I would say when the Miracle Mile was built, then it seems as though things really started to change in Monroeville. It brought, I think, more people to Monroeville. It was the first mall or that type of out of town situation, in this whole area. So, it brought people from everyplace. And, I think because we’re so central to the Turnpike that makes people from the Irwin, Greensburg area, made it so easy for them to get to this area. And, I think that’s kind of when the transition started.

Q: Did you notice that your orientation changed at that time? What we had talked bout previously, you were always oriented down toward Turtle Creek. Is that still the case in this neighborhood?

A: No, we’re definitely Monroeville, but I consider myself to be Monroeville, not Turtle Creek anymore. I think probably because our children, you know, starting to have children then, and whenever they started into school. Of course, they did go to St. Colman’s, the three boys went to St. Colman’s School, and then when our oldest boy was going to seventh grade, we decided then to put them out here in the school. And, at that time, as I recall, you had to pay for bus service. It wasn’t free like if you wanted to send your child to a private school today. Back then you had to pay for the bus service. So, it got to be a little bit expensive. So, at that time we put them there. But, I feel like one of the original Monroeville people, I really do!

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Q: Do you have a recollection of any of your neighbors, older people, particularly interesting?

A: Probably Grandma Hohmann. The red and white market that’s on James Street now, it’s called Hohmann’s Market. Probably her, she was the one that ran the farm, she worked the fields, and I can remember that she wasn’t any bigger than probably four foot eleven. And, she was always brown as can be. She never laid out in the sun, she got this from working in the field. But, she was probably one of the most interesting people. She came from Germany originally, and just was a kind lady, very, very kind lady. I can remember whenever my mother used to send me up to get a little basket of tomatoes or dozen of corn. You never got a dozen of corn, you were always sent home with a dozen and a half of corn. And, if it was a pound of tomatoes, she’d send you home with two pounds and only charge you for one pound! She was really a nice. That was a nice family, the whole family. And, my mother, were related, because my mother’s sister’s married to one of the Hohmann fellas.

Like I said, they started there with nothing but a little wooden shed to sell their vegetables in. Then they sort of built on to that and had milk and bread and then now it’s developed into a little supermarket type thing. But, that all basically came from Grandma’s hard work in the fields. They had their own pigs, and their own cows, and their own chickens. They pretty much lived off the farm. I enjoyed being up there a lot, because it was close. I could walk from my family home. Mrs. Ridgeway was another person, like I say, she lived at the end of the street here and she was pretty much involved in like the youth. She took time to bake cookies on a Saturday. She’d have a bunch of kids in from the neighborhood and just out of the goodness of her heart bake cookies and sing a few songs. And, have some, just kind of relaxing Saturday afternoon. Other than that, I can’t really remember anyone that was, other than just neighbors, neighbors all got along. I can remember people helping one another. I don’t know if you want this on the tape or not but whenever they had the floods in Turtle Creek, do you want to hear about that?

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Q: Yes.

A: OK. I can remember so well because of St. Colman’s Church. We were going down there. I don’t know what year this was in, though. But, I remember, like Penn Avenue in Turtle Creek being flooded, you know, up to the store, like the doors of the stores probably half way up. And, St. Colman’s Church, the pews in the church, and the whole basement of the church filled up with water, you know, up to where the pews are on the first floor. And that’s one of the reasons why St. Coleman’s was torn down and the new church was built, because so much of the superstructure of that church was rotted away just from floods. The top part of the church was still basically in very good shape, but the underneath part, like where the basement is, I guess timbers, over the years of that being so wet and getting water like that, of course, now they don’t have that problem because they did the creek over and they have the flood gates and stuff. But, I can remember going to my aunt’s house in Wilmerding, right where the WABCO main entrance is and the water, when they opened the cellar door the water was right up to this last step, you know. And, they got that many times, that wasn’t once, there were many, many times those people got flooded. Everybody pitched in and helped everybody, though. It wasn’t an effort for people to do it back then, everybody wanted to help one another to get through a crisis like that.

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The following conversations took place while viewing old photographs:

A: So, you can see pretty much of my life was spent on horses or around them.

Q: Well, you’re right, there are a lot of flowers on this, and you don’t see that many wild flowers with this much color.

A: Even here, see these snowball bushes? They were everywhere. I can remember them being everywhere. You know what else was in Monroeville was Holly Hocks. Do you know what a Holly Hock is?

Q: No, I don’t know.

A: It’s a, there’s still some around, I’ve seen, every once in a while I see one. But, they were everywhere. They grow like on a stock. And, the flowers are just like three or four inches apart. And, they were everywhere in Monroeville. And, rarely do you see one, but I have seen them already. But, they’ve taken a lot of that, a lot of the beauty away.

Q: The duck pond’s been there for quite a while then?

A: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Q: Was that there whenever you were a pre-teen?

A: Oh, yeah. Younger than that. My husband is the baby in his family and he tells me, now we never did it, but he says that they used to ice skate up there, the whole family. Now, he has brothers that are, there’s probably almost like 25 years between him and the oldest one in their family. And, they used to all go up there and ice-skate, and that.

Q: That would have put it in what, the ‘20s?

A: Yeah. Well, Ed was born in 1930. So, it would have been like his older brothers and sisters, and then as he got old enough to go with them he, they would go up there. Now, I never went up there and ice skated, but he says they did all the time.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Q: You said that your dad worked at Westinghouse Air Brake in Wilmerding, were you aware of where the other men worked in the neighborhood?

A: Most of them worked in Westinghouse in East Pittsburgh or in the WABCO plant in Wilmerding.

Richard & Helen Maxwell (moved to Patton Township in 1946)

Q: Well, when you moved in at that time, were there many neighbors?

HM: Nobody, you couldn’t see anybody. No houses were visible.

Arlene (Bateson) Scalese (born 1940 in Patton Township, grew up near the Old Stone Church)

Q: What was Northern Pike like as far as for a child at that time? Was it much trafficked?

A: No, not really. There was no place to go on Northern Pike like there is now. It wasn’t the road to the Mall or anything like that, it was two lanes. It was basically a residential street. There was no commercial businesses on it at all.

Q: At that time, were the two ends of Northern Pike connected, or had they already been cut off by 22?

A: They had already been cut off.

Q: As far as you can remember?

A: Yeah. I can’t remember them ever being connected. 22, well, I remember 22 when it was still a two lane highway and it still cut through there. You mean the lower part below the school?

Q: Yes.

A: I don’t know why they call it the same thing. I can’t ever remember them being connected.

Q: Was Northern Pike all residential houses?

A: Uh-huh.

Q: At that time, were there farms?

A: Johnson’s dairy farm. That was there for a long time. There were places across, or at the bottom of the hill that were called a farm, where a preacher lived. I can’t even remember what the name of the farm was. I just remember the sign over the garage. It said “Farm”, and I can’t remember it.

Q: So it was it totally residential?

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

A: It was residential. There was no businesses at all on Northern Pike, except when you got up to the corner across from the Crossroads Church, there was a little gas station - Stroschein’s. And, they had a little candy store.

Q: With a little store in it?

A: Yeah, but it wasn’t a food store or anything. They just had candy and things like that. It wasn’t a food store or a big shopping store.

Q: And that was on which corner?

A: Where the Eat n Park is now.

Q: What was on the other corners, do you recall?

A: There was the church, and then there was, where the Union, is that the Union Bank that’s there now?

Q: Union National. [Ed: currently the Get Go at the intersection of Strochein and Monroeville Boulevard.]

A: Where that bank is now, that was a house. And then on the opposite, the remaining corner, was a parking lot that was used for the Crossroads Church, and right next to that was the parsonage for Crossroads Church. That was just a house.

Q: Do you remember any of the neighbors there? Are there any in particular that stand out in your memory?

A: Oh, sure! When we lived up at the top oft the hill, when I was little and we rented our house from Meanor, and next door lived Mr. Meanor , his name was Uncle Cy. And, I remember him as being an old man when I was little, and his wife’s name was Aunt Anna. And, their daughter lived with them, too. Her name was Alta. And, she was the same age as my Dad and she was a teacher down at Penn Avenue School down in Turtle Creek. Uncle Cy was an elder in our church. On the other side of us lived their son and his wife and family, which was also a Meanor family. So, their girls, they had (counting) one, two… they had three girls and a boy. And I think their boy’s the same age as I am, so we kind of all grew up together, in that we were like right on the corner there. There was nobody across the street or anything. Then next door to us was the parsonage for the Crossroads Church. So those, the people in there, came and went. The only ones I remember was Reverand Gunther, living there. I can’t really remember any of the other ministers. And then, across the street was Strochein’s, with the gas station and everything and they had three girls and a boy, and the boy was the same age as Dickie Meanor and me. I guess I was a year younger than they were, and Art Stroschein lived there and Mr. and Mrs. Stroschien. Then next door to them there was a house that was fairly new and the Greys lived there. They were an older couple, we didn’t know too much about them. Then there was the empty lot where we eventually built our house. Then, next to that was another old lady, Mrs. Lintner and her son lived in the house behind them. His name is Oliver Clark, his wife’s name was Rose, and they had two girls, Eleanor and Delma, and Delma married David Norris and they lived there, too, in another house, and they had about six kids, and, do you want to know the whole street? (Laughs.)

Q: Let’s just say, is there any people that you consider to be exceptionally interesting characters, that really sticks in your mind?

A: When you’re little you basically remember a lot of the old people, and there were, you know, a fair amount of old people on the street, ‘cause, Uncle Cy and Aunt Ann, like I say, they

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

seemed to be old when I was young, but yet, I don’t think Uncle Cy died until I was in my twenties, or something like that, but it was like he was everybody’s grandfather. He had the biggest ears that I ever saw in my life (laughingly). Just big ears! And there was another family that lived down the street from us, an old couple, like a brother and two sisters, that lived in a house by themselves and I remember them ‘cause they let us come in every year and pick up all their buckeyes, you know. You think that’s really neat when you’re a kid, all those shiny little nuts and stuff like that. But, just basically… people.

Q: In your neighborhood up there around that area did you come, well did you think about that being part of a particular neighborhood? Were there neighborhoods within Monroeville that you kind of identified with? What did you, did you consider yourself just a part of Monroeville or was there some particular identification you put on that area?

A: No, it was just part of Monroeville. When you’re small you fairly stick well within, you know, parameters. We did not have that many people, and the only other area basically that you went out of was when you went to church. I can’t say it was a particular area type of thing. The only one, the only areas that I can remember that I would consider particular areas were say, Rosecrest, and that’s only because it had a name, and I guess it was a plan of houses, or something like that, that it was called Rosecrest. And then there was Bellwood and if you said Bellwood, everyone knew where Bellwood was, that was a particular area, type of thing. But, besides that, until the plans and stuff started going up, I can’t really remember anything being called that much. That was probably one of the first plan type places, is why it got called that. Bellwood is an old area, yeah.

Q: That’s the oldest in the area heading towards Turtle Creek?

A: Yeah, I don’t know. The areas down in Abers Creek, as far as I know, are about the oldest homes, people living, types of things. I think a lot of when it was more farm type people that lived down in the Abers Creek area. I can’t be certain of that because it was, you know, the old Ray family and King Saunders still lives down there on his farm and, like I said, my Mom lived down there in Abers Creek, so a lot of the farm people were from that area.

Q: That was located where?

A: Around Abers Creek, at the bottom of Saunders Station Road. (She returns to the previous discussion of the neighborhoods) Down around Bellwood and places like that, I really didn’t know that much about because it was just, it was out of my confines, really. I know some of the family names, but I really couldn’t tell you that much about the area.

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You know, I told you at the beginning that my mother’s parents came down from Armstrong County. And, they did, but I don’t know exactly when because when we were looking through property after my grandfather died, the property on Saunder’s Station hill that he owned belonged to his father, so his father obviously had come down here, you know, before my grandfather did. So, that would have been my mother’s grandfather that lived here.

Q: What was his name?

A: Glendenning, Charles Glendenning. They lived off of Saunder’s Station Road back where Foxwood is now, where parts of, is that Foxwood? Right before you start down Saunder’s Station hill? I think it’s Foxwood. They lived back in there. And, I never knew him, my grandfather. I’m trying to think, my grandfather’s sister was still alive. She lived

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

back in there. And Johnny Dover, that I told you dug the graves at the cemetery, he had property back in there, too, and he lived in an old log house back in there. And after Alice died, I think most of them moved up to Kittanning. I don’t know, kind of lost track of them. But, like I said, my mother lived in that little white house down in Abers Creek for a long time. And, they did live in an old farm house that was on the bend down there where Anthony’s house is now. The farm house was there before Anthony’s house was built, so, they’ve been down in that area for a long time. One of the other families that lived down there in Abers Creek was the Ray family and they owned a good bit of the property down in Abers Creek and Mr (Nedrow?) still lives there. He’s been there a long time. And then, Mr. Saunders, owns the farm up on the hill. He’s still there and he used to be the principal of the junior high until he retired. But, that back in there was mostly the farm, farm part of Monroeville. As you went down old Northern Pike, you know, the other part, that got out in the country more.

Teresa Mirro (Born 1915 in Delmont, moved to Patton Township in 1950, lived in the triangle of land between Mosside Boulevard and Haymaker Road.)

Q: Were there other homes around when you first moved in?

A: No.

Q: Who were your neighbors?

A: Well. Mrs. Kuehn.

Q: Where was she?

TN: Well, right across the road - that old farmhouse. [Ed: located in the parcel of lane between the Monroeville Library and Mosside Boulevard.]

Q: The brown shingle one?

A: Yeah. That's where she lived. There was nobody here. Mistick then came out. You know where Misticks live now?

Q: They're the second house from the corner.

A: Yeah, he came out and he started building his house, then the Walkos built their house. That's the one near, the road, and then on the other side of Mistick was Lakes, and than they built. The house next to Misticks, people by the name of Lake lived there. They built, then on down, Mistick started building houses for different people. There was nobody. Oh, maybe a couple of families down on Haymaker Road, but other than that, on the property we just left the grass grow into hay, and that's what we fed our pony. So we would like come up and cut the hay, and I would pile it up in piles, you know, I'd be working here, Jimmy would run me up like at noon time. And then he'd go to work and then pick me up like after work. He'd come up and go back down home to Wilmerding. And I'd be working outside here or whatever, and you wouldn't see a car go down the road, I mean you wouldn't see a car go down the road. And If you did see one, you'd know who they were because there were only a couple people that lived down the road. Maxwells was one, uh, -who was, the other ones

Edward Bailey (born 1921 in Homewood-Brushton, moved to Garden City in 1955)

Q: What brought you to Monroeville?

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

A: I was brought up in Wilkinsburg and I think it would be a natural move for me to come on out east to get away from the city. Wilkinsburg is part of – almost part of Pittsburgh. At that time Monroeville seemed to be out in the country.

Q: Had you been coming to Monroeville? Were you familiar with the area before you moved?

A: I had been, I had driven through Monroeville, but I had not been familiar. My wife is the one that actually picked out the house. She went through a tour of the Sampson homes that were then being modeled for sale. She toured the models and told me that she liked this particular house. So, we came out and looked at it and that’s how we got it, it was her choice.

Q: Where was the model?

A: The model was up there where the Wooden Nickel is now. It was one of the buildings that was a model home. There’s three homes along up there beside Wooden Nickel. The Wooden Nickel was one model then they had two other models built. There were three models; I think there were three models built up there at that time. And Sampson Brothers had built those for display and then all the G.I.s came out and went through those homes. It was specifically for the G.I. that is, the veteran coming back – 4 and ½ percent loan – with a 25 or 30 year mortgage.

Q: Then, do you know how she knew that this was here?

A: Oh, this was a big advertising campaign that Sampson Brothers put the Pittsburgh Press papers, in all the Pittsburgh papers. And, I was away at the time with the Navy for my two week tour. And, she had some friend that lived in Eastmont – came in to pick her up and took her out here to see this plan – brand new plan that was being built out in Monroeville, Sampson Brothers plan. But, it was advertised as the big garden spot of the area. It had a big – very big play on Dick Benn, our architect and it was a very big play on his new, his new contemporary homes out here in this part of the area.

Q: So, when you moved in, everyone was just starting to occupy the plan?

A: When we moved in – we moved into Plan One. At the time they had already indicated to everyone that was buying homes that there was going to be as many as seven or eight plans in the future to be built. This is Plan One. They had already started to sell homes in Plan Two and Plan Three when we bought here in Plan One. That’s how far they had gotten into the building whenever we came out here.

Q: How much of the street was occupied when you got out here?

A: Well, I would say when we bought this house, the house was not built, we came out here and the salesman took that money down, the hand money to buy this house, this house only had the foundation. The foundation was laid, the footer was laid and three courses of block, so I could see the house was going to be build. Whenever we came out here to see this home 90% were built and I’d say 40% were already occupied whenever we came up to look at our, at these. That was May of 1955.

Q: Were most of your neighbors also coming out from the city?

A: I would say most of the people at that time were moving. I’d say 75% or 80% maybe were Pittsburgh people – that were around Pittsburgh, moving in from the Pitcairn area, from the greater Pittsburgh, just from the greater Pittsburgh area. There were some people, the example was the person that lived right across the street from us, was a Major in the Marine Corps, and his wife, and they had been stationed here as a recruiting family to this area, so they were out of state people. But, I would say either one or two of the

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

parents, couples that were here, were Pittsburgh oriented people. Most of the, I’d say half, better than half, I’d say 65, maybe 70% of the families moving in, one or both, of the parents were college graduates.

Q: Did you find it a lot different from, as far as shopping or everyday activities?

A: Well, one of the advantages that was advertised in the brochure when Sampson Brothers put this thing on the market was the great big new Miracle Mile Shopping Center that had just opened that Summer, the Summer we moved in. That Miracle Mile Shopping Center was supposed to be one of the biggest shopping centers in this area at that time.

Q: You were working where when you first (moved in)?

A: Well, I’m a retired architect. I went to Carnegie Tech, got my degree. Got my degree in ’48. Left the Pittsburgh area for a year and then came back in ’49. And I went to work in downtown Pittsburgh for several architects.

Q: So, you were commuting from there?

A: I was commuting from my front driveway to downtown, and delivered back to my front driveway, five days a week for, I think, four years on a bus system, a privately owned bus system, I think at that time it was called Deer Brothers, which has been consumed into the Port Authority Transit.

Q: So, it was really very convenient for you?

A: It was very convenient. I could just get on the bus right in front of my house and get off the bus right in front of my house every night.

Q: So, it sounds like things pretty well worked out for you. Was there anything that turned out to be a disappointment?

A: Yes, there are some things. The bus service stopped. (Laughs.) After, I think the fifth year there was no longer a bus service, it changed in the interim, they took the bus service off – away from in front of everybody’s house and you had to go to a central point like up on 22 to catch the bus service. They didn’t offer that door to door service after about 3 or 4 years. But, they still had the service downtown and the busses ran at a frequent interval in the morning and a frequent interval at night, although they didn’t run late. I think the last bus of downtown was 8 o’clock at night. And, if you didn’t make that bus you didn’t – you had to have another way to get home, that’s all. It was a very desirable area to live in. The first five years that we were here, I’d say it was as good an area as you could find anywhere around.

Q: Has the traffic increased?

A: And, the traffic has increased a hundred fold, right. Really, in the first five years, that is, before the Parkway came in, before our next door good neighbor Catholic Church even had a building up there, when the place still had a big farm market out at the, out where the intersection, where the Turnpike and Parkway meet right now, that was just a great big open field where they had a big farm market for all those years up until that new development, improvement was put in there, that was where all the farmers came in from Murrysville and further out, into this area to sell their products every weekend, every Saturday and, I think it was just on Saturday. But, they had this on every Saturday beginning sometime after noon going on till almost midnight every night, every Saturday night, they had this big farm market up there. Very nice thing to have, like in your back yard.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

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[Ed: discussing the rail track that was in his back yard when they first moved in.] …the track just went, actually the track, I discovered later was not in my back yard, it later became my back yard. It was beyond my lot line back there. At the time I thought it was in my back yard but it wasn’t. I found out later that that area between my property and highway 22 was to be a playground or park area designated for the people in the plan, which I acquired part of it at a later date.

Q: Then they changed their mind on building the playground?

A: Yeah, all this area in this Plan One had a parklet area between the property lines of houses that backed up to one another. When they were facing one side, the back yards came together and there was so-called, a parklet area, between the homes, which has completely disappeared now, the people have come up from both sides and consumed the property like it was their own property.

Q: Well, being over here in Plan One, did you have much need to go into the Garden City community center?

A: I had a need because I was a volunteer fireman right from 1956 on, even though we didn’t have a building at the time, we just met in people’s homes. Actually, the nucleus of Fire Station Number 6 started between Lilac Drive and Azalea Drive and this part of Garden City Drive. The founding people were really, except for maybe two people going up the hill on Garden City Drive, up the big steep hill, the nucleus of the firemen were right in this area right here, started number 5 fire company, number 6 fire company. There were just five original people. And the big group right here, and we started getting into the other ones after the thing was actually formed, because people from the other side in Plan 2, Plan 3, Plan 4, involved after it really got initiated. It was formed right in Al Wolter’s house down there. Five doors down from where I live.

Q: But, there was no hall?

A: There was no fire hall. It was just a bunch of men getting together, and they had petitioned the city, the county I guess, the volunteers go through the county agency to show need, show cause for a fire company, volunteer fire company to be constituted and put together in this area, since we already had four other – 5 other fire companies, really in the, in the Monroeville area. We were number 6, we were the last fire company.

Q: Well, when did you get the equipment?

A: Well, we didn’t get the equipment for, I would say, the person to ask about this sort of thing would be people that are more involved and actually got more into the firefighting. Even though I’m a life member of the fire company, I never got completely involved with the firefighting part of it. I went through some of the training, I went to 3 or 4 fires in my life, I finally became the active fire police captain, after many years. But, I never got involved with the fires. People in the real honest-to-gosh firefighting, fire training end of it, there was a real good fire training process these people went through, but I never did involve myself in that kind of training. I was always an administrative official, either the secretary, the treasurer, the vice president or something like that in the company. I never got too much involved with the actual firefighting end of it. I think, I have the records, I could get up and show you some things upstairs…. I have a relatively complete file on the equipment and people but, there may be other people that can give you fire equipment information. I think we started out with an old fire engine, a second-hand piece of equipment, an old tanker. A hose, not a hose- a pumper, a pumper. I forgot now whether it was a La France or what it was. It must have been a 10 or 15 year old piece of

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

equipment because our first piece of equipment, we built a garage for it over at the corner, at the bend, what’s the road that goes up to Evergreen School? You know, you go up Garden City {Ed: Drive} across the bridge and there’s a street that goes up to the Evergreen School?

Q: Yes.

A: OK, well then, right at the bend there, at the road, we put our, on somebody’s property, a person that allowed us to put our garage on his property, and we built a 20 by – 12 by 24 or 12 by 30 garage, wooden garage to house this piece of equipment. That was our first fire company building.

I was instrumental, well I might as well tell you, I was instrumental in putting together the drawings – I was the architect for the first fire company building that we had down here where the build, where the present site is now. I was the architect and my seal was on the drawings, and it amounted to a two bay garage. With a couple of little side rooms, toilet rooms and a little side room off of it. That’s what was the original fire company for number 6. And, I was the architect for that building, if you want to call that much of a job.

Q: Did the fire company get into much social events?

A: Yes, the fire company has been built up from just the last company in the Boro, I think it’s now in a position where it’s probably as good as, if not better than any other. It may not have as much equipment as number 4, but I think the training and the people that are responsible for the firefighting are as good as anybody in the Boro.

Q: What about the house, was it all that you expected from it?

A: Yeah, this house was, I think for a speculative builder’s house, I could see some shortcomings in the house, but as far as how the house was put together, what they had to do to meet the F.H.A. regulations, I think the house was, let me say, adequate if not slightly better than adequate. Now, one thing about the house, the way this was built. There was no front porch, there was no back porch. And, it seemed like the first thing everybody did – there was four different types of homes - and it seemed like the first thing, one of the first projects that the homeowner would get into would either be building a front porch or a back porch on his house. If not the complete porch, at least a concrete pad or some kind of a foundation and some kind of a way out of the house that gave him a patio of a porch. I never did it until about ten years ago. Finally, I put a patio behind this one.

$14,000 up to 21,000. That was the price range. This house, basically without this room finished, this was called a B-ex. The B house was the same house without this being finished; you didn’t get a finished room. If you wanted this room finished with a powder room behind it, you paid another five, three or four hundred, maybe five hundred dollars for that. So, this house came in under 19,000 dollars when we bought it. That may not be a publishable thing, I don’t know. Although I’m sure there is a record of what it sold for back those days. And the top house, which was an expanded model of this B-ex, which has three bedrooms and two and a half baths, and two fireplaces, a double car garage – started off at 21,000 some hundred dollars.

Q: Did they have an office here? Was one of the houses an office?

A: They had the office, over there they had the office, I think maybe the Wooden Nickel was the office and then they had the three houses, three models right down the line for the people. It didn’t look like it is now. All that stuff in front on 22 was not there, and so you could drive, you could see, from 22 you could see the houses just sitting up there on the hill. All that stuff that you see on 22 wasn’t there then. Very little building was there. But, you could just drive along and look up there and see the houses. You know how far back

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

the Wooden Nickel is? Well, you could just drive along and there they were right in plain sight. And, they had a way for you to get up and get to them, park your cars up in there. Have you ever been back up in there yourself? Did you ever drive up in the Wooden Nickel and, there’s a fence there now, there’s a gate there where you can drive right through there and you can see where the houses are. I don’t know what they use them, I think people live there. Drive along, that’s why a private little area up in there, but the houses, a couple of them are still there.

Q: So, did you come down to see this house?

A: Yeah, then we went into the office and saw the plan. And I picked out this house. And we put the money down. And we went back, there was a Smith, I think the fellow’s name was Smith, the salesman. I wrote him a hundred dollar check right there. We came back the next week to talk about something, confirm something, I wanted to see Mr. Smith. “He’s no longer here.” I think the son-of-a-gun was fired for selling me this house. He wanted me to go over there on Plan Two or Three and buy one over there. This house didn’t, there was no house here. It was a footing and then three courses of concrete block. And, I could see from the way the block was that there was going to be a front driveway in this house and the house next door was the same way, just a foundation. All the others were all built, all around, all built up, and people were living in half of them. They weren’t finished, but they were darned near finished. And, people living in some of them. Some people moved in here before the houses were actually finished. And, then they were, they were still working on the houses and people were moving in. I don’t know why they did that. We didn’t have to do that. We were down East Liberty - we bought this house in May, I guess, or June, late June – in June. Then, we didn’t move in until the last of August or the first of September. They wanted us to move in in July, but we didn’t want (to) – no hurry to move in here. I think we finally got in here, maybe it was October – 5th of October. We just kept not moving in. They wasn’t finished! So, I wasn’t going to move in ‘till they finished the house. They were trying to push everybody else in early.

Q: What made you pick this particular place? Did you want to move to the back?

A: No, I just – well, this was a corner lot. There was no church here. And, I came down this street and, there was nothing up there at all, just a big hill, right there. So, I had the corner lot. I was right on the corner. There was nobody in front of me. It was just an ideal situation. Nobody behind me, nobody on this side of me. It was just an ideal corner lot, that’s all.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Legend Points of Interest Mentioned in This Chapter BA = Bellwood Area CP = Caruso Plan Shown on a 2010 Road Grid EC = Singer / ECLC GC1-2 = Garden City Plans 1 & 2 GP = Glendenning Property HM = Hohmann Market HP = Hillcrest Presbyterian Church on James Street Center J = Jameson Property Logans Rd. K = Kuehn Property Ferry Rd. Beatty VH Rd. MC = Miracle Mile Shopping Center

Beatty Rd. MH = McGinley House MP = Mt. Pleasant Rd. Old William Penn Hwy. PA Turnpike O = Old Stone Church PC = Pearce’s Corner

US 22 & I-376 GC1-2 SF = Speelman Farm Duff Rd. Center Rd. S = Stroschein Gas Station Northern Pike Old William Penn Hwy. UN = Union National Bank US 22 US = US Steel Research O Business Monroeville VH = Van Horn Funeral Home US 22 Blvd. PC W = Westinghouse Nuclear CP Northern WN = Wooden Nickel & Garden Pike City Model Homes EC W Northern Pike Monroeville J Stroschein Blvd. Rd. K US MH Pitcairn PA Rd. Mosside James McGinley Turnpike Blvd / PA St. Monroeville Rd. HP Rd. 48

HM SF Saunders Station Rd. BA Tilbrook Haymaker Wall Rd. Rd. GP MP Ave.

SG O Business US UN

Stroschein Rd. Monroeville Detail of Central Monroeville Blvd. Blvd. Monroeville

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Chapter 4 - Shopping

{Ed: The locations of each of the points of interest mentioned in this chapter are shown on a series of maps at the end of the chapter.}

Sarah (Sylves) Thompson (born 1909 in Patton Township)

Q: Where did you go to shop?

A: Pitcairn. Because Pitcairn developed because of the railroad, and they had more stores than any other place. Turtle Creek for some reason or another just didn't develop as fast. But, because of the railroad in Pitcairn the whole thing developed a little bit more rapidly… And the one store, individually owned store in Turtle Creek , I remember was Orr, O-R-R. And, they had everything imaginable, and it was very good, but outside of that I don't remember the stores. The one thing that fascinated us was if my mother took us to what they called a dry goods store. You saw all of that material, you know, and we could choose things that we wanted for dresses, for school, or what have you. That was fascinating.

Charles Vercelli (born 1916 in Patton Township)

A: We did very little shopping. Most everything came from the farm itself. We didn't have a car and it was too cumbersome to take a horse and wagon and so for our groceries, so we usually walked from here to Pitcairn which was about 4 miles each way, and we carried - like if she needed salt or sugar or something. But about twice a year, we hooked the horse up to the buckboard, you know, and we went to Pitcairn, and we'd get like 200 pounds of flour and 50 pounds of sugar and a whole case of Octagon Soap. It was good for everything. Cleaning. It took the skin off of us.

Q: What kinds of stores were down in Pitcairn?

A: Kroger's and A & P. They were the most popular at that time that I can remember. Well, we got our big order, and then that usually done us for the winter on the big items. Now the other smaller items we would walk and carry it home maybe each week or every couple of weeks or something like that if we ran out of some of it. But we had most of our things at home because in the summer we grew all of the vegetables, and we had cheese and butter and milk. And in the winter then we always raised a few hogs and the beef sometimes, and we would butcher the two hogs, and we would have our meat for the winter plus the chickens and geese and the other animals, you know. We didn't have refrigeration

Jean (Winkler) Colbaugh (born 1934 in Patton Township)

A: Not as a teenager, more when I was a younger person?

Q: Yeah.

A: Down to Turtle Creek, and we went on a bus. My father didn’t have a car, you know. And, there were a lot of times we would go on a bus and when my father did have a car, he was also a butcher, and a lot of times he would work in the evening, so he wouldn’t be there. So, we would get the bus to Turtle Creek and come back.

Q: Was it convenient?

A: No, it was not convenient, not carrying groceries on the bus, it’s not convenient.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Q: I mean, was the schedule convenient?

A: Oh, yeah, it ran pretty regular, but it was a little hard trying to carry all that stuff home, you know.

Q: Is the same thing true for shopping for clothes?

