You might also call this blog “A Quiet Place.”
It’s been almost a year of no posts, a year of hope and loss, isolation and longing, procrastination and frustration, a year of figuring out how life can return to a normal we can work with.
Certainly much has been happening on the “Carpatho-Rusyns of PA” front, but I haven’t found the time or, unfortunately, motivation to write about it. Fortunately I’ve managed to keep my Facebook page alive with items of interest and even post occasionally to my still-new(ish) Instagram page.
Here are some worthwhile things that happened or are coming up soon. I do hope to do longer posts about them when time and life allow.
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Early in the year I was contacted by a gentleman who is a
media personality of some renown, who was looking for assistance
exploring and documenting his Carpatho-Rusyn heritage. He hired me to
produce a written narrative about his Lemko Rusyn immigrant
great-grandparents and their “life and times” in northeastern Pennsylvania.
As a follow-on to that, in mid-September I led him on a heritage tour of
sorts through the towns and Rusyn communities in northern Schuylkill County
in which the family lived, worked, and worshipped.
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On August 24, 2021, we lost a dear friend when
Professor John Kelnock
of Marion Heights, Northumberland County, departed this world. Without his
inspiration and unflagging help that began years and years ago, I doubt I
would have done any of the things written about in this blog. John will be
the subject of a much-deserved tribute in an upcoming post. May his memory
be eternal – vičnaja jemu pamjat’!
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After a year and a half of essentially no field work, no site or archive
visits, I did make a research trip of a few very productive days over
the Labor Day weekend. The highlights centered around places like Conemaugh,
Lyndora, Curtisville, McKees Rocks, and Central City, plus I was very happy
to attend the (this year abbreviated) Pilgrimage in Honor of Our Lady of
Perpetual Help at Mount Saint Macrina in Uniontown after a year's hiatus due
to...well, you know. A good bit of that trip is worth a post.
