What's New?

Tonight - or rather this morning now - I'm starting off with the Bushism for the day. Not to ruin anyone's day by putting that there first, but rather to get it in and up and done with lest the senility factors set in and I forget about it. (I do have problems like that from time to time you know.)

March 20, 2007
"Listen, Al Gore is a very tough opponent. He is the incumbent. He represents the incumbency. And a challenger is somebody who generally comes from the pack and wins, if you're going to win. And that's where I'm coming from." - Detroit, Michigan; September 7, 2000.

Sometimes, I do wonder if DUBYA ever has a clear speaking plan when he pops off with some of these statements that, when reading them now, sound a little absurd to say the least. I'm thinking he must have flunked the basic speech courses in college anyway.

'Nuff said on my opinions of DUBYA's speaking prowess. Moving on to other things here now.

What's new? I'm going to be learning how to administer a website, that's what is new for me at the moment.

The website is one that is shown on my blog, under my favorite links about the ghost town of Peale, PA which is about two miles down the road (at most) from my home.

The man who put that website together is a professor at a college in northwestern Ohio and now, with his teaching, research and family - wife and two small children - he is pressed for time to try to keep the website up-to-date so I offered to take over some of that responsibility provided he teaches me how and what to do in order to maintain the site. I know nothing, absolutely NOTHING about tending to a website!

The current plan is also though for me to set up a companion blogsite to the Peale website and that, I think I can manage ok, provided some of my ideas about the blogsite idea go over ok with a few other people too along the way.

One thing I'd like to do with the blogsite is to post the articles I had written and which were published in a small local "monthly" newsletter here. These would be postings about not just Peale though but also about the township and the other little villages here. The blog would encompass then not just information solely about Peale but also about the township as a whole as well - history, other little stories of interest here and there.

A little explanation here about the ghost town though and how I came to get interested in it along with a few other little things.

I'm interested in the history of Peale because my great-grandparents and their children were some of the early settlers of the village back in 1884. Growing up, there was still one family still residing in Peale who moved out of there in 1957 or 1958 - not quite sure at the moment on the exact year. At that time, one could still see a lot of the remains of the old town and my grandfather as well as one of my uncles used to tell me stories that kept the town alive in my mind. I have you see, always been interested in history and especially any type of history that came down to me via my grandfather too.

When I first discovered the website - while surfing the net late one Saturday nite - I was really startled to find a website about a place that had no residents at that time for over 40 years. From reading an article on the website, I ascertained that the writer of that article was related to a family here and that I knew many of his relatives still in this area. I e-mailed him as well as the man who had put the website up to comment to them both on how much I had enjoyed reading all the data posted on the site. And from that, I have since established a long-standing friendship now with the author of the railroad article there as well as becoming acquainted by e-mails back and forth with Dr. Krygier, the owner of the site.

One point that I felt would make a companion blogsite to the Peale website a good idea is that it would make it easier for anyone visiting to submit comments, information, ideas etc. about the ghost town. And, by including the other villages in the township within the umbrella there, I could also do small pieces from the research I have been doing on the township for the past almost three years now. I had noticed from the sitemeter on my blog that a fairly goodly number of hits I was getting - visitors to my blog - were coming from people using the search words of "Peale, PA" and/or Cooper Township but I am assuming because there is no place on the website itself for folks to leave comments and I hadn't really posted anything pertinent to the website either in my blog, they just checked out the website and left leaving no traces then of their visit. And maybe, just maybe, those visitors may have had additional information they wanted to share or questions they wanted to ask but were unsure of trying to reach Dr. Krygier or Jeff Feldmeier, who wrote the excellent articles about the impact of the railroad on the old town of Peale.

I've no idea right now how long it may take me to set up this blog and get it moving or how soon I will actually be doing the administration of the website itself too - just that it's something that is coming as soon as possible and that will be my involvement in both aspects there.

So, if you happened into this blog post by way of searching information about Peale or the township (Cooper) or perhaps any of the little villages here - Drifting, Grassflat, Lanse, Winburne, Forest, Kylertown - feel free to leave a comment or contact me via my e-mail address in the contact area under my profile on this page.

I'd love nothing better than to hear from people who have roots back to this area and share a common interest with me about the history of the region. Or, if you are trying to do family tree research and your roots bring you back here, let me know and I'd be more than happy to try to help you any way possible with your research in that aspect too!

Any and all input in that respect would most definitely be very much appreciated. In the meantime, check out the website for now - if you've not already done so - and keep checking back for the new blog coming to cyberspace sometime in the very near future!

Some Really Good Years!

The above photo - a collection of photos actually - represents to me, some of my favorite things about my Mother's family.