A: Yeah. My mother would go into town. We would get the streetcar and bus, I remember, and go into Pittsburgh maybe once every two months or something. And, we’d buy some clothes. I know my mother shopped out of the catalog, too. You know, the Sears catalog. And, when I got a little bit older and started driving, we used to make trips to East Liberty. That was one of the nicest areas to shop in, down in East Liberty.

Q: To Sears?

A: Uh-huh, yeah. Learners. It was really a nice area. And Braddock, sometimes we’d go to Braddock, you know, that was a good place to shop, too. Because there were no malls then. Like we have now, they’re so convenient.

Arlene (Bateson) Scalese (born 1940 in Patton Township)

A: Most of the time, down in Turtle Creek. We did most of our shopping down in Turtle Creek. We had a market, Salamon’s Market, over on Route 22. We did some shopping there, and at that time, there was a lot of, hucksters, and people came to the house with vegetables, plus my Dad grew a lot of the vegetables and things. But we did our main shopping in Turtle Creek. That was the shopping area.

Q: That was for food?

A: Yeah, that was for almost everything. We also went to Sears in East liberty. We went in there a lot. Our huckster’s name was Mr. Schultz.

Q: What did you buy from him?

A: Cabbage, tomatoes, potatoes, what ever. He had a black van. He was an older man. He lived down there across from the entrance to Garden City. There were houses along there.

Teresa Mirro (Born 1915 in Delmont, moved to Patton Township in 1950)

Q: Where did you shop for groceries?

A: Turtle Creek, super market, A&P.

They had a Giant Eagle on where the Army store is, you know, where the Army Store is on 22? [Ed: this statement refers to Monroeville. The store was actually a Thorofare, not a Giant Eagle.]

Q: Yes.

A: Well, there was nothing there. They had a Giant Eagle or I think it was a Giant Eagle. They had a Giant Eagle there, but before that, we went to Turtle Creek and shopped there, A&P.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Q: Where would you go to shop for clothes?

A: Oh, mostly in town or Braddock. Braddock was, they had a Famous there. They had…

Q: Sachs and Jaisons?

A: Sachs and Jaisons, yeah.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Points of Interest Mentioned in This Chapter Shown on a 2010 Road Grid

Legend

Center MC = Miracle Mile Shopping Logans Rd. Ferry Rd. Beatty Center Rd. MM = Monroeville Mall Beatty Rd. O = Old Stone Church

Old William Penn Hwy. SM = Salamon’s Market PA Turnpike T = Thorofare Market

US 22 & I-376 Duff Rd. Center Rd. Northern Pike Old William Penn Hwy.

MC US 22 O Business Monroeville US 22 Blvd.

Northern Pike

MM Northern Pike Monroeville Stroschein Blvd. Rd.

Pitcairn PA Rd. Mosside James McGinley Turnpike Blvd / PA St. Monroeville Rd. Rd. 48

Saunders Station Rd. Tilbrook Haymaker Wall Rd. Rd. Ave.

MC T

O Business US

Stroschein Rd. Monroeville Detail of Central Monroeville Blvd. Monroeville Blvd.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Chapter 5 - Family Entertainment

{Ed: The locations of each of the points of interest mentioned in this chapter are shown on a series of maps at the end of the chapter.}

Paul Aiken (born 1897 in Pitcairn)

Q: When you were single, what did you do for entertainment?

A: Well, I'll tell you, we didn't bother much. After you put in about 10 hours down here working, you didn't do much running around.

In them days, they always had a ball team. Every town around here had its own ball team and they all had their own band, too, at one time. And at the 4th of July, the band turned out and you had a ball game or two. Irwin, Trafford, Pitcairn, Turtle Creek, Export. They all had their own ball teams. You always went to them. Things like that was just most of your entertainment then. Because you knew all the ball players. They were all local.

And I can’t remember, over at my grandfather's old home between Haymaker farm and Tilbrook farm they used to have some kind of picnics. Somebody said there were Haymaker - but they were not Haymaker reunions because the Brintons were there, and they were people from Brinton School. And Mrs. Clark from Washington County had drove back here with horse and carriage to visit her brother. And she come to one of these affairs. Now, we'd pack a basket, people who went to it. And old Judge Haymaker, all them old rascals would come. And I don't know what that was. But there was people there from Haymaker School and from Brinton School.

------

[Ed: while discussing the area that is now the Miracle Mile Shopping Center:] There was a big grove of oak trees and they used to, all the communities, Monroeville, that was Patton Township, Turtle Creek, Pitcairn, Wilmerding, they had a big community picnic there. Everybody went. For a day.

Q: There must have been a lot of people there.

A: Well, there was. It was called the Harvest Home Picnic.

Q: When did they have that? In the Fall?

PA: Yah, about September or October. I don't mind what they'd have; races, and tugs-of-war, and all sorts of things, and everybody brought a basket, and that.

Sarah (Sylves) Thompson (born 1909 in Patton Township)

Q: I don't know if there were women's clubs or anything like that that far back. Do you remember any organizations like that?

A: One thing that I remember very distinctly is something they called the Harvest Home Picnic. And this was a community affair, and it was, you know, horse and buggy days. And it

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

was held at McMaster's Grove. McMaster's Grove was the farm that is now occupied by Miracle Mile in Monroeville. And it had all of these huge oak trees, you know. The farmers got out and got busy and got the grass cut and all the weeds out, and they would put up swings for the youngsters. Everybody brought food and it was just a community day. And that's about the only activity that I can actually remember my family getting involved in.

Q: What did you play? How did you pass the time with your friends?

A: Oh, we played store and I can still remember making mud cakes and pies and decorating them, you know, and that sort of thing. Sometimes we played school and often it was an afternoon that wasn’t suitable to be outside, somebody read to us - either my mother or maybe some of the older youngsters. But, you know, I think that this reading is one of the things that has stayed with me almost forever. And from the time I was four years old I knew what I wanted to do because I'd see these teachers walking by the house, you know. And this is exactly what I wanted.

Q: How about in the summertime? Did you do any thing special in the summertime?

A: No. We spent the time with my mother sewing, and oh, I can remember having to learn to sew on buttons. And we didn't use all our time for that, but a part of it was that. And, we didn't do any travelling. There was very little need to travel.

Q: I was going to ask you if you ever went on a vacation?

A: We would go to my grandmother's, and they lived, as I said before, in Carnot. And their farm is now part of Greater Pitt. We would go there for a week or sometimes maybe two weeks and that was quite a change because they had a dairy farm, and they had a large family, and so, you know, there was a nice mixture.

Q: Do you remember a public swimming pool somewhere in the vicinity of Route 48? It was called Miller's.

A: No.

Floyd Johnston (born 1911 in Patton Township)

Q: What did you play at when you were a kid?

A: Well, we played ball, and I was a great marble player. Now you don't ever see a marble game, but we played marbles from early spring until the snow flew - in the spring and in the fall and so on. And we played football; we had soccer, we played soccer. We had competition between some of the other township schools.

Q: Were you able to do any fishing anywhere around here?

A: No.

Q: No fishing. OK. But stuff in the woods?

A: Oh, yes. We played in the woods and we played other things you never hear of today.

Q: Like what?

A: Gypsy Stick.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Q: Never heard of it.

A: I know you didn't. Very few people have. I have never run into anyone who ever played Gypsy Stick but kids in Monroeville.

Q: Well, tell me how you played it.

A: Well, it was - you got a stick about - that was, oh, heavier than my cane, and pointed on one end, and one fellow would throw his stick and it would stick in the ground. And then the next guy, or however many played, they threw their stick just the same and if they could knock it down - if they could knock his down with theirs and still stick in the ground why they grab his stick and they'd hit it, and it would maybe fly thirty or forty steps, and he had to run over there, and if we had a game - that is you had a hundred - you got a hundred or whatever they set the figure at, why then you won the game.

Q: Well, how did you get your points?

A: Well, if you hit that stick and knocked it down, you grabbed it and picked it up, and he had to run over there, and you started to count, and you threw your stick in and out as many times as you could before he could come back.

Q: O.K. Before he could come back.

A: Before he could come back and stick his stick in.

Q: O.K. But your stick had to stick in the ground?

A: It had to stick every time in the ground.

Q: Anything else peculiar to Monroeville - any other game?

A: Oh, we done everything else - catchers, hide and seek. Marbles was the one in the fall and spring. Late fall we'd play marbles; it was too cold to play ball and so we'd play marbles.

Q: Did you do that on dirt?

A: On dirt - on dirt, yeah.

Q: Were you any good?

A: Oh, I done good. I had marbles up until I was married, then I give them to the kids after they got big enough to have marbles but I don't know, I haven't seen a clay marble in...

Q: They weren't glass, they were clay?

A: They used to use glass ones for shooters, and you used clay marbles for your - and they were colored red, green, blue or whatever - and they were made out of clay. They were about as big as, oh, about as big as the end of your finger - round, and you had to shoot at them and knock them out of the ring.

Q: I don't know anything about marbles, but somebody else mentioned - she thought they were shooters.

A: Well, shooters they were glass. And I have some of them. I haven't seen any of them around since I moved out here but I had a lot of them when I was a kid.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Q: When I was a kid, they were all glass, and we called them marbles or shooters, and it was all the same thing, but was there a distinction?

A: Well, yeah, it used to cost us a nickel when we got a shooter; we got ten marbles for a penny - you got ten marbles for a penny. But you paid a nickel if you bought a shooter - so you did, and they were glass - all colored glass - some were small - some were medium

Q: Were you familiar with Miller's Swimming Pool?

A: Oh, yes, I know where that was. Do you know where you go up to the Cambridge Squares - up to the apartments on the hill?

Q: Yeah.

A: Well, just down a wee bit where the road - the hollow widened out - why well right at that area - where you can see where Monzo is - his buildings are - well above where Monzo's buildings is a road where the hollow is a little bit wider, well Miller's Swimming Pool was along the right-hand side of that.

Q: When was that built and in operation?

A: Oh, the Miller's Swimming Pool was built, I would say about 19 - well swimming pools were beginning to come into being about the 1920s or after the war - World War I. Why then there were some swimming pools built around, and Miller's was a little hole in the wall down there. It didn't amount to much - just water from the creek run over in there, and that's all it was creek water. That's all it was. Oh, they used to have an awful crowd, but they had to come down off of Tillbrook Road out over the top of the hill on this - like on the Pitcairn side of the Cambridge Square there was a real steep little off of Tillbrook Road, a real steep little lane run out and down over the hill It was a heckuva place to get to.

Q: That's what I was going to say, because 48 wasn't there, right?

A: Oh, no. There was no road there. Route 48 was from Pitcairn car line to Trafford Road up and out to, uh, go up to Haymaker Road up on top of the hill up by the school, or by the school property where it extends down to 48 now. That's where 48 ended, and Haymaker went on across - they called it 48 - that was Haymaker Road and on over a piece. But that was done - that was done in '33 or '34.

Charles Vercelli (born 1916 in Patton Township)

Q: What did you do when you played?

A: We played. Well, there was some neighbors like up here and, of course, there was always us. We'd play catchers or ball or marbles, jacks.

Q: Were you out in the woods a lot?

A: Oh, yes. A lot. A lot of time was spent out in the woods. Spent a lot of time at that cabin after nobody used it because it had a fireplace. And we would light a fire and take some homemade sausage and hamburgers and apples and potatoes, and we would build a fire and we’d cook them and eat them.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

------

Q: …so Hillside is an old road?

A: Oh, yeah, that's an old one; Mosside’s the new road. And right where Mosside came up through, there used to be a public swimming pool. Very large public swimming pool - approximately where Monzo has a building down on Mosside. It was owned by people by the name of Miller. Miller's Swimming Pool. It was very difficult to get in there, but that was the closest one around, and people fought the mud and so on down the road through the mud.

Q: Was it like a cement swimming pool? Were there buildings?

A: Yes, it was poured cement with buildings for changing clothes and so on and a dance floor.

Q: Do you remember how much it cost to go swimming?

A: Well, I but I would say probably a dime.

Q: Do you remember when it was built, approximately?

A: It was probably built in the late '20's.

Q: And how long was it there?

A: Was probably about 10 years it was there. They used to have those big Depression picnics there.

Q: What's a Depression picnic?

A: Well, I don’t think you had to be unemployed or show proof that you were unemployed, but everybody brought their baskets and had a picnic, and then they'd have races and give away the usual box of crayons, you know.

Mary (Piantiny) Winkler (born 1913 in Trafford, moved to Monroeville in 1919)

Q: Your favorite entertainment when you were 10 years old?

A: Oh, well, let’s see, we listened to the radio a lot. But, we didn’t have a radio like we have today. We had to put ear phones on. Then keep monkeying around with the thing to see if we could get a station, you know. And then, something did come on good, we just all had to listen to it. We used to fight over the earphones ‘cause there was only one set of earphones. And, it worked out pretty good. But, I’ll tell you, we didn’t stay up late like kids do today. We went to bed very early and got up early in the morning because we knew we had to be ready to walk down to school and back.

Not too many people had cars then. And, I know they used to take us out to the LaBarb. Take us out there and they used to have bar-b-ques, they bar-b-qued them outside on the grill. But, they had a great big grill – wasn’t like an ordinary grill. Pork and ham. Oh, and they’d say, “We’re going out to get bar-b-ques”, boy, we went! We thought that was the big thing, was one of the most important attractions in Monroeville, was the LaBarb, ‘cause all the high school kids went there. And I can remember when we went there – I was too young for dancing and that – but Lawrence Welk came out there and played, outdoors. I can remember that.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Q: When was this?

A: Oh, I must have been – well if I came down here when I was about 6 years old…. That’s got to be like seventy some years almost. When you figure, I’m seventy three now. No, it would be sixty some years, wouldn’t it? Sixty some years, ‘cause I was 73 years old this (June).

Q: So, that was in the ‘twenties?

A: That’s it then.

Jean (Winkler) Colbaugh (born 1934 in Patton Township)

Q: At the time you were pre-teen, were there any parks, swimming pools, playgrounds around?

A: There was a park up there at the top of the hill {Ed: Bellwood} and it was just like a community park. It had, you know, benches in it, lots of trees. It was a pretty area! Really a real nice area. There was no swimming pool there. The only swimming here was out past Hill’s department store, on the right hand side, there’s a golf course there now. You may even know that there was one there. That was Burke’s Glen and that, that also was a park, but as far as a swimming area, no. Blue Dell, up on Route 30, we used to sometimes go out there. But, as far as any kind of recreation, there really was not a lot in this area. Roller skating, we used to do roller skating, but we used to go to Ardmore Boulevard, and we used to go roller skating every Friday night when I was in my teens. We’d get the bus and go down and come back on the bus. If you told your kids to do that today…(laughs).

Q: Did you have anything like Girl Scouts to do?

A: Yes, I belonged to the Rainbow Girls, and I belonged to the Campfire Girls. I think that would be equivalent to what, they still have Campfire Girls today. Back then, it really wasn’t that common. But, the lady down here, like I told you, when you turned in the street, Mrs. Ridgeway, she had the troop in this area. And, we did pretty much the things that the Girl Scouts do today. We went to camp in the summertime. I think as far as I went was North Park. I don’t think they ever took us farther than that. And we stayed over, you know, overnight. We did our own cooking and cleaning up and whatever you did.

Q: Did you get together with any of your friends?

A: Why, yes, we had a lot of friends. Because, everybody liked to come to our house for one reason – we always had plenty of food. My dad was Italian. And, he done a lot of the cooking. My mother cooked too, but my dad did a lot of the cooking, and I’ll tell you, the kids all liked to come to our house. We always had plenty of fruit, plenty of nuts, plenty of candy, but not all chocolate candy – Italian candy – in boxes. And we used to – I’ll tell you – the kids always really did used to like to come to our house for that reason. I think it was just because we had a big family. Oh, and then we used to have Halloween parties. My mother would leave us have a Halloween party. We had a lot of good times. Everybody wanted to come because – well, we also liked to go too because you knew you were going to get a treat. But, I don’t remember going around on Halloween like kids do now. We mostly just had something to do at home, you know. I think the parents tried to keep the family home more, you know. I don’t know what else I can tell you now. We all had a lot of friends because, you know, we were a big family. There was ten of us and I still have five sisters and two brothers living.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Arlene (Bateson) Scalese (born 1940 in Patton Township)

A: La Barb’s has been there as long as I can remember. My grandpap used to take us over to La Barb’s when we were little, and one thing that was neat about La Barb’s was, they had real neat little booths, like around the outside, like in the summer you were sitting outside, along the outside of it, to eat. And, they had good cherry milkshakes. My grandpap always bought milkshakes over there. But, it was just a different type of place. It was like you were out, almost outside eating. We were never one’s to go out for dinner or anything like that so I don’t know if they served meals there. It was just one of those treats, where my grandfather took us over there. Yeah, that’s been there as long as I can remember. I know there was a fruit stand on the other corner. What was that called? Jennie’s and Joe’s.

Q: Were there any playgrounds around or what did you do as a child?

A: Well, mainly we just played in the neighborhood. I can’t basically remember any playgrounds. We would go down to Burke’s Glen pool swimming. Even when we were little my mother would take us down there but that seems to be the only thing that I can remember, that and the drive-in theatres.

Q: What drive-in theatres were operating at that time?

A: Well, there was one in Monroeville where Kaufmann’s is now [Ed: Lowe’s is on this location in 2010]. We would go there. When Walt Disney was playing.

Q: Was that the only theatre? There weren’t any indoor theatres at that time?

A: To go to the indoor theatre you usually went to Turtle Creek or East Pittsburgh. Those were the closest ones. There were none that I can remember in Monroeville.

Q: Did they have much as far as social events like dances or such when you were in, let’s say, junior high school?

A: Most of the social things we had were during the day. We had dances during the middle of the afternoon, like Friday afternoons in school. The only other thing that I can remember, even when we got into high school was dances at the Community Building, and they were square dances. There wasn’t round dancing or anything like that, they were all square dances.

Another thing at the elementary school, though, they had some kind of a program that you would go over to the Community Building, say at lunchtime on Friday afternoon and they would show the kids movies. ‘Cause I can remember seeing “Heidi” and all the Shirley Temple movies. The whole school went over and they watched movies. And, sometimes they ran them on Saturday afternoons, ‘cause one time I remember I wanted to go to a birthday party and I wasn’t allowed because my Mom had already promised somebody else that we would go down there to the movie. I was really mad! (Laughs.)

Q: This was the Community Building located?

A: The Community Building, Monroeville Community is now, I think, what they call the Masonic Hall. Um, right across from the, you know where you come out of the Zayre’s the back way? By the schoolhouse? That building right across the street there was the Community Building. And we had Girl Scout meetings there, and when you had Girl Scout Day Camp you used the woods down behind there for Day Camp. Most of whatever they had in Monroeville was held on there. I know the Masons had their meetings there and, it was probably, basically the only central meeting place, except for church basements, in Monroeville at the time.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Q: Was this owned by the municipality?

A: I really don’t know. I never thought who owned it. It was just called the Community Building, and that was basically before it was Monroeville, so it might have been a township type of thing. I don’t know.

Q: Then how did you get around in Monroeville?

A: Borrowed the car. Mostly, even in high school though, we stuck in Monroeville, even though we went to school in Turtle Creek. It was, um, regular high school type of thing that basically, no matter what, you still felt like an outsider. A lot of the things that went on in the high school were Turtle Creek things. So, when it came to socializing, your friends were still in Monroeville. Except for school functions you basically socialized in Monroeville. Well, when they built Eat ‘n Park {Ed: the one on Business 22} everyone started hanging out there, and then they built the Miracle Mile. Everyone started to hang out there. There really wasn’t anyplace to go.

Q: When did they build Eat ‘n Park, do you recall?

A: It was there before I got into high school, I couldn’t tell you exactly. By the time we were going anyplace in cars, it was already there and I can’t really remember when they built it.

Q: What did you do when you started dating, what types of things did you do?

A: Mainly we went to the drive-in. In junior high we went roller skating every Friday night down at the Ardmore. But, things like that, even though they were organized things, were difficult because someone always had to take you, you know, it had to be somebody’s parents take you down, somebody’s parents bring you back, because it was far. And, you had no other way of getting there. The busses ran but you couldn’t ride them yourself late at night that far. You had to go to Turtle Creek and transfer to another bus and come home from there, and we’d go to the football games, basically that’s about it. I did like the square dances. We went to those for a good while. Mostly, though, I’d say it was just going to the drive-in.

Helen Maxwell (born approximately 1890, moved to Patton Township in 1946)

Q: Did your children go to dances?

A: Well, we had a barn dance one time but we decided we wouldn’t have another one because it was too hazardous, having the hay on the upper part where we would have the dance, in case anybody would throw a cigarette! So, we just had it once, that was all. It was too hazardous. But they had a great time. They’d come out here to ride – and harvest – and even working for the – no, you didn’t have to be entertained (laughs). Oh, we’d invite them out for – I’d have turkey and a ham and chickens or whatever was ready and have a party – dance inside.

Teresa Mirro (Born 1915 in Delmont, moved to Patton Township in 1950)

Q: How'd your son make out when he was growing up with no neighbors close? Did he find friends?

A: Well, after we came in, then Walkos came and Misticks came, and they all had children, and so they played together. In fact, one day they took him down in back of Mrs. Miller’s place

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

in the woods back there. They were going to show him how to smoke. (laugh) So he's not coming home, and it's getting dark....like 5 o'clock. It’s getting dark. And I'm looking out the window and where in the world could he be, you know? And finally I see him coming up over there-- across the road there, you know. And he came up this way and came in the house. As soon as he came in the door I could smell smoke on him. And, he was so sick, and I could see him coming down the steps in, you know, the back out there. And I thought, those shoes must hurting him. They must be too small. He was limping like, you know. And here, he wasn't walking straight. He wasn’t--- that made him sick. So he came in the door and he went right in his bedroom and laid on the bed, you know. I said Jimmy what’s wrong? And he said, oh, mom, I'm so sick. And I said what’s you do, what happened? He said, oh, we were down there smoking.

I said, well if you wanted to smoke, your daddy would show you how to smoke. Why didn’t you say something to him? So, his dad came home, he was working overtime at the Airbrake, and he said, what’s wrong? What’s wrong with Jimmy and I said, oh, they were smoking. So, he, he, well, said, oh, if you want to learn to smoke, I’ll show you. Well, his dad didn’t smoke, but he thought he was going to make him smoke to really make him get sick, and then he wouldn’t smoke because that’s how he got cured. They were sneaking behind a building in Wilmerding with a bunch of boys, and they said, come on, let’s smoke, you know. He said he got so sick. He said they told him to inhale the smoke, you know, and that made him sick. He said he thought of that, and he was going to do that to Jimmy (laugh), but Jimmy got sick--- he doesn’t smoke--- not his wife--- none of us smoke.

But he'd go down in the woods. He liked to hunt and fish and set traps for-- possums or something, uh. He got a couple. He’d send the skins away, you know, uh. He'd go groundhog hunting and, you know, but he'd go down and set his traps. Then he’d go down and see if he got anything in them. And, he belonged to Boy Scouts, and he took up the accordion, and he’d go, he’d practice. And he was a paperboy, and he'd go down there, and he would walk all the way down the road just for a couple of customers because there weren’t that many people living there. And, uh, so he was in scouting and he'd practice accordion, uh, he went down to Carnegie Tech. He was in that Tam O’Shanter class where they'd do the art work, you know. So, his dad would take him down every Saturday and take him to Turtle Creek every Saturday for his, lessons. So I got out of doing all that because I didn’t drive.

Q: Do you remember the, the number of the scout troop?

A: Oh, the troop, gee, I don't remember the troop...

Q: What was the scoutmaster's name?

A: Elmer Piper, but he's dead now. He lived on Northern Pike and when the kids would go to meet there not only would the kids go, but the parents all went. I mean, it was a big thing, you know. So the kids were downstairs doing what they were doing, and we were all upstairs, in the kitchen or dining room, and we'd make coffee and cake. And we'd all be together like one big family, you know, yeah, nice.

Q: Was the drive-in there when you first moved up?

A: No, they came after, after we were here. They used to go in from Mosside here, you can see it from the Turnpike.

Q: How about Ann's Diner? Was that all here when you moved in?

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

A: I guess that came after we came. It seems that like after we came, everything started to build. You know, like we came, then, like Misticks came, and then Walkos, and then Lakes. Well, then Mistick got into the building business. After he built his home, then he got into the building business, and he started building all these houses and these apartments. I still think he has some property that doesn’t have buildings on it.

Edward Bailey (born 1921 in Homewood-Brushton, moved to Monroeville in 1955)

Q: What about for recreation, what was there when you first moved in to Garden City?

A: Well, right from the beginning they kept talking about a swimming pool and a tennis club over in the area where it is located now. I don’t think that materialized for about two years after we got here. I think Sampson held back on that development, as I recall now, I could be mistaken, but I don’t think… we moved here in ’55, I don’t think the pool was built in ’55, I’m sure it was either ’56 or ’57 before that became a reality. A swimming pool and a tennis court and an area for the residents to use. I think that’s when it started.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Points of Interest Legend Mentioned in This Chapter Shown on a 2010 Road Grid BG = Burke Glenn CB = Community Bldg. E1 = Eat ‘n Park (1st) HF = Haymaker Farm LB = La Barb MC = Miracle Mile Shopping Center / McMaster’s Grove Center MI = Miller’s Pond Logans Rd. Ferry Rd. Beatty O = Old Stone Church Rd. TF = Tilbrook Farm

LB Beatty Rd. Z = Zayres

Old William Penn Hwy. PA Turnpike

US 22 & I-376 Duff Rd. Center Rd. Northern Pike Old William Penn Hwy.

US 22 Z O Business Monroeville US 22 Blvd. BG

Northern Pike

Northern Pike Monroeville Stroschein Blvd. Rd.

Pitcairn PA Rd. Mosside James McGinley Turnpike Blvd / PA St. Monroeville Rd. Rd. TF 48

Saunders Station Rd. Tilbrook Haymaker Wall Rd. Rd. Ave. MI HF

MC E1

O Business US 22

Stroschein Rd. Detail of Central Monroeville Monroeville Blvd. Monroeville Blvd.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Chapter 6 - The Auction Barn

{Ed: The locations of each of the points of interest mentioned in this chapter are shown on a map at the end of the chapter.}

Sarah (Sylves) Thompson (born 1909 in Patton Township)

A: …And he [Ed: her father, Thomas Sylves] was a partner in an auction barn in Monroeville. It was called the William Penn Auction Barn. It was at the corner of Rt. 22 and, I don't know what the other road was.

Q: Other people have mentioned the auction barn but no one mentioned who owned it.

A: Well, it was a group of people. My father was one. Joe Taylor was another one, and there was another Taylor brother, and I can't tell you how many other people. And it was a lucrative business. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette or Pittsburgh Press, I'm not sure which, had quite a large article, and they quoted it as being a million dollar a year project.

Q: When did he buy the auction barn?

A: Let's see. It would have been oh, in the late '40's or early 50' s. And they sold everything. They had cattle. They had vegetables, fruits, furniture. You name it, and they had it. And, a number of people went there because it was entertainment.

Q: I've heard that it was the place to go on a Saturday night.

A: Uh-hum. But he had a real feeling for auctions. He had told me many times that when he was a youngster, instead of going to school, he went to the auctions with some of the older men in the community. And his comment was - they would say to him, “Throw your lunch away; we’d get a good lunch at the auction." And he would ride behind them – horseback - to these auctions, and he never got over that feeling for auctions

Jean (Winkler) Colbaugh (born 1934 in Patton Township)

A:…and, there was a auction right where the, right across 48 where you go on to the Parkway. There was a big auction barn there, and we used to go there every Saturday night to the auction. They had animals as well as other things that they sold there. And, I think everybody in Monroeville went to that auction. That was the one thing that you did on Saturday night. It was really like the only kind of entertainment much around here. And, we used to go there.

Q: What is on that site now?

A: I think it’s where the Parkway, when you come up 48 and you get on the Parkway to go to town. I think right where the…

Q: Where the cloverleaf is?

A: Yeah, I think right along in there is where it was. It was pretty close to that if not right there.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Teresa Mirro (Born 1915 in Delmont, moved to Patton Township in 1950)

Q: Do you happen to recall when there was an auction barn?

A: Oh, yeah, yeah. See that’s all changed. There was an auction barn there and that's where the continuation of the old Haymaker would come from - across 22 and come up. Then this new 22 came through and that was the end of the auction barn.

Q: What went on there?

A: Oh gosh, was it every night or a couple nights a week? They would sell anything. You'd bring it there and they would auction it off. They had like vegetables - if you had a pet, if you had an animal, a cow, or a pig or whatever – horses. They'd bring them there, and the auctioneer would auction it off. And whatever he got that's what you got. I guess he got his percentage out of that but, people would go and even if they didn’t want to buy, they’d go and, you know, just sit and see what was going on. They'd sell things to eat, and people would munch on things and walk around.

Q: Was the auctioneer from around here?

A: Murrysville, yeah, Ringers was his name, but he’s gone. He passed away. Yeah. That was right where the – you came on - off the ramp on, you know, on the Parkway where you came off the ramp, you’re coming on Mosside. Well, right around there, that's where the auction barn was.

Location of the Auction Barn Center Shown on a 2010 Road Grid Logans Rd. Approximate Ferry Rd. Beatty Rd. Location of the Auction Barn Beatty Rd.

Old William Penn Hwy. PA Turnpike Original Location US 22 & I-376 Duff Rd. Center Rd. Old William Penn Hwy. of Haymaker Road Northern Pike (dashed line) US 22

Business Monroeville US 22 Blvd.

Northern Old Stone Pike Church

Northern Pike Monroeville Stroschein Blvd. Rd.

Pitcairn PA Turnpike Rd. Mosside James McGinley Rd. Blvd / PA St. Monroeville Rd. 48

Saunders Station Rd. Tilbrook Rd. Haymaker Wall Rd. Ave.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Chapter 7 – Horses

{Ed: The locations of each of the points of interest mentioned in this chapter are shown on a series of maps at the end of the chapter.}

Sarah (Sylves) Thompson (born 1909 in Patton Township)

Q: We touched a little bit on transportation. Do you want to tell me how you traveled around when you were little?

A: My father always had a very good driving horse and a buggy and my mother drove the horse, too. And sometimes if we had to go shopping or take the horse to the blacksmith shop, we would all go with her. And then later on we had a T-model Ford and sometimes I think it would have been safer to walk because you never truly knew if you were going to get there or not. And you never got there without a flat tire. And then, you know, later it was other cars and things of that sort.

Mary (Piantiny) Winkler (born 1913 in Trafford, moved to Monroeville in 1919)

A: [Ed: while discussing photographs.] Them’s his horses. This is my Dad over here on the horse sitting. Them’s the horses that he brought with him, and I haven’t gotten any pictures, my older sister may have some pictures, whenever he had all his wagons, and the wagons I can remember.

Did Jean [Ed: her daughter] ever tell you about riding from here up to Murrysville on a horse?

Q: She mentioned something about riding.

A: Well, her dad would go up there – now that’s to show you that there wasn’t much traffic. Now that would have been about, oh, it’s going to be much more than 40 years. ‘Cause Jean’s 51. And she about 7 years old when she started to ride horses. And we had one famous horse she loved. She was a real horse. No pony or anything. And her name was Lovely Lady. And Jean idealized her. But when Jean turned 16 years she forgot about horses ‘cause she learned to drive a car. Then, that was it. But, she still likes horses. But she doesn’t go riding (laughs).

