1948 – 71 YEARS AGO
Leo T. Hall, of West Pittston, and a seaman in the U.S. Navy stationed aboard the battleship New Jersey, received the American Campaign Medal for his extended service in 1944 and 1945. President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the American Campaign Medal on Nov. 6, 1942. The New Jersey was built at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard and launched Dec. 7, 1942 — just a year after the Pearl Harbor Attack. The battleship opened as an educational museum and a tribute to the brave sailors who served on her during her long and distinguished career in October 2001 at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard.
1958 – 61 YEARS AGO
Gayle Ishley, Doreen Krafjak, Lynn Stephens, Carol Stopak, Patsy Hudock, Jean Martin, Charlene Makar, Maureen Flannery, Sally Shento, Marie Kmush, Dorothy Bullock, Betsy Ash, Carol Posluszny, Claire Fedak, Carol Fedak, Marlene Strobel, Marsha Steinberg, Cathy Nichols, Patsy Dent, Carol Mushok, Bonnie Buckman and Janet Irvin were known as the Sammy Tremont Hi-Hat Steppers. The dancers won the Scranton Home Talent Show and were on their way to New York for an appearance on “Ted Mack’s Amateur Hour.” The Original Amateur Hour lasted on radio until 1952 and on television until 1970.
1966 – 53 YEARS AGO
Army Pfc. Casimir L. Chernouskas, of Pittston, was assigned to the 39th Engineer Battalion in Vietnam. A graduate of Pittston High School, Casimir entered the Army in 1965 and completed training at Fort Jackson, SC. He was stationed at Battalion Headquarters in Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam. Cam Ranh Air Base served as a United States Air Force tactical fighter base, the first in South Vietnam to base the F-4C Phantom II tactical fighter-bomber.
Pittston homemakers Mary Hadley, Anna Kelly, Mary Fitzpatrick and Mary Lonser worked with the United Fund to establish its new Homemaker Service. The agency provided training to women who would then manage a household for a family experiencing an emergency, such as a mother hospitalized with no friends or relatives available to help with housework and children. The homemakers would, at times, be required to work long hours.
1976 – 43 YEARS AGO
In February 1976, an earthquake measuring 7.5 rocked Guatemala in what was called the “worst natural disaster in the history of Central America.” One of the first calls Disaster Relief Specialist Eugene Prinz made was to Leo Valenti, president of the board of Mar-Val Industries in Exeter. Prinz had become familiar with Mar-Val and Valenti during the Agnes Flood and requested the company provide all the modular buildings necessary for hospitals, housing and schools in the ravaged country. Valenti and Prinz set a plan in motion to construct a plant at the disaster site. The quake’s epicenter was located near the town of Los Amates in the eastern part of the Motagua Fault. Over 23,000 people died, 80,000 were injured and many thousands were left homeless.
1985 – 34 YEARS AGO
After an extremely successful debut in the summer of 1984, plans for the 1985 Pittston Tomato Festival were finalized with the three-day celebration scheduled for Aug. 23-25 in the city’s business district. Festival committee president Val Delia was pleased that the festival was featured in an edition of “Pennsylvania” magazine, a quarterly publication that promotes events and items of interest across the state. In 1984, Delia formed a group of supporters for his concept of promoting the “Pittston Tomato” nationally. His passion in doing so has been carried on by festival committee officers and members who continually plan for the festival which will bring an estimated 50,000 visitors to the city in August.
The Cinema Club on McAlpine Street in Duryea had something no other club had — a 39-ton, 4000-piece pipe organ assembled by musician Henry “Lee” Lech to be played for the enjoyment of the club’s patrons. Lech saddened over the decline in the instrument’s popularity, took three years to assemble pieces of organs from seven local theatres into one gigantic pipe organ. Some parts came from the Roman and American Theatres in Pittston. Lech, a music teacher in the Avoca School District, also wanted to entertain, so in 1960, he co-established the Cinema Club,a local hot spot until 1976. By 1985, the club had closed, but the question remained, what to do with the oversized musical instrument? Lech arranged for a music firm to dismantle the organ and ship it to Chicago where the numerous parts would regain a third life in a recording studio.
1986 – 33 YEARS AGO
As director of the Luzerne County Bureau of Veterans Affairs, Arthur A. Bartolai arranged for the distribution of more than 50,000 flags and 2,352 bronze markers at 350 cemeteries in the county in honor of Memorial Day. Born in Pittston Township to Isidor and Georgia Bernardi Bartolai and a Pittston High School graduate, Bartolai was himself a disabled veteran and considered the 50,000-plus military veterans in the county his family. The bureau also dedicated time to sprucing up abandoned graveyards in the county, including the Cooper Cemetery for Civil War veterans in Port Blanchard, The Melanie Chapel, a Revolutionary War Cemetery in Pittston, and Mosier Cemetery for Revolutionary War veterans in Duryea.
1995 – 24 YEARS AGO
Albert Slusser, of Dupont, proudly accepted his commendation from the French government for bravery shown during the Normandy Invasion which began in June 1944. Slusser served from 1943-1946 with the US Navy as a Ship Fitter 1st class. Stationed aboard transport ship LSD55, Slusser made several trips across the English Channel to France, but it was the combined allied effort on D-Day that he vividly remembered. Slusser’s job was to open the doors and let down the ramp on the ship to let troops and weapons carriers ashore. The Germans’ intent was to disable that operation before it started. Under heavy fire, Slusser continued his job, getting the doors open and ramp down. During the rest of the operation, Slusser’s tanker was used to transport casualties back to England. He made 51 trips. “We took on hundreds and hundreds of casualties,” he said, adding, “unfortunately, you learn to live with death.”
The Pittston Area Key Club was honored, accepting an award on behalf of the entire school district for their participation in the 1995 Daffodil sale for the American Cancer Society. The society recognized the club as having achieved the highest recorded daffodil sale to date in the Wyoming Valley. The Key Club participated in the drive for eight years and every year Pittston Area finished first in school sales. The American Cancer Society was founded in 1913 and originally called the American Society for the Control of Cancer. The society, through its efforts, has seen a 25% drop in the cancer death rate between 1991 and 2014.
THIS DAY IN HISTORY
1774 — Parliament passes the Coercive Acts to punish the colonists for their increasingly anti-British behavior. The acts close the port of Boston.
1775 — North Carolina becomes the first colony to declare its independence.
1861 — North Carolina becomes the last state to secede from the Union.
1862 — President Abraham Lincoln signs the Homestead Act, providing 250 million acres of free land to settlers in the West.
1927 — Charles Lindbergh takes off from New York for Paris.
1932 — Amelia Earhart lands near Londonderry, Ireland, to become the first woman fly solo across the Atlantic.
