BHS Classes of 1948 and 1949

Copyright © 2018                                      John F. Oyler

March 29, 2018

BHS Classes of 1948 and 1949

The Bridgeville Area Historical Society continued its review of the history of Bridgeville High School in its March “Second Tuesday” workshop. It was particularly nostalgic for the facilitator who is a proud alumnus of the ’49 class.

Seventy years ago the atmosphere was mostly optimistic, the aftermath of the conclusion of World War II. There were still reminders however; in the summer of 1948 there were memorial and burial services for two local men who had lost their lives in the war – Lieutenant Warren Carson and Private James Michaels.

Even more sobering, in retrospect, was the knowledge that two of the graduates of the Class of 1948, Dick Johnson and Harry Stringer, would lose their lives while serving their country a few years later. Harry went into the Army and was killed in Korea quite early in the war. Dick graduated from Penn State and went into the Air Force and died following a accident during flight training.

Following the winless football season the previous year, the high school turned to recent Columbia University graduate Bob Hast as its new football coast. Hast was a product of Bethel High School who had played for Buff Donelli at Duquesne before going into the Navy during World War II. He was at Normandy on D-Day as part of a landing craft crew.

Following the war he finished his education at Columbia, where Donelli was now an assistant coach. It was rumored that the Donelli family connection was significant to his hiring, hoping their latest member, Fred, would be spared another embarrassing season. The losing streak was broken in the first game when the local team upset Carnegie 6 to 0, on a touchdown by Ray Fagan.

Next followed three consecutive losses, to Bethel, Clark, and Canonsburg, and an apparent return to futility. The team then turned things around and won its last five games, including a satisfying 20 to 0 rout of South Fayette. This was an excellent team that would have been highly competitive in the Class B title game had they not lost to Bethel.

Seniors on this team included the Batch twins, Bill and Jim, Don Vosel. Richard Deep, Curtis Copeland, Nick Mamula, Jack Schneider, and Emery Barzan, an impressive group of athletes. Ben Rupnik was added to the nucleus of Deep, Mamula, and the Batch twins for form a very respectable basketball team.

John Graham was President of the Class of 1948; Harry Prandini, Gwen Hillen, and Elaine Keil were the other officers. Louise Duchess was elected May Queen, an excellent successor to a line of lovely young ladies.

The ’48 Class included an unusually large number of successful businessmen. The creativity that Joe Lescovich exhibited in school paid off in a productive career with the Golden-Anderson Valve & Specialty Company, where his ideas led to thirteen valve-related patents. His classmate, Alfred Barzan, participated in the workshop and supplied valuable information regarding Joe.

Another participant, Curtis Copeland, Jr., provided information on one of his father’s classmates, Hartman Reed, who had an excellent career with a taxi company and other interests in Washington, D. C.  Mell Dozzo had loaned us a copy of “Eccentric Orbits, the Iridium Story”, which documents the role of ‘48er Dan Colussy in the salvaging of a bankrupt satellite telephone company and turning it into a moneymaker.

My favorite member of this class was Ed Weise, whom I have described as “the best ‘best friend’ a teen-aged boy could have”. Ed was the heart and soul of the Owl Patrol, certainly the best patrol in Boy Scout Troop 245. Our experiences hiking and camping are the real highlights of my life in those years.

In the Spring of 1948 we ‘49ers were responsible for the Junior Prom. The “Bridger” description of it warrants recording. It is written in the format of a society column in a daily paper. “I saw many socially prominent people”. It begins with Robert O’Neil and Sally Russell and then proceeds to mention Jack Oyler, Dick Rothermund, Sam Capozzoli, Don Toney, and John Rosa, among others. Sounds like a roll call for our Octogenarian Brunch Club. Unfortunately, my social stature has gone downhill ever since!

Following his impressive coaching debut the previous year which ended up with a five-game winning streak, Coach Hast was optimistic about the 1948 season. Despite losing so many productive Seniors, he had solid players returning at each position. His first shock was learning that potential star end Bob “Huck” O’Neil had broken his collarbone while “carrying hod” on a construction site. Junior Aldo Mosso proved to be an adequate replacement.