Q: Why did you have the horses?

A: Oh, we had a little pony farm, we called it. We had ponies and we had a corral right over here. We had a nice little barn. And, you’d be surprised, that was a lot of entertainment for a lot of children. Let me tell you, people used to bring their children – I forget what we even charged for a ride around the ring, you know. But, it was good when it lasted. But, then the men found out. My brother-in-law and my husband found out. This has gotta go! Because we kept the ponies nice, but all winter long what we made in the summer time went back into feed. So, they thought it was about time – they think they ought to quit. But, to this day people often say, “Oh, I remember when we brought our kids up there, or our grandchildren. Oh, did they like that when they got those pony rides!” And, just recently some woman says to me, “You can’t be Jean Winkler’s mother.” I said, “Yeah, I am”. She said, “Oh! She was the best kid in the neighborhood. She used to come over there to Mellon Plan and give all the kids free rides on the pony”. I said, “But, she was like that, she shared all the time”. She was never greedy.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Jean (Winkler) Colbaugh (born 1934 in Patton Township)

Q: What was your favorite entertainment?

A: My favorite entertainment was riding horses because my father had a farm and we had a lot of horses and ponies. And I rode horses all the time. I used to spend all my time at the barn, taking care of the horses and feeding them and cleaning the barn and cleaning the horses. And we went to horse shows and it was mostly out of Monroeville. But, most of them were like in Irwin or Greensburg. Sometimes we would go on the Turnpike out to Donegal, to Washington PA. And, most of all, my weekends were spent mostly with the horses.

Q: Where would they have had a horseshow in Monroeville?

A: Well, the horseshow that was here in Monroeville was after we probably moved into this house, and it was right up here, you know, where the church is, the Hillcrest Church. Are you familiar with the Hillcrest Church?

Q: No, I’m sorry I don’t.

A: OK, well if you look out this window you can see it, and it’s right off of James Street, and right behind there, there was a horse show up there. And, it was just a weekend, a Saturday and a Sunday, and it was held by the Speelman family. And, it was just, you know, people from the neighborhood and surrounding areas came. It was kind of fun, kind of neat.

Q: Why would the Speelmans hold it, did they have horses?

A: Oh, yeah, they had horses, yeah. And, at that time I used to ride some of their horses for them. One of the Speelman brothers was Jimmy Speelman, and he’s not living any longer, but he was really the one that was involved in it. He had the horses and they had a barn, like we had a barn. And, there was a barn like coming up this back road where you came. The Ridgeway family, they also had a barn and their daughter, Joan, and I rode together. And, we used to go to horse shows all the time.

Q: Why were there so many horses in the area?

A: You were allowed to have them then. Now you’re not allowed to have them.

Q: It wasn’t a business?

A: Oh, no. Well, my father, he would take them to, like, street fairs. You know, he would ride them, you know, like you would go to a carnival and you would ride a pony. And, he would have as many as 15 at one time. But, they were different than the show horses. The show horses, we never took to the fairs. They were totally different kinds of horses. And, just about everybody had horses. McKinney family, there’s a big farm up on the top of the other hill and they had a lot of horses, too. I think our kids have been cheated. I mean it. That was just the best part of growing up. I mean, there’s nothing more healthy. And it’s, you know, a lot of fun. And, it keeps the kids busy all the time. And, unfortunately, you’re not allowed to have them here. If you have seven acres or more in Monroeville, I think that’s what the law is, you can have a horse. And, if you don’t have seven acres, you can’t have a horse or pony.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

[Ed: discussing the lack of traffic in Monroeville when she was a youth.]: There really wasn’t much. There was a gas station or two along 22, but there really was not very much at all there. I could ride my horse any place that I wanted to. There were no barriers. My parents never told me there was a place I wasn’t allowed to go. Because, there wasn’t traffic. You could just about travel anyplace on a horse. Down like where the Mall is, you could ride all back through those woods, down in there. And, I was telling your Daddy [Ed: she is directing this comment to Katherine Nowak, age 10 at the time.] on the phone before that I rode from here to Murrysville, and I think you know where Murrysville is, and we rode down 22. But, there was only a two lane road then. You couldn’t do that today.

Q: Is that whenever you were a teenager?

A: Yes, I was probably about 12 years old and there was very little traffic in Monroeville. And we would sled ride on the main roads. I lived on Ohio Street, which is only two streets down, and we used to sled ride right down the main road, and it was dirt then. It wasn’t paved, you know, but, I mean, there were no cars. Of course, you can’t do that today.

Q: How many horses did you have?

A: Well, I know at one time we had 15 ponies, and then we always had one show horse which would be like this here, and then, oh, she had a colt. And, we had the colt for a long time, too. And, then my father sold it and, of course when I got married, they got rid of the horses because nobody was really, you know, my father had other things to do at that time, and they got rid of them all.

Richard Maxwell (born 1889 in Empire OH) and Helen Maxwell (born approximately 1890) (They moved to Patton Township in 1946)

Q: You have pictures of horses here. Were they for fun or business?

HM: Oh, just a hobby.

RM: Big Ike, do you got Big Ike there?

HM: No. Never mind the names of them, but he had a barn…

Q: The barn’s in the one picture. This is the barn, and it was right out here [Ed: the barn was uphill from their house, between what today is Northwestern Drive and Haymaker Road.]?

RM: Well, in the wintertime the road across the top there, top of the hill, would drift across level, across the fence, and we had a tough time getting through there sometimes with the horses.

Q: You didn’t ride the horse to work though, into Wilkinsburg?

RM: No, nuh. I had them in their one Sunday. One Sunday I rode them in there.

Q: Really?

RM: Jack and me.

Q: I remember when we first moved in up the street in ’57, that your son Dick brought us down here and we saw a new foal, one of the horses had a colt.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

RM: Oh, yeah. Yeah (laughs).

Q: I remember it was the first time I had ever seen a brand new colt.

RM: That was funny. We bought it; Joe Glasser bought it, bought this horse. And, they said that she’d been bred. And, I looked her over pretty good all around and I couldn’t say that she had, was gonna have a colt. So, one morning I come down there, there was a colt in the barn (laughs).

Q: I remember, he was beautiful! (He was) a gorgeous (colt).

HM: (Directed to her husband) Do you remember the date of that picture? (Pause) It was before we sold…

RM: What horse was it, maybe you can tell by that.

HM: It’s Bob.

RM: Bob.

HM: Reliable Bob. I don’t see any pines or rose bushes so it was shortly after we came here, I think.

Teresa Mirro (Born 1915 in Delmont, moved to Patton Township in 1950)

Q: How about the little sheds out back?

A: We put them there. We had a pony. My son was 2 – ½ years old, and his dad decided to buy him a pony, which I think his dad liked ponies and horses and since he couldn't have one, he bought this pony for his son when he was, you know, like 2- ½ years old for his birthday. So, where are we going to keep this pony? We're living in Wilmerding and building this house. You know, we'd come up here to build, and go home. So we decided to keep it in our foundation. The pony was in our foundation, down in the basement. So, we kept him there for awhile and finally Jimmy heard about this refrigerator. Remember when they had walk-in refrigerators? You'd walk in and they would have these big old walk-in refrigerators in grocery stores, or butcher shops or whatever. Well, that's what that was. It was one of these big walk-in refrigerators, you know. It had all the corks in between and it kept it real - it was insulated. It kept it cold and in the summer time it kept it cool. So, Jimmy bought that from somebody and brought it there and put it up and then that's where the pony went after we got it up. And we had a corral for it. We built a corral and had a fence around in the corner there and that's where the pony would, you know, run around, you know, and that's where Jimmy would ride the pony. And that's why that shed is back there. So after the pony was gone we made like a tool shed. And, you know, we had our firewood out there. After he outgrew the pony, he had a horse. He had a horse 'til he was 16. Then when he started to drive, then he didn't want the horse anymore,

Q: A horse on this property?

A: Uh, huh, we had it where the pony was - on the corner.

Q: What was that horse's name?

A: King, yeah, King. The fellow that used to ride it, he used to live in Trafford. He'd come up Haymaker and he had a back problem and somebody said if he rode a horse it would cure his back. So he goes out and buys this horse and he come to ride this horse

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

because there was no place to ride in Trafford. And, he'd come up, to ride the horse, - the back roads you know - Level Green and out this way. He'd come out to the corner and then go back. And then when we had the pony, he’d stop and talk to us, you know, and we got to know him. And then, when he wanted to sell his horse, Jimmy was kind of interested. He told his dad - I'd like to buy that. He said O.K. So then we bought it from him with the stipulation that he could ride it anytime he wanted to ride it, you know. And so, that’s how Jimmy got the horse. It was all black; we called him King.

------

Q: What happened to the pony?

A: Well, the pony had a young pony. The mother had the baby pony, was in foal at the time we bought it. So, we had two ponies at the time. So, like I said, we kept the mother in the basement here, and then we built the place out there. And when she had the baby, we sold the baby pony. We still kept the mother - the mother was Silver Lady, and the pony was Silver Bell.

Q: Was it unusual to have a pony around here?

A: Well, what do you mean unusual?

Q: Did many people have horses?

A: There was nobody living here. There was nobody living here when we bought the pony. You're not allowed to have any animals here now.

Q: Well, Walkos had that horse walking around just a few years ago.

A: I know, I know. Well, they’re not allowed, and, I mean, nobody complained.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Points of Interest Mentioned in This Chapter Shown on a 2010 Road Grid

Legend

HP = Hillcrest Presbyterian Church MM = Monroeville Mall Center Logans Rd. NW = Northwestern Dr. Ferry Rd. Beatty O = Old Stone Church Rd. OH = Ohio Street Beatty Rd.

Old William Penn Hwy. PA Turnpike

US 22 & I-376 Duff Rd. Center Rd. Northern Pike Old William Penn Hwy.

US 22 O Business Monroeville US 22 Blvd.

Northern Pike

MM Northern Pike Monroeville Stroschein Blvd. Rd.

Pitcairn PA Rd. Mosside James McGinley Turnpike Blvd / PA St. Monroeville Rd. Rd. 48 HP Saunders Station Rd. Tilbrook Haymaker OH Wall Rd. Rd. Ave. NW

O Business US 22

Stroschein Rd. Monroeville Monroeville Blvd. Blvd. Detail of Central Monroeville

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Chapter 8 - Making A Living

{Ed: The locations of each of the points of interest mentioned in this chapter are shown on a series of maps at the end of the chapter.}

Paul Aiken (born 1897 in Pitcairn)

Q: Where did you work?

A: Well, I worked over here for the railroad in the engine house. Then they had a strike and I went to steel works and did the same work there. Worked on the steam engines. Then they had some trouble with the railroad schedule and so on and I got a chance to come up to Wilmerding and they still had 2 steam engines there and I worked on them. The railway's the same kind of work.

Q: How'd you get into that?

A: Well, that was a big thing around here then, the railroad.

Q: Did you have any training, or did you just go?

A: No, you went there and you worked like an apprentice, you know, with a fella that - they had some good old mechanics over there at the railroad. I can tell you a story about one of them. He come there in bad times, maybe you don’t want any stories?

Q: Go ahead!

A: And old Zimmerman was the foreman. He was a good mechanic, too, as far as steam engines went. This fella come here and jobs wasn’t very plenty, but he talked Zimmerman into hiring him. Zimmerman wanted to know what he could do and he said, "I can do anything you’ve got here on these engines." So he give him a lot of tough jobs and he did them all. So in a few months this fella went to Zimmerman and said, "I’m gonna quit." Zimmerman told him- Zimmerman says, "well, there is no jobs available right now. He says; "What do you want to quit for? Well, he's gonna quit. Old Zimmerman says, “What for?" Well, he says, "I’ve been offered a job, master mechanic up in the Erie division," he says, "and I think I'll take it." That was a better job than the foreman had. It was, you know, it was people like that. I worked with a fellow over here by the name of Plummer, and he could do anything. Easy. On them engines. I asked a fella who knew him why he was working around here like that. "Well," he said, "he can't stay sober. That's the reason he’s working." He says, "He's been superintendant three times of the wrecking shop in Altoona. He gets drunk all the time." But that's got nothing to do with Monroeville much.

Q: Did you work at that then until you, you retired?

A: Ya.

Q: And when did you retire?

A: Uh, about 24 or 5 years ago. 65. When I was 65 I retired.

------

Q: Do you remember what your wages were at that time (1917)?

A: Well, the average wage was anywhere from 2 to 3 dollars. If you had 3 dollars, that was, there wasn’t that many people that had over 3 dollars a day. That's one thing; I don't

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

sympathize with these steel workers. Even at that time, those fellas in Latrobe tire mill made $25 a day. And I knew one of them. Course, he was another fella that couldn't stay sober, so he got a job with the railroad where I was. But he told us what they made $25 a day. They made tires for steam engines. And they were the same way when I worked in the steel works. Wages got to be around $5, between $5 - $6 a day then. But I don't sympathize with them steel workers. There was a fella worked with us, down there, he could do any job they give him in his line of work. But them mill fellas made three times as much as he did, and he had to learn a trade.

Q: Did the Depression affect your job?

A: No, it really didn't. Oh, yeah, it did. The Depression. But there were slack times around before World War I. It was pretty slack, too. The railroad was working about half time. The steel works practically shut down in the Depression.

Q: Did you have to cut back?

A: Oh, yeah, we was off work for a few months. Then they got World War II going, and they picked up again.

Q: Was this area hit badly during the Depression?

A: Well, not as bad as some of them. There's places, like around Braddock, and so on, they were hit worse. And Wilmerding, the Air Brake down there, they were still running about 2 or 3 days a week. That was one thing, these railroaders, they were like steel mill fellas. They had a rule, them road men, railroad operating fellas in the railroad, if they didn't have 38 days pay a month, they didn't call it full time. And if they didn't get that, somebody had to be laid off. That meant 9 and a half days pay a week. And, if they didn't get that, somebody had to be laid off so they could get it. So it hit some people and that's the way with them railroaders. They were bad eggs that way. And old Stats, that lived in north Pitcairn, there was a railroader down there named Martin Sherry, he got down to 8 days pay one week, and he says somebody'll have to be laid off so he could get full time. Stats give him a bawling out. He said, "I'm glad to be working two days, and so's a lot of other people." (pause) Then, now like, you talk about the ways they used to, there used to be two families, or at least more than a couple. Well, they were stock dealers out through Westmoreland. And they used to haul hay to people who had horses down, well, McCready was a big horse and wagon contractor, down around Braddock. Cunningham in Turtle Creek. Now, like Cunningham built the road from Monroeville Church to Center with a horse and wagons. And the stone quarry for it was out in Oliver Thompson's farm. That's handy where the turnpike crosses the Center Road. Each team hauled five loads of stone a day for the road building.

Sarah (Sylves) Thompson (born 1909 in Patton Township)

Q: So it sounds like your father was very successful

A: He was. He had no formal education. Absolutely none. But he had a mind for business and no matter what the situation was, he thought it through. If he thought he could make a profit on it, he went for it. I guess, you know, part of it is having enough nerve to do that.

------

Q: So then he bought land, buildings, everything? (laugh)

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

A: He was very much interested in real estate, and I think that after his purchase of - it was called the Gill farm originally. People by the name of Gills had it. He bought it, and I think then he became interested in real estate. He bought some in Plum Borough that later became a part of Allegheny County Community College. And then he bought Pine Hill. And in the interim he became vitally interested in antiques, both to buy and sell and to retain some of them.

-----WPSL Radio Station-----

Q: Tell me how you got involved with your radio station.

A: (laugh) My sister's husband and the music director in Gateway were on a fishing trip. And they got to talking about, you know, sports and broadcasting and what have you. And then somebody by the name of Ray Scott who was a sports announcer was there. Oh, he was gung ho on this. So I think her husband, you know, came back all elated and talking about it. And, my father listened and didn't say anything. And then eventually it came around to the place where they decided that they would see if there was a frequency available. And 1510 had been frozen for government use, and it had been released. And the best thing that they did was to find an FCC attorney who knew what the score was. So they made the search and found that it was available. Then he didn't have any money, and my father said he'd put up the money. And then all that land - that was before U.S. Steel bought the front. And he said, you know, we'd use five acres of that, put up a building, and all the other things that go with it which are just so numerous that it isn't even funny. So in September, 1964, we did our first broadcast, and nobody knew anything about communications. Little did they know about the FCC and their restrictions. And we had for our general manager a man who had worked at WJAS, and he had worked at McKeesport and had done a very good job as a disc jockey, but he didn't know anything about management. And this went on, and my sister was ill at the time, and it was very upsetting. And one day she said to me, "Please for goodness sake get over there and do something about it before my father loses what he has in it," and so this I did. And I worked through that year with that, and then in the spring I took a sabbatical leave because I couldn't do that, be in the school district, and have a home, too. And, uh, she died in, uh- and it was, you know, a real upsetting kind of thing. And like I say, her husband didn't know anything about business and, you know, it would come payday - I was writing my own personal checks for payday. So I said to my father, "Can't stand it; you have to do something." So then the partner he took in wanted to sell his share, and my father said, "Buy it." And I said, "I don't want to be bothered with it." And he said, "Buy it." So he gave me a check and said, "Tell the attorney to transfer the stock." So then my father and I owned two-thirds of the stock, and so then I started to do some of the things that I wanted to do - that I knew had to be done. And it was, you know, a terrific experience, but I wouldn't want it for anybody else because I think it's very, very frustrating, and then after my father died I decided that I would not operate it. So I sold it- 1980. So we were on the air from ‘64 to '80

Q: You called it WPSL. Were those letters chosen for any particular reason?

A: Uh-huh. They were my sister's initials.

Q: What did they stand for?

A: Well, you have to have either a K or W to start with, so her nickname was Punchy, and then Sylves Lieb. That would be WPSL.

Q: O.K. The P sort of threw me because you said her name was Esma.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

A: Uh-huh.

Q: What kind of programs were on when you were involved?

A: We our programming was called middle of the road. The music was contemporary music. We had a number of ethnic programs - Irish, Polish, Slovenian, Italian, you name it. We had some religious programs, and when we asked for the frequency, we said, you know, that it would be for community service, and it was. And we'd get all kinds of announcements of various things. We had what we called a punchboard, and it went every hour and told of events that were coming up and what have you. And then I did an hour's program myself, and it was the Shopping Mart, and it was a buy, sell, and trade things. And there were many days that we had 50 calls in the hour. And you jotted down real quick like, you know, what they had, and their telephone number. And the next day if you had time, you announced it, and if you didn't they called again. [Ed: after review of the interview transcript, Mrs. Thompson added the following comments about the programming: Headlines on hour and half hour News on quarter hours- using 15 to remind listeners of 1510, our frequency Editorials Educationally Speaking Mayor's Mike Punchy's Service Line Punchy's Shopping Lark On Punchy's Service the entire book, "Monroeville l744-l974," was broadcast in half hour segments.]

Q: Sounds interesting. Sounds tough.

A: Well, I’ll tell you what. You are scheduled to the second, and it's very frustrating. My father used to say to me - I didn't complain; I just would comment on it. And he’d say, "Well, look what you've learned, how many people you've met." And my comment was, "Dad, I could have done without." I wouldn't go back into it again - not at all. Because I had the business sense, and I had no background in business. And he did, and you know, he never said don't do it or do it. He would always say, "Have you thought about this." And, you know, then I would think about it and decide.

------

My husband, Alex M. Thompson, was a chiropractor. He had two offices, but after an automobile accident which required such a long period for recovery, he closed the public practice offices but continued with private practice.

Floyd Johnston (born 1911 in Patton Township)

Q: What was dairy farming like? Did you have milking machines or...

A: By hand. We milked by hand, and we sold raw milk. We didn't sell processed milk. We delivered everyday because the people could only buy a pint of milk, instead of buying a quart of milk or a gallon like they do today. They bought a pint of milk, and they used it that day, that is during that day. Or maybe they bought a quart of milk if they had a large family, but they didn't buy two or three days' supply of milk. We delivered everyday, seven days a week, well from 1908. I think I quit delivering seven days a week about 1930, 31 around there, but milk had been delivered everyday from the farm in all those years from 1908 to say 1930- in that area. I don't quite know when we quit seven days a

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

week.

Q: Now did the family do all the work, or did you have some hired people to help?

A: Well, Dad had to hire help. He had some hired help. He and Mother and we children done our share of work.

Q: Who did the delivering?

A: Well, Dad delivered for many years, and then after he had a bad siege of pneumonia, and then my Uncle Elmer, who lived in Pitcairn, he worked for the Borough as a policeman for many years, why he came back to the farm and delivered milk for several years for my Dad, delivered Pitcairn and in the area. And we children carried milk in Monroeville. Every morning when we went to school we carried a few bottles of milk, and we had about six or seven customers that we carried milk on our way to school every day of the week.

Q: Besides carrying the milk to school, when you were little, did you have special chores that you did on the farm?

A: Oh, yes. I might have been little and young, but I got up in the morning, and I milked one cow before I went to school, that is as a boy of six years of age, first grade. I helped milk one cow every morning. I didn't milk the best. I milked the ones that were pretty well dried off or something like that, but I had to get up and milk anyhow. And I had to help feed the calves and things like that, so I did.

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Q: How about any WPA work. Was there any of that done around your farm or in the area that you know about?

FJ: Well, yes there was a lot done.

LL: Specifically what?.

FJ: Well, the Northern Pike at Pearce's corner where it goes down to 22 was all piked by WPA workers. It was all - stone was hauled in there, and broke right on the road there - broken with sledgehammers from Pearce's corners to where you go out onto 22. That was all done by hand, the WPA. And down on the Turtle Creek Road - we didn't have too much done in our area. There was some road in, well on the Tillbrook Road. You used to go up around the hill there, and there was a big place, and you had to go up around what was Charlie King's barn. You had to go up around there on out to what you called the Tillbrook Road. Well, they made that road where that big house is sitting - two great big houses on the right going up there above where George Dale's little houses that he moved in. Do you know where they're at?

LL: No, on Tillbrook?

FJ: Yeah, on Tillbrook Road. The first house belongs to uh, - on Tillbrook Road coming off of Pitcairn Road - that belongs to Ronnie Kerner, and then those other houses in there - they're in there sort of below facing onto Pitcairn Road. There's two or three on Pitcairn Road, and then one facing on Tillbrook Road.

LL: Yeah, I know.

FJ: Well, then right above there, there's two big new ones...

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

LL: Do you mean Tillbrook Estates? Yes, I do know where that

FJ: Well, right across there, there was a barn, and that's where Tillbrook Road come in around - down over the hill and in and around that barn down Tillbrook Road the way it is now. Well, they dug this out and straightened it out all by hand with WPA men, and hauled it with a dump wagon or dump truck or whatever. At first they used a dump wagon with horses, and then they spread the dirt down along different places. And the Stroschein Road was dug by WPA from the Stone Church down to Pitcairn Road. Where it goes out onto Pitcairn Road. That was done by WPA workers.

LI: So mostly road work?

FJ: Yes, mostly road work.

Charles Vercelli (born 1916 in Patton Township, grew up on a farm on McGinley Road)

Q: How about your mother, what kinds of chores and things did she have to do?

A: Well, she was the typical old-time housewife and farmer's wife. She had chickens and geese and ducks, and guinea hens and what else was there, and she made cheese and butter and picked berries and made jelly and, of course, took care of eight kids.

Maybe you wonder how we preserved things?

Q: Yeah, I was going to ask you.

A: Well, my mother, as all farmers, had a lot of crocks - you know what I mean by crocks - two gallon, five gallon, 8 gallon. And in these big ones when we butchered she would make, we would make sausage-we made up our own sausage in the casing and, uh, and hamburgers. And then she would render the lard or the fat in the hog, and she would - after she cooked these hamburgers - now the sausage you didn't cook them - you put them up dried until they were ready to be packed. And then she would pack them in the crock and then pour this hot, uh, rendered fat over them, and it would go down - lard is what it would be - and it would go all down through them and seal that, And then you had two things. You sort of killed two birds with one stone. You had your - you sealed it and preserved it - and then everybody used lard. If you find a recipe that has lard in it you know it is on old time recipe of course. And then the hamburgers - she cooked them and put them in the crock and did the same thing. Rendered the fat in there and while it was real hot, poured it over, and as we needed it she'd take it out and use it. The same thing with our vegetables. She canned a lot of it, but also as much as we could, we tried to what we call, bank. And we would have cabbage for all winter by placing straw down and then pyramiding the cabbage and putting straw over that and then putting about 18 inches of dirt on it. And then during the winter, we would dig into that and get our carrots, cabbage, beets, celery, and such - apples, also. And they would - they would be so fresh - so fresh. Now you’d lose some of it. You’d lose some of the outer leaves like of the cabbage, but all in all it was a very good idea. Then we had an underground cave that my father had dug through the rock, and it was about 40 feet long. It went straight in and made a left turn then and came up in the basement in the house. And we had a grape vineyard, and, of course, he made wine. He kept his wine In the underground cave. My mother kept the milk and the butter. Meats would not spoil for two or three days.

Q: It was cool.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

A: It was nice and cool.

Q: Is that still there or was that filled in?

A: They kind of filled it in, but it wouldn't be too much of a job, I guess, to open it up again because they tore the house down and bulldozed dirt all over it and filled in the front so that the children couldn’t get in and possibly get hurt .

Q: Did your mother make any kind of Italian specialties like salted hams and stuff.

A: We salted and cured our hams or smoked them but, our menu was very unlike a stereotyped Italian menu. But, yes we had spaghetti but we ate a lot of rice, and it wasn't until years later that I realized why my parents used rice, and they came from like the Po valley, and the Po valley is a rice raising region.

Q: So they were northern Italian. There is a difference between northern and southern Italian cooking.

A: Yes. We had all the meats and vegetables that grew on the farm and so on, but we did have ravioli, and we did have - my mother made Lasagna, but mostly we ate a very varied menu American style.

Q: And you always made it through the winter or were there any winters when you worried that the food was not going to stretch?

A: You mean, not any food? We went to the store. Because my father worked. At first he just worked in the mines, and then when the mines - the Pittsburgh Coal Company left this area, then he worked in the mines that were run by small entrepreneurs, you would call them.

Q: Independents?

A: Yeah. They would just work in the winter. So in the summer he'd work the farm and in the winter he'd work in the mines. So generally speaking, there was money, but we went through the Depression. I think my father would have starved to death before he would have gone on welfare. He was that type. We didn’t have very much money, but I didn't realize ‘til later on in life how good we ate. You know we had the best life - - fresh fowl, fresh beef. Veal. We had sheep, so we had lamb.

Q: How big a piece of property did you farm?

A: 40 acres. It was just a small family farm.

Q: Forty acres sound big to me. What were sort of its boundaries? Did it go up to Saunders Station road?

A: Oh, no. No. It's on the left hand side of McGinley Road. Left hand side which is now owned by Westinghouse Nuclear.

Q: You mentioned that you had a frame house, did you have other buildings? You had a barn?

A: Oh, yes, we had a barn. Of course everyone had an outhouse and a Sears Roebuck catalog.

Q: What kind of chores you had to do when you were little?

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

A: Everything that you do on a farm. We all pitched in, all eight. The girls worked just as hard as the boys. We raised the crops and helped with whatever there was around the barn, fed the chickens and so on. My mother mostly took care of that, picking the eggs and so.

Q: What did you like to do best?

A: What did I like to do best?

Q: Didn’t you have any favorite chores?

A: No. I’m not the type that says, “Boy those were the good old days”. Baloney! They were tough. You worked hard. You earned a good living. You learned the good things in life, but you had to work. You didn’t sit around. You had to work, and everybody in the family worked. That's the only way that you could survive on the farm.

I always remember during the Depression - I can't imagine where my mother got the quarter - but she got me to walk to Pitcairn. That was about 3 or 4 miles each way, and she gave me a quarter, and I bought a pound of hamburger, a pound of butter, and a pound of hot dogs and brought back 3 cents. And she stretched that out with the other things she had into big meals for eight to ten people.

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Q: And what job did you work at?

A: First I worked on the farm, and then I worked in the coal mines for about four years and then I worked at a service station, then I worked for Gulf Oil - that was in Dravosburg on the river. Uh, and then they moved from there to a pipeline there in Delmont, and I was one of the newer fellows, so I got laid off, and then I went to work for B & P Motor Express, and then I retired from there.

Jean (Winkler) Colbaugh (born 1934 in Patton Township)

Q: Then your parents were also born in Monroeville?

A: No, my parents weren’t born in Monroeville. My mother was born in Monroeville, but my father was born in Wilmerding.

Q: I see. Then your grandparents lived here?

A: Yeah, right.

Q: What did your father do for a living?

A: He worked in the Westinghouse Air Brake in Wilmerding. He was a machinist.

Arlene (Bateson) Scalese (born 1940 in Patton Township)

Q: What did your father do for a living?

A: Worked at the Westinghouse in East Pittsburgh.

Q: Did your mother ever work?

A: She was a teacher.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Q: For how long?

A: Off and on. She substituted, mainly. She taught when they first got married. In Monroeville.

Richard & Helen Maxwell (moved to Patton Township in 1946)

Q: How long did it take you to get from Wilkinsburg out here on a normal day?

RM: Ohhh… it didn’t take very long to get out here, the roads were pretty good.

Q: How would you come out from Wilkinsburg?

RM: Come out 22 there.

Q: The old 22?

RM: Yeah. 22 there.

Q: Where would you hit Haymaker, then? Because it wouldn’t have the same junctions, would it. Did you have to come down 48?

RM: Yeah.

Q: What was your company called that you worked in?

RM: Lincoln Garage. Yeah, I started – I don’t know, I was in the laundry business. And, I worked for Barnes laundry Company down on Atlantic Avenue. End of Penn.

Q: In Pittsburgh?

RM: And, I decided one day to quit them down there, so I went in the back office and told the boss I was going to quit. “Hey, you can’t quit!”, (laughs), he wouldn’t let me quit, and there was a fellow that was the office manager, he said, “I don’t know how we’re gonna to get along without you, because you’re gonna quit’. And so, I quit anyhow (laughs). I just quit! And then, I think it was 1924.

Q: Did you buy the garage from someone? Or did you start it from scratch?

RM: Well, George Smith had it. He lived in the big house with the pillars over there? Well, that’s where he lived. And then they had a fellow that worked on it, on the inside of the house over there. And, he pegged the floors. Put all new floors in. Pegged them in there. And, it was a beautiful job, of work. That’s where Freddy Gipple lives now.

Q: Well, did you buy your business from Mr. Smith?

RM: No, let me see, what was that guy’s name now? He lived in Wilmerding. He had these two boys in this business down there. Two boys – Eddy and Lou. And, Lou was, he worked evening shift. He’d go home about eleven o’clock.

Q: You bought that in 1924, and then that’s when you were living in Murrysville?

RM: Yeah. Yeah, I lived in Murrysville and then, and, Mella Martin, she worked for me down in the garage there. She was half boy (laughs). She changed tires and everything, she’d do anything.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

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Q: What kind of cars did you sell?

RM: Dorant, Hudson, Flint.

Q: Flint? I never heard of a Flint car.

RM: Never heard of Flint car?

Q: What did it look like?

RM: They were, they were – it was a large car.

Q: Sort of like a Packard?

RM: Yeah… it would be Packard size.

