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For Mary Weise and the other members of the Bridgeville Area Historical Society, piecing together the borough’s history has been a matter of realizing the significance of what other people might consider junk. While some residents might dig through boxes left in the attic or open up that old family cedar chest and see a lot of stuff that should be headed for the trash can, Weise sees a link to Bridgeville’s past.
An old goat’s milk container, a vintage seltzer-water bottle, a 90-year-old quilt, census data from the 19th Century... To Weise and her fellow local historians, these and the countless other photos, artifacts and documents they’ve received are important pieces in the seemingly endless puzzle that is Bridgeville’s history.
“Nothing is too unusual for our files,” says the headline in the society newsletter asking for more memorabilia. Nor is any bit of local information too obscure to be worth recording.
Take the case of Ralph Bridge. Most people probably think Bridgeville got its name because it’s linked to its surrounding communities by bridges. Not so, says the family of Ralph Bridge, a master weaver who worked at a wool mill on Main Street around 1850. Since 1932, his descendents have claimed that the town is named after Ralph. Granted, there’s little evidence supporting their claim, but the society considers it a footnote worth recording.
Since the society was organized seven years ago, what started as a small group of volunteers doing research for the borough’s centennial celebration has grown into a organization 150-strong. They now have their own office space on Hickman Street in Bridgeville’s business district and hold 501c3 status as a non-profit.
”I started out with a committee of five people who were curious about what originally brought people to Bridgeville, what they did, and what happened to their families,” says Weise, surrounded by folders containing old documents and news clippings. ”There was so much to do that the committee kept growing.”
Today the society receives donations and inquiries from around the country, including a woman in California looking for her ancestor’s graves and a man in Texas sending old photos of Bethany Presbyterian Church.
Surprisingly, considering the stereotype of local historical groups, there is a strong base of younger people active in the society. ”A lot of young people are hunting their roots because of the job situation today,” Weise says. ”Fifty years ago, grandpa got a job at Universal Cyclops and was there until he retired. It’s not like that today, and people need an anchor, some roots.”
“The search for the answers is half the fun of being a local historian,” Weise says.
Digging into the Past
”We’re trying to find all the different reports of the station master’s death. He was shot at the train station,” says Dorothy Maioli-Stenzel, one of the more active Historical Society members, recalling a bit of local history that she’s been researching lately.
That train station is now the Bridgeville Borough Library. In 1915, John F. Franks, the local station agent, was shot and killed while trying to thwart a robbery. It seems that Franks was sweeping the outside platform when a man walked into the station and reached for the cash box. Franks intervened, and during the struggle, was shot once through the back. The bullet exited through his abdomen. Two little boys who were playing outside and hid during the commotion, saw the killer, but they were never able to identify him – as far as anybody knows today.
Maioli-Stenzel has been studying newspaper accounts of the incident and tracking down Franks’ relatives in an attempt to figure out exactly what happened. She’s regarded as the society’s resident detective.
”Right now on my dining room table, I have folders with all the things I’m looking into,” she says.
Another of her cases involves a fresco painted on the wall of the Bridgeville Post Office around 1941. The Walter Carnelli depiction of mill workers was on display until at least 1965, when the post office was renovated. She’s trying to figure out whether the painting was removed, destroyed or simply painted over.
”For me, history is a mystery to be solved,” she says. ”My grandparents died in 1910 or 1911 and left eight children orphaned. My dad was two years old at the time. It seems that there was money and properties that my grandparents owned, but the bank may have stolen from the orphaned kids. I’m still looking into that.”
The Journey of Discovery
It’s usually an interest in family history that initially draws people to the historical society. Weise herself is writing a book on her family’s days in the borough, which date back to 1881.
“But that interest in family often becomes an interest in community,” Weise says, “particularly in a small, tight-knit town like Bridgeville.”
As the Historical Society has become better-known around the borough, people increasingly donate items that might be of interest. They seem to arrive every few days; some by mail, some by personal delivery.
It was Frank Cortazzo – he does some gardening for Mary Weise – who realized the importance of the Erma Linda Lutz tribute that one of his relatives uncovered while cleaning her basement. Lutz was the woman who founded the library at St. Agatha’s school.
Dana Spriggs, a former Bridgeville resident now living in Texas, discovered Bridgeville-area census data that goes back to 1790 – about 110 years before the borough was even incorporated.
Someone else brought in a blue seltzer water bottle (made in Czechoslovakia, of all places) with the Bridgeville Bottling imprint.
It’s a disparate bunch of items, but the common thread is that people interested in Bridgeville’s history recognized that the past was all around them, and that’s the attitude the society is promoting.
”While digging up stuff for my family reunion,” Weise says, ”I came across something somebody wrote: ‘How you know who you are until you know where you came from?’ I think that pretty much says it all.” •
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