Northeastern Pennsylvania Acknowledges 100th Anniversary of Lithuania
https://www.psdispatch.com/news/local/60553/ceremony-at-pittston-library-marks-100th-anniversary-of-lithuanias-freedom
PITTSTON — If home is where the heart is, these hearts pull double duty.
Pittston Knights of Lithuania Council 143 met at Pittston Memorial Library on Friday to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Lithuania’s independence. The ceremony began with the singing of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” followed by a rendition of the Lithuanian national anthem, “Lietuvos Himnas,” sung in Lithuanian by Tom Wierbowski.
Wierbowski admitted his Lithuanian isn’t what it used to be when the language surrounded him in his West Pittston household.
“We sang all the Lithuanian hymns and took part in Lithuanian customs and traditions,” said Wierbowski, 71, who made the drive from his current residence in Mansfield. He moved away in 1964, but remains a member of Council 143. He and the organization’s members celebrate the anniversary of Lithuania’s independence every year.
The independent state of Lithuania was established on Feb. 16, 1918. Lithuania was occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940, but independence was re-established in 1990 when it became the first republic to secede from the USSR.
According to Dr. Carol Gargan, a historian who spoke at Friday’s ceremony, Lithuanian immigrants to the United States kept their dreams of independence alive in a number of ways, including utilizing their newfound freedom of press to print and preserve documents, language and culture.
That culture imprinted on their descendants, like West Pittston resident Cathy Shulna. Shulna, historian of Council 143, wore a traditional Lithuanian folk hat to the ceremony made from parts of her grandmother’s hat.
“We grew up with it,” Shulna said of Lithuanian culture. “They all came here. We learned that. It was passed down through generations. I’ve passed it down to my kids.”
Council 143 President Dennis Palladino wore another piece of Lithuanian folk garb, a colorful sash called a juosta, as he presided over the event.
Palladino and Council 143 procured a number of formal documents commemorating the centennial, including a letter from Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf, a citation from Pennsylvania Sen. John Yudichak, a citation from Pennsylvania Rep. Mike Carroll and a Pittston City Proclamation read by Mayor Mike Lombardo.
“To recognize our Lithuanian population here on a day that’s the 100th anniversary of the nation’s independence, it doesn’t get much better than that,” Lombardo said. “The various ethnic groups that came and settled here, they brought with them their culture, they brought with them their work ethic, they brought with them their religions and those are the things that, really, they’re the heart of the city.”
Lombardo said the Lithuanian flag will fly above Pittston City Hall for a few days before it’s taken down, but he hopes to find it — and the flags of other nations whose people play a part in Pittston’s history — a permanent place in the city.
“I would like to actually set up an area with some kind of catchy title, sort of a summary of who we are and put a couple plaques up,” Lombardo said. “I would like to do something like that because it’s a reminder. We have to remind younger people that it’s great to be American; it’s great to embrace that idea, but it’s also important to remember your heritage.”
For United States Rep. Matt Cartwright, who also presented a citation at the ceremony, ethnicity is “something we don’t want to let go of.”
“It’s really a special joy to celebrate your ethnic background,” Cartwright said. “I think you heard it in abundance today that Lithuania has existed in the shadow of the great Russian bear, and it takes a special kind of people to figure out how to handle that.”
By Gene Axton - For Sunday Dispatch | February 16th, 2018 8:28 pm
PITTSTON — If home is where the heart is, these hearts pull double duty.
Pittston Knights of Lithuania Council 143 met at Pittston Memorial Library on Friday to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Lithuania’s independence. The ceremony began with the singing of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” followed by a rendition of the Lithuanian national anthem, “Lietuvos Himnas,” sung in Lithuanian by Tom Wierbowski.
Wierbowski admitted his Lithuanian isn’t what it used to be when the language surrounded him in his West Pittston household.
“We sang all the Lithuanian hymns and took part in Lithuanian customs and traditions,” said Wierbowski, 71, who made the drive from his current residence in Mansfield. He moved away in 1964, but remains a member of Council 143. He and the organization’s members celebrate the anniversary of Lithuania’s independence every year.
The independent state of Lithuania was established on Feb. 16, 1918. Lithuania was occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940, but independence was re-established in 1990 when it became the first republic to secede from the USSR.