Q: You said you sold Flints and Hudsons.

RM: Durant first.

Q : Is that an American car ?

RM: Yeah.

Q: Was it one company make all of those?

RM: Yeah.

Q: What company was, what was it called?

RM: Well, let me see, they were on Baum Boulevard, downtown. I can’t remember who is in there anymore.

Q: But, you sold those, the cars in nineteen-twenty-four?

RM: We came out here in twenty-four and then, Mike Strosster, he lived in Wilmerding then. His father built this garage down there…

Q: The Lincoln Garage?

RM: Well, it turned out to be later.

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Q: What did your husband do for a living whenever you first moved into Patton Township?

HM: He was a car dealer?

Q: Was that in ’46?

HM: From 1924, and he really never retired. Kept on and on because our sons took it over. And, he was riding horseback all over there – all over Monroeville when he was 75. If a man came out here to ride, why he’d lead them anyplace. But, when he was 75 he was going by himself.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Points of Interest Mentioned in This Chapter Shown on a 2010 Road Grid Legend

JD = Johnston Dairy O = Old Stone Church PC = Pearce’s Corner TE = Tilbrook Eststes W = Westinghouse Nuclear Center WP = WPSL Radio Station Logans Rd. Ferry Rd. Beatty Rd.

Beatty Rd.

Old William Penn Hwy. PA Turnpike

US 22 & I-376 Duff Rd. Center Rd. Northern Pike Old William Penn Hwy.

US 22 O Business US 22 Monroeville PC Blvd. Northern JD Pike WP Northern Pike Monroeville Stroschein W Blvd. Rd. TE

Pitcairn PA Rd. Mosside James McGinley Turnpike Blvd / PA St. Monroeville Rd. Rd. 48

Saunders Station Rd. Tilbrook Haymaker Wall Rd. Rd. Ave.

O Business US 22

WP Stroschein Rd. Monroeville Monroeville Blvd. Blvd. Detail of Central Monroeville

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Chapter 9 - Coal Mines

{Ed: The locations of each of the points of interest mentioned in this chapter are shown on a series of maps at the end of the chapter.}

Paul Aiken (born 1897 in Pitcairn)

A: [Ed: while discussing the area of the Beatty farm – near the current Gateway Middle School, the Number 5 Fire Hall and the nearby Industrial Park.] And, let's see, what else was out there? Well, a place, that probably's where the school is now over there was an old Beatty farm and I don't remember what his name was, but his daughter was old Dan McMaster's wife. She went west for her health and she married him out there and he come back here and then he inherited about 250 acres of coal and so on. And that was Margaret Beatty - that was her name.

Q: When did they strip the coal where the Industrial Park is now?

A: Well, I can't tell you exactly. Well, I don't know when they stripped that coal. Round World War I they were stripping it. Started in on it. And then, Margaret Beatty, that's Dan's wife, her old home was over there where the school is, and they built a trestle across the road there where, across the Old Northern Pike, and they hauled the coal from over there across with a dinky engine down in the valley there below. And old McPeters, he was in with Cunningham on the coal business. He was superintendant of the Union Railroad, so he laid a railroad track up there so they could load coal.

Q: They did quite a bit of strip mining in Monroeville, didn't they?

A: They did. Well, a lot of it wasn't deep enough to mine any other way.

Q: Were in Monroeville do you recall them strip mining?

A: Well, all that around where the Miracle Mile is was strip mined.

Q: Ok, you said there were trees there. There were oak trees…

A: That was before they took the coal out. There was a big grove of oak trees and they used to, all the communities had a big community picnic there.

Q: And did that end when the picnic when they stripped that area?

A: Yah, well, they cut the timber off, stripped the coal, Cunningham got in there. He missed about 2 or 3 acres of coal in there. He says afterwards he doesn’t know how he missed it. Anyway, the Monroeville School Board got the benefit of it. See, they had that property for a school once. And then the state didn't want them to build a school so handy to highway and they put the turnpike through. So they moved the school back a piece. They're in on, well back toward that industrial park, you know there's a school. They moved it back in there.

Sarah (Sylves) Thompson (born 1909 in Patton Township)

Q: What was your father's occupation?

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

A: My father did a number of things. First he went to the mine when he was just a very young boy to work in the coal mine. And then he became interested in dealing in cattle. Later, he went back into this mining, this time as an operator. The first mine was on the McKinney farm between Monroeville and Wilmerding Roads. This would have been in the early 20's. He leased the coal and had it mined. The second mine was on the property he owned in Monroeville. And then, finally, he got into real estate.

Q: For some reason, I thought he owned mines.

A: Well, he did. The first mine was where U.S. Steel is now. It would be all of U.S. Steel's property there; it was his and he later then sold it to U.S. Steel. [Ed: this property ran from the current United States Post Office on Monroeville Boulevard towards the current Municipal Building and to the east over the hill.]

Q: Did he have other mines in the area?

A: No. That was the only one in the area.

Q: Did that one have a name?

A: He and his brother were in partnership, and they called it Sylves Brothers' Mine.

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Q: Now you mentioned that the house you lived in was small. Can you tell me anything else about it? What did it look like, how many rooms?

A: Well, when my grandfather came to Patton Township from Tunnelton which is very near here he built this house and - I’m not real sure - but it goes back into, oh maybe, 1870s and it was four rooms; two rooms on the first, two rooms on the second floor. And it was a wooden structure and there were fireplaces in every room because that’s the heating that we had. There was no water as such. We used a cistern for water, and the lot on which it was built was very small, I think about a third of an acre. But, there were other miners who came from Tunnelton at that time and they built in a row and his was the first house in the row, and, this was on what is now Mt. Pleasant Road.

Floyd Johnston (born 1911 in Patton Township)

A: [Ed: discussing a house built by his uncle:] He tore that house down in a little place called Boxcar Town back in - well between Harrison City and Murrysville there was a coal mining town. He tore that house down and moved it down there and built it on that little three-cornered piece of ground, right along the creek.

Charles Vercelli (born 1916 in Patton Township)

A: My father came in 1895, and he stayed for a little while up at what is known as the Warner House {Ed: Sunrise Tavern}. At that time it was a stagecoach stop, and it had a small one-room building, and he stayed there while he worked in the coal mines, and then he went back to Italy and got married, and they came back again, I would say they came back about 1900.

Q: How did your father happen to decide to come to Monroeville?

A: Well, he heard that Pennsylvania was a good mining area, so he came here with his uncle.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Q: Did they both stay?

A: No, the uncle went back. Then he [Ed: his father] went back, and they came back and made this their permanent home.

Q: Did they build the house here at McGinley then?

A: Well, from 1900 until 1915, they lived in Patton Township. I would say the name of the area - it went by mining names and it was called Number 5.

Q: Whereabouts, near Mellon Plan?

A: No, it was where Old 22 goes under the railroad tracks. Unless you want to say Gascola, and that's even harder to pronounce.

Q: Gascola? They called it that, too? So it's down in that valley where Union Railroad is now?

A: Yes.

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Q: You mentioned your father was a miner.

A: Yes, he worked in the coal mines for about 50 years.

Q: What coal mines?

A: He worked in what we refer to as the Pittsburgh vein. I think he worked in the deep mines, one summer. He didn't like it so he came back to the surface mines and he worked in what we call the Pittsburgh vein.

Q: Was that more like strip mining?

A: No, it was underground, but it wasn't deep like, say, the Renton mine.

Q: So the Renton mine was a deep mine. Were there other deep mines around here? {Ed: the Renton mine was in Plum Township.}

A: No, not around here.

Q: So he worked in the Renton mine and then decided that wasn’t for him?

A: Yes.

Q: How about the surface mines, where were they?

A: Well, they were all over the Monroeville area. See, like under what we called the Monroeville school which is now at, uh, the big building up across from Warner's Flowers. I went to school there.

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Q: Let me ask you about the hill next to the high school.

A: I still call it the “spoil dump” [Ed: waste material from the strip mining]. Well, that was a hill and that was the last place in this direction that there was the Pittsburgh vein of coal. See, there's no Pittsburgh vein of coal in this direction. So you don't have to worry about

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

this building falling. And the reason - and they stripped mined it because there wasn’t enough there to go into coal mining and it was close enough to the surface and their equipment was already large enough - let's see, that was probably in the late 20s or early 30s. It would have to be the late 20s, I think. Yes probably in the late 20s. We had an awful time with our horse and wagon. We had to go up this hill like this and down the other side, and then when they got done with that, why you could go straight through.

Mary (Piantiny) Winkler (born 1913 in Trafford, moved to Monroeville in 1919)

Q: So, LaBarb’s was in the middle of fields and farms?

A: Yeah, that’s farms, that’s what it was – I mean the roads weren’t good like they were – now where the Miracle Mile was, I can remember when that was nothing but hills. Just – they stripped it, you know, for coal. And, they just left big places, you know – in between and that. I can remember that – that that was just like clay back in there.

Arlene (Bateson) Scalese (born 1940 in Patton Township)

Q: Was there a lot of coal mining going on when you were growing up in the area around the Old Stone Church?

A: No, I think most of it was done by then. I remember the strip mine ‘cause when we lived in the trailer camp we used to play in them, but there was no, no active mining that I remember.

Q: Where were the strip mines that you recall?

A: Underneath where Cedar Ridge is built (laughing)! On Stroschein Road, there. That was all strip-mined back in there.

Q: Were you familiar with the area where the Mall was?

A: That was just all big hills. I don’t remember any strip-mining in there as such. They say Monroeville’s all strip-mines, so I can’t really tell. When you think about it, it seems like the Mall has always been there, but I know there was a lot of filling and scraping done when it was built.

Teresa Mirro (Born 1915 in Delmont, moved to Patton Township in 1950)

Q: Is that where it was? Never heard of it.

A: So now with the new roads, all that was torn down. Miracle Mile was a big slate dump, you know. They excavated the coal, and just let all the - all that slate dump they called it. That all had to be hauled away before the shopping center was built. Just like this place up here. They used a lot of that down at the nursing home down at McGinley House on McGinley Road. 'Cause that was, a big valley too, remember, and of that to fill in.

Edward Bailey (born 1921 in Homewood-Brushton, moved to Monroeville in 1955)

Q: Do you recall what this area of Garden City was like when you first moved in here?

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

A: Yes, this area was a part of the, I think, but I’m not sure, part of the Graham farm estates and anywhere from 15, or maybe not, from 10 years to 20 years before this was acquired by the Sampson people that built the homes, this area had been stripped mined and evidence of the strip mining was still in my own back yard. I could still see a lot of coal surfacing. And, there was a 20 foot section of “O” gage track still laying in the back yard.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Legend Points of Interest Mentioned in This Chapter CR = Cedar Ridge Appartments Shown on a 2010 Road Grid F5 = Fire House #5 G5 = Gascola, Oakhill Mine #5 GC = Garden City GH = Gateway High School IP = Industrial Park LB = La Barb MC = Miracle Mile Shopping Center Logans Rd. Center Ferry Rd. Beatty Rd. MH = McGinley House IP MP = Mt. Pleasant Rd. LB Beatty Rd. MS = Monroeville School F5 Old William Penn Hwy. O = Old Stone Church PA Turnpike PO = U.S. Post Office (2010) G5 RH = Radio Hill (actual) US 22 & I-376 Duff Rd. Center Rd. SD = Soil or Slag Dump Northern Pike Old William Penn Hwy. (erroneously known as “Radio

US 22 Hill”) O ST = Sunrise Tavern / Warner Business Monroeville US 22 Blvd. House US = US Steel Research Northern Pike SD RH GH Northern Pike Monroeville Stroschein Blvd. PO Rd. MH US Pitcairn PA Rd. Mosside James McGinley Turnpike Blvd / PA St. Monroeville Rd. Rd. 48

Saunders Station Rd. Tilbrook Haymaker Wall Rd. Rd. Ave. MP

ST MC MS

O Business US 22

Stroschein CR Rd. Monroeville Monroeville Blvd. Blvd. Detail of Central Monroeville

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Chapter 10 - Where Things Were

{Ed: The locations of each of the points of interest mentioned in this chapter are shown on a series of maps at the end of the chapter.}

Paul Aiken (born 1897 in Pitcairn)

A: Then, they've moved so many roads, too, that's another thing. See, the turnpike came through and they changed the roads. Just for an example, out there where the road goes over towards, uh, halfway to Center, the turnpike moved the Old Frankstown Road. And it was the property line for some property once. And Warner, he told them about it and they got to arguing, somebody out there and he told them and they gave about 20 acres of ground by changing it to one fella and took it away from another fella by using it for a property line. So a lot of these here arguments that's coming up actually was a backlash of some political or government deal, you know. Like the old Northern Pike it went through the Sunrise Tavern in Monroeville. You know where it is? It's where you, right on the corner on the right where you turn to go Turtle Creek. And the old stage drivers used to come along there like, when there's horses. And that was the old Sunrise Tavern, there till a doctor got the place now.

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You fellas started out a few years too late. If you'd come' around when Walter Glendenning was living he could have give you the date for anything in the last 90 years. He was like a walking encyclopedia, that fella. Their farm was in back of Jim Beatty's old farm out here before you go down Ray's hill,

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

going towards Haymaker Road and you take the left hand road. It went over and down Ray's Hill to Ray's forty. And their farm 'was over in there. [Ed: possibly should be Reigh’s Hill and Reigh’s Fording – see section “Just People”..] And then, that stone house down in the valley down there, you know where it is down Abers Creek? No. Well, there's a stone house down there but a fella by the name of Anthony built it but that was Bill Malise. The property was Bill Malise's. He had Malise’s Mill down there years ago, along Abers Creek. But, that stone house...was on the same property, but another fellow built the house. Some people think that's his old house, but it isn't. His was an old wood house but it's gone. And the mill was over along the hillside across the creek from ah, that place. And his daughter's name was Molly. Her and my mother went to school together at Haymaker School.

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And there was two old fellers, Collins, were shingle makers and they had a place over there where the turnpike gate is. And they told me, I don't remember it, but grandfather would go over and bring the wood that they made shingles out of over and they would come over too, and if something happened that would take more than the kids could take care of, why them old Collins fellas was there to do it. They were shingle makers, by trade. They had a place there and then when they were gone, Charley Johnson moved in and he was a harness maker, a German feller, and they were no relation to this Johnson out here. They were another Johnson.

Q: And that was about when?

A: Well, before I went to school. And I'm 89. That was over 85 years ago. See, there was 4 or 5 houses over in there where the turnpike is and they removed them all. For that tollgate. It used to connect- that road used to run through and connect with MacGregor's Crossroads down there where that bridge is they were talking about. And then Bob Thompson lived across the valley from that bridge in a brick house. His oldest daughter, Rachel, she's still living out in Ohio., Her brother told me.

Sarah (Sylves) Thompson (born 1909 in Patton Township)

Q: You mentioned Monroeville Road as being the first paved road. What else can you tell me about present-day Monroeville Boulevard? Was that always there; was it called that; or what kind of road was it?

A: Uh, no, James Street, what is now James Street, was actually the main road into Turtle Creek. And, from the top of the hill at the intersection of James Street and Monroeville Road that was just a dirt road. So was Mt. Pleasant. Well, too many of them really and truly couldn't have been called roads because there was no need for a road. Everybody rode horseback or walked. And then as they were using buggies and wagons and what have you. They became wider, but still not improved.

Q: Did the area around your home on Mt. Pleasant- did that have a local name?

A: Oddly enough, it was called Sawmill Valley, and the reason it was called Sawmill Valley was because someone had started a sawmill in that area because I think when these people started moving into the area, there was a need for lumber and what have you. And so someone decided that would be a good business, and they started a sawmill. And there is a creek that runs along Monroeville Road going toward Turtle Creek on the left-hand side. Then it crosses under Monroeville Road and runs on the right-hand side. And to get to the sawmill, they had what they called a footbridge, and in my mind it was nothing more than a log that you had to walk. And it was one of the most frightening things in my

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

childhood to be sent across that. And, the mill was not there an overly long period of time. I suppose they furnished what wood they needed and then moved on.

Q: But it was there when you were little- you actually saw the mill?

A: Yes, I actually saw it. Another reason, I think, why they probably moved on was because the lack of trees to turn into lumber.

Q: Did it use the stream for power?

A: You know what; I can't tell you what they did use for that. I just don't know.

Q: I would think there’s not enough water.

A: It would seem like to me they used, I'm going to say steam. I don't know whether it could have been that or not. Because they could have, you know, used the scrap wood and gotten power. But it was always know as Sawmill Valley.

Q: Now were there just homes or were there stores or any other different buildings in that area.

A: You know, there would be farms and barns and things like that, but as far as stores - no there just weren't. And I think probably the only store that we would consider a grocery store would have been in what is now Monroeville proper.

Q: Where would that be?

A: It would have been where Eat 'n Park is {Ed: across from the Old Stone Church}. And, you know, I can't tell you who the people were that had the store. Then, you know, the farmers would bring in flour that they had ground- cornmeal, whatever. And then I think that later the store was in - oh golly - it would be, I guess where the Boron station is now - right across from the Old Stone Church. And it also then contained the post office. And it was a fascinating place. They had the big bins that contained the flour or the meal or whatever. But the most fascinating thing were the pigeonholes in the post office. No names on them, no numbers. The postmaster evidently knew everybody, and it has been said that anything that wasn't sealed, uh, was read by the postmaster. And, people gathered there to get the mail, to get the information to know when there was going to be a sale or anything of the sort. It was truly a community center. And the postmaster was Joel Monroe.

Q: You remember him?

A: I don't remember him, no.

Q: But when you were little, he was still the postmaster?

A: No, the building was still there, but they no longer used that as a post office.

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Q: Did World War I have any effect on Monroeville? Were there any gatherings sending boys off?

[Editor’s note: Although the question references the First World War and Sarah states “World War I”, it appears that she is actually discussing the Second World War and the period following it. Since Sarah was born in June of 1909 it is unlikely that she worked with the Red Cross at the age of 7 or 9. Also, discussion of the building that “is now” the Mason’s

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

correlates with the Arlene (Bateson) Scalise interview of events in the post World War II era.]

A: Uh, huh. I can remember very distinctly of getting involved in the Red Cross in World War I, and learning to knit. We learned to knit washcloths. I'm sure they were most important. (laugh) And then from that we went on to socks and then to scarves. And the women met, oh maybe two or three afternoons a week, and they built a building and used it solely for that. They did some kind of sewing. I'm not sure what they made, and that was the first time I had seen an electric machine. And then they had all kinds of social events that would be for grownups to make money to pay for the building.

Q: Where was the building?

A: It was on Monroeville Road at the end of what is called Township Road.

Q: Then after the war how did they use the building? Did gatherings continue?

A: They took it to Monroeville, and it's used as the Masonic Building now. Across from the old Monroeville School {Ed: the third version}.

Q: But did they have other events in it? What was it used for?

A: I cannot answer that. I know for a while it was used as a lunch room for Monroeville School and various organizations used it. But, you know, I don't know what the requirements were.

Q: How long was it down in your area?

A: It was only there a very short time after the war until they removed it. It was on the Cunningham property, and I think that he felt he would not have, you know, all the fuss and commotion.

Floyd Johnston (born 1911 in Patton Township)

Q: Where and when were you born?

A: My name is Floyd R. Johnston, and I was born in Patton Township in 1911 on the 22nd day of April. And, I was born in the old farmhouse that was made from a granary that was used after the Indians had burned the log cabin down in the early mid 1750's early 60's- I don't know just exactly what year. It seems as though we never had the year handed down from other generations. But it was in the late 1700's that the granary was built to store grain in that my forefathers were farmers and used it and built this granary to store grain in and when the Indians burned the cabin down why the granary was just a new building, so they just moved into the granary and lived there for, well, let's see, the building was two rooms up and two rooms down, and it was built out of lap-siding on a hewed frame- hewed by hand power with axes and chisels and so on and so forth. And my forefathers lived in that for a couple of different generations of them and it ended up that I was born in that particular home, and my father was born in it when he was come to this world and several of the other members of the former Johnston family and also three of my sisters were born in there- the older two and the one younger one, Esther.

Q: Where were the log cabin and then the house that came after it?

A: Well, the log cabin, the location of it as near as I remember the old foundation, it was along the north side of Monroeville Boulevard about 50 to 75 feet away from the present

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

highway. And it was directly across from where you go into the Beverly Manor Rest Home at the present time.

Q: So he [Ed: the Johnston family first settler.] applied for the land grant?

A: Yes, and the land grant amounted to 324 acres of which I still have the deed to 35 or 36 acres of the original farm, in the Johnston family from the 1750's

Q: Where are those 36 acres?

A: That is where the Stonecliffe Apartments are. It extends from the beginning of the Stonecliffe Apartments down to Pitcairn Road- down where Jim Bandy has his swim area or fish pond or whatever it is. That was more or less the corner or south end of the farm, and it extended- or bounded on the north- it's along the back of the shopping center from the graveyard, that is now the present graveyard, from there to the Glew property. It went over and touched to pretty near where Route 48 is. And then south again to Gateway High School area and Monroeville Junior High- South Junior High- part of that building is on the Johnston land grant.

Q: When you were small, what kind of farming was done?

A: Well, when my Dad came back to the farm why, he went into the dairy business. In 1908 he started delivering milk in Pitcairn, bottled milk. It wasn't sold in cans or in containers. It was sold in bottles, and from that time on until 1980 a dairy operated from that farm. And, he farmed- that is raised his grain and hay and so on- which was a small farm. Ours was a small farm; it was only 47 acres. That is after it was divided up from his father- my father's dad which was William Johnston. He had it handed down two or three generations, and he divided it among his ten children. So each one had a piece of it and so on. But we ended up with 47 acres.

Q: Let's talk about the neighborhood a little bit. You mentioned Monroeville Road which at that time was Northern Pike. What kind of road was it as far back as you can remember?

A: I don't ever remember it being a mud road. It was shortly before I was old enough to remember it become a macadam road, that is a piked road with asphalt- chipped asphalt. I can remember from Pearce's corner to Warner's corner to Monroeville School it was macadam road or asphalt road from that mile it was done. But that was before my time; I don't remember when it was done. But then the road from Monroeville School to Turtle Creek, that was asphalt to Young's corner. And from Young's corner to Turtle Creek was brick. There's still brick underneath the asphalt that's there now. It's covered over.

Q: I know where Warner's and Young's corner are, but where’s Pearce’s Corner?

A: Well, Pearce's corner was up there, more or less the Pitcairn Road came up and made a T at Pearce's corner right through the middle of our farm so it did. That was, well right below our farm. In fact, the roadway- came right up along the edge of our farm to the Northern Pike, then it went east Northern Pike and west Northern Pike- west to Wilkinsburg and on east to Murrysville and Export on so on.

Q: So where Pitcairn Road hit Northern Pike- that was Pearce's corner?

A: What ended up there was a man by the name of Pearce about 1925, I think it was- 1925, 26, he bought about two acres there- it was a part of the old Johnston farm which was- a lady by the name of Mrs. Fox had bought my Aunt Margaret's share of the farm. She laid it out in lots which is now the Fox Plan which is still in existence. And that was the part that

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Pearce bought was the old stable which my uncle stabled his horse in, and he kept a horse, and he drove over to Sandy Creek, I believe he worked. And he worked for one of the companies over there. I don't know which one it was. That's where he traveled back and forth in horse and buggy five days a week. And then the house that Aunt Mag had built and her first husband, John Stewart, why that is still standing, and I don't know who owns it any more. It used to be in late years was owned by Herb Williamson and his family, but I think it's been sold since then.

Q: Where is this house?

A: It's just east of the Pearce's corner and Pitcairn Road. It's directly across from the first telephone building that faced out on Northern Pike. It was right across the road.

Q: And one other thing, together- there's an old stone bridge - if you are heading towards Pitcairn is up to the left- did the road come over that at one time?

A: Up to the left. That was the original- that's the only change in the road from when I was a boy. That's the only change. The road used to come up around and go around, what they used to call the gooseneck. And that was the road that come up along our...

Q: About the stone bridge- that was there when you were a little boy?

A: No, it was built before my time and but that was called the gooeseneck. It come right out of the valley; that is, it come up along the Dirty Camp Run which was an historical run. It come up along there, and it come up along the hill around and up onto the high ground out of the valley and went what is present. Everything is the same as it was when I was a boy except that- maybe a quarter of a mile or something like that- less than a half mile.

Q: When you were a boy, what was up at the crossroads?

A: The Church was there, and there was like cattycorner from the Church which would be facing on the Stroschein Road as it is now, where the gas station was, there was a shed there for people to pull their buggies in, the horses and so on, when they come to church. There were twelve or fifteen stalls, places that people could pull their horses in, people could take their buggies without unhitching their horses or anything. They could just pull in there and go to church. And I can mind when that was still there. It was torn down in my time, the old buggy shed.

Q: So that's all that was up there that you remember?

A: That was all. And in the back of the buggy shed towards, it would be west, which was at the far end of where the gasoline station is. That's where the original Monroeville School or Patton Township School was. It was there. I can mind that building before it was torn down. I was very small, but I can remember when it was torn down. I can remember when it was torn down because they used to use it as a place to pull in machinery and store machinery after it be, that is they quit using it for school.

Q: Were there any log homes still standing when you were a small boy that you can remember actually seeing whether they were in use or not?

A: In Monroeville, that is the little village above us that was still called Monroeville, there was the old Duff house, the Duff property which is now, uh, I can't think of those wholesale houses above, up off of Route 22. Used to be north or west...

Q: Like where Basco used to be? [Ed: in 2010 is the Roth Carpet empty store]

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

A: Well, the Duff property was, there was a log cabin on that property right where Bascos was, right below where their warehouse...

Q: Actually standing?

A: Yes, it was a big, oh a six room log, or a four room log house, that is two up and two down, and then there was a huge frame addition to it that was the kitchen on the back of the house. And it was still standing, I can mind it for on up till I was, I guess, ten or eleven years old--twelve years old before it was torn down. And the old Warner house which is directly where the road comes down from Turtle Creek or come out of Turtle Creek or come out of Monroeville where it comes down right past the Warner Flower shop--right there--right directly across--the house is still standing but it has been remodeled.

Q: Is that the old stagecoach stop?

A: That's the stagecoach stop, and that's the house that's still standing, been modernized, there's not much left of it. I don't know what's left of the old house, but it was log house, too. But it was weather-boarded up. There is one standing yet a log house, right in the middle of Monroeville, right directly across from where Jim Jobe is building his funeral home {Ed: on Monroeville Blvd.}, the middle of Monroeville, right directly across from it.

Q: Down from the Eat 'n Park, across the street?

A: Yes.

Q: The state representative has an office in this old house.

A: Well, Eleanor, or was her name Mary, she has bought it, and it had been the old McCutcheon house, the old McCutcheon house is where right below the Baptist Church, it's going in the area of the Baptist Church. It's a log house, weather-boarded, and it's been done and re-done a lot. It don't even have a basement under it.

Q: Let's back up to the old stagecoach place - that was being used as a home when you were a little boy, it wasn't an inn any more?

A: George Warner family lived in it, which is one of the Warners is still living – Sarah - and she was married to a fellow from Wilmerding by the name of Dickson, but she still lives in the, in the LaVale Apartment Building in Monroeville. She's still living, and her oldest brother just died here about a year ago, Horace Warner. He lived in the Ivanhoe - he and his wife. But now the neighbors tell me that Horace Warner's daughter who owns the flower shop in Monroeville took the mother and is keeping her with her where she lives. I just don't know exactly where she lives. Somebody told me she lived over on Mt. Pleasant, but I don't know.

Q: Now where your farm was, did that area have a name of its own? You've mentioned Pearce's corner--you've mentioned Monroeville village. Did you consider your farm a part of Monroeville village, or where was Monroeville village?

A: Well, Monroeville village – Monroeville - extended from the school, that is, the old Monroeville School to the west along Northern Pike or which is now, well, there's part of Northern Pike and the, and the, uh, four-lane boulevard. Part of the--from the bottom of the hill-- that is Northern Pike starts where you come down 22 and make the turn to go up to Turtle Creek and so on. That's the beginning of Northern Pike at that end, and Northern Pike is done away with from Monroeville Boulevard at Pearce’s corner to that area there. That is now Monroeville Boulevard, but it was formerly where our farm was located along there from Pearce's corner to that place was done away with and changed to Monroeville Boulevard. But each end of Northern Pike still exists from Monroeville to the railroad and

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

from--well it extends more than to the railroad--it extends over into Wilkins Township because--it don't connect any more because the connection between the two is gone.

Q: Yeah.

A: But then it extends from Pearce's corner to Route 22 east.

Q: I still don't understand where the village was, where Monroeville village was--along Northern Pike...

A: It was, it was along Northern Pike on either side from the old school which is - or the Beatty property or the graveyard or so on. It was never any particular boundary. That was the village down to the--in Monroeville where the big eight-room school used to be.

Q: Now I know.

A: At the corner where you turn to go to Turtle Creek. That was known as Monroeville, the little settlement of Monroeville. Twelve or fourteen - I don't know any more exactly without stopping to count up how many houses there was, twelve or fourteen homes somewhere around there.

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Q: The trailer park, when was it put in?

A: Oh, it was started about 1935.

Q: Oh, before the war.

A: Oh, yes, it was before World War II. That was before your time. I can mind a little about that.

Q: Yeah.

A: But no, that was started before the war. That was one of the first ones around here.

[Ed: the trailer park was located where entrance coming off of Northern Pike/Monroeville Boulevard to the Giant Eagle and Target is located in 2010.]

Charles Vercelli (born 1916 in Patton Township)

Q: You mentioned Saunders Station. Was there a station?

A: Yes, that's where the train stopped - Saunders Station.

Q: Was there a building?

A: Yes, there was a building with a pot belly stove in it, and if you got there too early in the morning, why you built a fire and kept warm. Because all the surrounding farms, they came in and took the train for transportation into Trafford, Pitcairn , Turtle Creek, Braddock, East Pittsburgh.

Q: Did you ever take the train anywhere?

A: Oh, yeah. Sure,

Q: You said people built the fire. Was there not a regular stationmaster?

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

A: Not a person that stayed there. Now it seems to me they mentioned back further that sometime someone would get off the train and build a fire there for the next people maybe coming in - so that they would be warm. You know, maybe the early train but there was trains in the morning for people to go to work. My brothers walked down through the valley to Saunders Station to get the train to go to work at Westinghouse.

Q: When did it quit stopping there?

A: Probably, last I can seem to remember it, would probably be in the late '30's - everybody started having cars. They didn’t use it so then, you know how it would be - instead of 5 or 6 times a day, they cut it down to twice, then to once then to - they just cut it out - just freight trains went down. ------

Q: What were the roads like? [Ed: when Charles was growing up.]

A: McGinley Road was a dirt road, and it was very muddy when at rained, but it was beautiful. It was beautiful because the trees all hung over, and it was practically a tunnel all the way down with shade. It was just beautiful and relaxing to walk down here. And then along the McGinley property line - here along the road [Ed: near the McGinley House] - they planted a row of locust trees, and the locust trees grew rather tall. And when they bloomed, it was just the most wonderful aroma, and the flowers were just beautiful, and they branched all over the road, too. Of course, at first we just had a horse and wagon and later on we got the car.

Q: How about other roads – Haymaker?

A: Haymaker was all mud, too. Oh yeah.

Q: What about Route 48?

