2014-14. Pennsylvania: Orbisonia, Juniata College, Lancaster, Gordon, Johnstown.

    Growing up, I lived in Pennsylvania from birth to 2 and 8 to 18. In between, my family lived in California. I've been in California since college and hadn't been back to the Keystone State since 1985. It was wonderful to visit places in Pennsylvania I'd been to or hear about.

    When we left Gettysburg, we drove to Orbisonia, where my mom's dad was from.

It was only 60 miles to Orbisonia, passing through Spring Run & Shade Gap, & navigating a surprisingly steep climb in the rain. 

My maternal grandfather was a music teacher. My cousin has his conducting baton, which he used on the occasion of conducting John Philip Sousa's band when they were in Pittsburgh.

Orbisonia's claim to fame.

Orbisonia's more well-known claim to fame is the East Broad Top Railroad.

The narrow gauge railroad ran from 1872 to 1956, carrying coal & passengers. My cousins recall riding it.

Turntable & roundhouse. The roundhouse continues to house steam engines.

The East Broad Top was saved by private owners & a foundation & continues to provide rides into the nearby mountains.

    Some of my great-grandfathers were railroad men, and my paternal grandfather worked on the railroad from the time he was 11, eventually becoming superintendent of the Montour Railroad in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania, my grandparents' and parents' home town.  My dad, his brother, and their sons loved model trains, and I remember the hours my own son spent with his grandpa working on his model train layout.

Blacklog Creek runs through Orbisonia.

Orbisonia.

We went to the cemetery above town, which had wonderful views & headstones of some of my relatives.

    Our next stop was Juniata College in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. My mother, her dad, and her brother had all attended Juniata.

Me in front of my mom's almater. She was a 1941 graduate of Juniata College.

A path leads from the campus up a hill to the Peace Chapel, designed by Maya Lin, best known for designing the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, DC.

Smooth granite steps lead from the trail to a large circle of rough granite stones.

A single 4-foot-diameter stone sits a bit higher on a nearby hill.

    From Huntingdon, we headed back southeast to Lancaster, known for its Amish community, who have lived there for over 300 years.

All the horses we saw working the fields & pulling buggies were gorgeous.

     At home in California's Central Valley we have a large population of Southeast Asians, including many Hmong, who lived in the hill country of Laos and helped the US during the Vietnam War. We knew there are also large Hmong communities in North Carolina and Minnesota, but were quite surprised to see a Hmong church in Lancaster. The small community was established in the 1970s through the Mennonite Central Committee. Hmong women soon adapted their intricate needlework into hand quilt making, for which the Amish are famous.

My Amish doll's clothes were identical to those drying on the line.

A common site on the roads of Lancaster County.

A peaceful scene.

Traditional Amish bikes at the school. They are like a scooter with large wheels.

    Our next stop was a bit north, Gordon, Pennsylvania, my maternal grandmother's birthplace.

    I recall my mom's stories about summers in Gordon with her cousins. Being the city girl among country kids, she was subjected to their pranks. 

    On the way into town, we spotted Snyder's Welding. Doug is SnIder, but we had to stop anyway.

Snyder's Welding, Gordon, PA.

Doug Snider & Anson Snyder. Anson was very gracious, & yes, of course, he had known my great aunt Laura, when he was a little boy.

    One summer my family went to visit my mom's Aunt Laura, her mom's sister. Great Aunt Laura handed my sister and me a bowl and $0.35 and sent us down the street to buy ice cream. We were so excited by this unique experience we forgot that we were to return with change and spent the entire $0.35 on ice cream, for which Aunt Laura scolded us. It was still about the most delicious ice cream I'd ever eaten.

Anson directed us to Great Aunt Laura's home & we chatted with a woman across the street who had known Laura well.

In Fountain Spring Cemetery up the hill from Gordon, we found a grave marker for both my great-grandparents, John & Elizabeth Wintersteen, & my great aunt & uncle, Clinton & Laura (Wintersteen) Winters.

    It's somewhat amazing that my mom's mother and father, from two small towns in central Pennnsylvania, met at all in the early 20th century, and more so that their meeting was at a summer session at Penn State in State College, PA. No wonder that in the 1960s my grandmother frequently drove across Pennsylvania from their retirement home in Dover, Delaware, to the family home in Coraopolis.

       A few weeks later in our trip, after an unexpected impromptu visit with Doug's son, Andrew, in Rome, New York, where his Marine squadron was, we headed south back into Pennsylvania. 

    We took a few minutes to drive around Johnstown, PA, site of a horrendous flood in 1889.

  

The South Fork Dam was on Little Conemaugh River.

Founded in 1800, Johnstown became a major steel making center.

    In 1889, the South Fork Dam was owned by the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. A getaway for Pittsburgh's wealthy industrialists, its 70-some members included Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and Andrew Mellon. The members built cottages and a club house on Lake Conemaugh, a reservoir created by the South Fork Dam about 450 feet above and 14 miles upriver from Johnstown.

 

    The dam had been poorly maintained by both the previous and current owners. Holes were poorly patched, discharge gates were removed, fish screens were installed on the spillway, and the dam was lowered so carriages could drive across it.

Home in Johnstown.

    Due to continuous, heavy rainfall at the end of May 1889, the fishing screens became clogged, leaving the rising reservoir no way to release water except over the top of the dam. A telegraphed warning to Johnstown residents was not sent, not received, or not heeded—accounts vary. Awaking on May 31 to see the lake at the top of the dam, club members attempted but failed to relieve pressure on the South Fork Dam. It burst, releasing over 3.8 billion gallons of water. Over 2,200 Johnstown residents were killed, and over 1,600 homes destroyed.

    After that sobering visit, we continued our trek southwest toward Pittsburgh and my old stomping grounds.

Passing by the 9/11 memorial at Shankstown, Pennsylvvania.

Rolling Pennsylvania farm land.

Nearing Ohiopyle we crossed Laurel Hill Creek on the 1891 Lower Humbert Covered Bridge.

    More of Western Pennsylvania in our next post.

                                                —Marilyn

Our travels from Washington DC through Pennsylvania to Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, & back to Pennsylvania.