Year 2025 Wrapup: Not the Year I Wanted

Щастливый новый рік! Happy New Year!

For my 2024 retrospective, I compensated for a year thin on accomplishments by weaving all sorts of other Pennsylvania Carpatho-Rusyn news into my post, whether I was involved in it or not. This year I won’t artificially pump up my retrospective and will keep it honestly representative of what little progress I feel I made in 2025.

As some of you know, I was focused in 2025 (and still am) on family health issues. Sadly, this situation probably won’t improve. But I did try to keep some of my life on track, and am happy about the notable things I did even though they were few.

Throughout the year, I did keep my Carpatho-Rusyns of Pennsylvania Facebook page well updated with a few of my own posts and many shares of other Carpatho-Rusyn (or PA heritage-related) content, and tried to keep my Carpatho-Rusyns of PA Instagram supplied with interesting images and informative captions, even if I didn’t have a lot of fresh items due to lack of opportunities for travel and research.

In February, an article based on my presentation from an ASEEES panel in 2023 was published in the Lemko Rusyn scholarly journal Річник Руской Бурсы / Rocznik Ruskiej Bursy from Poland, in a special section “Our People at 40.” The panel, all of the presentations of which are included therein, provided thematic reflections on Paul R. Magocsi's groundbreaking book Our People: Carpatho-Rusyns and Their Descendants in North America which first appeared in 1984 and most recently appeared in a 5th edition (2023). My article, “Our Bible of Carpatho-Rusyn American Religious Life,” is online; you can also read the whole section including all the presentations.

 

"Why Don’t We Have Rusyn Food Festivals?" C-RS Genealogy Conference 2025 in Wilkes-Barre

The Carpatho-Rusyn Society's Eastern Pennsylvania Chapter held its 9th Annual Genealogy Conference at Kings College in Wilkes-Barre, on Saturday, October 11th, 2025.

The formidable program of speakers included the following:

• Karen Uslin – “Discovering my Rusyn Roots; Embracing Tradition in Modern Life”
• George Pawlush – “How Professional Sports Helped Carpatho-Rusyns Assimilate Into America”
• Christine Hrichak – “Crowd-sourcing Carpatho-Rusyn Places in the U.S.”

My talk was “Why Don’t We Have Rusyn Food Festivals? Carpatho Rusyns in NEPA and Their Identity Crisis.” Provocative? Possibly. I did have to give a bit of a disclaimer that it wasn't my intention to embarrass or shame anyone if I used an example of something that they personally worked on. But that was in a room of about 60 people. For the possible audience of this blog / post, I'm going to censor myself a bit for a few things/events of very recent vintage. Nonetheless, if I've still hit a nerve with an example not well anonymized, you have my advance apology.

That said, here is the bulk of my talk and slides.

Good afternoon, everyone – it’s great to be back in the beautiful Wyoming Valley.

A few words about me. I grew up almost NEPA-adjacent [NEPA=Northeastern Pennsylvania], in the heavily Pennsylvania Dutch country of Lebanon County, living with my transplanted western PA-native parents. I’m thrilled that my Carpatho-Rusyn mom is here with me today. Mom is the daughter of Carpatho-Rusyn immigrants, and I was blessed to have her mother, my baba, in my life until I was about 8 years old, and in the years that followed, I became more and more interested in where she and my grandfather came from.

Carpatho-Rusyns in Western PA: Presentation at Heinz History Center

On Sunday, June 29, 2025, I was a featured speaker at the Pittsburgh-based Heinz History Center’s all-day Czech and Slovak Genealogy Workshop. (The Heinz History Center is an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution.)

Although Carpatho-Rusyns weren’t named in the title of the program, between my talk and the Carpatho-Rusyn Society’s on-site information table (and occasional mention of Carpatho-Rusyns by the other speakers, Michal Razus and Jim Hudec, especially Mr. Razus), we provided more than a token amount of Carpatho-Rusyn-specific content for the numerous attended of our heritage. Attendees could register to attend in person at the Heinz Center in Pittsburgh’s Strip District, or follow the presentations live via Zoom. And the whole set of presentations and Q&A sessions was available to all registrants on-demand online for two weeks following the event.