Starting with the photograph on the bottom - which obviously is also the oldest picture of the group - this is one of my favorite pictures! This is my cousin Ray Eld, who never fails to harrass me about how very much older I am than him - all of three whole days, you know! This was taken on the front steps of the house where his family lived back in the 40's on Blackadore Street in Pittsburgh. I'm not sure how old we were exactly on this picture but I think we were three, maybe four years old. Ray figures that most likely it was taken shortly before my grandparents, my Mom and I were getting ready to leave there and return to our home in Clearfield County, which is pretty much dead-center in the state of Pennsylvania. His reasoning behind that is because I am dressed up a bit, cleaned up, whereas he is looking a bit on the ragamuffin side on this shot! Therefore, he says that means I was about to go for a long ride and he was staying put, no need then to get him all decked out in Sunday-go-meeting clothes if he wasn't going anyplace. Yeah Ray, your logic makes sense to me for sure!

The couple on the right hand side of this grouping is my Mom's baby sister and her husband - Edward David and Marian Theresa Eld Bird! Uncle Ed was originally from Niagara Falls, NY and was Irish in ethnicity and of the Roman Catholic faith too - all things which normally, by my grandmother's standards for one to marry a child of hers should have made him absolutely TABU! By comparison to the rest of the children in the family, Aunt Mamie was a bit of a rip - not bad, but she sure didn't live a quiet, calm, staid lifestyle like her siblings and their spouses did! Not by a long shot! Of the girls in the family, she was the most fun-loving. My Mom and the older sister, Aunt Ethel, were by comparison "houseworkaholics"!!! Aunt Mamie liked to dance, sing, play the piano and not just church music either and go out, have a few beers and enjoy life! Uncle Ed operated much in the same vein. I spent the summer of 1951 living with them and my Mom just outside Fort Niagara, along the Niagara River. The best thing about where we lived there - it was a huge old farm house and the second floor had been converted into an apartment of very nice proportions - was that they had a beautiful full-blooded collie -named Coral - who was smart as a whip and just a really great dog for a seven-year-old to romp around the yard and play with. The next best thing was that they had a tv set too and since the location was fairly close to Buffalo, NY, we got quite a few good stations and Uncle Ed and I used to love to watch the equivalent of that era to today's World-Wide Wrestling matches! Ah, such fun!

The photo to the left in the middle is one of my favorites for the people in it and the occasion of the event. It was taken by my cousin Ken Eld on the day I graduated from Penn State University (May 14, 1994) with my B.S. in Rehabilitation Education. And those around me are my daughters, my oldest, Carrie, on the left, then me, then my Aunt Mary Mawk Eld and Amanda (or Mandy), who is my baby. She was probably the one who, next to me, was the happiest to see that day finally arrive! She and her late husband, my Mom's yonger brother (Uncle Cookie) had always wanted to see me go to college but I never was able to get around to going to school until 1990, eight years after my uncle's death. When I told Aunt Mary of my decision to go to college, fulltime, while working fulltime, and with two teenage kids at home too, she was probably also my strongest supporter, giving me loads of encouragement every step of the way over those four long years! I'm so grateful that I had her beside me while trying to achieve that goal of my college degree. I just wish that things would have worked differently and I had been able to find employment in the area of my major to show her that I really had learned a lot in college after all!

And finally, the top photo was taken at one of the Annual Eld Reunions! We have been having this family reunion since July of 1950 and since 1967, we hold it at a very small private park about five miles from where I live in the village of Lanse, PA. It's a very pretty, quiet little secluded place with a very nice sized enclosed shelter that also has indoor bathroom facilities (a bonus in parks) and also a nice sized kitchen with an electric range and refrigerators too. Today, it even has a microwave oven in the kitchen. And it has always been large enough to accomodate some of the largest reunions our family has ever held but sadly, the past few years, it seems to dwarf those few of us who still faithfully attend this annual picnic.

Those on this photo are all grandchildren of the Adolph and Ellen Johnson Eld branch of the family tree and those on this picture - around our Aunt Mary Mawk Eld are as follows from left to right (sort of): Becky Eld Reid, daughter of Clarence "Cookie" and Mary Eld and the youngest of my grandparents grandchildren, next there is Carl B. Eld and his older sister, Nancy Eld Lang - children of Bertrum and Nellie Simpson Eld. Carl was the first grandson and Nancy was the first Grandchild in the family. The next cousin is Barbara Eld Donaldson, Daughter of Ralph and Hazel Stoughton Eld, followed by Aunt Mary Mawk Eld, then me and my cousin, Kenneth A. Eld, oldest of Clarence and Mary Mawk Eld's children is directly behind me.

I wish I had a photo now of all the children of those of the six of us in that picture. Beck and her husband have four children, all adopted from Korea; Carl and his wife have two daughters and a son and now have 8 grandchildren as well as a great-granddaughter; Nancy and her husband Howard have three children - two boys and a girl and 3 grandchildren; Barb has a daughter and a son and three grandsons; I have three children, two girls and a boy and two grandsons and a granddaughter plus two stepgranddaughters and a stepgrandson and Ken - he's the late bloomer I guess, with two daughters and his first grandchild due in May of 2007! I keep telling him that he and his wife Laura have no idea how great kids really are until they finally have their own grandchildren - who in my opinion, are soooo very much better than the first edition! Probably only because the full responsiblity of raising those kids falls onto someone else's lap other than your own, you know!