A: Route 48 wasn’t there. You couldn’t come from the Goldrush {Ed: in 1985 was located near the intersection of Routes 130 and 48} up to the intersection up here of Haymaker and Mosside.

Q: How did you get to Pitcairn then?

A: Well, we took short cuts through the fields. But then some places we went over - in other words we came part way up McGinley Road then took a short cut through the McGinley pasture through the Haymaker farm onto Saunders Station Road, across Saunders Station Road onto Haymaker Road, and then followed Haymaker Road more or less all the way to Pitcairn. Uh, no, I'm wrong – followed Haymaker and then went down Hillside.

Q: Let’s go back to the 1930’s a little bit. Do you remember any WPA work that was done out here?

A: Oh, yeah. There's - the WPA work was mostly on Saunders Station and Haymaker Road, and they partially paved - the way they did Pinchot roads - ever heard of those? Pinchot Roads?

Q: Yeah, I’ve heard of those.

A: He was the governor

Q: Do you remember when the Turnpike went in?

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

A: Oh, yes, it went through in the early 50’s, like 50.

Q: Was there any activity on McGinley Road associated with putting theTurnpike in?

A: Sure there was. I’ll tell you when that was - when we had that 33 inches of snow.

Q: It was 50 or 51.

A: Was that when it was? Because one of the fellows that ran the big machinery out there lived down there in a cottage while he was working. So he got the big bulldozer, and he bulldozed the snow out or we might still be down there.

Mary (Piantiny) Winkler (born 1913 in Trafford, moved to Monroeville in 1919)

Q: When you were first married, where was the closest hospital?

A: Braddock.

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…And I can remember like the first supermarket that came out here. We went out there. It was Salamon’s in where the Sun Carpet is right now, it was on that corner. But right there where the Jonnett Building is and all that, that was just dirt, fill like. It was just a big field. But, I know Salamon’s. That was the first supermarket in Monroeville that I can remember that came out here.

Q: How early was that here?

A: Oh, I can’t tell you. I really can’t tell you. Well, I don’t know, I really can’t tell you how long ago that could have been.

Q: Well, were they up there pretty much by themselves? Was there anything around them?

A: No, that was mostly all just like woods there yet. There weren’t any of those motels or anything in there, none of those eating places. The first thing that started to really bloom was when the Miracle Mile came in. Then all those other things came in, you know, right along.

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Q: Well, besides going up to LaBarb’s when you were a child, did you ever have any other reason to go up into what’s now the middle of Monroeville?

A: No. We used to go through there to go to my brother-in-law’s place in Murrysville. And we used to go out through there a lot to go see him, like on Sundays, you know. No, really, not – there was nothing going on out there.

Q: This was when you were a child you went out there?

MW: Well, no we didn’t go too much when we were younger. It was after I was married that we went out there a good bit – and the roads, it was real narrow – 22 was real narrow, it wasn’t much to seeing, all you seen was – oh, let’s see – I don’t know – trees, mostly trees. But we did have a big swimming pool out there at one time. Burke Glen. Did you ever hear of it? I’ll tell you who put that swimming pool in – my father!

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

DCN: Your father?

MW: (Nods yes.) Never got a penny out of it. Never got a penny out of it. He tried, but that’s how people were. They just wouldn’t pay him.

Jean (Winkler) Colbaugh (born 1934 in Patton Township)

Q: Well, it seems to me from what you are saying that, living in Monroeville at that time, you were very oriented to the Turtle Creek Valley, and there wasn’t much to bring you up into what’s now the main business section.

A: No, the only thing that was there was the stone church, which was like a landmark. If you were asked, somebody was coming to visit you from out of town, you would tell them to come down 22, and when you got to the stone church, that’s where you would turn, ‘cause that was really the only landmark then. Of course, all the business at the Miracle Mile were not there.

Q: You mentioned that you rode your horses up where the Mall is now. What was there at that time?

A: Well, Queens had a, well they called it Queen’s Garbage Dump. Now they call it, you know, what do they call it today? The “reduction center”, or whatever (laughs), “recycling center”, or whatever name they want to call it, but that belonged to Queens. And, it was just all woods. And paths, you know, that you could ride through. Which was the same that any of the wooded areas around here with paths to ride horses through. And the Mall was nothing but a big gully, down in there. That was just, you know, just like a big ravine. They filled a lot of that in to make the Mall there. I can remember whenever they started doing that probably at the time whenever I was working, you know, I wasn’t a child anymore, I was out and around as much, but they did a lot of filling. I can remember the equipment, the big machinery there for them to make the Mall probably even more than that I remember the Miracle Mile. Because, that was like back in the ‘50s, I think, when the Miracle Mile was built. And, that was really a big thing. When they built the Miracle Mile, we thought we had it all! (Laughs.) You know, because it was a nice shopping area, and there was nothing like that around here.

Q: Do you recall what was there before they put the shopping center in?

A: I think trees. It was trees and just like a field, just rolling, little… I don’t think there really was anything on that side of the street there, as I recall that. And the Stone Church again, as I say, that just kind of stuck out in the middle. That was sort of like a central location.

Arlene (Bateson) Scalese (born 1940 in Patton Township)

Q: Well, what was on route 22 then?

A: Um, say between the time like ’49 and ’51. Basically on 22, down on the corner, where the red light is, was Salamon’s Grocery Store, where Sun Carpeting is now. [Ed: currently Rite Aid, north-east corner of Center Road & Business 22.] Next to that was Giovannitti’s Pharmacy. On the opposite side of the road was a frozen custard stand, which may have

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

been there earlier. That’s one of the first frozen custard things that I remember. Across from that where the Gulf station {Ed:in 2010 is a CITGO} is now was a gas station, Miles Gas Station. Across from that, where Ponderosa is now, was a place called Coles Cottage, and it was a restaurant type of thing. And all the place where the Miracle Mile is now was funny, ‘cause along 22 it was like humps, of dirt, type of thing and behind it it was like flat out and I don’t - that must have been left over from when they widened the road or something. Every summer we’d get neat carnivals come into Monroeville. Well, that’s always where the carnival was. And, we lived in the trailer park for a year between, I’d say ’51 and ’52, and all of the carnival people would stay in the trailer park, you know, when the carnivals were over there. It was really neat. Down there where Ralph’s Army store is now, there was a Thorofare. And, because when we lived at the bottom of the hill before we moved to the trailer park, which was like ’50, the Thorofare was right behind us, because Joe Heininger used to work there and he was really cute (laughing)! There was that, across the street from the Thorofare was the diner. Behind the diner was the hotel, and right next to the Thorofare was a little gas station. I can’t even remember what kind. It was a little white frame place. And, then after the gas station went out of business, they changed into a hot dog place where, one of those hot dog and root beer places. It didn’t last very long down there. And then that, I guess that eventually disappeared for the car wash. As far as I can remember, see I can’t remember anything being between the Thorofare and the gas station on the corner. Anything substantial, anyhow. Penn-Monroe was there. And, besides the diner and hotel, that’s all I can remember.

Q: How about over by Kauffman’s [Ed: in 2010, Lowe’s home improvement is located at this location]?

A: A drive-in theatre. Where Kauffman’s in now was a drive-in theatre.

Q: Did that include Ho-Jo’s [Ed: Howard Johnson’s, owned by the late Al Monzo, later called Palace Inn and in 2010 a new UPMC medical facility is under construction]?

A: Uh, I can’t remember when Ho-Jo’s was built. It wasn’t there before Kauffman’s, ‘cause I can remember when the drive-in burnt down and we had already moved into the house and it was when I was in high school. ’55. ’56 or something like that, I’m really bad at dates. I can’t remember what else was over there. Kubrick’s has been there a long time. It’s hard, times get mixed up with one another, you know, years get mixed up. But, down there where, you know where Burke’s Glen swimming pool was?

Q: Yes. [Ed: currently occupied by automobile dealers, Burke Glen started at the intersection of Old William Penn and Business 22, on the side of the road opposite Old William Penn. From there it ran to the east toward Murrysville for about a third of a mile.]

A: OK, there was, next to Burke’s Glen used to be, when I was little they had the pool and they had an amusement park next to it for kids, and things like that. Well, then when we got into high school, they built the Burke’s Glen [Ed: Burke Glen] Ballroom, and right next to the pool then, a really nice place to go dance. It was a really big place, you know, with the revolving balls and stuff like that. And, it was like a white elephant or something like that. It was really a neat place to go to dance, in Monroeville. I don’t know what happened to that. I guess they closed down after a while.

Q: Well, what was down on Old William Penn? Was La Barb’s there?

A: La Barb’s has been there as long as I can remember Now, on 22, where Bobby Rubino’s is now, where Monzo’s restaurant used to be, in fact, inside Monzo’s they had pictures of them, I think it was called Maddern’s Cabins. And, they were just little white cabins that you could rent, like a hotel type of thing. I remember those. But, getting out towards Murrysville you were really getting into the country, you

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

know, 286 was two, two country lanes and that was really country at the time. There was no stores or anything out there.

I wish I was better at years, because I remember when they made 22 a four lane highway. And, I can remember the hotel over there but I can’t remember when they tore it down. And, well I told you when they were making 22 from a two to a four lane highway they brought in people to work on the road and I don’t know if it was true or not, I always heard them referred to as Mexicans, that were brought in to work on the road and around the hotel they built what they called barracks for these people to live in. Then, when they moved on with the road, they rented them out to people who didn’t have anyplace else to stay, I guess, basically there were a lot of old single men lived over there. Then they caught on fire one night and everything burnt down over there and the hotel was still there then. I can’t remember when they tore the hotel down. But, the hotel was where like the Red Lobster is.

Points of Interest Mentioned by Arlene (Bateson) Scalese as Existing in Legend Monroeville in the Period of Approximately 1949 – 1951 Shown on a 2010 Road Grid BG = Burke Glen (see next map for Additional Items Located in the DC = Dohlman's Cabins Center of Monroeville) DT = Drive-in Theater JD = Johnston's Dairy JJ = Jennie & Joe's Center LB = LaBarb Logans Rd. Ferry Rd. Beatty MA = Maddern's Cabins Rd. MG = Magestic Gardens DC MG Beatty Rd. O = Old Stone Church LB Old William Penn Hwy. PA Turnpike JJ

US 22 & I-376 Center Rd. Old William Penn Hwy. Duff Rd. Northern Pike MA DT US 22 O Business US 22 BG Monroeville Blvd. Northern JD Pike

Northern Pike Monroeville Stroschein Blvd. Rd. Mosside Blvd / PA 48 Pitcairn PA Rd. James McGinley Turnpike St. Rd.

Saunders Station Rd. Monroeville Tilbrook Haymaker Rd. Wall Rd. Rd. Ave.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Legend

B = Bateson House CB = Community Bldg. Additional Points of Interest CC = Coles Cottage Mentioned by Arlene (Bateson) Scalese as Existing in F = Frozen Custard Stand Monroeville in the Period of Approximately 1949 – 1951 G = Giovannitti's Pharmacy Shown on a 2010 Road Grid H = Gas Station turned Hot Dog Stand HD = Hotel & Diner M = Mile’s Gas MS3 = Monroeville School (3rd) O = Old Stone Church OP & P = OSC Parsonage & Parking Lot P = Penn Monroe S = Stroschein's Gas SM = Salamon's Market T = Thorofare Market TP = Trailer Park

CB F SM G P HD Northern M CC Pike T MS3 H

B S O Business US OP&P

Stroschein Rd. Monroeville Monroeville Blvd. Detail of Central Blvd. Monroeville

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Richard & Helen Maxwell (Richard was born 1889 in Empire OH, Helen about 1890, they moved to Patton Township in 1946)

Q: When you moved in here, was Haymaker a dirt road?

RM: Well, it was gravel.

Q: At that time when you moved in here did Haymaker Road go clear down to Forbes Road as it does today?

RM: Yeah.

------

[Ed: while discussing their home, located on what is now Northwestern Drive. At that time of 1946 to 1960 or so, there were no secondary streets in the area. The only road was Haymaker.]

Q: Besides the barn, were there any other buildings on the farm?

HM: Yes, we had a chicken coop and a big – how many cars fit in that garage up on the hill? In front of the barn?

RM: It took five cars.

HM: Our tractor?

RM: Yes, a tractor and five cars. And then the chicken coop was beside it and then we had our corn crib. Oh, that was about it.

Q: Mr. Maxwell said there was a spring house down there.

HM: Oh, yes, originally there was a spring house and…

RM: We couldn’t get enough water to wash with that spring down there and I put a big 55 gallon tanks in…

HM: I could wash 5 loads consecutively, with the water from the spring, without it running out.

Q: Because you had the big tank?

RM: Well, because it flowed so well. We pumped a big tank full of water and then…

HM: So then the pump would run to refill it – a thirty foot drop – and, of course I didn’t have a dryer then, I would have to hang out…

Q: Who else was in the neighborhood when you moved in?

RM: There was nobody here but Johnny Urick was there when we came here.

HM: On the other side of Haymaker…

RM: He bought a piece of, he bought 25 acres up there on Jordan.

HM: He had bought some of it, yeah. So we sold that, uh, St. Vincent Drive first and it wasn’t practical to continue because, uh, Eastgate and Plymouth Row Heights Number One on

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

the other side and Haymaker Ridge was also under construction. We used to leave the tractor out anyplace, you know, with a key in it.

Q: Nobody would bother it?

HM: No, didn’t lock the garages or anything but then there were things stolen so it wasn’t practical.

Teresa Mirro (Born 1915 in Delmont, moved to Patton Township in 1950)

Q: When you first moved into Monroeville was Haymaker a through road? Could you go all the way down to Route 130?

A: Yes. Yeah. It was like, what do you call - a Pinchot road. You know what a Pinchot road is?

Q: No.

A: It's not cement and it's not blacktop. It's.. .

Q: Like little stones?

A: Yeah. It was named for Governor Pinchot. That’s how they built them during, the Depression.

Q: What about the big intersection up here? What that like? [Ed: intersection of Haymaker and Mosside.]

A: Well then our property went way up to the light. You know where that triangle is where the grass is growing and shrubbery?

Q: Yes.

A: Well, that was part our property, it went way up to the light. So, then when they put in the road from Mosside going into Haymaker, you know, that turn-around like? Where you’re coming off Mosside and going down Haymaker?

Q: Yes.

A: Well, they didn’t want to go way up to the light so they came down further, made that road that comes on Haymaker, so then you have a space between the light and where the turn is. So, that was - what do you call it - condemned. I mean, we couldn't use it. So the County, they just took.

Q: They took it away from you?

A: Well, they paid us for it, but, I mean, we couldn’t stop them. If I said no, I don't want you to, I want to still own it, I couldn’t. We cut the grass and all, but it didn’t belong to us, you know. And then the borough took it over and the borough now cuts the grass, and the shrubbery.

Q: About when did that happen?

A: Oh gosh, we must have been living here about, I would say ‘55, '56.

Q: Were there houses or stores or businesses up around this section?

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

A: Nothing. Nothing.

Q: What about the brick, well it looks like a home, with the twin gables? Was that originally a home?

A: Which one was that?

Q: Right up next to what used to be Tot'em?

A: Oh, that was Myer's Construction office.

Q: That was never a private home?

A: No, never. It was a little office then, all the time. He did work around here and he used that for his office. They called it Myer's Construction

Q: And is he the one who put the spruce trees in?

A: Yeah, he put the trees in. He had a lot of equipment back in there, so he put the trees so you couldn’t see all the equipment back in there, yeah. Of course where you turn off at Mosside and you go down at King's, you know that back road. You know that back road?

Q: Yes.

A: Well, where Mosside is now was like another extension of Haymaker from the other side of 22. There was a Haymaker on the other side of 22 that came all the way down through where the little shopping center is, where Super Dollar is {Ed: in 2010 is McGinnis Sisters} and all the way down, and it came out of right here where that...

Q: I know the little piece.

A: So on the other side then there were like a few houses. Oh, gee, I can't even think of their names, but then that was all torn down, and that's where Mosside is now.

Q: So, then Haymaker used to go through where the Turnpike toll booths are now?

A: Uh-huh. Yeah. The Turnpike came through, and that was the end of Haymaker on this side, but there is an extension of Haymaker now going another way.

{Editors Note: the original route of Haymaker Road is shown on the map at the end of the Auction Barn chapter.}

------

Q: O.K. How about Radio Hill? Was it called Radio Hill when you moved here in 1950?

A: No, it wasn't here then. That wasn't here when we first came here.

Q: What was there?

A: Nothing, just property.

Q: And, and then it became Radio Hill?

A: And then it became Radio Hill. Sylveses, Sarah Thompson, you know her?

Q: Yes.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

A: And then the name was Sylves. O.K., that's where, oh, gosh, there was nothing there. They lived, you know where that new Japanese restaurant is being built? {Ed: just north of the US Post Office on Monroeville Blvd. in 2010.}

Q: Yes.

A: O.K. Right around there was where they lived, Sylveses lived, the old man. And so that was all his property where Radio Hill is, where Duff's restaurant is, where that other place - what's that other - Ritz's?

Q: Ritzy's, which is closed.

A: Yeah, that was all property.

Q: You mean that's where Radio Hill was? I meant this property next to the present-day high school. I thought that was Radio Hill.

A: The present-day High School? Oh, you mean Gateway?

Q: Yeah.

A: Oh, no, that's not Radio Hill. That was where the radio [Ed: radio station.] was. Sylves put the radio station there.

Q: Oh, that's Radio Hill?

A: Well, yeah, you can see it from the road. I don’t know if you’ve ever been there, but it’s a radio station, and she had it for, I don’t know how many years and then she sold it to somebody. And I don't know whether they’re there now or not. I don’t even know that.

Q: So that's a bit of misinformation that I had. I thought that this empty piece of property next to the high school was Radio Hill. Well, what was up there?

A: Nothing. All slate from the wall, the red dog, you know. They called it slate dump. It's like red dog, all that redish…

Q: You mean they had used that as a dump for that?

A: Yeah. Uh-huh. And they used some of that, on this new property is, this new building down here right across from me where that big sign is, where the Dr.'s sign is.

Q: The Medical Arts Building?

A: Yeah. Well, not way down further, the one that’s closer. It has a big sign, Kim, Dr. Kim, and you don’t know?

Q: No.

A: O.K. They had a lot of that brought in when they were building last year from the pile up there. There was a big, like a big ravine. They had that all filled with that red-dog.

Q: How about the rest of the school complex and where the Library is?

A: There was nothing there, just fields, yeah, just property.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

[Editor’s Note: At the time of this interview, there was a common misunderstanding about the location of “Radio Hill”. The actual original location was along Monroeville Boulevard in the vicinity of the current Post Office. Somehow the press started calling the land between Gateway High School and Mosside “Radio Hill” in the 1980s when the Gateway School Board was considering options for the property.]

------

Q: What was out where Westinghouse built? Do you recall? '

A: You, mean down here, Westinghouse? Nothing.

Q: It was all open?

A: All open.

Q: What about out, where 22 and Mosside come together? Where Howard Johnson's and Kaufmann's are, do you recall that area?

A: Well, that's the new Mosside. There was nothing there. There was a continuation of Haymaker that came from across the road then it came, like, part way—and then it turned and then it, it caught up with, you know, this Haymaker. But there were a few houses there, but I can’t think of their names. But they tore those houses down for the new Mosside.

Q: So it was just Haymaker that came through until they put in, as you say, new Mosside.

A: Yeah. I think they called this 48, they didn't even call it Mosside at that time,

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Additional Points of Interest Legend Mentioned by the Remaining Subjects DR = Dirty Creek Run GH = Gateway High School as Shown on a MM = Monroeville Mall 2010 Road Grid MP = Mt. Pleasant Rd O = Old Stone Church PC = Pearce’s Corner RH = Radio Hill SJ = South Jur. High, Mosside Center Middle School in 2010 Logans Rd. Ferry Rd. Beatty SV = Sawmill Valley Rd. TR = Township Road Beatty Rd. TT = Turnpike Tollegate WC = Warner’s Corner Old William Penn Hwy. PA Turnpike YC = Young’s Corner

US 22 & I-376 Center Rd. Old William Penn Hwy. Move of Community Building Duff Rd. shown as dashed line Northern Pike WC US 22 O Business US 22 TT PC Monroeville Blvd. Northern Pike

RH GH Northern Pike MM Monroeville Stroschein Blvd. Rd. SJ

YC Pitcairn PA Rd. Mosside Turnpike James Blvd / PA McGinley St. 48 Rd.

Saunders Station Rd. Monroeville DR Tilbrook Haymaker Rd. Wall Rd. Rd. MP Ave. TR SV

JB Legend

BP = Baptist Church BR = Boron Gas (1985) / BP (2010) MS3 E2 = Eat ’n Park (2nd) JB = Jonnet Building st E2 MS1 = Monroeville School (1 ) BP MS3 = Monroeville School (3rd) O Business US O = Old Stone Church MS1 SA = Stonecliffe Apartments BG SA Stroschein Rd. Monroeville Monroeville Blvd. Detail of Central Blvd. Monroeville

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Chapter 11 - Adult Entertainment

{Ed: The locations of each of the points of interest mentioned in this chapter are shown on a series of maps at the end of the chapter.}

Floyd Johnston (born 1911 in Patton Township)

Q: How about your folks, what kind of social activities would they participate in?

A: Well, they done a lot of house-to-house visiting. They would get in the buggy and drive ten, twelve miles to see somebody early in the evening and come home maybe at midnight, get home maybe at midnight, and the kids would go to bed, and Dad would put the horse away. They had no automobiles, we didn't have an automobile until 1920.

Q: What was that? Do you remember?

A: Chevrolet. Chevy. But we would often go down to Pitcairn. Of course, Dad and Mother was in the church down there. There were things going on in church, socials and things like that. We would go to those things and maybe to a meeting of aunts and uncles. An uncle and an aunt lived in Pitcairn, and we would visit them, and then they would pick us up on the way home.

Q: So you got around, around the area?

A: Oh, yeah. We visited - we visited at least one night a week at some of the neighbors - that is walking distance - or we very seldom ever drove because we'd walk down to my uncle's and walk to Elliott's or walked to people by the name of Geer lived in a big brick house right where the Singer Learning Center is [Ed: Early Childhood Learning Center]. We'd visit them. Clarks on the corner, right down there on the corner. The house is still standing right at the corner going down Monroeville Boulevard and Pitcairn Road.

Charles Vercelli (born 1916 in Patton Township)

Q: Tell me about the log cabin now. [Ed: this cabin, was located in the woods beyond the end of McGinley Road and was abandoned at the time of this interview.]

A: At the log cabin, there was a dentist from Pitcairn who was the first I can remember renting it. I suppose he just rented it for the summer because he didn’t stay there in the winter, and he just come out in the summer and spent some time there. And then there was a railroader from Pitcairn – his name was King Little, and he just came up on weekends, and he came up by train to Saunders Station and then walked up what used to be McGinley Road, which at one time went all the way down to Abers Creek Road and Saunders Station. So he walked up from there. So more or less it was a path and a creek bed. And then he went up to his camp, and then after King Little didn’t rent it anymore, well then some moonshiners came in, and they made moonshine there for about a year.

Q: When was this?

A: This was about 1925, I'd say. And they also made moonshine on the McGinley property up behind where Westinghouse Nuclear is – they would try to get a location where there was a ravine and running water for their still. And then the last place they made it there was

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

on down McGinley Road on the right hand side, there’s a, ravine there and they made it in there. There again because there was a water supply,

Q: Who were these people? Did they come in from outside of the area?

A: I have no idea where they came from. All I know is by that time they were using cars.

Q: And this was isolated and they could find a stream and...

A: But all this again was like the 1920’s.

Q: Yeah, during Prohibition.

Jean (Winkler) Colbaugh (born 1934 in Patton Township)

Q: Do you know at all what kind of entertainment there was for adults when you were growing up? Anything that you’re aware that your parents participated in?

A: Yeah, my mother and father belonged to the Number One Fire Hall. My mother belongs to the woman’s auxiliary. And, my father used to go out there. We spent so much time at our place with the horses that my parents pretty much were always around, you know, the home and around the farm. My mother didn’t bother with the horses at all, but she was always there. There was always a gang of kids at the house. Because of the horses. They’d come and help my Dad on a Saturday and, of course, she’d make food for everybody. But, I don’t remember my Mom doing more than, like I say, they went to the ladies auxiliary. And, once in a while they would go to a dance, like somewhere to a club, or something. But, not really that much. But, I can’t think of much entertainment. Like I say, going to the Auction Barn on Saturday night, that was, you know, kind of the big thing around here.

Q: No theatres?

A: Yeah, there were two theatres down in East Pittsburgh. And, my parents didn’t go to the movies very often. We used to go to Saturday matinees, you know, the kids in the neighborhood. We’d all get together and go to a Saturday matinee but my parents didn’t, they didn’t go to the movies much. They went on vacations. We would go to Canada or we went up to New York a couple times. My mother and dad went to Kentucky one time to the Kentucky Derby, I remember that. I didn’t get to go! (Laughs.) But, there were no movies in Monroeville, nothing like that here.

Arlene (Bateson) Scalese (born 1940 in Patton Township)

A: …And, there was a night club over there [Ed: in the vicinity of La Barb’s] called the Majestic Gardens, that burned down. And, there was another one there before my time because I remember my mother talking about it, called the Top Hat. I don’t know anything about that. But, the Majestic Gardens was right there on the corner there, I remember that one. I don’t even know what’s there now, what’s there before you get to Minitalia? Right on the corner?

Q: I don’t know what’s in there right now, but there used to be an ambulance service.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

A: OK, that’s where Majestic Gardens used to be and then Jennie and Joe’s was right across the street in that empty thing there, but that road used to come straight down. It hasn’t been shut off that long.

Q: Before the Parkway was there?

A: The one that comes past the Episcopal church. But, you can’t go straight through on that. You used to go straight through on that. That other road wasn’t there at all.

------

Q: At the Garden City entrance, I understand there was a motel down there?

A: Down on old 22?

Q: Yes.

A: Yeah, there was. Ed’s Bed’s (laughs)! It wasn’t really called Ed’s Bed’s. It was owned by Ed Dolman. What was it called? Camp Rest? Was it Camp Rest? Yeah. It was down there for a long time.

[Ed: the laughs and giggles associated with “Ed’s Bed’s is because of the reputation of the motel for renting their rooms “by the hour”, hence the adult entertainment.]

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Teresa Mirro (Born 1915 in Delmont, moved to Patton Township in 1950)

Q: How about social life? What did you and Jimmy like to do for leisure time, anything special?

A: Oh, gee. Well, we did our own gardening, and we took care of our property, cut the grass and planted shrubbery. I canned and I knitted, and Jimmy hunted and fished, both he and his son. In fact, he still fishes and hunts and, uh. Gee what else did we do?

------

Q: These organizations, the Lions, and the Women's Club, do they go back to earliest times, to like 1950 when you moved in here?

A: Yeah, right after I moved here we started all that. You know, the girls started the Garden Club, and it was Patton Township. And then after different meetings, they named it Monroeville.

Q: So were you in on the formation of some of these organizations?

A: Yeah, I remember going to a meeting. They were going to name the borough, the township, and they got it from Monroe because it was Monroe who was the postmaster in Monroeville. And they thought, well, that would be a good name. Monroeville. So I think that’s how Monroeville got it’s name. But, well, Jimmy then was on Council. He was on the Home Rule Charter, uh…

Q: When did he run for Council?

A: About 1960 to 1968, two terms.

Q: Did he campaign at all?

A: Um, yeah, yeah.

Q: Did you help at all in the campaigning?

A: Yeah, yeah. I didn't like the idea, but I thought if that’s what he wanted, I would go along with it so, he was a committeeman first, and then they thought he should run for Council.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Points of Interest Mentioned in This Chapter Legend Shown on a 2010 Road Grid AB = Auction Barn DC = Dolman’s Cabins / Camp Rest EC = Early Childhood Learing Center / Singer Learning Logans F1 = Fire Hall 1 Ferry Rd. Center Rd. LB = La Barb Beatty MG = Majestic Gardens MG Rd. ML = Minitalia LB ML Beatty Rd. O = Old Stone Church

Old William Penn Hwy. W = Westinghouse Nuclear PA Turnpike DC AB

US 22 & I-376 Duff Rd. Center Rd. Northern Pike Old William Penn Hwy.

US 22 O Business Monroeville US 22 Blvd.

Northern Pike

EC W Northern Pike Monroeville Stroschein Blvd. Rd.

F1 Pitcairn PA Turnpike Rd. Mosside James McGinley Rd. Blvd / PA St. Monroeville Rd. 48

Saunders Station Rd. Tilbrook Rd. Haymaker Wall Rd. Ave.

O Business US 22

Stroschein Rd. Monroeville Monroeville Blvd. Blvd.

Detail of Central Monroeville

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Chapter 12 - Historic Buildings

{Ed: The locations of each of the points of interest mentioned in this chapter are shown on a series of maps at the end of the chapter.}

Sarah (Sylves) Thompson (born 1909 in Patton Township)

-----Saving The Old Stone Church-----

Q: I guess I'd like to finish the interview with your telling me about how your dad came to save the Old Stone Church.

A: Most of his family are interred in the Cemetery – Cross Roads- and, there were many things going on in Monroeville, many changes being made, things being torn down that might have had some sentimental value. And one morning at breakfast he said to me, "I think we ought to buy the Old Stone Church." And he said, "I don't want to go by there someday and see a sign up that says, Texaco coming." And I said, "O.K. you know, if that's what you wanted." I never questioned anything he wanted to do. He always hit me on an empty stomach. Everything came at breakfast time. But anyway, Mr. Mirro knew that that congregation wanted to sell it, and so he made some contacts and didn't get anywhere with it. And they had an attorney in their congregation and Jerry Meyers who was an attorney in Monroeville, and he was the attorney for the Historical Society when they got their what - chapter or….

Q: Incorporation, probably.

A: Right. He was the one who did that. He and Mr. James C. Tallant, who was my father's attorney met with this man and talked it over. And it was a very, very difficult thing because they wanted $15,000 for it, and they wanted to stay in it three years. Well, that didn't sound very good because, you know, they had done things to the Church that the Historical Society didn't want. And I don't know what they call it - a font, a baptismal deal or whatever. But, that was in the front of the Church and there were some other things. And Mr. Tallant called me and said we have worked all morning with their attorney and we can't get anywhere. Would you talk to them. And I said, "Now, Lenny, if you and Mr. Meyers talked to them all morning, what do you think I can do?" He said, "I don't know except for the fact that you hold the pen that writes the checks." And I called and I talked. I think I was on the telephone a half an hour with them. And finally we - I said to them, "Would - if you bought a car, would you want the dealer to use it for three years?" And he said, "No, but that's different." And I said, "NO, it's only because the situation that's different." So finally he said he’d talk to the congregation and get back. And then they decided that they would do that. And we gave them a year in which to get out, which I thought, you know, was pretty, you know, long. But this thing that they had for their baptisms infuriated my father when he saw it because they took that beautiful walnut railing out of there. The day that we went in to see it, he looked at it and said to me, “Call the Borough and tell them to get that duck pond out of there." And I said everything will come in due time. So I'm not sure about this, but I think this might have been in the spring or summer and then the 29th of December, 1969 I attended a Borough Council meeting and, of course, I gave the Borough the Church.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Charles Vercelli (born 1916 in Patton Township, grew up on a farm on McGinley Road)

-----McGinley House-----

Q: Let's focus on the McGinley House now. Now you said you were in the downstairs of this house when you were a little boy but not in the upstairs, right? Can you tell me how the rooms were used?