Pictured below: attendees at the workshop, Rich Custer's presentation, as well as Mary Huzinec and Alexandra Plummer, who generously ran a Carpatho-Rusyn Society booth at the event along with Christina Duranko. (Alexandra Plummer / Carpatho-Rusyn Society)

My talk, “Carpatho-Rusyns in Western Pennsylvania: Identity Questions, Genealogy Research Challenges, and How to Overcome Them,” lasted about an hour with two follow-on Q&A sessions I was part of. I also provided an 8-page handout for the registrants to follow the presentation and numerous resources and further reading for their research.

For those who weren't able to participate, I'd like to share some excerpts from my talk.

Carpatho-Rusyns of PA Blog Author to Speak at Pittsburgh Heinz Center's Genealogy Workshop

Join three nationally renowned genealogists for our first Czech and Slovak Genealogy Workshop. Genealogy experts Rich Custer, Jim Hudec, and Michal Razus will guide beginner and advanced family historians alike on a tour de force of genealogical records available to uncover insights into your Czech, Slovak, and Carpatho-Rusyn ancestors.

Yes, readers, yours truly is piggybacking on a Czech & Slovak genealogy event (sorry, we tried to have Carpatho-Rusyns on the marquee) that will take place in-person AND online from 10 am - 5 pm ET on Sunday, June 29, 2025 at the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh, Pa.!

I’m excited to have been invited to speak in this program at the Smithsonian Institution-affiliated Heinz History Center, the premier museum and archives for the history of Pittsburgh and western Pennsylvania.

You can still register here!

My presentation will be “Carpatho-Rusyns in Western Pennsylvania: Identity Questions, Genealogy Research Challenges, and How to Overcome Them:”

I will give an overview of Carpatho-Rusyn immigration to western Pennsylvania and adjacent areas. I will explain the political influences, religious conflicts, and cultural affinities that led some of them and their descendants to identify instead with neighboring ethnic groups, especially Slovaks, Ukrainians, and Russians. I will also present resources like American church and fraternal records that can help researchers find the critical link to their ancestral villages and that can also help to confirm Carpatho-Rusyn ethnicity and heritage.

Presentation outline:

I. Carpatho-Rusyns: Ethnic and Geographical Background

II. Immigration to the U.S.

A.          Why, When, Where
B.           Western Pennsylvania
                1. Important settlements
                2. Chain migration examples

III. Major Historical Events in the Carpatho-Rusyn Community and Their Impact on Western PA

A.          Religious Conflicts
B.           Fraternal Organizations, Newspapers, and Political/Ethnonational Streams

IV. Research Resources on Carpatho-Rusyn Immigrants

A.          Church Records
B.           Fraternal Benefit Society Records
C.           Other Resources and Important Archives
                1. Western PA
                2. Nationwide / Online

In addition to the dynamic presentations by my co-presenters, archivists from the History Center’s Detre Library & Archives and representatives from the Archives & Records Center of the Diocese of Pittsburgh and the University of Pittsburgh’s Archives & Special Collections will highlight the best archival record sets in their collections to trace Czech, Slovak, and Rusyn ancestors locally. And members from other local genealogical and heritage organizations (including the Carpatho-Rusyn Society!) will also be on hand to share insights and best practices with workshop attendees.

It should be an excellent learning opportunity not just for genealogists and family historians, but for anyone interested in the Carpatho-Rusyn, Czech, and Slovak peoples, and I look forward to meeting many of you in person or in the online Q&A!

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

Year 2024 Wrapup

It’s January already – what??!!?!