According to Dr. Carol Gargan, a historian who spoke at Friday’s ceremony, Lithuanian immigrants to the United States kept their dreams of independence alive in a number of ways, including utilizing their newfound freedom of press to print and preserve documents, language and culture.
That culture imprinted on their descendants, like West Pittston resident Cathy Shulna. Shulna, historian of Council 143, wore a traditional Lithuanian folk hat to the ceremony made from parts of her grandmother’s hat.
“We grew up with it,” Shulna said of Lithuanian culture. “They all came here. We learned that. It was passed down through generations. I’ve passed it down to my kids.”
Council 143 President Dennis Palladino wore another piece of Lithuanian folk garb, a colorful sash called a juosta, as he presided over the event.
Palladino and Council 143 procured a number of formal documents commemorating the centennial, including a letter from Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf, a citation from Pennsylvania Sen. John Yudichak, a citation from Pennsylvania Rep. Mike Carroll and a Pittston City Proclamation read by Mayor Mike Lombardo.
“To recognize our Lithuanian population here on a day that’s the 100th anniversary of the nation’s independence, it doesn’t get much better than that,” Lombardo said. “The various ethnic groups that came and settled here, they brought with them their culture, they brought with them their work ethic, they brought with them their religions and those are the things that, really, they’re the heart of the city.”
Lombardo said the Lithuanian flag will fly above Pittston City Hall for a few days before it’s taken down, but he hopes to find it — and the flags of other nations whose people play a part in Pittston’s history — a permanent place in the city.
“I would like to actually set up an area with some kind of catchy title, sort of a summary of who we are and put a couple plaques up,” Lombardo said. “I would like to do something like that because it’s a reminder. We have to remind younger people that it’s great to be American; it’s great to embrace that idea, but it’s also important to remember your heritage.”
For United States Rep. Matt Cartwright, who also presented a citation at the ceremony, ethnicity is “something we don’t want to let go of.”
“It’s really a special joy to celebrate your ethnic background,” Cartwright said. “I think you heard it in abundance today that Lithuania has existed in the shadow of the great Russian bear, and it takes a special kind of people to figure out how to handle that.”
By Gene Axton - For Sunday Dispatch | February 16th, 2018 8:28 pm
A Song of Hope copyright C. Gargan 2/16/2018
The 100th anniversary of Lithuanian Independence fills me with hope.
It was hope that brought our grandparents here to this valley over 100 years ago.
Lithuanians, then under Russian rule, came here with the promise and the dream of dignity.
That is all any human being wants and needs.
That need compelled them, as others today, to cross oceans and scale walls of prejudice and hate.
I have the same need — we all do.
Unlike most immigrants during the mid to late 1800’s and early 1900’s Lithuanians were denied the dignity of their own language. Books, records, and education could not be in Lithuanian - they had to be in the Cyrillic alphabet of Russia. The public site where they could openly use their language was during the Latin Mass when they were allowed to sing Lithuanian songs, songs they sang in their homes and fields - songs they even sang in the mines here. From Forest City in Susquehanna County to Shenandoah in Schuylkill County American Lithuanians constructed church after church where they could sing their songs. The first Lithuanian language publication in the United States was a church song booklet published in Shenandoah in 1874.
America’s freedom of the press inspired them to establish printing houses throughout the Wyoming Valley. Their newspapers, periodicals and books were read here and sent in secret back to their homeland. They helped inspire a nation that had disappeared from the world map for over a century to resurrect its freedom.
The majority of early Lithuanian immigrants were farmers who left the fields of their landlords, bayori, for the mines of coal owners. Despite the caveat of industrial robber barons: “I can hire half the working class to fight the other half,” Lithuanian Americans together with other immigrants refused to sell each other out. They defied the mine owners - risked everything for their dignity, the dignity of a living wage. They stood together with the Italians, the Slovacks, the Irish and others at Lattimer and during the Anthracite Coal Strike. They succeeded and on February 16th, 1918 they succeeded in helping establish the Lithuanian democratic nation.