Then Loyal “Joe” Brown, projected to be the starting fullback was struck down by appendicitis and lost for the season. Not to worry, we have Matt Noark as a replacement. The first game was a romp over West Bethelehem, 24 to 0. Noark scored a touchdown before suffering a concussion. Not to worry, tackle Leo Maruzewski was called upon to replicate his older brother, Ed, who switched from tackle to running back and was the star of the championship 1942 team.

Leo also scored a touchdown, but concluded he preferred hitting people to being hit and returned to his old position at tackle. Not to worry, junior Sam Patton sparked the team to an exciting 20 to 19 win over Carnegie. We were unable to find a newspaper clipping reporting the results of this game; apparently it was such an embarrassment to the losers that they failed their responsibility of phoning in the results to the newspapers.

Lacking a proper report, we fell back on the version in the “Bridger”. The previous year the facilitator noticed that the Bridger staff consisted completely of females, so he decided to volunteer his services as sports editor. His write-up of the Carnegie game was surprisingly competent for someone “socially prominent”.

Cecil and Bethel were then conquered easily, but Patton was lost because of a broken elbow. Not to worry, Hast proved to be a genius by moving guard Lou Cimarolli to fullback. Jack Schullek moved from tackle to guard. He was replaced by center Joe Stalma, with Anthony Capozzoli taking over at center. The result was a powerful, well-balanced team which easily ran through the rest of the season, culminating in an easy 24 to 0 win over Marion in the Class B title game.

Prior to Cimarolli’s move to fullback, the team’s “bread and butter” play had been LF 25-I, a trap play that seemed to guarantee six or eight yards every time it was properly executed. It enabled Noark, Maruzewski, and Patton to exploit their bruising, hard running style. Cimarolli was so quick accelerating and so adept at finding open space that it suddenly became a potential touchdown each time it was called.

Game in and game out, end Al Bigi was the best all-around player on the team. Recognizing this, he was crowned “King of Football” following the South Fayette game and presented with the game ball. Jeanne Squarcha was chosen as Queen; she received a chrysanthemum bouquet.

Other key contributors to the successful season were Seniors quarterback Ray Fagan and halfback Fred Donelli, and Juniors Ron Lesko, a guard, and halfback Roger Bradford.

Mary Weise commented on the fact that success in football helped some of these young men to acquire a college education that might have denied them otherwise. O’Neil, Stalma, and Fagan went to Duquesne, played Freshman football and one year of Varsity before the University elected to drop football. O’Neil transferred to Notre Dame and played two years there, followed by six years of professional football in three different leagues. He eventually became a successful home builder in the Pacific Northwest.

Stalma transferred to Toledo University, earned a degree in education, and became a high school teacher and basketball coach. His success at tiny Rossford High School has been rewarded by having their field house named for him. Fagan completed his education at Duquesne and  went to work for Pittsburgh National Bank, where he eventually became a Vice President.

Based on my knowledge of these three men, I am not surprised at their success, but it does appear that the educations they received as a result of athletic scholarships was a major contributor.

The officers of the Class were President Bob Baldwin, Dick Rothermund, Mary Lou Graham, and me. Bob went off to Wesleyan College and then to the University of Pittsburgh, where he earned a Ph. D. in Education. He ended up at Clarion University as Dean of Education. His most significant accomplishment was introducing me to a student he was advising at Pitt, a lovely young lady who ultimately became my wife.

Dick earned a degree in Industrial Engineering and worked for several steel companies before switching to Computer Science and working for Robert Morris University. Mary Lou followed her parents’ footsteps and became a teacher. Larry Godwin remembers her administering an intelligence test to him while she was studying at Slippery Rock. He said he was so young that they decided to ignore the results and assume he would grow out of it. I, of course, am still trying to find myself.