I cringe looking back at my 2023 wrapup post where I laid out all kinds of ambitious sub-projects toward, and including, actual writing for the book. To be brutally honest, I can’t say I finished much of anything last year. Which isn’t to say I didn’t do anything related to this project, but combined with a lot of personal concerns, things didn’t work out anything like I planned. So with that in mind, instead of concentrating only on what I did (or didn’t do), I’ll work in a retrospective on the year that was in Carpatho-Rusyn Pennsylvania.

Had a great time and represented my work along with the Carpatho-Rusyn Society at the Johnstown Slavic Festival in September.

Many of these things I highlighted on my Facebook page as they happened. (I did post about a dozen times to my Instagram page as well.)

Portions of a list of Carpatho-Rusyn immigrant pioneer settlers to Pottstown

Something I started a few years ago, compiling lists of the pioneer Rusyn immigrants in certain places, I continued this year. I’ve now got usable, perhaps definitive, lists for:

• Pottstown, Montgomery Co.;
• Alden Station, Glen Lyon, and Nanticoke, Luzerne Co.;
• Maizeville / Gilberton / Mahanoy Plane, Schuylkill Co.;
• Middleport / Cumbola / Brockton / New Philadelphia, Schuylkill Co.;
• Lehighton, Carbon Co.;
• Slatington, Lehigh Co.;
• Bethlehem, Northampton Co.;
• Berwick, Columbia Co.;
• MacDonaldton, Somerset Co.;
• Altoona, Blair Co.;
• Nanty Glo and Wehrum / Vintondale, Cambria Co.;
• New Alexandria, Westmoreland Co.;
• Charleroi, Washington Co.

My Favorite Books of 2024 (Pt. 2): Andy Warhol’s Mother

As I described in my first post about favorite books of 2024, this past year has been rich in new works (and one translation) in English on Carpatho-Rusyn topics. From all these worthy candidates, it was tough to choose just one favorite, so I’ve chosen two!

My second selection is by Carpatho-Rusyn American specialist in Carpatho-Rusyn literature, Elaine Rusinko:

Andy Warhol's Mother: The Woman Behind the Artist (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2024)

From the book notes:

My Favorite Books of 2024 (Pt. 1): First Generation Lemko-American Businessmen

At the recent convention of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies  (ASEEES) in Boston, Mass., it was noted that 2024 was a banner year for new books on Carpatho-Rusyn topics published in the English language. These include:

• Treading Paths: Lemko Literature in the Years 1848-1918, by Helena Duć-Fajfer [purchase | preview]
• Witnesses to Interwar Subcarpathian Rus’: The Sojourns of Petr Bogatyrev and Ivan Olbracht, by Patricia A. Krafcik [purchase | preview]
  
• From Nowhere to Somewhere: The Carpatho-Rusyn Movement. A Personal History, by Paul R. Magocsi [purchase | read online]
  

While these are all worthy of the time and attention of anyone interested in Carpatho-Rusyn topics, in my biased outlook I have two books I’d like to highlight here due to their relevance to Carpatho-Rusyns in Pennsylvania.

My first selection is by Lemko Rusyn-American specialist in Lemko history, Bogdan Horbal:

From Thatched-Roof Houses to Immigrant Entrepreneurship: First Generation Lemko-American Businessmen (Higganum, CT: Carpathian Institute, 2024)

From the book notes:

Goodbye, 2023 – Welcome, 2024!

On this New Year’s Eve, it’s a traditional time for reflection and resolution.

My primary reflection is that 2023 wasn’t really what I thought it would be. Overall that’s okay, because some unexpected opportunities arose and made for a more than worthwhile alternative use of my time (not to mention some helpful additions to my CV).

So what were the major events of the year?

