Baldwin Street
Comprising:
- Baldwin Street
Baldwin Street Memories
--John F. Oyler, Water Under the Bridge, November 18, 2007
The Bridgeville Area Historical Society recently received a letter from a former resident, Donna Collini Betarie, who lives in Tampa, Florida. Mrs. Betarie reported that our columns regarding Baldwin Street in the 1940’s had generated many enjoyable memories about her growing there in those days.
We are pleased to hear from her for several reasons. It is always a treat to learn that someone has enjoyed one of columns. It is particularly rewarding when we learn that she currently lives a long distance from Bridgeville, yet retains an interest in our community. The publishers of the Bridgeville Area News should feel proud that their influence is felt all around the country.
We are also pleased that she chose to communicate with the Historical Society directly and that her information was forwarded promptly to me. The Society serves an important function in receiving, archiving, and communicating relevant historical information to the public.
Mrs. Betarie reported that the Asti family grocery store was used in the late 1940’s by shoemaker Italo Bonisolli. The large number of shoemakers working in Bridgeville at that time is an interesting comment on the way times have changed. It would be unusual today for anyone to consider having a pair of shoes resoled; that would be inconsistent with our “throwaway society”.
She also reported that that building was later converted into an apartment. She believes that was the site where Marguerite Koslowski was murdered by her drunken husband on April 20, 1952. This is a reminder that some of our history is unpleasant.
Mrs. Betarie believes that Viale’s Hotel and Bar later became Truzzi’s Bar. Also, Zurman’s Meat Market later became the home and barber shop of Bill Martincic. She remembered Nardini’s Grocery for its “great salami”.
According to her, the “hot spot on Baldwin Street” for teenagers in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s was “M & B’s”, Located on the south side of the street adjacent to the bridge, it was originally the location of a deli and ice cream store run by Tony and Sadie Sams. Mary McLaughlin and Bill Fagan bought it, remodeled the inside and “made a second room with tables for customers to eat their delicious footlong hotdogs and an early version of pizza with ground meat on top”.
Mary’s daughter Vera worked at the store. In addition to a pinball machine, the juke box at M & B’s was a popular attraction. The record “In the Still of the Night” is still resonating in Mrs. Betarie’s memory. A few years later the store was sold to Chester Kowalski and Wanda Fagan.
Walter Raczkowski and his wife Sophie purchased the Pletersek property (including the home that the Collini family rented) and operated the bar and restaurant there. Sophie served TV dinners to customers in a back room they used as a dining area.
Raczkowski’s had one of the first television sets on Baldwin Street. MrsBetarie has positive memories of being allowed to come into the bar so she could watch “Howdy Doody”.
She corrected our location of Lewandowski’s Grocery Store; it was actually located on the southeast corner of the intersection of McLaughlin Run Road and Bower Hill Road.
The grocery store directly across McLaughlin Run Road from Pletersek’s was “B & I’s”, named for Ben and IzzyAbramovitz. It eventually merged with “Meyer’s’, a store next door that had a good reputation for its meat. The new entity was called “the Family Market”.
The house the Collini family lived in apparently had been a bakery in earlier days; there were built-in ovens in the basement. Mrs. Betarie remembers her mother’s struggle to keep the basement useable. She white-washed its walls once a year, to cover up the stains left when the creek flooded. Fortunately the high water never reached their living area.
She reported that the building we described as Joe David’s Dry Goods Store was occupied by a television sales and repair store when she was growing up. The owner of the store and the Walter Morris family lived upstairs over the store.
We are grateful to Mrs. Betarie for sharing these memories with us and to the Historical Society for making them available to us.
More Reminiscences
--John F. Oyler, Water Under the Bridge, December 22, 2007
The Historical Society has received another letter from Donna Collini Betarie filled with her memories of growing up in Bridgeville in the late 1940’s and ‘50’s. This one was accompanied by a hand-drawn map of the Baldwin Street-McLaughlin Run Road-Mill Street neighborhood, as she remembered it. Collinis’ home was located along McLaughlin Run fronting on Baldwin Street, between Zurman’s Market and the bridge over the creek.
The location adjacent to the creek was the source of many memories, mostly unpleasant ones. Their landlord, Walter Raczkowski, did his best to protect them from the annual flooding, with minimal success. At one point he installed a shutoff valve to prevent backups from the sewer when the creek was high. This was successful until the creek overflowed its banks, came into the yard, and ran down the cellar steps.
Later he added a few layers of brick on the outside of the basement windows to slow down the entry of water when the creek was rising. Mrs. Betarie remembers hearing logs driven by the raging water hitting the brick walls of the house and being carried out of the house to stay at Martincics’ or Raczkowskis’ till it was safe to return to the house.
During such occasions the washing machine was also carefully removed and stored on Raczkowskis’ back porch. A happier memory was a big freeze in the late 1940’s after the creek had been dredged, resulting in giant ice skating rink, and watching skaters fly by her house.
Another time the landlord tried to get rid of the black ants that frequented the sidewalks around the house. He carefully located all the access holes on the outside of the house and blocked them off. The result was that the ants trapped in the walls of the house proceeded to dash madly around the inside of the house. The humor of the event was not at all evident at the time.
After Mr. Raczkowski purchased the property from Pleterseks he replaced the outhouse with a commode in the basement. A great improvement although there was no access from the first floor of the house to the basement; one still had to go outside to get to the commode.
Since the house did not have a hot water heater, they had to heat water on gas burners in the kitchen, in a large rectangular copper tub and carry it to the basement to fill the laundry tubs adjacent to the wringer washer. It was also used for bathing. Both operations were particularly difficult in the winter, as the basement was not heated.
Originally the rest of the house was originally by a coal-burning stove. Its replacement was a much cleaner gas-fired heater; it kept the kitchen warm but had a minimal effect on the bedrooms.
Mrs. Betarie reported that her family was never able to convince her to go camping; she already had her fill of “camping” in the first eighteen years of her life.
She has fond memories of playing with Mary Louise and Barbara Snyder, who lived in a duplex behind the Family Market. The Patter family lived in the other half of the house. Other playmates included Carol and Patsy Riley, who lived at 734 Mill Street; Bernadette Gazvoda, a neighbor of the Rileys; and Marguerite Kozlowski, who lived on McLaughlin Run Road.
Lewandoskys lived on the northeast corner of the intersection of McLaughlin Run Road and Bower Hill Road, across the street from Calabros. Their daughter Mary Ann was another playmate. They enjoyed playing cowboys behind the Lewandowsky house and frequently got in trouble when they trampled the rhubarb plants in their garden.
The map also shows Orey Johnson’s house on McLaughlin Run Road, adjacent to Raczkowskis’ garage. The building previously housed the Syrian church. Their daughter married George Shady.
We are impressed with Mrs. Betarie’s interest in sharing her childhood recollections with us, and hope that other Bridgeville residents will record theirs.