Unfortunately at the end of World War II the Soviet Union took possession of Lithuania and once again Lithuanians faced Russification. The secret 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Russia and Germany set in motion the betrayal of Lithuania’s freedom — until they resisted - standing together against oppression, soldiers and tanks. In July of 1988, 100.000 Lithuanians gathered in Vilnius and sang the Lithuanian National Anthem for the first time since World War II. A little over a year later, on the 50th anniversary of the Molotov Ribentrop Pact Lithuanians with Estonians and Latvians stood together in a human chain of 2,000,000 million people across their three nations in a non-violent singing revolutionary protest called The Baltic Way. Non violent singing protests escalated into what today is called The Singing Revolution. On March 11, 1990, Lithuania became the first Baltic nation to declare its freedom from the Soviet Union.
Today in Lithuania a very special and appropriate musical composition will premier in honor of Lithuania’s 100th anniversary. The tolling of the oldest and the most famous bells in Lithuania will be an integral part of the special composition that will, of course, also include singing. One of the bells that will be heard is the Lithuanian Liberty Bell, based on the American Liberty Bell a gift from Lithuanian Americans to Lithuania. The bell was unveiled at the Lithuanian Congress in Chicago in 1919. It rang for the first time here in the United States. The second speaker at that unveiling was the President of the Central Committee for the Relief of Lithuanian War Sufferers and the sole Lithuanian American to be seated at the Paris Peace Conference, the Assistant District Attorney of Luzerne County, John Lopatta.
From the Sesupe and the Nemunas rivers in Lithuania to the Susquehanna and the Lackawanna in this Wyoming Valley Lithuanians came here with the dream of dignity, they stood with their fellow laborers, they stood with their neighboring nations - they know there is no dignity at the cost of another’s.
The 100 bells of Lithuanian churches will sound in the project "Gloria Lithuania"Published: 09/19/2012
Plačiau: https://www.vz.lt/laisvalaikis/akiraciai/2017/09/18/projekte-gloria-lietuvai-suskambes-100-lietuvos-baznyciu-varpai#ixzz581t5w2nh
The project "Gloria Lithuania", presented on Monday in Vilnius Cathedral's bell tower, is a grand ambition to record 100 voices of the Lithuanian churches and use them in 2018. February 16th, in an impressive, technically complex piece.
The idea of the project is simple, but brilliant, and implementation is complicated. His creative team is now riding Lithuania after recording and filming a sound of 100 bells of Lithuanian churches, all of their "voices" being used by the composer Mauricio Goria, "Gloria Lithuania", which will be performed by the Symphony Orchestra at the Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theater on February 16 next year, mixed choir, electronic instruments, music will be accompanied by technically complex visualization.
"Coordinated" means that p. Maṇauskas writes the culminating part of Gloria Lithuania, where the sounds of the bells will be played and recorded, and other composers invited by Anatolijus Šenderovas, Raminta Šerkšnytė, Linas Rimša, Mindaugas Urbaitis and Vaclovas Augustinas.
Why bellsAccording to the author of the project Dalius Abari, the idea of the project arose two years ago, when a journalist, Edita Mildizytė, the TV broadcaster, was loudly considering how cool it would be if the carillons of Klaipėda, Kaunas and Vilnius were simultaneously heard for the century of Lithuania.
"The idea turned out to be very interesting, but I did not imagine either technically or otherwise how to realize it. Then I began to think - maybe it's possible to record the hangings, not necessarily the carillion? I shared the idea with Cyprus, he agreed: yes, it should be very strong, and director Romas Lileikis joined the project, "said Mr. Abaris
Live part of historyI wonder if there is any other country in the world that has recorded and archived its "voices" of bells that people have heard a hundred or several hundred years ago. According to cultural historian Aurimas Švedas, listening to the bells, we listen to history. We do not read, watch and listen, and it's unique.
"The bells help to survive emotionally their own history, they are one of the few historians, especially witnesses of the old Lithuania, who are coming to this day who are still not in any archive, museum or museum fund, but are alive, are part of our lives," - says Mr. Sweden
The essence of the project "Gloria Lithuania" is to actualize that part of history, - to select Lithuanian faces, to film them, to record their sound.