May: I spent a day at the University of Pittsburgh’s Archives Service Center for one last session gathering information from membership applications and death claims of the United Russian Orthodox Brotherhood of America (UROBA). (past post on this resource and archive)

September: Through the good words of an old friend vouching for me, I was able to do long-anticipated research in the Saints Cyril & Methodius Ukrainian Catholic Church in Berwick (Columbia County), which as I suspected, had a fair number of Carpatho-Rusyn parishioners despite the thoroughly Carpatho-Rusyn community around the corner at Holy Annunciation Russian (originally "Ugro-Russian"/Uhro-Rusyn) Orthodox Church. And related, via the help of Ss. Cyril & Methodius’s pastor, I did a survey of any available materials at St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church in Glen Lyon (Luzerne County) and took some much-improved photos inside the church.

October: I successfully completed 7 days in the Pennsylvania State Archives Scholar-in-Residence program. Most of the time I focused on gathering naturalization documents from microfilmed records of various counties. (blog post on some of my findings) This will result in an article sometime in 2024, exact topic TBD, in the Pennsylvania History journal.

November: I attended the 2023 Assembly of the Byzantine (Ruthenian) Metropolitan Church, at St. Mary's Church in Hillsborough, New Jersey, at which there were a lot of thought-provoking and encouraging presentations. I hadn't been to any church-wide events (other than pilgrimages) in many years, and so I was able to reconnect with many old friends and others who have been very helpful to me in the past.

Here also after a number of years of correspondence, I finally met Father Christopher Zugger in person. Fr. Chris is the leading historian of the Byzantine Ruthenian Catholic Church in Europe and the United States, who after 10 years of work just published his latest book, Looking to Tomorrow: The History and Mission of the Byzantine Catholic Church. I was excited to buy this two-volume resource during the assembly, and to hear Fr. Chris give a presentation somehow summarizing much of the work in just 45 minutes. The talk is available on YouTube, and the two-volume set is available from Byzantine Seminary Press – both highly recommended.

Digging Into the Pennsylvania State Archives

Having already finished ¾ of my tenure at the Pennsylvania State Archives as a Scholar-in-Residence, I’d like to give a short update on how I’ve spent the time and what I’ve found.

First, a nod to the Archives itself, which now has a brand-new home, a striking structure modern in design and construction, in a neighborhood almost a mile from the old archives which is ripe for revitalization. And with it perhaps a month or more away from being reopened to the public, I feel extra privileged for being able to conduct my research in a beautiful facility few if any non-staff have seen from the inside.

"Inclusion of your Website in the Library of Congress Web Archives"

Last week I was surprised with this fascinating email from the Library of Congress:

To Whom It May Concern:

The United States Library of Congress has selected your website for inclusion in the Voices: Eastern and Central European Americans Web Archive, which is part of a larger collection of historically and culturally significant websites that have been designated for preservation. The following URL has been selected: https://rusynsofpa.blogspot.com/.

The Library of Congress or its agent will engage in the collection of content from your website at regular intervals over time. In order to properly archive the above URL, we may archive other portions of the website and public content that your page links to on third party sites such as social media platforms. In addition to the aforementioned collection, archived content from your website may be added to other relevant collections in the future. This content will be available to researchers at Library facilities and by special arrangement. It may also become more broadly available through hosting on the Library’s public website, which would be done no sooner than one year after it was collected. For more information on the web archiving process, please read our frequently asked questions.

The Library hopes that you share its vision of preserving digital content and making it available to current and future generations of researchers. As the internet has become an increasingly important and influential part of our lives, we believe the historical record would be incomplete if websites like yours are not preserved and made a part of it. We encourage you to learn more about the Library’s Web Archiving program and explore our collections to see examples of how we archive websites. [...]

Thank you.

Library of Congress Web Archiving Team
webcapture@loc.gov

Well, for starters, I'm honored! I didn't even know such an entity as "Voices: Eastern and Central European Americans Web Archive" existed, which I'll have to dig into and see what else is there.

Also, here's a related LOC blog post from August 23, 2023:
Finding and Sharing Eastern European Voices

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

A Mid-Year Review

Not the mid-year review that strikes dread into many a supervised employee the world over (or is that just me?)… just a long-overdue update on a few items of note from the past few months.