A: They always had a wooden kitchen - made out of wood, and it was where you have that concrete slab out back. That was their kitchen.

Q: Is this as far back as you can remember, like when the McGinleys were here?

A: Yes, only it wasn’t a concrete slab at first. Miller/Solomon's put a concrete slab in. It was just a wood underneath there with a wood floor, and that was the kitchen. Then this was - the next room was their dining roam, and there again at first, the ceiling wasn’t on there in that way, but there was - it was like a loft up there - something like a cathedral ceiling.

Q: Could you see beams? ,

A: You could see beams, but I think there was part of a floor at least. And then the Miller/Solomans came in and remodeled it, and they lowered it and put the plaster on.

Q: Was the fireplace uncovered when the McGinleys lived here?

A: And (when) the Tinsleys lived here.

Q: Now how about this room?

A: This was somewhat like it is. It had the fireplace, and it was open. There again it wasn't, plastered. What they would do, see, was use mud and burlap, and first they would fill in the stones and everything and then to hold the mud there, they would put burlap in it. And somehow they would soak it with that mud to get sort of a plaster-like effect. And then they could paint over it or paper over it.

Q: So this was like a living room. And how about the little room in there, where the music room is today?

A: That, that sometime used as a bedroom, and one of them was used like just to put different items in. I'm trying to picture where Tinsleys had their piano. I don't remember McGinleys having a piano, but Tinsleys, I think, had their piano in the dining room. Then when Miller/Solomons remodeled here, then the one brother lived in one room, and the sister lived in the other one.

Q: Where our Gift Shop {Ed: in 2010 is the Joel Monroe Room} is - the little tiny room - so that was a bedroom, too?

A: Yes, that was a bedroom, and then there were the two bedrooms upstairs.

Q: I’m assuming the McGinleys didn’t have electricity. What did they do for light?

A: Miller/Solomons were the first to have electricity on McGinley Road, and they had to pay for the wire and the telephone pole to bring it in.

Q: What did Tinsleys and McGinleys do for light?

A: They used kerosene lamps like we all did. That's all we had for light.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Q: No gas?

A: No, like we applied for our electricity first about the time that WWII started, and they wouldn't let us have it because of the shortage of copper and so on and so forth. And then after Miller/Solomons already had it , after the War, we applied again, and by that time all we had, to pay for was like for the right away down. We didn't have to pay for the poles or the wires, and, of course, for the wiring in our house. But before that, all we had were kerosene lamps. We all did our homework and managed - you wonder how - but we managed.

Q: Now were these fireplaces working? Did they use them?

A: Oh, yeah. They used them sometime, but they also had the coal stove.

Q: I was going to ask you how they heated the house.

A: Bessie McGinley used a coal stove for making her bread, but my mother didn’t because we had an outside oven. What she would do was heat the inside of the oven to where only she knew. They didn't use a thermometer. She'd just reach in and feel the amount of the heat, and she said, O.K. it’s time, and she'd removed the excess wood so there’s so smoke or anything. .And she'd have her bread all raised, and she'd put in like, uh, 12 or 14 loaves of bread and a couple of pound cakes, something like that, you know. And then she would put the door on the front and, uh, say 40 minutes - or like in about half and hour, she would check and see if it was ready and say if would need like about 10 more minutes or something. She'd go back and say O.K. the bread's all ready. Everything’s cooked and she’d take them out.

Q: So there was an outdoor oven. Describe it to me.

A: Not here.

Q: Not here, but on your folks' property.

A: Ours was made of brick. What it was - you made a stone and concrete flat surface. Shall I start?

Q: Start. Yeah. Describe the oven.

A: My father built a flat platform, I'd say approximately 12 feet square with stone that we picked out of the field, and we hand mixed the cement and got - we'd get the sand from the creek – after it rained you know there’d be the sand then. And then he mixed the cement and put the stones in and put the concrete on. And after he got his 12 by 12 platform built, then he hired someone to make a brick oven, and it was, was oval shaped and with a chimney on it. Then as I mentioned before that's - you put your bread in, and it was cooked. Approximately enough bread for a week or - and my mother would have to - or otherwise she’d have to make it before - sometimes she did and in between she would have spaghetti and rice to fill in for bread and mush - cornmeal mush. I like it the second day when she would slice it down and fry it.

Q: Were there any other outdoor ovens or was yours the only one around?

A: Not that we know of.

Q: Let's get back to McGinley was the cellar under there? Was it cement?

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

A: There was a cellar under there, but it wasn't cement. It was a ground floor with stone walls. You notice how thick these stone walls are?

Q: Yes. And how about the coal - you were telling me about the coal stove Bessie McGinley used. Where was that?

A: It was in the kitchen. That’s where she cooked. Your heat was from your cooking stove and your fireplace. Now instead of us having - we had a kitchen stove and a fireplace in the basement, but we also had a stove, uh, in like the living room, and we used like wood and coal in them.

Q: I wanted to ask you about the brick porch. Was that on when McGinleys lived here and Tinsleys?

A: No, that was a wooden porch - floor and everything.

Q: So there was always a porch there, but…

A: But not brick. Miller/Solomons put that on.

Q: Did this always have the little roof that's out there. You can’t see it. You know, there’s little roof out there now above that door.

A: Miller/Solomons put that on then, too. Of course, they all had their outbuildings, their barn, hayloft.

Q: I was going to ask you about that. Was there a coal bin or a coal shanty or something?

A: Yes, they would have a shelter for their coal, It was like between the garden and the house, up above there but not all the way up.

Q: So it was outside. Did the McGinleys and the Tinsleys farm? What kind of farm?

A: General farming. They had some cattle. They did some truck farming and had - which we also done that, but they would go into Pitcairn with the produce.

Q: Was any of the lands fenced in?

A: Oh, sure. Because they'd had pasture. This was pasture here.

Q: Between McGinley and Saunders Station? So it was all fenced - was that like part of their pasture?

A: About 35 acres on the right hand side of McGinley that was fenced in, but this - some of the other fields would be fenced in, too. Because sometimes the farmers would use a field until they cut the hay, and then they’d let their cattle in after they'd cut the hay and use it as a pasture. But generally speaking, yes, just the pasture would be fenced in.

Q: Well, talking about when it was modernized - and you've sort of said that Miller/Solornons did most of that.

A: They put the bathroom in. There was no bathroom.

Q: Where was the outhouse?

A: It was over that way [right of house, facing] and usually it was like 50 to 100 feet from the house so you could be away from the smell.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Q: How about the stone walls and things outside?

A: Well, some of it was here. This walk along the road - Miller/Solomon put most of it in, but then I think when it became the Historical Society they fancied it up.

Q: How about like out here - the stone walks and garden stuff?

A: Well, that's what all the farmers used - was big stones for their walks.

Q: But were they here when McGinleys lived here?

A: Yes. Now Miller/Solomons changed them some because they put concrete between them. There was no concrete between them when McGinleys were here,

Q: So that the stone flower beds and things go back to when Bessie and Joe McGinley were here?

A: At least part of them. At least some of the stones were there.

Q: How about the well?

A: The well was always there, and it was a wooden platform under. Miller/Solomon came in and put the concrete platform.

Q: When you say wooden platform…

A: Wooden boards ...

Q: The pump sat on top of that?

A: Yes.

Q: I had something else I wanted to ask you about. This thing was found by the workmen. What did they use that for?

A: O.K. That’s called a crock. You would put your milk in there, and then their spring house was down - down where they found this – oh, about 50 feet down in the pasture from here, and they would put these crocks - and they would have a trough with the cold water running in it - and they would put these crocks and then they would put the milk in it and that would keep the milk cold.

Q: So they used the streams out here?

A: The springs - that's like their cooler. We used our underground cave for our cooler. ‘Cause our spring was about 150 yards from the house - at least 100 yards from the house - and what we done is, uh, my father put in - concreted – a six by six foot - six feet wide , six deep, six feet long - I call a cistern. Then he put a concrete roof on it and then he had two springs, and he brought both of the springs to this reservoir, and then we put pipe in and then gravity to our house into our kitchen.

Q: We're mentioning these streams. Do these streams have names?

A: No, not that I know of. They used to have a lot of fish sometimes.

Q: You’re kidding.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

A: Oh, yes, they used to have - I've seen fish in there about six to eight inches long, but mostly it was the minnows, and it was just hundreds and practically thousands of them. But then as they straightened out the stream and built upstream, the velocity of the water would disrupt, and then with all the parking area, the water would run off with the gasoline and fuel oil. Then they put salt on the roads, and slowly but surely they killed practically all aquatic life.

Q: But you can remember fish. That’s terrific.

A: Oh, sure. I sure miss them. They were so nice. Down McGinley Road almost down to Abers Creek Road, there's still enough fresh water coming. There's one spot last year, I saw a school of minnows. But it's about a mile down past our place. We’re about - so it’s almost about a mile and a half down past here.

Richard & Helen Maxwell (moved to Patton Township in 1946)

Q: And, you bought this land from?

HM: George Smith. He was a plaster contractor.

RM: There was 187 acres here and George wanted to sell me a farm and I said, Oh, man, I’m not much of a farmer. So, when we were sitting up on top of the hill I said I wouldn’t mind having a piece along Haymaker Road and so. I don’t remember what I paid for it, but we had to have it surveyed and the hillside here, instead of him going straight out on a line this he came down like this and I said, you cut my hayfield all up here (laughingly). So, they found another ten acres over here.

HM: Fifteen.

RM: Fifteen acres on the other side of the road.

Q: So, how many acres did you buy then?

HM: Fifty-five.

RM: Well, then, that piece over there was what?

HM: Yes, but that’s counting that, too. And, we cultivated about 35. We had somebody that sharecropped.

RM: The deer used to run across on the top of the hill there – the dogs chasing them (laughing).

HM: Uh-huh, coming out of the woods.

-----The Haymaker House----

Q: Did you move in in the Summer?

HM: No, that was in May ’45 that he bought it, and we couldn’t get in ‘til February ’46 because there was a lot of work to be done here. It was a log cabin you know, a log house. You can see the thickness of the wall, there. Which part was built first we really don’t know. But, the people that were living here had been here for thirty years and they were recluses and squatters. They hadn’t paid any taxes so, it was bought for back taxes by George Smith and we bought it from him. He was a plaster contractor in Wilkinsburg.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

RM: There was a fireplace in here; it was eleven foot wide. And, it was three rooms in here, all heated from that one fireplace.

HM: The fireplace extended out five feet by eleven feet long and went into the other room, in the corner, fireplace, and then went upstairs, too.

Q: Well, were the logs exposed when you bought the house?

HM: Yes.

Q: Did you put the siding on it then?

HM: Yes, that’s wormy Chestnut and he put that on there and then George plastered this.

RM: There was a big log upstairs on that room above here, run clear across the room. Clear across the whole length of the room. Yeah so, I had (laughs) an old guy with his arm off here, and, “I got to get that out of here”, he says, “take it out the window”, (laughs), out the back window here. So, we, took it out there and sawed it in two and shoved it out the window (laughs).

HM: But, the old man who said that, “That’s where we hung our meat, our beef”. He said, (louder), “that’s where we hung our beef”.

Q: What, to dry it? For the winter, like?

RM: The log was so long, hanging the beef on there. You’d hang quarters of beef on it.

HM: That’s what he said, anyway. Then there was a hole in that wall, the back wall and they asked him what that was used for and he said, “We had that, we shot out of there when the Indians came out of the woods”. They came from the Monongahela and crossed over to the Allegheny. Came through this valley. And, it was the French and Indian War. And who was defeated there in the…Braddock’s defeat? And, before the defeat – he told the men to bury the gold – hide it – bury the gold, which was their pay, and of course when they were defeated, and guess, lost a good many men – why an old timer told me this – and he said that they hunted up the gold and divided it and that’s how they got started in this area.

Q: Did Simpson build this house, do you think?

HM: No. Where was Simpson’s house?

RM: Down the holler here, whether the little creek come down here. And their house was up on the edge of the bank. It used to be their spring there. But, they used the water and their house was right here, an old log house.

HM: And Dick knew everyone. When we first came here. So down the woods there, that’s, uh…

LA: Beechwood Park.

HM: Beechwood Park. There’s a lot of beech wood down there. And, the crik – what did we call that crik? (Pause) But, it’s still the same name.

LA: I didn’t know it had a name.

HM: Uh-huh. Who told me that (quietly)?

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Q: So, when did they start to build on the land then? After you purchased this part, when did they start to do build around you?

HM: Fifty-seven. He made the road. He made the streets then for - and laid them out and then they started to build.

Q: And that was all Tom Mistick?

HM: Uh-hum. And as each house was put up, roof over it, then he paid Dick. Well, we never got paid for the park over there and a couple other lots. But, we did pretty well. Before we started, he wanted to drill for gas up on the top of the hill and there were Spencer lived, in the back of there? And, they did drill. We didn’t have underground rights. They did drill and Phillips connected with that gas well, and that was sort of interesting, too. And then there’s a gas line that goes through here, you know, the gasoline?

Q: Well, that ones up on Haymaker, isn’t it?

HM: Yeah, the station was.

Q: Well, was that there when you moved in here?

HM: Yes. Uh-huh. And a man used to walk the pipeline from way downtown. Where did he start to walk from a pipeline?

RM: Oh, uh, down on Butler Street.

Q: In Pittsburgh? How far did he walk?

RM: Well, he walked clear down there, down where the hollow is there.

Q: Just to check on the line, like?

HM: Yes. And, he told us that if we noticed anything unusual…

RM: And, he walked it everyday, or was it every Thursday?

HM: I don’t know if it was every other day…

RM: Every other day.

HM: But, now they fly over it.

------

Q: When you first moved in here, what kind of utilities were there?

HM: None.

Q: No gas or electric? Nothing?

HM: He had to put his own posts in following this driveway here. Here it is by the fence there. We had to put those poles in. We had to put poles down here and all we had was electricity.

Q: You had no gas?

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

HM: No.

Q: Your house was just heated by wood or coal?

HM: On coal at first, then we changed to oil. By tanker. We had a thousand gallon tank right up in there. Anyway, just last winter, a year ago Fall we had gas put in. We had to have a pipe in.

Q: It’s been that long?

HM: Un-hum, we didn’t bother ‘cause we had the oil. Then that got too expensive and we had to worry whether the tank was full or not. We used to buy it for 14 cents a gallon! (Laughs.) Then I think it got up to a dollar something, you know, for the oil.

------

Q: Now were there any roads here, other than your driveway, going up to Haymaker Road?

HM: No. Uh-uh. We had a driveway that went up to Haymaker. Haymaker curves quite a bit and we had a driveway from the barn that went up to the Haymaker there, cutting that curve.

------

And when we took that fireplace down in the dining room that I told you about, eleven by five feet, and the chimney went the top and when we took it down – they took, I don’t know how long (laughingly). But they made a bedrock for our driveway and that driveway went up the hill.

Q: All out of that one chimney?

HM: One chimney. It was just immense! And the reason we took it down was it wasn’t functioning correctly because there was a beam going at the top of the open fire place where they prob’ly hung things – and it would start to smolder. We couldn’t use it, but this one in the living room here, I could walk in it! It was so big! I could stand in it! And, of course, they had the swinging pot, you know, but they must have taken that with them, these people and I think they lived in that part of the house mostly, because it would have been too cold, because they didn’t keep it up. There were holes in the walls, you know, and that sort of thing. So they were very resentful that we came in here and they took six months to get out of here (laughs). Of course, that was within the law – they had a right to do that. So it was from May to October, I think, before they got out and then they started to work on the house here. ------

Q: You used the spring water instead of the well water?

RM: We had a good spring down there. It’s right below that house down there, right below that house.

Q: Well, was there a spring house?

RM: There was a spring house and it had two rooms. And water run through.

Q: Both of them?

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

RM: The one room.

------

RM: They had holes in the back of the house between the logs, it was a log house here then – they had holes in there to put the guns out to shoot at the Indians.

Q: Was when Judge Haymaker lived here?

RM: Yeah. Haymaker’s son married a guy’s daughter who lived down the holler there.

Q: Down, down the hollow in Beechwood?

RM: Yeah, down, down through Beechwood, yeah.

------

Q: I’m confused because I came down the hill, how are we oriented here? Do you know which way north is?

HM: Where’s north, Dick?

HM: This house is oriented so that the sun comes in here in the wintertime, not in the summer.

Q: And west is this way. So, this would be the north window, like. Her kitchen window would be the north.

HM: And the old timers knew how to set the house up so they have the sun in the winter but not in the summer.

Q: How far was it from the house to the barn?

HM: How far was it from the house to the barn?

RM: Oh, I suppose a hundred and fifty feet.

------

HM: (To her husband.) You stay here. I’ll be back in a minute. And, I was going to tell you that we had a spring down here. Below the oak tree.

RM: Yeah, we (used to) pump that water up from the spring down there. We had that big tank down the cellar.

HM: Where that big oak tree was our spring. Down there. Thirty foot drop, you know.

------

Q: Was that a functioning well out there?

HM: Yes, thirty foot drop just like the one – like the spring was. There’s water in there about 5 or 6 feet of water in there, so we have to keep it covered. We used it for the horses sometimes but we most always take them down to the spring house to water.

Q: How far would your land extend this way?

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

HM: Up to Holy Cross. There was a hollow tree – see the little gully back of these houses up to Saunders Station Road and then – there was a little triangle where there was a school house originally and, uh, we just had that little triangle taken off, and then it went around Haymaker all the way up there to, uh, Holy Cross, where Holy Cross comes in. And then he bought the – on the other side – St Lucian’s Drive – which there’s about 15 acres on the other side of Haymaker. ------

Q: We’ll talk a little bit about where you worked then. You had your business?

RM: Yeah.

Q: In Wilkinsburg?

RM: Yeah.

Q: Ok, when did you start that?

RM: In ’24, I think it was.

Q: And, you worked there all the time that you were buying this property then?

RM: Yeah. George Smith, he had, he had 187 acres of it and he wanted to get rid of the whole thing at one time. So (laughing), I says, well I wouldn’t mind having part of it George, but I don’t want 187 acres! I’m not that much of a farmer (laughing).

Q: So you bought 55 acres?

RM: Yes.

Q: Do you know who bought the rest?

RM: Why Johnny, um, Yurik… On top of the hill up here, he wanted to put a house up there on the corner where Haymaker goes in. He was the first guy up here. He lived in the cellar.

Q: And, built the house around him, them?

RM: Yeah.

Teresa Mirro (Born 1915 in Delmont, moved to Patton Township in 1950)

-----The Old Stone Church and the McGinley House-----

Q: Can you tell me about yours and Jimmy's [Ed: her husband, James Mirro.] involvement in setting up the Historical Society and in securing Old Stone Church and McGinley House from destruction?

A: Well, the Stone Church was up for sale. The people who had services there and owned the church were selling it. Jimmy couldn’t see them selling it. So he didn’t know what to do to raise the money to buy the church. So, he approached Mrs. Thompson, and told her the church was up for sale and what could they do - could they get people involved - everybody pitch in and donate some money and buy it or what could we do. He said, I hate to see it being torn down and maybe a new building, you know, put in its place. And so, she talked it over with her father, Mr. Sylves, and they came across with the money. And so, they paid the church some money, I don’t even know how much they paid for it,

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

$15,000 or $,25,000 - I forgot. So that's how we got the Church. At the same time Westinghouse bought the property down where Westinghouse is now, Nuclear Division. And they tore down the barn and all the sheds, the corn cribs, the milk house, and we couldn't see them tearing down the house. So I said to Jimmy, “Oh it's a shame to tear down that house”. I said kids today don't even know what an old house looks like, I said. They know what these new homes look like, but they don't know what an old home looks like. So, then he called Mr. uh, Ringo? Ringol? ....from Westinghouse?

Q: Ringgold, yes.

A: Ringgold? And he said, oh, could they possibly save the McGinley House. So Jimmy explained what he had in mind. And they said, well if you can promise me you'll turn it into a museum in three years, we’ll let you have it, you know. And that’s how the Historical Society was formed. By us having a Church and having McGinley House, we thought, well, we’d better have some kind of an organization here. So then Jimmy started the Historical Society. So, we would call different people. We would put it in the paper. There was a meeting up, at the Old Stone Church, and nobody would show up. Oh, we'd go through many nights, and lots of nights I’d say, I’m not going tonight. You go yourself, I’d say. Nobody is going to show up. He would go and about a half an hour, he’d come back with his attaché thing, you know. And we'd look at other and laugh. We didn't know what to do to get the people out, you know. We really didn’t know what to do. So finally Lois Allworth started, she joined. A few people started to join, and that was the formation of the Historical Society. But, that's how we got the McGinley House.

But, Mrs. Miller was still living in the House, and so we were good friends with her, and we'd go down to see her. And she’d say, “Oh Jimmy, you’re not going to chase me out of the house, are you?” Well, what the agreement was that her children were to see that she moved into another place, and they never did that. She just stayed there, and they didn't make another place for her to go to. And so, naturally, when we'd go down, she'd always be afraid we were going to say to her, well, Mrs. Miller, you have to leave, you know. And so she'd always say, “Oh Jimmy, you're not going to tell me to leave”. You can't ask me to leave. How could you ask her to leave? So then sister was - two old maid sisters, you know. So her sister got sick, and she only lived a day after we took her to hospital.' Cause Mrs. Miller called us, and we went down here and took her to Columbia Hospital. She was there one day, and she died. Well, Mrs. Miller was then all by herself by this time. So, she had adopted a little girl when she was just a little baby, I guess. And she raised this little girl, and so I guess that was her daughter or whatever. And so when her mother died, she came to live with Mrs. Miller. She was living in Florida. And little by little she started selling all of Mrs. Miller's furniture, you know.

So, well then her daughter came, in from Connecticut, and she had a daughter in Pittsburgh, and she had a son who lived in Pittsburgh, but he never bothered with her, with his mother. He just never bothered with her, and she missed him so much. She'd tell Jimmy, “Oh, I don't see my son, you know”. And so Jimmy would often call him, and say well come and visit your mother, you know, and he just didn't want to go. He just didn't want to bother with her. So then finally the daughter came in from Connecticut, Sylvia, and then she went out and found a place in Scottdale for her mother. But that wasn't the place for her because those people were all sick, and Mrs. Miller wasn't sick. She was hard of hearing, I mean, she talked real loud, but there was nothing wrong with her, you know.

She was able to take care of herself and take care of the house. It was depressing for her to live in a place like that 'cause you'd see people in wheel chairs, in bed, and, uh they weren't well like she was. So finally we told her daughter about that, you know. We said she's not living in the right place. So the daughter came out again and took her to the Jewish Home for the Aged, where is it, Homestead or somewhere...

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Q: Yes, across the High Level Bridge. I know where that is.

A: And so took her there, and she was more satisfied there. I mean there were people more like her there, people she could talk to and visit and whatever. And so then we'd go down to visit. So when she left the house, that's when we started to restore the place.

The first thing we did was restore that big chimney - I mean fireplace in the kitchen, and Jimmy got someone in, had them restore that. We knew there was a fireplace there in back because Mrs. Miller told us, you know. So when she came to live there, she covered all that up with plaster, but you’d never know it. There was a fireplace back there. So then, that was the beginning of the restoring of the house. So, it was more than three years after Westinghouse gave us the property. I think they gave it to us in '69, and it must have been, like, well the year of the centennial...

Q: '76.

A: '76. Because we had to hurry up and get it done for the, uh, you know. Well, we got the, uh, flag plaza put up first, and that was dedicated on Memorial Day. And that's when I’d be working up there--like midnight, you know--after out went out because I didn't want people to see me working up there. And when those lights would go off that lit around the Church, that's when we'd be working around up there, around the plaza. We'd scrape all the mud off and stuff there and plant the grass and all that. So, uh, we had that dedication on Memorial Day. The Stone Church was, uh, dedicated-- no, uh, the bell on the 4th of July. We rang the bell on the 4th of July after the parade.

And than for Labor Day, we had open house for the McGinley House. So we really had to work hard. Jimmy would come up every day and tell me what to do, who to call, and call different people. And, they’d promise they'd go down and do it, and they wouldn’t come, you know, but we got it done. So, we were really involved. .

Q: Yes.

A: We did a lot of work.

Q: A really worthwhile effort.

A: Well, then after we got the house, we had to get the furniture for it. So then we were getting-- we had Sybil, and she’d pick up different pieces, you know, and bring then in, and we had to have money for that. We sold some of the things Mrs. Miller had in her house after she left. What her - supposedly her niece - didn’t sell or didn’t take, rather. So, we had a garage sale, like. We even sold the chandeliers, the lights, and everything down there. So we made money, yeah, that way and that helped buy, I think we bought the table. Then East Suburban Women's Club gave us $200. I think we bought the dry sink with that.

Q: So, and the rest is history.

A: The rest is history.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Points of Interest Mentioned in This Chapter Shown on a 2010 Road Grid

Old Stone Church Center Logans Rd. Ferry Rd. Beatty Rd.

Beatty Rd. Westinghouse Old William Penn Hwy. PA Turnpike Nuclear

US 22 & I-376 Old William Penn Hwy. Duff Rd. Center Rd. Northern Pike McGinley House US 22

Business Monroeville US 22 Blvd.

Northern Pike

Northern Pike Monroeville Stroschein Blvd. Rd.

Pitcairn PA Turnpike Rd. Mosside James McGinley Rd. Blvd / PA St. Monroeville Rd. 48

Saunders Haymaker / Station Rd. Tilbrook Rd. Haymaker Maxwell Wall Rd. Ave. House

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Chapter 13 - Odds & Ends

{Ed: The locations of each of the points of interest mentioned in this chapter are shown on a map at the end of the chapter.}

Paul Aiken (born 1897 in Pitcairn)

Q: Where were you born?

A: Down here in Pitcairn, about 8th Street or somewhere down there in an old house down there. Old Robinson's house. They lived in Robinson's house when they first come to Pitcairn. But you see, on my mother's side, my father he come from another place, down east, like the Quakers. My mother, she was from a farm between Haymaker Farm, her grandfather, that was my great-grandfather, and the Tilbrook property. He lived over in there between them two farms.

Q: So, you've been in this area all your life?

A: Ya. And they were too. My great-grandfather's buried out in Monroeville.

Q: And you went to school down here?

A: Down here in Pitcairn to school, ya. Now what?

Q: You've been married how long?

A: Oh, I don't know, 40 years or 43

Q: So you were single for quite awhile before you got married?

A: Well, my parents was here, and I took care of them.

------Q: Are you a veteran?

A: World War I.

Q: How long were you, did you serve?

A: Well, we did about a year, I guess. See, this country wasn't in World War I too long.

Q: Were you in the army?

A: Ya.

Q: In Europe?

A: Ya. I got mixed up with the 14th Engineers and they're from New England. And there was another fella from here. There was one from Altoona. He got mixed up with them, too, somehow. He got in with them. I don’t know why. 19th Engineers was from here. But the 14th was from New England.

Q: How’d you get put in the engineers?

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

A: Well, you had your choice if you enlisted.

Q: Did you enlist right, right at the beginning of the war?

A: Well, I don’t know. Oh, I guess the war had broke out before I enlisted, but you had your choice then. You could enlist in whatever you wanted and I took the engineers. But oh, I don't know.

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Q: Where were you living when you were single?

A: Here. My father and mother was here.

Q: In this house, you mean?

A: Ya. My father built the house here far as I know.

Q: Then this house was build when?

A: Oh, I don’t know. Before 1900 anyhow. Must have been. Or about 1900.

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See, Sam Brinton, he was like my father, he come from down east in the Quaker country. He was originally raised a Quaker. Old Brinton was. And Mrs. Clark down Washington County was his sister, and old Mrs. McGinnis was his sister. Down here. And old John McGinnis owned the railroad yards and his brother, Bill, had this ground where Pitcairn is. And Bill, he married a Lang from out here. And they went 'west and nobody knows what happened to them. They just disappeared. A lot of people did go west and nobody ever heard of them again. And my grandfather, I've got the anvil out there. He got a blacksmith shop along the old Northern Pike up there, up above Pierce's Corner. Then there was another one, halfway to Murrysville, another blacksmith, and when you got into Murrysville, there was another blacksmith or two.

Q: Was this before you were married when all this was going on?

A: Oh, yeah.

Mrs. Aiken: Tell him about the nails your grandfather made.

A: Oh, well here was a hammer that was used for shoeing horses. It's a little different from an ordinary hammer. And even the county history, they're not too particular about what they write, some of them. They wrote my grandfather up as a nail maker. But he did make nails if you wanted them. And here's the hammer he used to make nails. See, they had no dies in it so the taper's on the head of the hammer. And he said when they first started to make board houses after he shod horses all day, he'd make nails in the evening for people that wanted them. And that's the hammer he used to make the nails cause that put the taper on them. Using that. I don’t know how they made that hammer, but they got it made somehow. See, me and Warner started this historic business and we all belonged to the original, but we all dropped out then. Politicians, they thought it was nice so they moved in. We moved out.

Q: When was that?

A: Well, he organized that. When did Horace get that going?

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Mrs. Aiken: Oh, it'd be 25 years anyway.

A: Ya. It’d be 25 years ago anyhow. That was when he lived over there right hand the Holiday Inn. In that house over in there. And his wife belonged. And her sister, and Clara Brunner, Sarah Beatty, I don't know, there was a couple more people, I believe.

Mrs. Aiken: Willy Johnson and Alda.

A: Well, AIda Meinor, her aunt was Clara Brunner. And then there was another. Like old Eli Meyers. That church out there Edie Meyers played the organ in that church, I guess all her life. And her father was Eli Meyers, had a little village store in the middle of Monroeville, halfway between the church and the corner down there. On the left going down. Eli Meyers had a little village store. And the post office was in it. That was before the rural mail started. And it started in Turtle Creek and a fella by the name of Gibson was the first mail carrier and he come from a farm up above Burke Glen. Over in there. Over the hill from there was McGinley School. Unity School was where Burke Glen is and there was Haymaker School, over here in Rosecrest was- what was the name of that school over there, Mount Hope, I believe. And then there was Brinton School up here and there was two schools, twin school houses they called them at the top of the hill before you go down into Center. That was the end of Boyce Park now. And old Tom Young owned that first farm in there from those schools, then it went on back in there and I think the last farm that they took was Ken Thompson's. He was a brother of Oliver and Bob and them fellas. {Ed: see Chapter One, School Days, for the map and further discussion of schools by Mr. Aiken. Most probably, the school that he refers to as “Mount Hope” was actually Mt. Pleasant.}

Q: That sounds like there was mostly farms here then?

A: Ya, they were all farms. There was only about 4 or 5 houses in Monroeville.

Q: What were they?

A: Right between the church and the corner where you go down to Turtle Creek. There was, well, on the left there where Busy Beaver is, or around that corner was Duff's old place or Monroe's. That table out in the kitchen is Monroe's old kitchen table. That horse shoe up there come from Monroe's old post office. That's an old horse shoe off a stage horse. In them days.

Q: Now, who was Monroe?

A: Well, he was the first settler in Monroeville. Monroe. And Duff, Governor Duff. Do you remember him?

Q: No.