There were 11 grandchildren born to Adolph and Ellen Johnson Eld - my Mom's parents but today, there are only ten of us left. One cousin, David Eld, took his own life back in March of 1982, which probably was the last time all but perhaps one of my first cousins and I were together for Dave's funeral. The other four of my cousins still around but not at the reunion that year are: Joan Eld Kujava, Ray Eld, Tom Eld and Sue Eld Gerecke. Maybe one of these years I will get all my cousins together once again at this gathering spot. However, because we're all getting old way to fast, our kids are now almost all grown, married, on their own, and several of us have had some major health issues the past couple of years that make it really difficult now for us to get together once more as a strong family unit, but it's still a nice thought to think about anyway.

Family History Review?

I had a visitor this morning. Teresa, the editor/publisher of the West Branch Review, stopped by for coffee and a "short visit." And, like always happens with one of those "short visits," it was quite elongated and ended up being sort of a family history type review of the families who had a lot of control over the economics of Cooper Township way back when.

How our conversation went in that direction began with Teresa asking me about a place near here she thought I had mentioned to her way back when - a mansion-type house that sits back in, sort of in the woods -can't be viewed from the road - and had I been the one to have told her about this place.

Yep - I knew exactly what place she was referring to - The Sommerville Mansion - located out in Lanse and which is situated back in the woods behind the later-day Sommerville homestead - which is also somewhat of a mansion type home itself.

The Sommerville family - in my opinion - probably could qualify I suppose one could say, as being the elite or the "royal family" of the region back around the turn of the century and that type of label could probably have been used to describe them somewhat, even today.

"Old Mr Sommerville" - I never knew the man as this was before my time - had a finger in many pies within not just the township, but also within the county. Before they came to this country from Scotland, it is quite evident from various things I have learned about them, they apparently were quite "monied" in Scotland. I figure any family that transports a suit of armor with them when they immigrated here, had to have more than a couple of coins in their coffers then, don't ya think?

But Mr Sommervile was involved early on with the coal mines of the region, had a finger in virtually every other industry too here back then. When they first came here, the family settled in the adjacent county - Centre - before migrating over to Clearfield County where they settled in the little village of Winburne. Mr Sommerville served for many years on the Board of Directors of the bank that once existed in Winburne, of which I don't know as yet when it finally bit the dust. He also was affiliated with the Clearfield Progress - the local county daily newspaper - and off the top of my head right now, I can't remember if his position there was as publisher or editor. One or the other and that should give a little indication too of his status not just in the local area but county-wide.

He had four children - three daughters and a son. THe youngest daughter is still living, in the Chicago area and to my calculations, is probably about 88-90 years old now. I never knew anything about the son whatsoever growing up, but one daughter was the librarian at the county library for years and years and another, who graduated with my younger uncle - I think she was valedictorian and my uncle was salutatorian (or vice versa), went on to become a teacher and for many years, she taught English and French in the old school where my Mom, her brother and younger sister and I all attended high school. The family was of an economic status as such that the daughters all did a "tour" - meaning they spent a summer or several months abroad during their younger years - probably college age or just after completing college perhaps.

Talking about the Sommerville family led to discussions of other families in the region who held a good bit of power, in the economic sense, due to their holdings within the coal mining industry here. Frans Kristianson - a Swedish immigrant - whose coal company later became known as K&J Coal and was a bit of a power house employer for many years here. The Rydberg Family whose company became known as River Hill Coal and is no longer owned by members of the family but still operates under that name - it's no longer as large an operation to my knowledge as it once was either.

And then, there was Andrew Frendberg - who for many years was employed as the mine superintendent for the CBC - Clearfield Bituminous Coal Company - and this company back at the turn of the century and for many years thereafter, was the real powerhouse Coal operation in this region as well as in other counties surrounding here too!

As a child, I remember -vividly - my Grandfather and his older brother - my Great Uncle Erik - talking about their years of working for the CBC and under the command of "Old Frendberg," as they usually refered to the gentleman in not very loving terms or tone of voice when discussing him. The opinion I garnered of this man, as a child, was that he was some kind of a tyrant to work for but from what I have gathered from the research I've been doing for the past two years - via the Clearfield Progress' old copies database -is that he was quite well-known and apparently a very highly respected businessman throughout the community - county-wide - from his work for the CBC Company!

Once one gets into talking about these various early companies that prevailed in this region, it is too small a community for one not to know today who are descendants of the various individuals who once upon a time wielded much power and almost a stranglehold, at times, over the various immigrants who came here in the late 1800's and early 1900's looking for a better life.

It's learning things like this about the beginnings of this community and how it all translates down to people here today that I find absolutely fascinating.

My job now is to try to find out, if possible, when the heirs to the Sommerville estate will be back in town again - hopefully sometime soon - and see if perhaps Teresa and I can have a chance to make contact with THE current Mr Sommerville and get him to give us a tour of the mansion built by his grandfather that is hidden away in the woods atop the hill as you go from Lanse down into Winburne.

I really looking forward to a tour of that place very much and please, let it be something we can arrange soon too as Teresa wants to do a story about the Mansion as well as the Sommerville family for a future edition of the paper! And, so do I!

Wish us luck, will ya?