This is from a wonderful e-mail that I received some time ago:
Aunt Alice COLEBANK was like my third grandmother, as we lived beside her until I was about 10 years old. If you recall the two houses in the bend of the road on either side of the COLEBANK house. The small one going up Rt. 119 was what we called the Uncle Jesse BLOSSER house. He was an uncle to both Alice and Sylvia and like their second father. He was married to a sister of their Dad and never had any children so he and his wife, Aunt Myrtie, showered all his fatherly and motherly attentions on the STEWART kids. By the time you were small he may have been living with Alice, because my Mom and Dad lived for a time in his house. The other house toward Point Marion was lived in by Lloyd STEWART, who worked in the Point Marion Post Office and was a brother to Alice and Sylvia. So you can see none of this family got very far from one another. My Dad and Mom lived in this house too, after Lloyd and his family moved to Donora, Pa during World War II. From what I can recall my Dad saying the BAKER’S, COLEBANK’S STEWART’S and Uncle Jesse ate supper together almost every Friday night and just about every Sunday. Most of the time they were at the BAKER’S for these meals.
Aunt Alice was my Sunday School teacher too and I can still remember those little green chairs she had in her class room. I wish I had gotten one of them when the church closed. I too had a problem in Sunday School as to whether to call her Aunt Alice or Mrs. Colebank. I remember one winter night she was over at our house, baby sitting me I think. It was cold and icy outside and after my Mom and Dad came home I walked Aunt Alice back home. Ha, I was only about 6. But anyway she slipped and fell on the ice and broke her arm.
You were right about eating. One thing that Alice and Sylvia believed in was feeding everyone who showed up at the house. They both could make something out of nothing in no time flat. However, Sylvia was a much better cook that Alice, but Alice could always eat more. When they were doing the dishes after supper Aunt Alice would always finish everything anyone left on their plates. Nothing went to waste.
Just shortly before Aunt Alice died she took me aside and said she had something that I was the only one she trusted to give it to. I was then only 12. She gave me a 1818 fifty cent piece in almost perfect shape. She told me to keep it forever and I have. Later I showed it to my grandmother BAKER and she said that coin had belonged to both her Dad and her Grandfather STEWART. So I guess it had been in the family almost since 1818.
You spoke about Pearl HALFIN. She was a cousin of Alice and Sylvia. Their fathers were brothers. And then you mentioned Jessie NIEMAN. Well she was a cousin of Alice and Sylvia’s also. I don't think they had much time for Jessie. From what I gather they had to baby-sit her when she was a young child and they were a little older. Evidently Jessie was a rotten brat. Beside her sister married to Byron SECOY, Jessie had a sister who was married to Harold BIERER. Gets confusing after awhile.
You spoke of your dad working in the mine on Walnut Hill. I can remember in late 1940's, maybe 1947 or 48 of the men coming home from the mine in Bill HURSHMAN’S car. I think it was Bill HURSHMAN, your Dad, Harry DIEHL Lloyd COLEBANK and Ed SINES. They stopped in front of the COLEBANK house and unloaded. I watched and Uncle Lloyd COLEBANK was carrying a pint of ice cream. I beat him to his house. But before I could get any ice cream I had to wait until he took his bath in Oxodoyl soap. Then he had supper and then I got some ice cream. Lloyd always said he could never figure out how Harry DIEHLcould get home, clean up and be walking back to Point Marion for a beer before he could finish his bath. Uncle Lloyd was a great church worker in the Trinity Methodist Church as was everyone in this family.
You surely will agree that that was an e-mail well worth getting.
Thank you friend.
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