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- Growing crystal gardens on coal
- Featured photo: Foster Township High School Basketball Team
1941 - now with photo identifications!
- Book by Melanie Akren-Dickson: You Dream Every Night That I am Home: Letters from a young Civil War soldier to his wife in Eckley
- Alberta (Quinn) Bittenbender,
MMI's first female teacher
- Thomas Francis
Gallagher, Sr. page, and a Notre Dame scholarship created in his
honor
- Anne Furey
Killian homeplace in Ireland, recently
restored, and two videos (one newly added)
- Freeland Bobbin Works
- Beagle Hame Works and Hoch Hame Company pages
- More site updates are listed on the WHAT'S NEW / News & announcements page (link at left).
Correction: Mistaken information about John Yagalla's Freeland Laundermat has been corrected on the 20th-century Laundries page, thanks to Colleen Yagalla.
Correction: My apologies to Bert McNamee for having misspelled his name on the Freeland Military page.
Growing crystal gardens on coal
Here’s a memory from my grade school days at St. Mary’s School: growing colorful crystal gardens on coal. It was a class project -- we grew them in the classroom (I seem to recall lumps of coal sitting in pie tins, with these wild-looking colored crystals magically growing on them over days or weeks). But my memories failed me at that point, and I couldn’t remember how we did it, but a quick online search by my friend Leslie turned up these three websites. If you too grew these magical gardens when you were younger, you can enjoy revisiting the memory. If you didn’t have this experience, check them out! They were a perfect classroom project for the anthracite region.
Growing crystals on coal
https://www.hbarsci.com/blogs/articles/growing-crystals-on-coal
Growing a salt crystal garden with Mrs. Stewart’s Bluing
https://mrsstewart.com/pages/salt-crystal-garden
How to grow a charcoal crystal garden
https://www.thoughtco.com/how-to-grow-a-charcoal-crystal-garden-602160
Featured photo: Foster Township High School Basketball Team 1941, from Joe Plaksa
Lacking identifications for an earlier scan of this photo, Charlie Gallagher had earlier suggested: "That may be Foster Township 40, 41, 42 or maybe even as late as 43." Now we have an update. Joe Plaksa is sharing these two versions of a photo of the Foster Township High School basketball team of 1941. I had a scan of a photocopy on my Basketball page already, scanned at the Y in 2008, but I didn’t have the names of the players, nor the team or the year.
Now Joe has sent a copy of the actual photo, and he wrote:
Charlotte, I recently found more information for the Foster Township "Falcons" basketball team photo you already have on your site. The picture is dated from 1941. I photographed it showing the names of the players. I believe it is on the wall of the Freeland YMCA. The Joe Falatko in the picture was my Uncle, Joseph "Ganze" Falatko, long time Standard Speaker newspaper correspondent for the Freeland and North Side section of the newspaper. Will keep you updated as I find other information that adds to your site. -- Joseph Plaksa
Here
is the photo as it appeared on the wall of the Freeland Y.M.C.A.,
with all of the names of the players, coach, managers given. 
And
here is a cleaned-up crop of that photo. I've retyped the names here so
that they're searchable online:Front row, L-R: Joe Reznick, Raymond Soroko, Jack Gallagher, Steve Boder, Joe Falatko.
Back row, L-R: Francis Gocek, Mgr., Stanley Perkosky, Emil “Reds” Surgent, Dick Gallagher, Coach, Eddie McGeehan, Andy Repetz, Ed Morgan, Mgr.
Thank you, Joe, and thank you, Charlie!
RECENT BOOK on an Eckley Civil War soldier,
by
Melanie Akren-Dickson: You Dream
Every Night That I am Home - Letters from a young Civil War soldier to
his wife in Eckley ...In 1861 John Williamson, a 22-year-old mule driver at the Eckley mine, enlisted with Company K of the Pennsylvania 81st Infantry to fight in the Civil War. He and his wife Hester were expecting their first baby. This book is based on his letters to her. Using these letters shared by a family member the author retraces his journey from Eckley to training camp, then to Washington, D.C. and Alexandria, VA and the Virginia Peninsula. The book includes transcriptions of the letters, then-and-now photos, maps and other images, and first-hand accounts about places he passed through. We read of this soldier’s life in the Civil War as he shared it with his wife in frequent letters to her. We also see how she was given the news of his death, and what happened with her and those around him afterward.
Now available in local bookshops and on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.
Melanie Akren-Dickson is also the author of Coal Country Connections (previous edition titled This, Their Friendship’s Monument), a book about the signers of her great-great-great-aunt Mary Boyd of Buck Mountain’s autograph album. More about that book on the Buck Mountain page.
Pages in progress on Freeland factories and industries:
With Charles Stumpf’s Freeland book and research assistance from Ed Merrick, I am remaking the previous Factories page. I hope that the new page(s) can be posted soon, with information, photos, and some personal notes from contributors. In the meantime, this interim page has three updated sections of lists of the factories and industries that I currently know of: listed by name, by location, and as they appeared in directories and on maps. The new page coming soon will also note several worker strikes that happened. So, more is coming before long. Meanwhile, please take a look at Freeland factories and industries. If you can add to the lists, please let me know.
Request for information on George T. Kushner:
If you have any information or photos relating to George T. Kushner, Jr. to share with his niece Laura Kushner, please let me know. See the Military page for what she wrote about him.
About this website: Highlighting
the Businesses
section
These three photos all show parts of the same block on Centre street, from the Front and Centre intersection, west side of the block and looking southwest. The photo at left shows, left to right: A. A. Bachman's, Joseph Neuberger's department store in Freeland Hall, De Pierro's restaurant, circa early 1890s, photo from John Zubach.
The center postcard shows the whole block, including (right to left): First National Bank, Fairchild's Luncheonette (sold to Elwood Whitehead in 1950 to become Woodie's), Feissner's Hardware, Genetti's, Citizen's Bank ... at far left you can see the intersection of Main and Centre and Dan Gallagher's lunchroom sign painted on the side of what was later Bertha's and is now Adam's antique store.
The right photo was taken by Ed Merrick in 1966 and again shows from right: First National Bank, Woodie's, Feissner's Hardware, Genetti's, Citizen's Bank ...
The number of businesses that have operated in Freeland is amazing. The Cottage Hotel might be the oldest remaining Freeland business, but please let me know of other contenders! In the new Businesses section you can find a huge array of many kinds of businesses. Additions and corrections are always welcome. Please visit and enjoy!
Businesses:
- 20th-century Freeland business
pages
organized by kind of business
- 19th-century Freeland business
pages
organized by kind of business
- Business lists and ads
in directories, maps and newspapers -
all businesses combined
Past Featured Photos: Here
are links to three pages containing previously posted photos and
information from the Featured Photos section of the home page: earliest postings, more recent ones, and the most recent ones.
They are credited to the sources. Some of these have also been
integrated into other parts of the site, while others are still waiting
for that. Meanwhile, these past Featured Photos are always available
via these links.
Note:
Photo at top left of this page came from J. Zubach; identification from
Gretchen Collins says that the business on the right in that photo was
Merkt Confectionery, run by Charles and Lena Merkt. It was located in
the Birkbeck Block on Centre and Main streets, and reputedly sold
fabulous ice cream.