The good:

In late September I will be returning to the Pennsylvania State Archives, as a Scholar in Residence!

After visiting the Archives several times last year I learned of its Scholars in Residence Program and decided to apply. 

The Scholars in Residence Program supports short-term, full-time research and study in collections maintained by the Pennsylvania State Archives.

The Scholars in Residence Program has a four-fold purpose:

• to promote the interpretation of Pennsylvania history;
• to encourage research that draws upon the Pennsylvania State Archives' collections;
• to promote the dissemination of research findings to both the professional community of scholars and the public; and
• to develop collegial relationships between scholars and Archives' staff.

Proposals that address the State Archives’ interest in public policy, as well as those that focus on social history, the history of people underrepresented in the state’s historical record, including but not limited to minorities and women, are encouraged.

The Pennsylvania State Archives Scholars in Residence Program is made possible by the generous financial support of The Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation (PAHeritage.org) and the Pennsylvania Historical Association (PA-History.org).

I applied for the grant in February. My project is titled:

Building Community and Identity in Pennsylvania’s Carpatho-Rusyn Immigrant Communities

and my application, which gave the background to my research and especially the value of naturalization documents and civil incorporation documents of churches, fraternal lodges, clubs, etc., included the following statement of work:

C-RRC Summer Seminar 2022 on “Flavors of Rus- Identity” Among American Carpatho-Rusyns

After doing the kind of research I first undertook three decades ago, which had not been seriously undertaken as a comprehensive look at Carpatho-Rusyn immigrants as a whole rather than only at one particular church jurisdiction/confession or in the context of a neighboring group with whom they sometimes identified, naturally I would start to get invitations to speak at genealogy conferences, Carpatho-Rusyn educational seminars, and churches. Eventually my work was being noticed by some prestigious entities and I was able to participate in scholarly conferences and some similarly notable venues. As I described in my previous post, in 2022 I was given the opportunity to create and deliver two papers/presentations, to two different audiences but both being prestigious in their own way.

The first I gave on August 30, as part of the Carpatho-Rusyn Research Center Summer Seminars series that continued the successful series of 2020 and 2021. The lineup was a mix of established professional scholars and Europe-based doctoral candidates; I suppose I fell somewhere in between, though the “independent” in “independent scholar” always suggested to me the idea of “lone wolf”!

• Unlikely Brothers: Carpathian Mountain Brigands and American Superheroes
  Dr. Patricia Krafcik, Professor Emerita of The Evergreen State College
• The Art of the Coal Region Renaissance: The Painter Anthony Kubek
  Dr. Nicholas Kupensky, Associate Professor at the United States Air Force Academy
• Lemko Art as an Artifact of Memory
  Michał Szymko, Doctoral Candidate at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University
• The Lemko Language as a Cure
  Anna Maślana, Doctoral Candidate at Jagiellonian University

These were all great and we eagerly await their availability on YouTube. (I’ll update this post with the links when they are available.)

My presentation, ‘We’re Russian, But Not High Russian’: Flavors of Identity Among American Carpatho-Rusyns, was based on my paper from the 2021 Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) national convention in New Orleans. Freed from the strict 15-/20-minute constraints of reading a paper on a panel with 2 or even 3 other scholars, I was able to dig in a little more deeply and restore some of the passages I’d had to cut from the original paper.

Year 2022 in Review

The adage “time flies” gets more and more evident with each passing year. It’s already been more than a year since I last updated this blog. Which isn’t to say that year has been uneventful. I directed much of my online energy to posting to my Facebook and Instagram pages – I hope you’re also following those. If you are, some of what follows in this post will sound familiar.
 
On Memorial Day weekend, I spent some time in northeastern Pennsylvania. This would be my only “research trip” per se of 2022.  It was a research trip along the lines of those trips in the pre-pandemic years. However, having already finished most of the intensive research to be done in the region, I concentrated on polishing—taking fresh and hopefully much better photos of church interiors I originally photographed >20 years ago (with different tech and decidedly mixed results).
 