A: Jim Duff. Well, his father was a preacher, but these Duff's in Monroeville were Becky, Annie, and Joel. Were Jim Duff 's cousins. And Duff's father was a preacher out around Murrysville. And his one brother, he was a lawyer, his one brother was a preacher and the other one was a- I knew people who went to church with them, out there. A preacher, and a lawyer. What was that other brother of old Duff's?

Q: How' d they come in with Monroe?

A: Monroe, they were cousins of Becky and Annie Duff. Like in the grandchildren's era, or stage. So, old preacher Duff, that was a grandson of old Monroe. One was a dentist, one of old preacher Duff's sons. Dentist. No, Jim was a lawyer, and one was another preacher,

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

well, there was three of them fellas, anyway. And then when, the way I got a hold of it, well, the Monroe’s, Becky and Annie, they gave me that horse shoe, out of the old post office. But when they passed on their niece, Mrs. Carlise, let me and this Warner have first choice of anything that we wanted to buy. Out of the old place. So, that’s the way I got the kitchen table. And, I have Monroe’s old wine glasses over there.

------

[Ed: while discussing the Sunrise Tavern on Northern Pike:] Anyway, that fella, old Warner's father, George, that was his old home. And then he had a brother who was a blacksmith here in Pitcairn, John. And he had another one, Ed, he lived in Newlandsburg. And this one down here, John, he was here when this was Westmoreland County, you know. All this west of the mountains was Westmoreland once. But old John down here, he was born in Westmoreland County, just no particular place. And when they got to making people register to vote and they wanted you to sign up or get signers, some people went, he went to sign up, old Warner did, and some smart aleck was trying to make him identify the exact spot and place, and so on, where he was born and they kept insisting and insisting. They made old John mad. He says, "how the hell do I know? There was no town!" That's the way with some of them.

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Q: Do you drive?

A: Yah

Q: When did you get your first car?

A: First car? 1917, I think. Yah.

Q: 'What kind was it?

A: Model T Ford

Q: Were 'd you buy it?

A: Where? Barney Hyde. He was the agent in Turtle Creek. He was a milkman once, and then he went into the Ford business.

Q: Do you remember, you remember what you paid for it?

A: $345.

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A: And they had, they had about 6, 8 teams out there. They built a shanty of a stable on Thompson's farm, with stalls in to feed the horses. They had a stone crusher there. They made them stones. Oh, I was going to tell you about them people in Westmoreland when all them horses was down here. They used to haul loads of hay that looked like a boxcar. In the winter when there was snow. And there were two families out there, worked together. At least two. And they would come from Murrysville to the foot of Abers Hill out there and then they would help each other up the hill. Put 4 horses in a load. When they'd get up to the top of the hill, they'd go back and bring the other felIa up, and then from here to Braddock or wherever they were taking the hay, like two horses could handle a sled. And they'd haul that hay, but like that. Then there was a fella, had the old farm where Temple David is, or in there where that neighborhood, an old fella by

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

name of Boyd. His wife had been a maid for Carnegie. So when old Boyd needed money for his taxes, he just put on a load of hay and take it down to Carnegie and get paid for it. Whether they'd ordered it or not, they'd take it. Well, that worked all right. Then, old Boyd, then when he sold the farm he moved in this house right over here. And he spent, him and his wife spent half their time over here visiting.

Sarah (Sylves) Thompson (born 1909 in Patton Township)

Q: Were they [Ed: her family] a prominent family at the time or were they just ordinary middle class, uh…

A: Well, my father, I think, probably was because, he became interested in politics - not to hold office - to get people to vote and all of this sort of thing. And the fact that he dealt in cattle meant that he knew everybody from Patton Township through Murrysville because this is where he bought cattle. And then his sister was married to somebody by the name of Speelman, and then he, too, was rather active in politics - not to hold office - but, you know, to have people get out to vote and that sort of thing. And, oh, outside of that, I wouldn’t say they were prominent. In later years, he became prominent.

Q: Who would you consider prominent families back as far back as you can remember- when you were little? Were there any dominant families?

A: Not really. Not really. Nobody worked toward being a status symbol. It was, you know, a very calm, quiet sort of thing. There was another family in the area by the name of Cunningham, and Cunninghams were in the construction business, and the first hard road that was laid in Patton Township was done by the Cunninghams.

Q: What road was that?

A: That would have been what is now Monroeville Road, and it ran from Turtle Creek to the top of the hill on James Street. What is - maybe a mile and a half or two miles - and that was about it.

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Q: How about your mother. What did she do at home?

A: My mother ran the house. She came from a German family, and her mother had attended a school in what is North Side of Pittsburgh now. They called it Allegheny. And her education was not only reading and writing, it was training in homemaking, and in cooking and all of those things. And my mother followed that, I think, rather closely. She was an excellent cook. When we went to school in the morning, we knew that when we came home at night, she would be there. And, if there were some reason why she had to be away, then she made arrangements with my father's sister - her family - to see to it that we were taken care of, but she liked to cook. She liked to do handwork- sewing and that type of thing, but she was a homemaker.

Q: Did she have any help ever, or did she do all the work herself'?

A: No. The house that we had on Mt. Pleasant Road had been built by my grandfather, and it was - as you well know at that time - a small house. You didn't have a large house. And she took care of all of it herself and she always had a flower garden and some vegetables and, you know, a garden and this type of thing.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Q: You mentioned sometimes she was away from home. Did she have outside activities?.

A: No. If it was anything at all, it was something that had to be done. For instance, maybe she would go to shop for us before school started. Maybe do grocery shopping and that type of thing, but there was - I can't even remember her being involved in any outside activities.

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Q: What kind of local government was there when you were little?

A: Well, Patton Township had- uh, I don't know actually who was responsible for things in the Township. I know that they had one part-time police officer, and there was no mayor or anything of that - no council. Because I think until Patton Township became, that it was around 1950, I don't think they had much of any kind of government. You had like road supervisors, and they were the ones who, you know, decided what roads were to be fixed and all that. And in this book (Sarah's) there is an audit of the Township for a certain year, and it is truly interesting. Because they were being paid at the rate of $2.00 per day to repair roads, but until Monroeville became a borough and got organized, there just wasn't very much of any kind of government.

Q: Do you remember who the policeman was?

A: Uh, huh. Smeltz. And his son has Smeltz's Garage on Monroeville Road, and then- I think that it - more of the same family have Diamond Cab. They bought Diamond Cab from the Speelman' s.

Q: So there was cab service in Monroeville some…

A: This would have been about 1950. ------

Q: Other than your mother and father, are there any other individuals that stand out in your memory from when you were little, somebody who impressed you or was unusual in some way?

A: Well, I think probably the ones I should say that stand out most were my grandfather and my father's oldest brother. He was a bachelor, and he spoiled us 'til it wasn't even funny. And my grandfather did the same thing. And it was always fun for them to be around. My grandfather lived with my aunt and her family, but he came to our house everyday to check on us and see how things were going. And they were great hunters, and they went into the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia to hunt and we were always fascinated by the stories they told us. And then one summer we went to the Shenandoah Valley. I remember we had a seven-passenger Hudson and the roads were not very good. I can remember a sign that said "Step on it, Dad, it's steep." (laughs)

Q: I just thought of something I want to back up to your mother and dad. If her family was from out at the airport, how did they meet?

A: Oh, my mother was a companion to Mrs. Gill and that's how my mother and father met. And I think that I did mention it to you that the farm that we bought was the Gill farm.

Q: Where was that? . A: Let's see - from the Borough Building over Monroeville Road across the back to U.S. Steel and down Stroschein Road and the private drive that goes up to the radio station. I think there was 160 acres in that.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Floyd Johnston (born 1911 in Patton Township)

Q: You mentioned Dirty Camp Run. Do you know how it got its name?

A: What was the general's name, I think that Mad Anthony Wayne was the general in the Revolutionary War that was camped in the valley in Pitcairn and in our area; that's in that area from Pitcairn out. And, the camp was so dirty - nobody took care of anything - everything thrown helter-skelter. And that's how it got its name, Dirty Camp Run.

Q: I couldn't imagine such an ugly name.

A: I won't be quoted on the general's name- I don't remember- I know that Mad Anthony Wayne was the general that my - Captain Robert Johnston was the captain of the wagons of what they call the cavalry under him, and the movement of equipment and so on, cannons and so on. He was a wagon captain during the Revolutionary War. He fought under Mad Anthony Wayne.

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Q: What was your father's name and where he was born and his ethnic background?

A: My father's name was John Johnston, and he was born in 1880, I believe it was March 15, 1880. And he was born in the old granary, where they had moved in and lived a couple of generations before him. And, they had all been farmers- our whole family had been farmers and still some are yet. My son Ed is still farming in Westmoreland County near where I live, in New Alexandria.

Q: And so your father did farming when he was young?

A: Oh, yes. He was born a farmer and stayed on the farm until, until he got that romance bug and got married and then he went to Pitcairn, to the railroad yards in Pitcairn, and had a job down there. Worked whatever, well he was kind of a carpenter, he was a handy guy who could do kind of anything. And he lived down there for several years until my two sisters were born, in Pitcairn. They lived in Pitcairn on Sixth Street up on the hill part of Pitcairn. And then he left the railroad and went to work for Westinghouse in Trafford City. The Westinghouse was being built. And he worked there and he had a very harrowing experience where he pretty near got killed by slipping on a roof and slid down to the very edge of the roof when a nail sticking up in the, through the sheeting, snagged his overalls. That saved him, and they pulled him back to safety, and he quit that very day. A few hours later after he had this problem he left the railroad at Westinghouse, he and his buddy. And a short time later he come to the farm, back to the farm in Monroeville, which had been rented for awhile, had renters. He came back to the farm and started to farm himself in about the 1900’s.

Q: How about your mother, what was her name, where was she from?

A: My mother's name was Mary Miller, and she was born and raised in, well, Allegheny County, which is now in Plum Township of Allegheny County, Universal. She lived there and got married and come to live on the farm, that is, after they left Pitcairn and moved back to the farm. And that's where they stayed until Dad passed away from the farm, and Mother was in a rest home for a short time, and she passed away when she was 90 years and 30 days old.

Q: How about nationality? Were they Scotch-Irish?

A: Scotch-Irish.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Q: Both of them?

A: Yes. Well, no. Mother had a little German tied in the Miller side. He was German descent- my grandfather, but my grandmother was Scotch.

Q: And you mentioned sisters; you had sisters.

A: I had four sisters. My oldest sister was named Gladys; my second sister was ZelIa; then myself; then Esther; and Agnes. And my second sister met with an accident when she was very young, about 1914, I guess I can remember; she was run over by an automobile. A Model T Ford run her over, and she died. She died from the effects of it - spinal meningitis. I guess she lived pretty near a year before she - she got fairly well, and then this developed, and she passed away.

Q: You mentioned the youngest one wasn't born where the rest of you were born. Where was she born?

A: She was born in the brick house which had stood up till the year before last. Well, it stood up until 1982. I think it was torn down in 1982.

Q: So did your Dad build that house, and you moved into that? When was that?

A: Yes. We moved. Yes, he built that house when I was 8 years old. My youngest sister was born in that house. She's 8 years younger than I am.

Q: Do you want to tell me how the Monroeville land came to be in the Johnston family?

A: Well, the former Johnstons, which were John Johnston, the first settler, was a homesteader in Monroeville in the late 1750's, early 60's, and on the farm where we lived. And, in fact he was the instigator of the log cabin; he and his sons built the log cabin and whatever else was around there.

Q: How did Robert figure in this?

A: Well, Robert was John Johnston's son, and he was the one who applied for the land grant in 1769, and it was granted in 1789, 20 years later. Of course things didn't move too fast. They didn't have Uncle Sam to take the mail everyday.

Mary (Piantiny) Winkler (born 1913 in Trafford, moved to Monroeville in 1919)

Q: When you were first married, did you always go down to Turtle Creek for shopping?

A: No, after I got married – my husband was from Wilmerding – I lived in Wilmerding.

Q: Then you moved back?

A: We were up in Wilmerding – I don’t know for how long – I think Sonny was about five years old – then we went to Chicago for a while. Then we were down there for about two years. And then when we come back, from Chicago, I moved up here across the road in a four room house. And, my sister and her husband found it and they lived in the house near to the road. And, their name was Hohmann, Mr. and Mrs. Fred Hohmann. Now, my brother-in-law’s been here a good while. Because, up there where the Red & White market is on James Street now? That was – the old homestead’s still there, that old brick home. But, they’re both gone too and some of the children have gone. See, the, the ones that are living, I think the oldest one could be about 80 years – Rose. And, that’s how the supermarket actually got started. They had a big garden. And, oh, they worked

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

hard, I’ll tell you. And, she started selling fruits and vegetables, just from a little wee shanty, about this big. They kept putting groceries and stuff on the shelves and the shelves were starting to bend (laughs). We used to go up there when we had the kids – when they were little – Nick and Jean – that’s her brother – went up there and bought penny candy and stuff – once in a while we bought a quart of milk or something. And, that’s how that supermarket got started. Of course, she didn’t start the supermarket, her son started the supermarket. He helped out in a store over there somewhere, then they got the idea they could put up a building. Well, they put part of it up. Wasn’t big enough. So, they added on to it. So then they found out they could have – they had a lot of ground – they still could put more on it, so then that’s why the drugstore’s there. And I don’t know how long that’s been there. Could be 25 years – maybe – I think by now. And, who else could I tell you – you know there was some people that I didn’t know their names up there. I know Braungers were here along there – the Braunger family. Yep, they were here a long time. ‘Cause the father was gone before I ever knew him. But the mother lived to be real old. And before the house was sold and tore down, the sister with her husband were living up there. They were already in their eighties. And would have been something nice because it was old and it was big and old fashioned looking, you know. And they were kind of nice people. They stayed to themselves – they didn’t bother with anybody much, you know, whey were quiet like. Of course, they were real good Christians. They have a daughter that’s a nun and she’s nice, too. She’s still living! She – of course she’s not teaching now. She’s too old. She must be in her eighties.

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Q: Do you remember the phone service here when you were young?

A: You mean when I first got married or at home?

Q: Both.

A: We always had a telephone at home all the time. We were the only ones in the neighborhood that had a telephone. And, everybody else used the telephone because they called the doctor or anything – they used our phone. And then, like when I got up here there wasn’t too many people that had telephones either. But, I wanted a telephone. And, I was the same way. If anyone wanted to make a call, it was over to my house. But really, I didn’t mind it because it was always for a good cause, you know.

Q: Was it a party line at that time?

A: Oh, yeah. But – I think four parties. Yeah, I think – I think, yeah it was four parties because you had a hard time getting on the line. Somebody else was always on ahead of you (laughs). Tell you the truth, I liked it better then. ‘Cause all you did was pick up the telephone – she’d go, “Operator”! you’d tell her what number you wanted. It wasn’t as long as it is now. It was just like 3-7-2 or something, you know, only. You’d say, “Valley 372”. And, she’d dial you right away. Now when you get on the phone, half the time I dial the wrong number (laughs). Not if it’s long distance. If it’s a short one and I’m in a hurry (laughs).

Q: Did they have all the utilities, like the gas and electric?

A: Well, we had gas and electric, but not sewage. Sewage came in later. And I think it was a good thing. I liked it when it came in. It was costly. But, I liked it. And then, we were allowed to burn garbage. We didn’t have garbage pickup. And, I kind of liked that, too. Because, there was always a lot of twigs and dead leaves that you wanted to, you know, get rid of, and that was the best way to get rid of them. So now you have to do it the hard way. You have to take the garbage up, pack it up and take it up to the road, for the garbage man to pick up. But, it’s a good thing, too. Garbage collection. I think it’s

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

wonderful. It cuts down on – I know we used to see a lot of rats and that down where we used to have the – we had like a fireplace down there – we used to see a lot of rats down there. And I think that eliminated a lot of it, really and truly. And, sewage, because all we had was septic tanks. Everybody along here had septic tanks.

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Now, I’ll tell you, when I first moved on this road we were on RD3, and, we were Turtle Creek mailing address. Well, then before I got here, they called this Hell’s Half Acre. I never found out that story. Then after that they called it McCulley Road. When I got here then it was RD3. Then it was quite a few years before they gave us Ohio Street. So, it just goes on like that, you know. But, you know, it was funny because every night they have something on Channel 2 – like tonight they wanted to know what was the first department store that went out of business in Pittsburgh. Do you know?

DCN: Rosenbloom’s?

MW: What?

DCN: Rosenbloom’s?

MW: I thought it was too. Boggs & Buhl. And, I watched that and one night they said, “What was Monroeville before it was Monroeville”? What did they call it – and I said to my son, “Oh, that’s Patton Township”. I know it. Sure enough it was. But, sometimes you have to think a little bit. I thought it was Rosenbloom’s too, but it was Boggs & Buhl and when you come to think of it, it really was Boggs & Buhl.

Jean (Winkler) Colbaugh (born 1934 in Patton Township)

Q: Did you have a garden in your house at that time? a: No, we never had a garden. My family, per say, didn’t, but I used to help a lot of times in the garden where Hohmann’s store is. Grandma Hohmann, she is related to my mother’s sister, and I used to go up there and help them in the garden, picking tomatoes, you know, whenever they were ripe. And they had a little, um, like a little stand. Right on James Street, you know, was a little wooden stand, you know, that you see along the road even today. And, they sold their vegetables there. And, I used to work sometime at the stand there. Selling vegetables and then they built their store.

Arlene (Bateson) Scalese (born 1940 in Patton Township)

Q: Did your parents grow any food? Did they have a garden?

A: Oh, yeah. Always. Maybe not a real big one.

Teresa Mirro (Born 1915 in Delmont, moved to Patton Township in 1950)

Q: What prompted your decision to move here?

A: Well, we used to come from Wilmerding. To go up to Delmont, come through Mosside to go up to Delmont. We just loved the country out here, and thought it would be a nice place to build. So, we saved some money and got the property. Of course, Mrs. Kuehn didn't want to sell. We kept bothering her and pestering her. And, originally, we wanted the

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

ground where the hospital is, and she wouldn't sell that - just an acre or whatever we wanted. I think it was 20 acres in that piece of ground. So we said what about this, this corner piece in this triangle. I said you can't put in any animals in there to pasture because it’s was all open. They weren’t farming it for anything. So we finally convinced her to sell us this piece of ground. After we bought it people said how did you get her to sell you this ground. I said well, I don't know. But Jimmy talked to her and talked to her until she said O.K., you can have that piece of ground. So that's how we got the piece of ground.

Q: So, this is the Kuehn from the dairy farm that's still here?

A: Her husband and the dairy were brothers.

Q: O.K.

A: Carl had the dairy. Well, the father of the boys-name was Carl and Mrs. Kuehn's husband, Frank, were brothers. What happened-the, the father, the old people gave each child in the family, like a Kaiser's, you know the Kaisers?

Q: No.

A: Well, she was one of the girls, and Frank and Carl, I don' t know, there must have been a couple of other sons He gave them all a piece of ground. This must have been all this farm land, and he gave everybody a piece of property. That's how that's how she happened to get her property, Mrs. Kuehn. I forget how many acres she had. And the same thing happened to the dairy people. They gave them so much ground, and then we got it from her.

Q: Was there anything on the property when you bought it?

A: No.

Q: How did you get the plans for this house, and who built it for you?

A: Well, the plans came from a picture I saw in Better Home and Gardens. And I like the layout, and, if you notice, there is a kitchen, dining room, living room, and a kitchen and dining room all in the front of the house. Usually, you see when you come in a house - you'd have like a bedroom and a maybe a living room and than the - not a bedroom - but a dining room and a living room and the kitchen's usually in the back of the house, did you ever notice that? Well, this is in the front of house the back of the house has two bedrooms and the bathroom. So I like the layout of the house. So I wrote to the architect, and I said, you know, could he give me the plans. And, he built this house for his parents out west, and you'll notice, it’s all one floor. The garage was supposed to be off the kitchen. So when we started to build and we put the garage off the kitchen, I said, Oh, then, we're going to spoil all the view. I couldn't see down the road. So I said I think we should have the garage down underneath. So we excavated after that was already build on the top, and we did it the hard way. We had to excavate, then to make the garage coming in from Mosside. Otherwise, it would be coming in from Haymaker, you know. So I wrote to the architect and asked if we could have the plans, and then he sent the plans, and we were our own contractors. And Jimmy contracted different people like for the foundation, for the bricks and for the plastering and we did a lot of work and put the floors down, and we did, I did the scoring of the block, and I did the French draining. I'd go look for stones and put them around the, you know. We did a lot of things ourselves. I did all the painting.

Q: And it turned out great.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

A: We bought the property in '48. We started to build right away, and we moved in in 1950 when we had the big snowfall, the first winter here.

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Q: When you first moved into Monroeville, since you don't drive, how did you get around?

A: Well, Jimmy and I did everything together. So wherever he went, I want, and wherever I went, he went. And as far as meetings or clubs, the girls would pick me up.

Q: How about bus service?

A: No, bus service, no.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Legend Points of Interest Mentioned in This Chapter BB = Busy Beaver Shown on a 2010 Road Grid BG = Burke Glen GF = Gill Farm / WPSL HF = Haymaker Farm HI = Holiday Inn HM = Hohmann Market JD = Johnston Dairy Farm KD = Kuehn Dairy Farm Center Logans Rd. MP = Mt. Pleasant Rd. Ferry Rd. Beatty O = Old Stone Church Rd. PC = Pearce’s Corner Beatty Rd. RC = Rosecrest

Old William Penn Hwy. ST = Sunrise Tavern PA Turnpike TD = Temple David TF = Tilbrook Farm US 22 & I-376 Old William Penn Hwy. BB Duff Rd. Center Rd. Northern Pike ST

US 22 O HI Business US 22 BG PC TD Monroeville Northern Blvd. JD Pike

Northern Pike Monroeville Stroschein Blvd. GF Rd. KD

Pitcairn PA Rd. Mosside James RC McGinley Turnpike Blvd / PA St. Rd. TF 48 Monroeville HM Rd. Saunders Station Rd. Tilbrook Haymaker MP Wall Rd. Rd. Ave. HF

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Postscript

Once again, the Monroeville Historical Society hopes that this compilation has provided the reader with both knowledge and enjoyment.

Think of this work the next time that you are driving along Business Route 22, and you are just passing the major intersection of Routes 48 and 22, heading east towards Murrysville. Image, if you will, that it is 1950 and that the intersection that you just went through is not yet there. Neither is the Parkway and its exit to your left, nor the Parkway overpass in front of you, nor the Turnpike entrance and toll booths to your right up the hill. Instead, if it is 1950, right before you get to where the overpass now is located would be an intersection of two country roads. The road that you are intersecting would be Haymaker Road, coming up from the south on your right, passing alongside what is now King’s Restaurant, through where the Turnpike toll booths are now located, crossing in front of you to connect with what is today Old Haymaker Road and then joining the current road heading north to the junction with Logans Ferry Road. The big attraction in 1950 is on your left, where just before the intersection of these two dusty roads is a large barn. In 1950 it would be the Auction Barn and if your imaginary trip was occurring on a Saturday night, the field adjacent to the barn would be filled with several dozen trucks and automobiles (probably more trucks than autos) and the barn and surroundings would be filled with a couple of hundred people. There would be vendors selling popcorn and hot dogs and the smell would easily reach your vehicle on the road heading east. The sounds would be those of people laughing and talking, children yelling to each other and the auctioneer filling the air with his unique song. Are you sure that you don’t have a few minutes just to stop in and see what’s happening? You know that they auction off just about anything and everything there. They just might have that tool that you have been looking for. You wouldn’t want to miss a chance at a real bargain, would you? Besides, those hot dogs smell so good.

This is just one of dozens of examples of past visions of the Monroeville area that are contained in the memories of the interview subjects in this work that, hopefully, have allowed you to picture Monroeville in times past and to appreciate the amount of enterprise that was required to transform this area from a slow paced farm area to the high energy community of today.

The Society would like to thank all of the interviewers and editors that made possible this compilation.

Dan Nowak Oral History Program Coordinator Monroeville Historical Society Monroeville PA September 2010

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

“In Their Own Words”

Taken From a Series of Oral History Interviews of Long Time Patton Township and Monroeville Residents Conducted in the Mid 1980s.

Addendum 1 Just People

Coordinated and Edited by Dan Nowak Editorial Assistance by Kathy Nowak, Kevin Nowak, Bob Elms, Marina Elms, Louis Chandler & Peg Gomrick

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville Introduction

This is an Addendum to the original presentation of the results of the mid 1980s oral history project conducted by the Monroeville Historical Society.

This Addendum covers only one interview, tape number MHS-86-6. It covers primarily just one subject, the genealogy of various early and long time resident families of Monroeville. This particular interview was conducted on April 28, 1986 primarily by Paul Damon with assistance from Dan Nowak.

The interview subject was Paul Aiken. Mr. Aiken, born Thomas Paul Aikens was born in 1897 in Pitcairn and lived his whole life there. At the time of the interview, he lived with his wife Madeline at the top of Highland not far from the Monroeville border. Paul worked for the railroad or for railroad related companies all of his life. He was a veteran of the First World War.

Because of the specialized nature of this interview and the fact that it would not have the general appeal that the other sections would, it was decided to present it as a special section by itself.

Dan Nowak Oral History Program Coordinator Monroeville Historical Society Monroeville PA September 2010

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Addendum 1 - Just People

{Ed: this section is comprised of most of a single interview, Tape MHS-86-6, conducted by Paul Damon, the intent of which was to expand on the genealogical items that were touched on in an earlier interview with Mr. Aiken. Since this section deals almost entirely with the old families and, as such, is probably not of interest to most people without a personal connection to these families, it was preserved as an addendum rather then as part of the body of this compilation.}

Paul Aiken (born 1897 in Pitcairn)

Q: Where does Pitcairn start?

A: Well, right there. Across there is Monroeville. And, half this road here—the top there to the top of this hill is half Monroeville and half . Pitcairn.

Q: I see. Yeah, I was just, uh, coming down and I know the Eichelbergers live on Russo. Dolly Eichelberger has been active in the Historical Society off and on.

A: Yeah, I know she has.

Q: She’s head of the 4th of July Committee or something like that nowadays. By the way, Paul, is your name Thomas Paul Aiken?

A: Yeah, yeah.

Q: Because I saw a “Thomas P. Aiken” in the phone directory when I was looking up your address tonight. You own a cemetery lot and, I believe, your parents own the cemetery lot up in Crossroads Cemetery.

A: Yeah.

Q: Was it John H. and Margaret?

A: Yeah.

Q: What’s your father’s middle name?

A: Henderson.

Q: Where was he born?

A: Well, he was born down here in what they used to call Spring Hall—the lower end of old Wall. But, his people were from down east. That is the Quakers. But, Brinton up here, Sam Brinton, he went east. His people had been Quakers too.

Q: I see. Were there Quakers here? Was there a Quaker meeting house here?

A: No. Well they, when they come here, Brinton, he joined the Presbyterians. And, so they just drifted. But, then Brinton’s old place was a Pennsylvania William Penn Land Grant.

Q: Yeah, they were here a long time earlier and, I see the Brinton’s on the early maps of the area.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

A: Yeah. There was a map here, and I shoulda got a copy of it. It didn’t have any towns on it. It had Brinton’s house. McGinnis’ house, Abers house, Morrison’s. Each house was marked—no towns.

Q: Well in 1851, which might be the map you’re talking about, they did come out with a map that was just the towns. Then in 1876 they came out with another map that was just the houses.

A: Well, those Beatty boys’ grandfather had the map I saw. And, I often wished I’da got a copy of it for myself.

Q: You said the Brinton house and the Abers house or some of the others. Where were some of those houses?

A: Brinton’s was up here at the end of Mosside.

Q: Right down the corner Mosside and, uh…

A: There was no road up there then. There was a road up to Trafford. But no Mosside. No bridge over there. That was a lake.

Q: That was a lake!

A: That’s where we went fishing.

Q: On Turtle Creek – you mean there was a little lake on Turtle Creek?

A: Ohhh, about 15 acres of shallow lake up there. We’d go up to there fishing for catfish, or sunfish.

Q: Well, what happened to the lake? Where’d it go?

A: Well, the railroad put that steel car shop in up there. They drained it out. And then they made Mosside Road across. They did away – then we had a 15 acre natural skating rink up there in the winter – us kids. He asked me one time what we did for amusement. We had lotsa natural amusement, but now you have to buy it. Yeah, they’re gonna put a new skating rink here in Monroeville, but you’re gonna have to pay to get into that instead of the old pond.

Q: Your mother was Margaret? What was her maiden name?

A: Glew. But her grandfather’s buried in Monroeville.

Q: They came from England? I think they’re from Derbyshire, England, originally.

A: Yeah. But her grandfather’s buried in Monroeville.

Q: Yes. You know what his first name was?

A: John

Q: John. I had some information here on the Glew’s. There’s a lot a Glew’s up in the, uh, cemetery.

A: Well see, now McGinnis’ had this property here. John had a railroad property and his brother, Bill, had where Pitcairn is, the town. Then there was a family of Vaughn’s down below.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

There’s a whole row of Vaughn’s in the Monroeville Cemetery. And, they had the property down below here. Now, I don’t remember who had it down through Turtle Crik. I heard them say, but I don’t remember. And when you go down into Braddock, you got into that Kelly gang.

Q: I don’t know anything about them. Were they a gang of some sort?

A: Well no – their business, so the old people told me. In Civil War days, or before the steel mills were down there. They made iron kettles. That’s what they said their business was. Now, I’m just tellin ya – some of this is hearsay to me.

Q: Well, there are some of the original iron workers in the area evidently.

A: That was Kelly’s. So they said.

Q: McMasters owned a lot of the property in Turtle Creek. I don’t know the first names, but that family owned a lot of property.

A: Well, the Cisco Land Co. owned a lot of property around Turtle Creek once. Cisco – and then there was, uh, course a lot of things I can’t remember. Like there was an old family here one time – this doesn’t have much to do with the history of Monroeville, but, Turtle Creek was the main town. Everybody went there on Saturday night. So, there was an old family lived over around Turtle Creek Road by the name of Doer. Now old Walter Glendenning’s mother out here was a Doer. Course there was another – an older – one and he name of Johnny Doer. He had one leg off, but, he was a sawmill operator. He operated a sawmill on them Glendenning’s, they cut timber out there, when there was still timber – runs the sawmill and Johnny was a sawyer – Johnny Doer.

Q: Was the sawmill over by the Glendenning’s property?

A: Well, it moved wherever there was woods. And in there where there’s a industrial park, there was a big oak grove once. They moved in there and cut it. See, and wherever they’d find another patch of timber, that’s where they’d go. It moved to wherever the timber was. This old Doer, the joke about him was – the women would go to the stores in Turtle Creek, so they tell me, and the politicians would come out there and make a speech in the public lot to the famers while they were sittin’ around. One come out, and he was tellin’ ‘em one time, how he come from a farm and he was practically raised up between two rows of corn – old Doer yelled “a punkin!” That shut the politician up. Uh, politics – I don’t know much about politics back in this area at that time, but they probably had a lot of fun with it cause there wasn’t that many people around and they, hearing about what they were talking about.

Q: Who’s Fulton Glew? Do you know him?

A: Yeah, he was my grandfather’s brother and his wife was one of those Vaughn’s you’re talking about.

Q: Agnes Glew was his wife, I think.

A: Yeah. She was one of those Vaughn’s.

Q: That is why she’s buried right near John and Isabella Vaughn.

