Let's Get Reacquainted!

Just because it may be a long time between blog posts doesn't mean things aren't happening. It's just that these last few months it has been easier for me to post quick updates, and share interesting relevant content, on the Carpatho-Rusyns of Pennsylvania Facebook page.

A few months ago I added the Facebook gadget in the right-rail of this blog so hopefully, dear readers, you have noticed that there is activity happening on my end, just not in the form of full-length blog posts.

My recent activities have included the following:

• I'm continuing to work on building my databases of fraternal benefit society (and similar organization) lodges, and perhaps most importantly, of the places in Pennsylvania Carpatho-Rusyn immigrants settled, by county and region.

• On April 20, Great & Holy Saturday for most Byzantine/Greek Catholics in America, I took a ride across a portion of the cradle of the Carpatho-Rusyn immigration in the U.S. — Schuylkill and Luzerne Counties. Some, not quite most, of the churches of Carpatho-Rusyn origin were open that day for services or for people to spend time in prayer at the “grave” where the burial shroud (плащаница - plaščanica) of Jesus is displayed until the Resurrection services in the evening/night or Sunday morning. I posted quite a few of the photos on the Carpatho-Rusyns of Pennsylvania Facebook page.

• In May I attended the 25th anniversary celebration of the Carpatho-Rusyn Society, in Munhall. I am one of the eight founders of the organization, and I edited its New Rusyn Times publication from its start in 1994 until the beginning of 2016.

• While in Pittsburgh, I completed my photography of Rusyn immigrant tombstones at Calvary Cemetery in Hazlewood/Greenfield, and made a research contact with the pastor of one of the few remaining parishes I need to analyze the early metrical records of.

• I applied for the Grant-in-Aid Award of the Immigration History Research Center Archives at the University of Minnesota so I can soon, I hope, return to the IHRC Archives for one more visit to do research with early Carpatho-Rusyn (and Ukrainian / Slovak / Russian) periodicals. (The IHRC Archives has much of this sort of material not available anywhere else, and much of that was published in Pennsylvania; their collections are not only related to Minnesota!)

• I'm continuing to discover new and fascinating articles and go down rabbit holes on newspapers.com, and occasionally readers are sending me their discoveries too, for which I'm very grateful!

• Again this year I'll be on a panel at the Annual Convention of the Association for Slavic, East European, & Eurasian Studies (ASEEES), this time in San Francisco in November. The panel title is "Documenting Lives of Carpatho-Rusyns and Their Neighbors in Subcarpathian Rus’ and Beyond" and my paper will be "A Carpatho-Rusyn Village’s American Conversion to Orthodoxy: Statistical Analysis Reveals Life Narratives." This paper draws on my research and experience of giving the St. Alexis (Toth) Lecture in 2018 at St. Mary's Orthodox Cathedral in Minneapolis.

• And last but not least, I'm actually writing text for the book. Finally. I'm preparing the introductory essays that will present an overview of Carpatho-Rusyn life in Pennsylvania, and a synopsis of Rusyn history in each of the state's regions that will form the sections of the book.

I did go on my usual Memorial Day Weekend research trip last month, which I will blog about in the next few days. 

Original material is © by the author, Richard D. Custer; all rights reserved.