Some thoughts: in 2022 the number of Rusyn-founded church buildings from the immigrant era is still quite large, but those with what resembles their original interior are rather few. Icon screens have been replaced (or added, where there had never been one), stained glass windows that probably had very interesting donor inscriptions not in English have been replaced, and even original cornerstones have been removed or replaced.
 
Church interiors I photographed that weekend include:

• St. Mary Byzantine Catholic Church, Freeland, Luzerne Co.;
• St. Vladimir Ukrainian Catholic Church, Scranton, Lackawanna Co.;
• St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Church, Scranton;
• St. Mary Byzantine Catholic Church, Scranton;
• St. Nicholas Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Church, Scranton;
• All Saints Orthodox Church, Olyphant, Lackawanna Co.

St. John's Byz. Cath. Church, Scranton

St. Nicholas Orthodox Church, Scranton

All Saints Orthodox Church, Olyphant

Clearly the primary stamp left on this region by Carpatho-Rusyn immigrants and their descendants is these churches, and they are lovely and inspiring, even if today it appears that many of these congregations must struggle to maintain them.

A Year of Return to “Normal”

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.

• 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.
  
  
• 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’!
  
  
• 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.
  

Author Gives Presentation on Carpatho-Rusyn Fraternals to CGSI

On October 24, 2020, I was a presenter for the Czechoslovak Genealogical Society International's (CGSI) Virtual Symposium. The theme was Czech and Slovak Fraternal Organizations, but I spoke on the related topic of Carpatho-Rusyn fraternals.

The full title of my talk was "Carpatho-Rusyn American Fraternal Organizations: Record Sources for Your Family History."

The talk was recorded and is available to CGSI members, but I'm happy to share a selection of my slides (click to enlarge).

Follow Us on Instagram!

Have you seen our Instagram account? We're @carpatho_rusyns_of_pa.

Take a peek, and follow us for new content, favorite content repackaged in an interesting way, and an eye on some of the visually striking aspects of Carpatho-Rusyn history in Pennsylvania.

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

Upcoming Virtual Seminar on Carpatho-Rusyn American Fraternal Organizations

On Saturday, Oct. 24, 2020, I will give a presentation during the Czechoslovak Genealogical Society International (CGSI) Virtual Symposium and Annual Meeting:

 

Carpatho-Rusyn American Fraternal Organizations: Record Sources for Your Family History

You can find more info and register at the CGSI website.

 

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

Seeking a Research Assistant!

UPDATE (4/22/20): I already received two applications from most worthy candidates! But if you found this opportunity interesting, I will probably be posting another research assistant opportunity in the next few weeks. In the meantime, I hope you still enjoy the post.

Christos voskres! Christ is Risen!

2020 has been an unusual year, to say the least. Can we start over, or fast-forward to 2021? But really, I hope and pray you and your family and loved ones are safe and caring for each other in these difficult times.

Even though I've not posted here in 2020 until now, I've been working hard behind the scenes to finish gathering resources and computerizing some of my data. It started to dawn on me just how time-consuming the various aspects of putting it all together will be.

I want to start, as soon as possible, the process of creating the town/area maps for each chapter (community), and within many of the communities, I want to also illustrate where in the town (or city) the Carpatho-Rusyn immigrants primarily lived. And that's down to specific streets and blocks as much as possible.

