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I REMEMBER LOPEZ by Rev.
Robert H. Logan
“It is my loss to never have
lived in Lopez,” I’ve often said.
Though my mother Anna
Shymansky Logan grew up in Lopez, my grandmother Martha Eckell
Shymansky raised her family in Lopez, uncles and aunts grew up
in Lopez, and my grandfather Theodore Shymansky lived in Lopez
and died in a mine tunnel collapse at the old Murray Colliery
on January 22, 1909, I never was blessed with having been a
resident of this wonderful, historically rich town.
My first memories were of a
family visit to the rectory of St. Vladimir Orthodox Church
where Rev. Fr. Peter Dubrovsky was priest for a number of
years. Fr. Dubrowsky’s wife, “Nettie” (Anastasia), was the
daughter of grandfather Theodore Shymansky’s brother, John
Shymansky. “Aunt Nettie” as she was called, was less than
five feet tall, always smiling, a whisp of a woman, always
eager to entertain in old country style when company would
visit. Her eyes glinted through her gold-rimmed glasses as
she greeted you at the door. There was always some old
Russian delicacy to eat and a glass of wine to wash down the
food (for the adults).
Father Dubrovsky was a
rotund man, with a hearty laugh that would lift your soul
regardless of the situation. We were fascinated when Father
John would tell a story or joke and conclude it by pursing his
lips and lifting his head while snorting through his nose, and
break into rolling laughter at his own joke.
As children, my sister and I
were not eager to listen to the “old folks” talk about family
and old memories. After enduring a few minutes of polite
formalities, we would ask to be excused to go outside and play
in the church yard and back yard of the rectory. We
entertained ourselves by playing with the well windless,
lowering and raising the wooden bucket for a drink of cool
well water on that crisp late fall afternoon of 1939..
“Tragedy” struck during that
Sunday afternoon visit! We accidentally unhooked the bucket
from the rope, and it tumbled end over end into the depths of
the well. My sister and I were without a clue as how to
retrieve the bucket, floating in the stygian darkness below.
Frightened almost to trembling, we hesitatingly entered
through the rectory kitchen, called our father into the
kitchen and announced, “The bucket fell into the well.”
Dad directly went to the
white-washed well house, adeptly maneuvered the rope and hook
onto the bucket handle, and with great exultation, hoisted a
bucket of fresh water into the late afternoon sunlight.
Whew! What a relief to us kids! After that incident, we kept
our distance from the well.
When our parents, aunts and
uncles would journey to Lopez during the summer months, a trip
to the hill just north of Lopez provided us with a “berrying
opportunity”. Hundreds of “hunkleberry bushes” (as we kids
called them), loaded with countless large, luscious
huckleberries waited for picking and enjoyable eating. Mom
would tell us kids how she and her sisters would go “berry
picking” on that hill, oblivious of the threat of rattle
snakes, skunks, or maybe . . . .a BLACK BEAR!
Though we kids usually ate
more berries than we picked, the adults managed to bring a
copious supply of large, tasty berries back to Wilkes-Barre
for eating with iced cream or on our Monday morning’s
breakfast cereal.
One memory etched into my
mind is of one late Sunday afternoon as we played along the
iron fence of the front yard of St. Vladimir’s rectory. There
was a nip of Fall in the air, as the leaves were beginning to
turn to rusty oranges, yellows, and reds on the mountain side
just south of town. The sound of cow bells wafted through the
crisp air, coming up the unpaved road from the west.
Through the streams of
golden sunlight, a young boy, barely a year older than us,
drove four Jersey dairy cows past the rectory, and on down the
hill, right through the center of Lopez town! We “city kids”
watched in sheer amazement as the melodious procession wound
its way across the Lopez Creek and turned onto Turrell Road.
Memories of that nature live forever in young minds.
As a youngster whose family
lived near the Delaware and Hudson – Wilkes-Barre Connecting
Railroad tracks in south Wilkes-Barre, PA, I was always
fascinated by trains. When we visited our favorite relative
priest, Fr. John at St. Vladimir’s Church, I always hoped that
a smoke belching, steam-hissing locomotive would come through
town, perhaps with a few passenger cars loaded with riders on
their way to Sayre or Wilkes-Barre, or even a string of coal
cars on their way to New York City or Philadelphia.
As luck would have it, the
train never came, but the presence of several coal hopper cars
assured me that one day, perhaps, my wish would be granted.
On one of our summer visits,
I saw, but never caught the significance of several old
passenger coaches parked just beyond the station with several
old box and gondola cars standing near by. It was a “work
train”.
A few months later when we
visited Lopez, I was disheartened to discover that the old
passenger station had disappeared. Our old 1936 Chevy no
longer bounced over the crossing rails. The end of an era,
The Lehigh Valley Railroad no longer served idyllic Lopez. My
grandmother Martha often rode that train to and from her job
as laundress at the Rickett’s Estate a few miles down the
line. Time was moving on for us and our beloved Lopez.
Though I never lived in
Lopez, each time I visit brings a strange familiar resonance
to my soul. Familiar sights and buildings, homes and
churches, as well as missing buildings, brings a warmth to my
heart. This is still “My Lopez”, the ancestral community home
of my family of so long ago, . . . . and still in my heart
today.
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