The original of this rare and wonderful photograph is in the collection of Dean Cerra, Greenfield Township, PA. The band is shown here in front of the building, still standing, at the corner of Hospital Street and Apple Avenue. The bar that was owned and operated by Luigi Cerra is seen at the far right of the photograph. Luigi Cerra, who is very probably one of the musicians shown here, was one of the constituent members of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, Carbondale. He was the great grandfather of Father Louis Pascoe (Fordham University, New York City), Joseph Pascoe (Carbondale) and Ronald Pascoe (Carbondale), the three sons of Santo A. Pascoe and his wife Rose M. Cerra, of 36 Hospital Street. Please contact the Historical Society if you can identify any of the persons shown in the above photograph or if you can tell us more about the Mount Carmel Band.
New (old) Year's Recipes
For the new year's anticipation, one might feel the need to follow tradition and consume large quantities of fish. We at the Historical Society feel obligated to provide to the reader recipes of an appropriate nature. One might feel the inclination to try Miss Pascoe's "Boiled Blue Fish," but be unable to find the recipe to do so. To solve such problems, we have posted a sampling of Carbondale's "Old Year" recipes. Given below are recipes prepared by the "Young Lady Workers of the Methodist Episcopal Church," as given in the Carbondale Cookbook, Seventh Edition, 1924.
8th Annual Carbondale St. David's Day Dinner
Fresh Daffodils and Leeks are the hallmarks of any St. David's Day gathering.
Barbara Campbell presents a very touching and amusing reminiscence of her welsh grandmother.
Ted Frutchey presents a comprehensive report on upcoming Welsh events in the Lackawanna Valley.
Mrs. Fran Justin conducts the St. David's Welsh Male Chorus in a program of traditional welsh music and selections from the Broadway show "Oklahoma"
St. David's Welsh Male Chorus
Freshly brewed tea and Welsh cookies are always a hit with the dinner guests.
A large group of Welsh enthusiasts enjoy the traditional celebration.
Ted Frutchey, Donald Powell, Jerry and Patty Williams enjoy the evening.
S. Robert Powell presents a report on the pioneer Welsh settlers in Carbondale.
Welsh Tombstones in Carbondale, PA
This Samuel Davies tombstone is one of the three very early Welsh tombstones in Maplewood Cemetery, Carbondale. As you can see in the photos above, Samuel Davies was born in Llanguic, Wales, and died at the age of 26 in 1833.
Over 7,000 interments have been made in Maplewood Cemetery in the past 180+ years, but these three Welsh stones are the only ones in the cemetery that are made of this beautiful reddish/brown stone, on which the inscriptions are as clear and readable today as they were on the day they were carved, by a highly skilled stone carver (surely a Welshman).
What is the material out of which these tombstones are made? Is this a Welsh stone? Did these early Welsh people who came to Carbondale to work in the anthracite mines here bring with them from Wales the stones that would ultimately become their tombstones?
We would very much like to hear from anyone who can help us answer these unanswered questions about these stones.
One of the Welsh tombstones in Carbondale's Maplewood Cemetery. This stone marks the grave of Mary Davis, who died on January 30, 1832, at the age of 44. She was the wife of the Reverend John Davis.
The Reverend John Davis and his wife Mary were among the twenty Welsh families who were brought to Carbondale from Wales by the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company in the late 1820s for the specific purpose of teaching the D&H the techniques and procedures of deep underground anthracite coal mining.