Homestead & Munhall, Allegheny County, 1908.
The original Rusyn church in town, St. John's Greek Catholic Church (later Cathedral), was built in 1897 at 531 Third Avenue, then moving in 1903 to 10th & Dickson Streets. In 1914, some Carpatho-Rusyns joined with Ukrainians from the Russian Empire to establish St. Gregory's Orthodox Church at 237 4th Avenue in an existing Protestant church building, later building a new church on East 15th Avenue. Finally, St. Nicholas Orthodox Church was founded in 1937 at 903 Ann Street. During World War II the Homestead Works expanded and took over many of the streets in the original neighborhood where the first St. John's was built and where many Carpatho-Rusyn and other Slavic and Hungarian immigrants lived. My goal is to map not just the churches' locations in the height of the immigrant era, but the Rusyn-owned businesses and clubs and the primary streets and blocks where Carpatho-Rusyns lived.

Naturalization document showing home address of a Carpatho-Rusyn immigrant in Duquesne, Allegheny County.

Some of this information is available in the church records I've gathered, and another good source is census records, which I haven't made extensive use of. But what I do have, numbering into the many hundreds, is naturalization documents. These tend to give the full address of the prospective citizen. The challenge is to sort through them and document the addresses in order to be able to map them. Realizing that this could be quite time-consuming, I hope to find a volunteer research analyst who can do that and provide me with some kind of database and report from which the specific settlement area in each town can be mapped.

Note I said "volunteer" -- but that doesn't mean you won't be compensated. Successful completion of the agreed-upon work plan will guarantee you a copy of the finished book. (I'm not sure how to do this beyond a promise / gentlemen's/gentlewomen's agreement, so if we are already friends or acquaintances it can be an easier mutual trust by which we each benefit as intended.)

So, if this sounds interesting to you, and if these specifics keep you interested, please get in touch (via Facebook or at rusynsofpa@gmail.com) and we can discuss it further.

• You'll work from naturalization documents I've gathered from county courthouses and online.
• I will also supply you with immigrant household addresses I've gathered from church records.
• You are welcome to make supplemental use of census data depending on any access you might have to online sources (Ancestry, FamilySearch, etc.), but this is not required.
• Ideally, you will enter the immigrant's name and address into an Excel sheet or other database/spreadsheet format, but we will discuss the specific requirements (they will be the minimum required to be able to do the mapping).
• You don't have to read any Slavic language; you may have to decipher challenging English handwriting depending on the naturalization document, but most are (mercifully!) typed.
• You won't create the maps, but the data you compile will be an essential input for the cartographer.

There is a chance for follow-on research that would be paid work, pending satisfactory completion of this project.

And lastly, if you successfully complete this project, you will be credited in the book, which, as mentioned above, you will receive a gratis copy of upon publication.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

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

Eternal Memory (Вічная памят!) to a dear Oral History Interviewee

In May 2018 I was privileged to conduct an interview with Olga (Krasulski) Yudisky, probably the oldest resident of "Polander Hill" (which 100 years ago was mostly populated by Carpatho-Rusyns/Lemkos), the daughter of a Lemko immigrant father and an American-born, Lemko mother, and a lifelong member of the historic St. Vladimir Greek Catholic Church of Alden.