Sally Russell was our May Queen. She and her two attendants, Marian Jones and Jeanne Squarcha, are still the loveliest trio of young ladies I have ever known. Marian was half of one of three high school romances that resulted in “till death do us part”. She married classmate Loyal Brown, Pat Winnechuke married classmate Fred Donelli, and Dolores Kovach married classmate Jack McGrogan.

It would be remiss to not mention Florene Cherry when discussing our class. She was a constant leader in everything we did and has spent the rest of her life serving others. She married an outsider – Jack Joyce – after graduating from Mercyhurst and combined rearing a family with involvement with the Urban League, the Greater Pittsburgh Guild for the Blind, and NEED (the Negro Educational Emergency Drive). She was heavily involved in the founding of Miryam’s, an agency for homeless mentally ill women. In 1994 she was recognized by the Post Gazette in their Outstanding Citizen program. She also was a key founder of the Historical Society.

While reviewing the ’49 Yearbook for this workshop, the facilitator found numerous photographs of eighth graders, which included three regular workshop attendees – Dale DeBlander, Russ Kovach, and Judy Oelschlager. All three were members of the high school band. Incidentally, Judy’s brother Wilbur was a very popular member of the ‘49ers.

Also mentioned during the workshop were other well-known Bridgeville residents. Both teacher Gloria Lutz and Society faithful member Lena Carrozza were heavily involved in the Junior Women’s Club and its support of our students.

The next “Second Tuesday” workshop is scheduled for 7:00 pm, April 10, at the History Center. We will be taking a break from our High School history series to kick off a new initiative, the development of a permanent exhibit focused on “George Washington’s Impact on Western Pennsylvania”. This month we will discuss his well-documented mission to Fort LeBouef to negotiate with the French regarding sovereignty of the Ohio Country. We will return to the high school series in May and alternate months thereafter.

Generation Z. March 22, 2018

Copyright © 2018                                                         John F. Oyler

March 22, 2018

Generation Z

We educators spend a lot of time worrying about the unique characteristics of our students and brainstorming techniques to best serve them. I personally have focused on promoting independent thinking and creativity instead of just presenting information to be regurgitated on demand.

The last several years this problem has escalated, apparently because the students who are now reaching the university level have grown up in the Information Age where the answer to nearly every question can be acquired via Google. As Adrian Monk used to say, “That is a blessing and a curse”.

It has been my practice to encourage engineering students to take advantage of all of the resources available to a practicing engineer as part of my commitment to prepare them for a meaningful career in the real world. Consequently, homework and tests are all “open book”. I prefer test questions that emphasize problem solving to those requiring the student to retrieve information from his/her memory.

Recently this has begun to back fire on me. An important topic in the metallurgy of steel is “packing”, the different ways ferrous atoms arrange themselves in the solid state. To illustrate this I asked the students to determine the maximum number of one inch diameter spheres that could be placed in a twelve inch by twelve inch by twelve inch box, hoping they would think about the placement of one layer on top of another and use geometry to determine the proper answer (which is 2120).

Instead of thinking about it, the majority of the students googled “atomic packing factor” and turned in an assignment that began “I did some research on the Internet…..” and proudly reported that the answer was 2443. This of course is the correct answer to the wrong question, as it refers to the average number of atoms per cubic spacing in a container of infinite size.

This is another “blessing and curse” situation. It initiated a sermon from me accusing the students of two sins – looking things up instead of thinking them through and lacking the judgment to realize their solution was not correct. This would not have happened ten or fifteen years ago; it is a perfect example of the necessity for us academics to recognize the unique mindset of “Generation Z’.

William Strauss and Neil Howe are generally credited with popularizing the concept of cohort generations. Tom Brokaw exploited this concept by coining the term “Greatest Generation” for the people born between 1901 and 1924, the generation that survived the Great Depression and won World War II. They were followed by my generation, the Silent Generation, then the Baby Boomers, Generation X, the Millennials, and finally Generation Z.

Strauss and Howe postulated that the personality of each generation is formed by the prevailing social/economic environment when they are adolescents and that they significantly influence that environment when they are middle-aged adults. This certainly makes sense for us “Silents”; we were so relieved when the war ended that our personality was dominated by conformity. We are the only generation that did not produce a President of the United States.

