Rusyn Testaments Etched in Granite: The Genealogical Treasure of Rusyn Immigrant Gravestones

(originally published in the New Rusyn Times, May/June 2002)

For many people, a walk through a cemetery is something to be avoided except on the rarest of occasions and which inspires feelings of dread and images of the gothic horror movies that frightened us in our youth. But for me, a visit to a cemetery – most especially, a Rusyn cemetery – is usually a peaceful, heartwarming exercise. It inspires my imagination as I think of the early immigrants buried there, the vastly different world they left even long before I was born. I ponder their lives as I see their pictures, as many of the traditional stones will have. I feel at ease, knowing that I'm among my own people – gone from this life but still present in the memory of the living, present likewise in the hereafter.

St. Michael the Archangel Greek Catholic Cemetery, Shenandoah, Pa. – the oldest Rusyn cemetery in the U.S.

My reverence for their memories increases with each visit - knowing that their legacy, humble as it may be, reduced to a few lines of Slav expressions on the simple stones, surrounds me while I'm there, and is carried with me every time I meet their descendants, see the churches they lovingly built and supported, and uncover a new story about their way of life we can only imagine.

Then & Now (Bradenville, Westmoreland Co.)

Then and now, in Bradenville, Westmoreland County.
Specifically, Snydertown, St. Mary's Byzantine/Greek Catholic Church and Cemetery.

Then: (1932)

Now: (2016)

Also in Snydertown, in the shadow of St. Mary's Church, are two social clubs of the local Rusyn and Slovak American residents. I'm looking for information on the names of their founders, vintage photographs of the inside of the clubs or their members, etc. Please get in touch if you can help with this info.

The American Greek Catholic Beneficial Society, founded 1916.

The American Slovak Society Home, founded 1923.

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

Rusyn Spotlight on: Centralia, Columbia County

Assumption of the B.V.M. Greek Catholic Church, Centralia

The prayers, thoughts, and eyes of many will be focused on Centralia, Columbia County, Pa., this weekend. The historic Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church is hosting a pilgrimage for the Catholic Church's Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy.

The church in Centralia was selected to have one of the special Doors of Mercy in the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia for the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy inaugurated by Pope Francis.

CONYNGHAM TOWNSHIP, Columbia County — Centralia is the spookiest and saddest place in Pennsylvania. An unquenchable 54-year-old underground coal fire compelled the relocation of virtually the entire population of the borough through federal government buyouts in the 1980s.

From a population of more than 1,000 in 1980, only a half-dozen holdouts remain in the Columbia County community — residents who struck an agreement with the government allowing them to stay until they die.

Improbably, however, there is life beyond their scattered homes. Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Ukrainian Catholic Church — perched on a hilltop just outside the borough line — is still active, drawing congregants from afar on Sundays and holy days.

This Sunday, the church will host a daylong event welcoming the faithful for liturgy and prayer. It's the first such event since Assumption was declared a holy pilgrimage site. (Morning Call, Aug. 26, 2016)

Tribute to American Rusyn Olympians from PA and with PA Roots

With today's closing of the Summer Games of the XXXI Olympiad in Rio de Janeiro, we want to remember a pair of American Olympians of Carpatho-Rusyn heritage. One of them is a Rusyn Pennsylvanian, and the other is a Rusyn American of probable Pennsylvania roots.

First, our Pennsylvania native:

Christa Harmotto Dietzen (born Christa Deanne Harmotto), of Hopewell Twp., Pa., is a 29-year-old indoor volleyball player who plays the middle blocker position. She competed on the U.S. Olympic Team this year in Rio, as captain of the U.S. Women's Volleyball Team. The team lost to Serbia in the semifinals, taking home a bronze medal. Congratulations!

"Old Countrymen, New Neighbors," My Latest Published Article

The National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, just released the latest issue of Slovo, its bi-annual journal. The Summer 2016 issue's theme is "A Carpatho-Rusyn Renaissance: Bringing the Rusyns (Back) to Life."

Sgt. Michael Strank: A Carpatho-Rusyn Pennsylvanian

“Uncommon Valor was a Common Virtue”
(Photo by Joe Rosenthal)

Михал Стренк / Mychal Strenk
Born in 1919 in Jarabina, Czechoslovakia;
Came to the U.S. in 1922, known as Michael Strank;
Died in 1945 on Iwo Jima, Volcano Islands;
Buried at Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia, USA.

(Originally appeared as "A Rusyn American Hero: Sergeant Michael Strank" in the New Rusyn Times (Pittsburgh, PA), May/June 2000.)

Sergeant Michael Strank (1919-1945) was one of the five Marines and a Navy corpsman who during the battle with the Japanese on February 23, 1945, raised the American flag on the island of Iwo Jima in the Pacific theatre of World War II. The photo of this event, taken by AP photographer Joe Rosenthal, became one of the most recognized images of the 20th century, and in it, Mike stands for the legions of Rusyns who, like him, left their Carpathian Mountain homeland, full of hopes and dreams, to begin a new life in America – the country for which many of them and their children would give the supreme sacrifice.

Mike Strank (Mychal Strenk) was born in 1919 in the Rusyn village of Orjabyna [official name: Jarabina] in the heart of the Rusyn-inhabited northern Spiš County in present-day Slovakia. His parents, Vasyl' and Marta (Grofik) Strenk, came to the United States with young Mychal in the early 1920s and settled in Franklin Borough, near Johnstown, Pennsylvania, with many of their fellow villagers from Orjabyna. They attended Holy Trinity Rusyn Greek Catholic Church just across the river in Conemaugh.

Holy Trinity Greek Catholic Church in Conemaugh, the Strank family's spiritual home in the U.S.

A Super-Awesome Late-Spring Research Trip

All set for Memorial Day: St. Mary's
Orthodox Cemetery of Dickson City.

When in the early years of this project I still lived in Pennsylvania, research trips might last just a few hours and for the most part involved places I could easily reach without too much advance planning. These days, when it takes me more than two hours just to arrive in Pennsylvania, I like to extend my trips as long as reasonably possible. And usually I can manage just two a year: around & including Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends.

This spring I managed to schedule eight whole days around Memorial Day to devote to fieldwork. The first part was in western PA, the second part in northeastern PA. It went so well, mostly according to plan but with some wonderful surprises, that I want to share a travelogue. And perhaps this will help readers appreciate some of how I've been spending my time all these years without a finished product to show for it. (Yet.)

First Leg: Western PA

I spent a lot of time in cemeteries on this trip, mainly to either photograph them thoroughly for the first time, to improve my existing archive of photos, or to investigate the Rusyn immigrants, if any, buried in various non-Rusyn cemeteries. While my book will include lots of cemetery and gravestone photos, in recent years I've felt it worthwhile, if not actually essential, to photograph most of the graves of Carpatho-Rusyn immigrants buried in PA and elsewhere, as time, the elements, and vandalism are constantly reducing the readable stock of these tombstones. Beyond the limited number I'll be using in my book, if nothing else I will also have a protected digital record of these valuable memorials to our people's presence and lives.