"Aunt Olga" went to her eternal reward on November 28, 2019. With condolences to her family, I add my prayer that God grant to her a blessed repose and eternal memory -- Вічная єй памят!

~~~
Olga Krasulski Yudisky, 96, of Alden, passed away Thursday, Nov. 28, 2019, in Wilkes-Barre General Hospital.

Born in Alden on July 24, 1923, Olga was the daughter of John and Anna Rudowski Krasulski.

Olga was preceded in death by her husband of 21 years, John A. Yudisky; brother, John Krasulski; and sisters, Mary Krynick, Martha Krasulski, Helen Wall, Betty Kozik, and Anna Charnuska.

She is survived by siblings, Emily Weisberg, Waterbury, Conn.; and Andrew Krasulski, Florida.

Olga is survived by her children, Dennis Yudisky and wife, Diane; Linda Wheeler and husband, Shaun, Hamilton, Ohio; as well as her beloved grandchildren, Captain Holly Yudisky of the United States Navy and husband, Bryan Slutman, Arlington, Tenn.; Dr. Lauren Kuryloski, Buffalo, N.Y.; and John C. Wheeler, Sherman Oaks, Calif.

Olga was a graduate of the Newport High School, Class of 1941, and after graduation she worked as a lab technician at Vinaly Lite in Piscataway, N.J. Upon returning to Northeast Pennsylvania, Olga worked as an accomplished seamstress, where her services were in high demand. Olga was active in her community, serving as a member of the Luzerne County Historical Society and coordinator for the Luzerne County Folk Festival. She was a devout member of St. Nicholas Greek Catholic Ukrainian Church, and participated in the League of Ukrainian Catholics and the Sacred Heart Society. Olga will be dearly missed by her loving family, many friends, and the countless community members who knew her.

A Divine Liturgy will be held at 10 a.m. Wednesday in St. Nicholas Church, Glen Lyon.

Friends may call from 5 to 7 p.m. Tuesday. A Parastas service will be held at 6 p.m. with the Rev. Roman Petryshak. Olga will be laid to rest in the parish cemetery.

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

The 2019 Memorial Day Weekend Research Trip (The Last One?)

Another Memorial Day Weekend has come and gone, and as has become my custom, I extended it a few days and made a research trip out of it. Again as per custom, I began in central PA and wound up in northeastern PA for a few days, also attending the Memorial Day Pilgrimage at St. Tikhon’s Monastery. With a conveniently located motel in Dunmore as my base, my activities were mostly in the Scranton and Wilkes-Barre area, followed by a few visits around Pottsville to close out the trip.

But back to the beginning. Heading north to PA from DC typically leads me to Somerset, Cambria, Indiana, and Huntingdon Counties. I began this trip with a stop in Wood (once upon a time known as Woodvale) in Huntingdon County. I wanted to take some new and hopefully better photos of the inside of the vintage St. Michael's Orthodox Church, and parishioner Susan Pawuk graciously met me there and opened the church.

She also provided me with the parish's 2017 centennial booklet, which had some valuable photos inside. Susan's brother Ronald has been a Facebook friend for a while, so I was glad to make a personal connection with the family, who are now among only a few local parishioners of St. Michael's.

I then headed to Patton, Cambria County, near my mother's homestead in Barnesboro (now known as Northern Cambria), to meet with the current pastor of Patton's Ss. Peter & Paul Byzantine Catholic Church and our family parish, St. John's Byzantine Catholic Church in Northern Cambria. Father Vasyl Polyak is a Carpatho-Rusyn native of Užhorod and came to the U.S. to serve our churches several years ago.

Again taking "improved" photos of the inside of the Patton church, Fr. Vasyl also supplied me with a DVD to commemorate the parish's history, and later emailed me a digital copy of the historic old photo of the parish and its congregation, which was taken from a newspaper.

The hamlet of Dixonville in northern Indiana County was my next stop; parishioner Maureen (Betsa) Cornman, while unavailable to meet me there in person, graciously arranged for the church to be open, for a copy of the parish's 1915 centennial booklet to be set out for me, and for a bounty of historical photographs available for me to scan. It was encouraging to see a parish that's in a fairly out-of-the-way place still active and clearly proud of who they are. (Although most of its history has been as a Ukrainian Orthodox church, it was originally a Greek Catholic church tied to the mainly-Subcarpathian Rusyn St. Michael's Church in neighboring Clymer, and was actually a parish of the Pittsburgh Greek Catholic Exarchate until the mid-1920s. Most of its families, though, came from transitional Lemko-Bojko villages of Lisko County in southeastern Poland—within Carpathian Rus' but whose American descendants and those who remained in the homeland mostly came to consider themselves Ukrainians.) As part of the "circle of life," it was Maureen's parents George and Ann Betsa whose home at the base of the hill where the church now stands and whose porch I sat on and with whom I first discussed the history of St. John's parish way back in the 1990s when just beginning this project. George and Ann have gone on to eternal life, but their legacy lives on in a wonderful way.