We adults agonize over the fact that Generation Z children spent far too much time engaged with their Smartphones, much as earlier generations were criticized with their obsession with the radio, or with television, or with video games. How well I remember my parents telling me to quit spending so much time “with your nose in a book”.

I have just had the pleasure of spending a week with my daughter Sara’s family in Fort Collins, Colorado, and the opportunity to observe Generation Z members close up. In addition to sharing family experiences with them we also attended five basketball games, two concerts, and a high school play, events that showed off the talents of young people very well.

We watched ten-year-old Claire play in three basketball games one weekend, the termination of their season. The level of play was quite impressive, especially for girls some of whom are hardly big enough to make a free throw. They played on a full-size court, ran complicated plays, and used a full court press effectively for the whole game.

We also saw twelve-year-old Nora’s basketball team play two games, including one for the seventh-grade championship for the dozen or so middle schools in the area. The girls on her team are highly accomplished and seem to have no difficulty in any aspect of the game. Nora is also making the transition to a season change, playing softball and soccer.

Fifteen-year-old Ian has become a fine trumpet player and has pleased his grandfather greatly by being a member of the high school jazz band, as well as the concert band. We enjoyed seeing his jazz band entertaining before an excellent high school performance of “Guys and Dolls”. We also attended a festival that included his concert band, an orchestra, and four different choral groups, all from his high school. In addition to music Ian is heavily involved in theater, currently rehearsing for a local performance of the musical “13”.

My other exposure to Generation Z’ers is Beth’s thirteen-year-old daughter Rachael, who is quite busy with music and dance. I have had the opportunity to attend many of her performances with the Quaker Valley Middle School Strings Orchestra, as well as several other local groups. Again, I am astonished with the quality of musical presentation these early teenage students demonstrate.

John keeps us updated on the continuing development of his four-year-old daughter Lai An, in China. We have every reason to believe she will replicate the achievements of her cousins as she grows up.

Realizing that my five grandchildren and their team mates and fellow band members are an insignificant sample size for an entire generation, I still must report my extreme optimism about Generation Z. Despite their perceived addiction to Smartphones, I find them to be quite well rounded in all aspects and remarkably talented in the activities that interest them

I am currently compiling information for out next “Second Tuesday” workshop, which will focus on the Bridgeville High School classes of 1948 and 1949, the peak years of our generation. We certainly could never have performed as well in any activity as any of the Z’ers do today.

The McLaughlin's and Saw Mill Run Railroad. March 15, 2018

Copyright © 2018                                                         John F. Oyler

March 15, 2018

The McLaughlin’s and Saw Mill Run Railroad

After David Aitken gave his talk on the Little Saw Mill Run Railroad to the Bridgeville Area Historical Society last Fall, he and I had an interesting discussion about the Pittsburgh Southern Railroad in specific, and the nineteenth century railroads in southern Allegheny County in general. A few days later he sent me a link to a map of Allegheny County in 1890 on the Library of Congress website.

Like all old maps it was full of interesting information. Our discussion had been regarding the route the Pittsburgh Southern took through Mt. Lebanon. The Southern had been organized by Milton Hays in 1878 to connect Washington, Pa. with the Ohio River at Temperanceville (now Pittsburgh’s West End neighborhood) via Castle Shannon and the Little Saw Mill Run Railroad.

The route of the Little Saw Mill Run Railroad up Banksville Road as far as Wenzell Avenue is well documented. Up until now I have been unable to confirm the extension on to Castle Shannon. We know it continued through Dormont Park past the swimming pool and crossed McFarland Road just beyond the Beverly Road intersection. We know it ended up at the foot of Alfred Street where it joined the current right-of-way of the Port Authority light rail system and followed it to Castle Shannon.

