Category: Water Under the Bridge

The Bridgeville Area Historical Society kicked off its 2022/2023 program season by welcoming back World War II history buff Dana Del Bianco. Her subject was “Operation Mincemeat: Spies, a Sub, a Corpse, and Allied Victory in Sicily”, an interesting tale of counter-espionage. Late in 1942, after the Allies had successfully driven the Axis forces out of North Africa, there was a major debate regarding the next step in the ultimate invasion of Europe. Stalin insisted that something significant be done to divert some of the Axis troops from the Eastern Front. One possibility was an invasion of Greece and an…

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In recent years it has been my practice to reserve the third weekend in September for a visit to the Washington-Greene County Covered Bridge Festival. There are thirty surviving covered bridges in the two counties; each year local residents organize a variety of different activities at ten of the them. When I looked over this year’s schedule I realized that I have visited the eight bridges in Washington County in the past few years, and that it was time for me to include Greene County on my itinerary. Fortunately my daughter Elizabeth was free that Sunday and interested in an…

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We always enjoy turning back the calendar and speculating on life in Bridgeville in the distant past. This time we have chosen a full century and will try to imagine life here in the Fall of 1922. Bridgeville was well in to the Roaring Twenties by then and had finally gotten past the difficult times associated with the Flu Epidemic. By then our community had celebrated its twenty-first birthday. We were still the younger sister of neighboring Carnegie and Canonsburg, but were maturing rapidly. The population was now slightly more than 3100 and growing consistently. There probably were about as…

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Our brunches at Bob Evans continue to provide two red-letter days for my calendar each month. The tradition began in 1995, following the forty-fifth reunion of our 1949 Class, when Sam Capozzoli suggested that those of us still living in this area get together occasionally. We started out by reserving the first Wednesday of each month for brunch at Arby’s in Heidelberg. When we lost that venue, we moved to Bob Evans in Kirwan Heights. The event proved to be popular enough that we doubled its frequency by adding the third Wednesday of the month to our schedule. As the…

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Six years ago the Civil Engineering Department at Pitt was contacted by the Hollow Oak Land Trust with a request for a preliminary design of a bridge over Montour Run, connecting Montour Woods with the Montour Trail. This quickly became a Senior Design Project, with our team charged with developing alternate designs in steel, timber, and fiberglass reinforced plastic (FRP). We soon learned that the project had several unique requirements – the goal of maximizing the use of volunteer help, and a similar goal of minimizing the use of major powered equipment and its impact on the natural environment. Ideally…

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A recent trip to Fallingwater was a red-letter day for me. This summer my daughter Elizabeth hosted a group of Japanese exchange students, here for a short course at Pitt primarily involving our relationship with the environment. The climax of their tour was a visit to Frank Lloyd Wright’s architectural masterpiece in the Laurel Highlands. Originally it was intended that we (Beth, her daughter Rachael, and I) meet the group in Oakland and travel to Fallingwater on a chartered bus with the Japanese visitors and a handful of Beth’s Pitt students. Unfortunately, one of the girls came down with Covid,…

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Our beloved Bridgeville High School Class of 1949 lost one of its most popular members this month with the passing of Florene Cherry Joyce. I had the privilege of knowing Florene from our first day of first grade in 1937 until both of us were old and gray. Like so many of us, she was the product of modest circumstances; her family operated a shoe store from a store front in their home on Baldwin Street while she was growing up. One of her favorite stories was her mother keeping the store open late every evening, until the last train…

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Last summer, when I saw Bill Charlap at Chautauqua, I commented that it was a unique experience for someone at my stage of life to have the opportunity to see a world class jazz musician perform in person. Much to my surprise, this happened again this month when Beth and Mike took me to Hartwood Acres for an outdoor concert by John Pizzarelli. I have been aware of him for many years, primarily because of “Radio Deluxe”, a weekly program that he and his wife, Jessica Molaskey, host, focused largely on the Great American Songbook. Carried locally on WZUM on…

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Last week I reported on my interest in local archaeology, especially as it related to the Monongahela People and mentioned that I was doing further research on this subject. That turned out to be a gross understatement, as I have been introduced to a wonderland of information far too complex for me to master. Nonetheless this week I will try to summarize what I have learned. The term “Monongahela Woodland Culture” was coined by anthropologist Mary Butler in 1939 to describe a prehistoric Indian way of life centered in southwestern Pennsylvania between 1000 and 1600 AD, based primarily on archaeological investigations sponsored by the Works Progress Administration during the Depression. These…

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My interest in the native American peoples who inhabited this area before the settlers arrived was re-kindled recently by two events – a visit to the replica Monongahela people settlement at Meadowcroft Village; and “180 Years of Archaeology at Woodville”, a special event at the Woodville Experience focused on archaeology at that site. I made the trip to Meadowcroft with my friend Kevin Abt, primarily to see the Rockshelter and to learn more about the “First Americans”, the primitive people whose presence in that area 16,000 years ago is recorded by artifacts uncovered in an archaeological “dig” there. Our first…

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