A: Yeah.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Q: And I guess it’s this side of them, there’s a Margaret Shearmesser buried in between the Vaughn’s and the Fulton Glew’s. I don’t know who she is.

A: Well, it’s hard to keep track of things. I’ll tell ya about another family out there. It’s mixed up. Matthew Aber, his older brother was a Matthew too. But, he was one of the first casualties in the Civil War. So, when this young one was born, they named him for his older brother. There’s things like that happen that don’t really mean anything to the history, but

Q: No. It means a lot to the history. I think because the Abers are one of the larger families in the area.

A: Yeah. They were a big family – Abers.

Q: Of course, you have Abers Creek and Abers Creek Road, nowadays in that area. Let’s see, there’s a William and Anna Glew, Elizabeth Glew, Margaret Glew.

A: Uh, those are my grandfather’s brothers.

Q: There was a John Glew that must a been their father.

A: Yeah. That was, yeah, that was their father. Yes.

Q: He’s the one that immigrated.

A: Yeah his family. He started in Monroeville.

Q: Right. I just was reading a list of names of some of the people that are buried there. Let’s see, there’s a John and an Anna Glew that died in the 1880’s.

A: Well, yeah. Well, wait a minute. Uh, let’s see. What’s their name’s grandfather had two children, my mother’s brother and sister. There was an epidemic one time in them and they died of Scarlet Fever, and they’re buried up there somewhere.

Q: Was that back in the 1800’s, or more recent?

A: Uhhh, it had to be in the 1800’s. Well, I’ll tell you, uh, in the 1870’s and 1880’s, a whole series of Glews and Scotts – I don’t know whether Scotts were related, but they’re buried right near the Glews up there. There was a number of them buried in that period.

Q: Your mother Margaret – Margaret’s father was Thomas Glew?

A: Yeah.

Q: He must be on one of the other lots because I don’t see him on this.

A: Well, he’s right – buried right below John.

Q: Is he in the more, or like what you call the “organized section of the cemetery?

A: No.

Q: There’s a number of Glews. The Glews have 6 different areas where they have graves.

A: Yeah.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Q: I have a 1895 map of, uh, the area, which is not the one you were talking about – I don’t think. There was an Iron City Land Co. I guess

A: Well, they were from Greensburg. The Iron City – they owned this property right here. And they owned out back here from Jordan School up all that back in there. Iron City Land Co. – Deekers was their agent.

Q: Did that use to be the Brinton property – Sam Brinton’s property?

A: Well, I can’t tell ya. It may have been part of McGinnis’.

Q: Oh! Sam Brinton was the next property over. I see.

A: Yeah, he was goin’ towards Trafford.

Q: Right. OK. Right east over toward Trafford. In fact, he owned on either side of what’s now Mosside Blvd.?

A: Yeah, that’s right.

Q: Was there a school house down right down near the end where Mosside Blvd is?

A: NO! The school house was up the hill before you go into Trafford. That was Brinton School.

Q: The foot of Brinton Road?

A: Well, where that road comes down from out Monroeville – Haymaker Road – where it comes down and joins to go over to Trafford – Brinton School sit in there in the corner.

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Q: Did any of the Haymaker’s teach school?

A: Not in Monroeville. But old Haymaker, I remember him. Well, I served on a jury once around World War I and Haymaker and Ford were the judges in Criminal Court at that time. But, Haymaker, that’s one thing about him, he never forgot this place after. No matter what happened, he was always back to visit with the old folks out here.

Q: I haven’t been able to find any records of Haymakers living in this area.

A: No.

Q: His father built that house – I guess sits over there.

A: Yeah.

Q: I know William Newland Haymaker was his father, I believe

A: Yeah, yeah. Well, see my mother’s grandfather – his farm was between Haymaker’s and the Tillbrook farms. And, it had a log barn on it and a log house. Now I remember the yard was like a, ohhh, all the shrubbery you ever wanted to see or different kinds. The yard was full of it – I don’t know what. They’d have a reunion there. I don’t know what they were, though, I can’t remember. I wasn’t old enough to go to school yet when they had them.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Q: Just for the record, the Glew farm, which was according to what it say here, 47 acres, was at the corner of Ramsey Road; what they call Ramsey Road now and Haymaker Rd.

A: Yeah.

Q: Which would make it right where the Crossroads Church is.

A: Yeah, that’s it – right in there.

Q: And it looks from this map the house was probably right at the intersection of that road, just north of Crossroads Church.

A: No, it was away from the road. It was up quite a piece from the inter – road intersection.

Q: Did they have a driveway back to it?

A: Yeah, ya drive right into – the barn was over here and the house was there and you drove right in between them.

Q: Did you visit that house?

A: Yeah, oh yeah. We often went there when I was a kid.

Q: Did you like the house? I always liked to visit my grandparents’ house.

A: Well, we always went there in the summer and everybody’d sit on the big porch. There wasn’t much livin’ inside.

Q: No air conditioning or anything?

A: No. Well, it was comfortable outside and that’s where they were.

Q: When did they tear the house down?

A: Well, you know, I can’t remember when exactly. I think it musta been around World War I because grandfather’s brother Bill lived there all his life and some of his sisters, and I don’t know whether it burn or whether they tore it down. There was a lot of them places caught fire.

Q: Was that was a wooden house?

A: Log house. And, the barn was a log one.

Q: Was the barn a lot bigger than the house?

A: Yeah. Well, it was a long – it wasn’t too deep, you know. But them horses he had, they had a picnic. He only worked two in the morning and two in the afternoon. He always kept four big horses and he’d work the dickens to make hay enough to feed them all winter.

Q: Did he have any cows?

A: Oh enough. Enough for themselves, that’s all.

Q: What did they farm? Was it mostly to sell the hay?

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

A: Yeah. A lot of them sold hay in them days or feed the contractors who did all the horsework. See, McCready had two or three dozen horses down in Braddock. Cunningham had about 20 in Turtle Creek and they did all that road building with horses and wagons.

Q: Where was the blacksmith shop that the Glew’s had?

A: Right above Peirce’s Corner there.

Q: When you mean above – you mean on a hill above it?

A: No. Right up the road. Across from that veterinary’s. That veterinary’s house is where his old log house was years ago. That’s Dr. Robinson’s veterinary house now. I don’t know who’s there now.

Q: That’s kinda’ like near Whitehead Lane, whatever they call that next street up. I don’t know really what that’s called.

A: It’s this side – of right above there used to be Martin’s Crossroads. Then grandfather’s was the next farm down. And old Dan, after Margaret Beatty, her home farm was the one over the hill on the other side. John Huey had that – he had a coal mine over there after her time – that was Dan McMaster’s wife.

Q: I think on the other tape you said that Dan McMasters was from Colorado or somewhere near there.

A: Yeah.

Q: He wasn’t part of the McMasters’ family that’s here?

A: No. He – no, he didn’t have nothing to do with them. You see, she went west for her health.

Q: What was wrong with her?

A: Ohh, I don’t know whether it was tuberculosis or consumption. One of them things, ya know. Well, that’s what happened. This Gail Shifler’s uncle that was a doctor, that’s what killed him.

Q: Do you know what his last name was?

A: Tillbrook. Now and then, like his, I don’t know whether it’s his brother or cousin or what, old Stewart Tillbrook, he used to keep his own foxhounds and old Judge Haymaker’s foxhounds. And, then grandfather’s brother, Bill, he kept his own foxhounds. They’d spend Saturday nights out there in the country huntin’ foxes down through Abers Creek.

Q: Hard to imagine that being out in the country, that with all the things built up down around there. Do you know Oscar Tillbrook?

A: Oh yeah, he lives right here, about a mile out the road. See, the Tillbrook family extended from over Haymaker over clear across the toad. And, this first farm here, where Carl Rush was, that was where one of the Tillbrook’s birth place or his old home. Tillbrook and they had a grocery store there in Pitcairn. Him and his cousin, Jim, had a grocery store and dry goods store in Pitcairn. Years ago.

Q: You said Carl Rush, that had the Rush’s had the property this side of Oscar Tillbrook’s property.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

A: Yes, that’s right.

Q: Somebody named A.W. Risher owned the property right next to Rush, and right below Haymaker for a little while there, after the Glew’s sold the property.

A: Yeah.

Q: I guess the Graham’s bought some of that property in there, too. In fact, the Grahams, I guess, bought the Glew property over there.

A: Well, now the truth about these Graham’s, one had a dairy on the old farm in there they had a dairy – milk dairy. There used to be a brick house in there at the corner of Ramsey Road and one family of Graham’s lived in there and had a dairy. Jim.

Q: Jim Graham?

A: But, then there was another Jim built that brick house out along there; built across from Temple David. That was another Jim Graham.

Q: There’s a Joseph Graham that owned some property up in there. Maybe his son or his father was the Jim that you’re talking about.

A: Well, no. This Jim that I’m talking about that had the brick house along old Pike out here by Temple David. His father was Jack and he had a farm over there by Moss Road or by, uh, Ramsey Road. Jack Graham. His daughter lives – Anne lives down here – or his granddaughter that is lives down here beside the bank or one of the girl’s lives down here yet.

Q: Is her name Graham? Last name Graham still?

A: (Nodded head affermantive)

Q: I am in touch with some of the Graham’s that live elsewhere in the Monroeville area.

A: Well, but the one has a garage out there you see. That fellow that had the brick house from Temple David was his grandfather.

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Q: You know where was the Mehaffey’s farm?

A: Well, there was one Mehaffey had a farm up by Edels Creek Station.

Q: It might be the same one, I don’t know.

A: Well, now I don’t know but he was a brother-in-law of this one Jim Graham.

Q: The Graham’s owed then quite a bit of property in that part of Monroeville by the sound of it.

A: The way that happened was, this old Jack, his youngest boy, Bill, kept the old home farm. And, the rest of them all picked up a farm of their own.

Q: What did they have to pay for a farm back then? What did an acre of land cost back then?

A: Well, I’ll tell ya, good farm land, the best, was about $40.00 an acre. Well, 50 or 60 acre farm, buildings and all out here – the taxes were only $12 or $15 a year.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Q: Was this a farm right here where your house is, when your parents,built this?

A: Well, it was. It musta’ been cause there was old apple trees around here.

Q: An orchard of some sort?

A: Uh, somebody had it. Johnny Appleseed, maybe. I don’t know.

Q: There’s a large white house about a block up here.

A: Well, that don’t belong to this farm here. That belongs to an old Shield’s as far as I know.

Q: Shields?

A: They had that. They owned all that farm around there were Jordan’s School is and out to that farm of Carl Rush’s. And, that down over the hill into the North Pitcairn belonged to them.

Q: There was a Walter Shields buried up in our cemetery. I guess there’s some other Shields up there too, probably part of that same family. You told Dan the other day that you first bought a car about 1917 and it was an old Model T. What kind of roads did they have to drive ‘em on around here? Can you tell us anything about the roads?

A: Dirt – dirt roads. And, I think it was about 1908 one of the automobiles in existence then around here made a trip from Pittsburgh to Altoona and it took a day. And all the people for two miles came over around the road up above Pierce’s Corner, ya know, and sit on the rail fence to watch them goin’ by.

Q: Why did they do that?

A: Well, I don’t know. There was some automobile clubs in them days. Just had that for fun – I don’t know.

Q: They go and ride out Northern Pike then?

A: Yeah, and they were all dirt roads. It took them a day to go to Altoona.

Q: Then that was the kinda entertainment in 1908, I guess, this big drive through the middle of Monroeville.

A: Yeah.

Q: Where’d you get the rails that are on the fence around your house? Is that from some of the old rails around the area?

A: No. I made them out of some locust trees out here. The old fence there was made of chestnuts and split singles, they were. And then Charlie Johnson moved in. Now he was no relation to these other Johnsons. He was a harness maker and Carl Rush’s father used to often talk about getting his harnesses made there. Or fixed. Then a colored fella got it from Johnson and he – he was an old, well he wouldn’t work. That is, at a steady job. He built fences for the farmers, he shredded grain or make anything like that, but he wouldn’t take no steady job.

Q: Anything anybody wanted him to do, he would do, but he just didn’t want to do the same thing all the time.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

A: Yeah.

Q: When did the auction barn come up?

A: Auction barn?

Q: Yeah, Right there by the Turnpike exit, I understand that’s where it used to be.

A: No, it was a little further, more where the industrial park is.

Q: Oh?

A: But old Bishoff, he used to have a wholesale grocery place in Braddock. He bought all that ground around there cause he had the old gravity fill gas station. See. And he bought them to get the corner he wanted for them gas stations. And, not many years ago Gulf bought him. Now, Gulf’s gone.

Q: Things keep changing all the time. What kind of gas could you get or where could you get gas at out here back in 1917 or 1918?

A: Well, a lot of them was Atlantic. Atlantic was buying property then. But, Gulf or old Bishoff, he had it shipped in by tank cars down along the road down there, just, just where they come in out of the Union Railroad. There was a sidetrack out there where they took the strip coal out. And he used that whole sidetrack and he got carloads of gas there.

Q: Did he put a station up there then you mean?

A: No. That where he told the trucks to deliver.

Q: How far did this railroad come up there?

A: Oh, just not very far, cause McPeters was in cahoots with the, he was superintendant of the railroad then, Union Railroad. He was in cahoots with Cunningham and he built the railroad that then they – to load coal.

Q: I think you told Dan the other day that they stripped the coal over by the old Bethel Church. Cunningham also stripped the coal on Dan McMaster’s property right below the Crossroads Church.

A: Yeah, he took it all.

Q: Yeah, but was it Bob Cunningham – R. H. Cunningham?

A: Well, Bob was a did - made the noise, I’ll say it that way. His brother, Jim, didn’t say much, but he was more the boss. And, R. H. Cunningham was their father.

Q: Ok. R. H. Cunningham and Sons is what the old, uh, records,

A: Yeah. And then the youngest boy, Bill, his wife was Sarah Beatty. And her grandfather, I don’t know why, whether her mother died or her father died, but her grandfather – she made her home with him and he lived in the middle of old Henry Beatty.

Q: Henry Beatty, was that the one right across from the old Crossroads Church?

A: No. he lived – there’s a big house down there belonged to Carlisle’s. It’s halfway between the church and where Turtle Creek is where he lived.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Q: Oh, Ok.

A: And she married Billy Cunningham. That was Bob Cunningham and them fellers youngest brother.

Q: I’m trying to figure out if the Cunningham’s that stripped the coal are related to the Cunningham’s that were in this area in the 1700’s.

A: I don’t know because there was a Cunningham and Armstrong, you know one of em got shot. I don’t mind which, when they struck gas in Murrysville. Over a gas rail.

Q: Oh, you mean the Haymaker got shot.

A: Haymaker.

Q: Obadiah Haymaker, the one that got shot.

A: Yeah, yeah. No, the Cunningham – Haymaker and who was the other family out there, Haymaker and…

Q: Well, the Haymaker’s were. There was a Michael and Obadiah Haymaker.

A: Yeah.

Q: Were the two Haymaker brothers – Obadiah’s the one that got killed about that fight over the gas. Well, I don’t know there was a number of other German families over in that area.

A: Yeah.

Q: Other than the Haymaker’s.

A: Well, I don’t know that they were any relation to this Judge Haymaker, I don’t know whether they were.

Q: They were the same family, yes.

A: Well, old Judge Haymaker didn’t claim them.

Q: Well, they were the same family though beause I traced their family back a lot of years and the’re all the same family. William, Judge Haymaker’s father, came into Monroeville and Russo Haymaker stayed out there in Murrysville and out towards Delmont and Export.

A: Yeah. I don’t know more out further than – this got nothing to do with Monroeville. There was two fellows by the name of Shaw had the tavern in Delmont.

Q: Speaking of taverns, who had taverns here in Pitcairn?

A: None.

Q: There weren’t any?

A: There was no towns.

Q: No towns!

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

A: Wall, over there, Wall was named for a family by the name of Wall and when they outlawed horse racing, that’s all they lived for. That was their livelihood, if they could live on it. They went to Kentucky and their still out there. And their cousins still live here. I know them.

Q: By the way, you told Dan that the other day that Dorothy Ruckner’s grandfather was a McGinley. Do you remember who Dorothy Ruckner is?

A: Well, Dorothy, no, her grandfather’s wife was a McGinley.

Q: Do you remember what her name was by any chance?

A: Uh, no, but her mother went to school with me. She was from Pitcairn. And then Jim McGinley and some other fellow, I don’t remember who, they used to have a thrashing machine. They farmed for all the farmers around here.

Q: Back in the about 1920’s, 1910’s, that period?

A: Uh I guess so, about then, and then his brother Joe, he married Bessie Jewell and they lived in North Pitcairn.

Q: We have one family by the name of Jewell that’s up in the cemetery. In fact, I think maybe James McGinley is up in the Monroeville Cemetery.

A: I spose he is.

Q: Not very many McGinley’s are up there, but I think he is a couple of the last ones. What’s Reigh’s Hill? You mentioned Reigh’s Hill.

A: Well, you went out here along Haymaker Road and you turned and took a left hand road, then where Haymaker School was. And, idid you ever notice a house in there with a porch around it?

Q: The old house on the left as you go down.

A: Yeah.

A: Well, that was Jim Beatty’s house. And, then from there on down was your Reigh’s Hill.

Q: Who was Reigh?

A: Well, there was a family that lived up on the hill there where that park is or, I guess it’s a municipal park now.

Q: Yeah, Hawkeye Park?

A: Yeah. Uh, the whole Reigh family lived there.

Q: I see. Did you say that at the bottom of Reigh’s Hill was Reigh’s Fording?

A: Yeah, there was a Reigh’s Fording.

Q: Was that in the area of Saunder’s Station?

A: No, it’s above Saunder’s Station. See, Saunder’s Station was right up here by Trafford.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Q: I know King Saunder’s. I’ve met him anyway.

A: Yeah, and his brother Edsel, he died. Yeah, King, he used to be here and old John was their father. And he used to always keep sheep down in there. Well that was over Andy Levelgreen – over in that area.

Q: Yeah, towards where King Saunder’s lives right now. Just on the other side of Turtle Creek there.

A: That’s where it was. That’s the only place.

Q: What other roads were in the area? I mean back in the early days there was the Northern Pike along there?

A: Yeah.

Q: And then there was a couple roads going down over the hill. How did you come down? Could you go from here up, or was Tillbrook Road the end?

A: Yeah, it was a road. If you could drive down that other road, but you had to cross the creek about five times with a horse and buggy. And then, they built that road and that sort a put this one out of it. But everybody from out there when they come to Pitcairn, they used this road.

Q: The Tillbrook Road.

A: Yeah, because that other road was impassable mostly.

Q: This road from your house down into the bottom of Pitcairn is awful steep. Did they have it then?

A: Well, they – that old Halp and Hopkin’s was the county surveyors did that.

Q: Did you know Hopkins? Have you ever?

A: Well, I knew who they were. They surveyed for the county. Cause right here instead of making it steep like you’re talking – it circled around the side of this hill. It was a natural grade for the horses. But, when Halper & Hopkins came along and county surveyed, they made…

Q: Straight down.

A: They just took the crooks out. But, then it was really good the way it was.

Q: Let’s see, Snodgrass. You know the Snodgrass’?

A: Yeah, I knew.

Q: Can you tell me anything about the Snodgrass’? Or the Snodgrass family?

A: Well, not too much. I think the oldest Snodgrass was a, I don’t know. If you look it up, I think they were in the Revolution.

Q: One of the Snodgrass’ was in the Revolution. I am not sure what his first name was, because you can’t read it on the stone anymore.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

A: The Cluxton family out there. I think they were in the Revolution.

Q: They were, yes.

A: Well, I remember them. They went to church where my grandfather did.

Q: And, the Glew’s went to the Bethel.

A: Yeah. And the Cluxton’s went there. And there was Bertha Cluxton, I remember her. She was the last that I can remember the Cluxton’s. But, there was a Cluxton Post Office up there too.

Q: Yes, I saw it on a map somewhere.

A: Well, and then that was on the corner of Brunner’s farm. And, Brunner, I think, was the last postmaster, and ole Eli Myers was the last postmaster in the Monroeville Post Office.

Q: Brunner was the postmaster at Cluxton Post Office?

A: Yes, the last one.

Q: Did you have any idea when that post office was active over in Cluxton?

A: Well, I’ll tell ya this. An old friend of mine, I’m gonna go see her one of these days, her and her niece an me, she’s 92 years old and she went to school there. And that’s where she go her mail. And, I used to send here Christmas cards and that musta been around World War I anyhow, musta been still

Q: Did the Cluxton’s operate the post office for a while over there – was it in a store or what was it?

A: Well, there was the Cluxton School. And, the Cluxton Post Office right there. No.

Q: No store?

A: No store as far as I know. I think just a little building there and I think Brunner just took care of it. Now, old Eli Myers had the one in Monroeville and it was in a store.

PD Did you know Eli?

A: Yeah.

Q: You knew Etta Myers. Etta had too

A: Yeah. I knew Etta.

Q: Do you remember what Eli’s store looked like?

A: Oh yeah. I was in it. Not too often. But, you went in it was just like an old country store. You could get a few things in it and the post office an well that Myer out there that just died

Q: Yeah, George Myer.

A: Yeah, he used to have to walk up there every day to get the mail.

Q: He lived over by the doctor’s house?

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

A: Yeah, that was his old home.

Q: Did you get your mail through that post office?

A: No, no we got ours down here.

Q: You lived down here?

A: Uh, well Pitcairn came along then. It had its own post office. Then the first rural delivery come out of Turtle Creek. Gibson was the mailman. He come from up here – near a farm up handy where the Kopper’s Bldg. is.

Q: Do you remember about when they started the rural free delivery?

A: Oh my. I’ll tell ya that musta been, oh, around 1919 or 12, I don’t know.

Q: I think that it may have been 1905 to 1910 period. So you’re pretty close. This is something that Etta Myers wrote about 30 years ago. It’s called “The History of Monroeville”. It’s about three pages, and it’s the history as she remembered it back in 1948 when she wrote it. And she was born in 1876, I believe.

A: Yes, she lived to be 103 anyway.

Q: She died about 1979 so that would be about 103. I believe somewhere in here she said well her father was appointed postmaster in 1880.

A: Yeah.

Q: And, from what you’re saying, he was still postmaster for at least up till 1910 or so.

A: Yeah.

Q: When they started the rural delivery, I think somewhere here she stated that rural free delivery started about 1905 or 1910.

A: It come from Turtle Creek. Gibson was the first fellow.

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[Ed: there is a break in the taping due to tape run out and turnover.]

A: …their own post office.

Q: I’ll be darn.

A: His granddaughter gave it to me. It’s off a stage horse. I’ll tell you something though. Is Beatty taking care of the cemetery?

Q: Chester Beatty is part of the people that take care of the cemetery, yeah.

A: Well you know, they got a racquet going up in Connecticut now stealing tombstones and selling em for souvenirs. Now, I’m gonna tell Beatty, first time I see him, he better put a guard on out there. But, they want fancy ones with fancy are work on it.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

Q: I see. Well, I’ve been touring a lot of local cemeteries recently and we have some very nice ones up here. But, there’s a lot of nice ones in the area. I hope nobody starts that down here.

A: Well, somebody upset a bunch one time, didn’t they?

Q: I’m part of running that cemetery up here, too.

A: Well a lot of that stonework out there was done by old Beck. A stonecutter from Delmont. And when he come up there – well, like a stone that wasn’t finished and he’d have to finish the death date of something, they were all done by hand and Beck would do it. Instead of going back and forth from Delmont, he’d stay with my grandfather. And then he didn’t have so far to travel. And then, there was another, I don’t know whether – this don’t – this is just fairy tales from Monroeville. Used to be an old veterinary by the name of Higby come from Kittanning. And, about twice a year he made the rounds – Patton Township, all this country.

Q: All the farms?

A: And sell them cow medicine or any kind a medicine you wanted. Horse and buggy. He made the rounds about every – twice a year.

Q: That’s interesting. I gather they had ways of taking care of the stock back then, but I imagine most of the farmers had to kinda take care of their own.

A: They did, yeah. Well, I’ll tell ya something there that – it wasn’t work. You know those stock dealers when a cow had a caked udder, you have to go see a veterinary now, but them ole stock dealers they gave them four or five drops of alkanet in a tablespoon full of sugar. And it did the same trick as the veterinary does now. Sometimes better. Cause one of the last old stock dealers was out here at Export. And, I never could figure it out till now. I took – somebody wanted to buy – he always had a cow, if you needed one. You know a fresh one – and somebody sold milk and they needed more milk. Well, ya know that fellow had a way of getting around. He got mine – mules out of the mines when they got sore feet. And, ya know I seen him out there setting down with them mules at their hind feet pickin’ the scabs off and them mules just went on eatin’ hay. Paid no attention to him. I don’t know how he did it. (Laughing)

Q: Something just occurred to me. We started talking about Eli Myer’s store a minute ago. After Eli Myers closed down the store or after he died or something. Frank McCutcheon – did he take over the store or?

A: Well, McCutcheon, no. He lived there. That was his son-in-law. And he had, uh, another son- in-law.

Q: Who operated the garage? McCutcheon’s garage.

A: McCutcheon’s garage?

Q Yeah, that was right near where they had a garage for cars, I guess for a while there.

A: Well, there was McCutcheon, Boycott, Christy, Eddie Myers that was old Jim Myers’ daughters. Then you had his son Jim and Walt.

Q: I’m trying to think. I know there’s some Boycotts that are up there.

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

A: They worked for the surveyors for the Union Railroad. And, Mrs. McCutcheon or Mrs. Christy. I saw her daughter at a funeral not too long ago down at Jobe’s. She was from Delmont. That’s where she lived.

Q: I just talked to a Mr. McCutcheon a few weeks ago who lives down in Maryland somewhere and he is, I think, a son of Frank McCutcheon. I can’t remember his first name right now. But he gave me a call and was talking to me about the McCutcheon family. The house that is right across the street from the old Stone Church – the old Crossroads Church, there’s a bank building and right by the bank building is this big stone house.

A: Yeah.

Q: Can you remember which house I’m talking about? Do you have any idea who lived in that house?

A: Well, there was a Beatty one time built it, but, old Sam Snodgrass lived in a house on over beyond there. It was a wood house.

Q: That really large house sits in behind the trailer court. That was Sam Snodgrass’ house?

A: Yeah. But, that stone house, I don’t think it was John, I think it was Johnny Beatty built it.

Q: I was thinking that a Henry Beatty in there, but I’m not sure.

A: Well, it might been Henry. I know old Henry lived in the middle of Monroeville. And that’s where Sarah Cunningham come from.

Q: Then the Sam Snodgrass lived in that big house sits in the background.

A: Yeah.

Q: That’s really a large house.

A: Yeah, it was a big house. I don’t know whether it’s still there.

Q: Oh, it’s a – there is a house. I think it’s probably the same one.

A: Yeah. Well, then he moved eventually down to that house where you drop to go down inta the valley – to go down into the low road in Pitcairn. He moved down there later on. And there used to be a log house up on top of the block there belonged to Lang family.

Q: Did you know the Lang family way back when ?

A: Yeah. I know Lang’s. And, what is it Lang’s - and don’t get them mixed up. These were Langs out here. Over at Heber’s Church, they were Long’s.

Q: Ok. We have one “Long” family buried in our cemetery and a lot of “Lang” families and I always wonder if somebody misspelled it. Guess it’s probably just two different families.

A: Well that has happened. Old Walt Glendinning told me about this. There’s a church out in a Westmoreland. And, there was two brothers didn’t get along, and by changing one letter in the name it changed the name. So he took that letter off the tombstone.

Q: Walter Glendinning, did his wife just passed away, recently. Walter Glendinning or is is that another Glendinning?

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

A: Walter. Well, his wife was from Somerset somewhere. But Walter lived halfway down Reigh’s Hill. On the right he had a house. But the other farm was in there just below the water tank up there. Back in there.

Q: Behind Foxwood – yeah.

A: Yeah, well the farm was just down over the bank from that water tank. The original Farm. But, Walter when he got married he lived in it. And then Marshall, then old Nalmacy sold the gristmill down there, Richard bought it and one of the Richard’s married Walter’s brother Marshall – and they lived – that was their house down along the lower end of Abers Creek. It sits tight on the bank.

Q: I think I know which house you’re talking about. Yeah.

A: It was the lower end before you come out on that level stretch down there. It sits pretty tight on the edge of the road on the bank.

Q: You knew Joel Duff and his sisters? Let’s see there’s Becky and Annie.

Q: And Joel.

A: Yeah, and Joel. I know they went to school or to church with my grandfather. That’s the reason I knew them.

Q: Oh, they went over to Bethel Church too.

A: Yeah.

Q: Do you remember anything about the Crossroads Church? Did you ever go there when you were little?

A: Yeah, we went there to church when there was something going on.

Q: What type of things did they do there at that church?

A: Well, it just was a regular Presbyterian church. And the preacher, one of the last preachers, well Bethel - Pitcairn preacher used to go Bethel for afternoon service. And they had regular church services at the Stone Church.

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Well, that was old Monroe’ wine glasses. There’s two of them here.

Q: Then these are over a hundred year old then. That’s good glass. What’s this pitcher?

A: Vinegar cruet.

Q: A vinegar cruet?

A: That belonged to old Monroe.

Q: I recently met one of Monroe’s great-granddaughters, Rebecca Ann.

A: Ann, yeah.

Q: Do you know who she is?

Monroeville Historical Society Oral History of Monroeville

A: Yeah, I know who she is. But, let’s see, Mrs. Carlisle was a granddaughter of those Duff’s. Mrs. – they lived in that house in Monroeville, and well…

Q: Are they still living?

A: You’re talking about the old stores. We used to go – know another store you walked through. Candy counter on one side and this-n-that on the other.

Q: That kinds fascinates me because it was the store right in the middle of Monroeville.

A: Yeah.

Q: Did you know a Milo Haymaker? He was a druggist, I think.

A: Yeah, yeah. I knew him. His daughter, Sally, - he had a daughter Sarah. She went to school when I did.

Q: Milo. Yeah. His daughter Sarah was born in 18 months or two years after you were.

A: Yeah.

Q: She was born in 1899.

A: Well, they – there was this story – before Haymaker – the druggist was Gress. And Ed Gress, but he moved – he left here – and he went to New Jersey and his brother Amos stayed here and worked in the drug store. Now, this is just a funny story about him. Some of the Masons had a convention down there around – I forget what place in New Jersey. This Amos was down there visitin’ his brother when this was goin’ on and one of the Mason’s here, he got after old Amos one day down here – wanted to know how they behaved when they was down there away from home. Old Amos he had an answer for everybody. He told this fellow he hardy knew, “I didn’t see anything worth tellin’.”

Q: Where was their drug store?

A: Yeah, it – the first one was part way down Church Street on the right hand side in a three-story brick building. There was a family by the name of Kuhn’s owns it now. Then Ed Coat build that building down there across the drug store was in it then after that.

Q: Wonder where they got drugs and so forth? What kind of drugs or what kind of medicines did they have, would the druggist sell?

A: Well, they made it. Whatever the doctor said. But, now mind this about old Amos Gress. There was a fell had the drug store after him by the name of Hulk. Amos never went to college. He learned it like a trade. And Hulk had went to college and another doctor here said they couldn’t compete with old Amos. In the drug business.

Q: He just knew what he was doing?

A: He knew what he was doing and he learned it like you would a trade.