The portion in between has been a mystery, one that was resolved by the 1890 map. According to it, the Southern crossed McFarland at the Parker Drive intersection, paralleled McFarland to Edward Avenue, and then crossed Bower Hill Road at the Kenmont intersection. From that point it followed Kenmont across Shady, through Rolliers’ parking lot, crossed Washington Road at the Academy intersection, and proceeded down the hill to the foot of Alfred Street.

Also on this map is the route of the Pittsburgh, Chartiers, and Youghiogheny Railroad (PC & Y) Painters Run branch. It splits off from the PC & Y Thoms Run branch at Woodville, crosses Vanadium road, goes over the Chartiers Valley branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad, then Chartiers Creek, and proceeds through “Panhandle” to Bower Hill Road.

It then parallels Bower Hill to the north until crossing it on a trestle and entering the tunnel whose southern portal is still visible on Bower Hill Road. Exiting the tunnel, it then crosses Painters Run three times before staying north of it. Incidentally on this map the creek is named Panther’s Run, confirming our suspicion that “Painter” referred to the early settlers’ name of panthers, mountain lions.

The Painters Run branch stops well short of the McMillan Road intersection, suggesting that the Harrison Mine, developed by the Beadling Brothers in 1883, had not yet reached a production level sufficient to justify extending a rail head to it.

More interesting is the fact that the map shows a spur leaving the Painters Run branch close to the entrance to Bednars’ Farm Market and entering a tunnel in the hill at that point. The other end of the tunnel is north of the large bend in McLaughlin Run Road where the borough park and sports complex is located.

The rail line then follows McLaughlin Run Road to the east, crossing it about halfway between the tunnel exit and its intersection with McMillan Road. This map does not show Lesnett Road extending down the hill to McLaughlin. The railroad parallels McLaughlin Run Road and the creek to the west, crossing Morrow Road and a no longer existing road through St. Clair Country Club before arriving at Clifton.

It continues, west of McMurray Road to the intersection with Bethel Church Road, crosses McMurray, follows McLaughlin Run to South Park Road and its intersection with Drake Road. At this point it crosses the Pittsburgh Southern Railroad and continues on to the southeast, across Irishtown Road and into Library. Its extension reaches the Monongahela River at Elizabeth.

The official name of the map is “Map of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, 1890: with adjoining parts of Westmoreland, Washington & Beaver counties”. It was published in Pittsburgh by Otto Krebs and entered in the Library of Congress for copyright in 1890.

We have determined that the McLaughlin’s and Saw Mill Run Railroad was indeed incorporated in 1881 with the right to build a railroad about six miles long from the termination of the Chartiers and Mansfield Valley Railway following the line of McLaughlin’s Run to Sodom (now called Clifton) on the line of the Pittsburgh Southern Railway. The fact that the Southern did not go through Clifton is another puzzle. The Chartiers and Mansfield Valley Railway had been chartered a year earlier to build a line from McKees Rocks up the Chartiers Valley to Woodville.

Later in 1881 the two railroads were combined to form the Pittsburgh, Chartiers, and Youghiogheny Railroad. One of the directors of each of these corporations was Jacob Henrici, the Harmony Society trustee credited with the Society’s investment in many successful business ventures in western Pennsylvania.

The railroad shown on the 1890 Krebs map extended far beyond Sodom; apparently the PC & Y acquired right-of-way at least as far as Elizabeth. Otherwise it would have been the Pittsburgh, Chartiers, and McLaughlin Run railroad. But was it ever constructed? I have found no evidence to that effect, other than the Krebs map.

An exception might be up the index map for the 1896 Hopkins Atlas for the Pittsburgh area. It does show the P C & Y running through Sodom and on toward Library, but as a broken line, suggesting it is merely a railroad that is planned for the future. This map also shows the southeastern tunnel portal being much farther up McLaughlin Run than is indicated on the Krebs map. It would have been a major tunnel, perhaps two thousand feet long.

It is interesting to imagine a farmer coming down Morton Road toward McLaughlin Run, watching a passenger train from Sodom heading down the valley on its way to Carnegie. I suspect this is wishful thinking and that the railroad never was built.