According to Mr. Abarius, historians have worked very hard and consistently on the selection of the bells - the oldest Lithuanian bells, bells of Lithuanian craftsmen, bells with their own stories, and so on. On the other hand, when selecting the bells, it was attempted to cover the whole of Lithuania - small towns, villages, and church elders. Of the 249 ecclesiastical bells included in the Register of Cultural Values, 100 bells have been selected, of course, this is a symbolic figure.
The program "Gloria Lithuania" is scheduled for February 16th by LNOBT. The sequel to the project is the 6th of July of next year during the Song Festival, when the bells will pop up the national anthem.
2018 February 16 12.30 Bells of all churches will sound in Lithuania.
Pla
Plačiau: https://www.vz.lt/laisvalaikis/akiraciai/2017/09/18/projekte-gloria-lietuvai-suskambes-100-lietuvos-baznyciu-varpai#ixzz581scVH7t
You can listen to the premiere of the entire work on the link below.
The bell composition begins at approximately 48 minutes.
http://www.lrt.lt/mediateka/irasas/1013685383/iskilmingas-vasario-16-osios-koncertas-gloria-lietuvai
Remembering Lithuanians in Northeastern PA
Every Roman Catholic Church that Lithuanian Americans established in northeastern PA is no longer open as a Lithuanian American Roman Catholic Church. The Polish National Church controls the Lithuanian National Church in Scranton.
All of the early legal battles Lithuanian Americans fought for their churches have been lost - within the span of a century - there are no Lithuanian parishes/churches.
What has not been lost are the roses from their gardens. They grow today in the Kosciuska Healing Garden.
JACK SMILES / PUBLISHED: OCTOBER 11, 2015:
Vandalism last straw for St. Casimir's owner
Lighters and aerosol cans were found at the scene of vandalism at the former St. Casimir’s Church. At left, holes were hammered into the new drywall.
Image Gallery for Vandalism last straw for St. Casimir's owner
Smoke pouring from St. Casimir’s Lithuanian Catholic Church across Church Street woke Mrs. Tishler at 2:45 in the morning on Feb. 6, 1909. She sent her son, Otto, to pull the alarm on Box 43 at the corner of Butler and Main streets.
Two Pittston fire wagons arrived in 10 minutes. Two lines were laid but the frozen hydrant at the corner of Carroll and Church streets produced a meager stream.
The wagons were sent back for more hose. By the time the firemen got two strong streams going, the church was forsaken for the homes around it. West Pittston responded and concentrated on keeping the back wall of the church from falling and burying the Smith and Raeder homes, which were only five feet away, while Pittston wet down the other homes around the church.
The flames were sucked up the church bell tower like up a flue. The bell fell down through the floor to the basement with a resounding clang. When the flames burst from the tower with an explosive pop, onlookers ran as the cross was engulfed. It was said that seen from the West Side the flames flared in the shape of the tower and cross then collapsed.
A month later, the cornerstone was pulled out of the ruble. Inside were foreign currency coins, a newspaper clipping of the laying of the cornerstone on June 28, 1889, and a description of the cornerstone laying in Latin.
The parish contracted with Louis Giele of New York City to design a new church and M. Stipp of Scranton to build it. The cornerstone was laid in May of 1909. The contract was for $40,000 for a 1,000-capacity brick, iron and stone church with Indiana Limestone trimmings. The price did not include heating, art glass windows, pews or altars. The church was dedicated on Easter Monday, March 28, 1910.
The church was built to last and did. Today it is 105 years old and in good condition. The Scranton Diocese closed the church on April 6, 2008 and consolidated it with the Parish Community of St. John the Evangelist.
Gina Malsky bought St. Casimir’s in 2011. Malsky had hoped to repurpose the church as a multi-use arts center. A local theater troop leased it for a time and tried to rehab it, but struggled to get the century-old building up to modern building codes.
Malsky still believes the building — with 7,600 square feet of interior space, 50-foot ceilings, a full basement and 30-space parking lot — is a perfect setting for a venue for weddings, parties, concerts and theater productions.
“Right now,” Malsky said, “I would love for the right person to buy it and turn it into a venue.”
Malsky is the proprietor of the Dance Theatre of Wilkes Barre and the Work of Art Learning Center in Exeter, but, she said, “I’m a businesswoman, but I found out I’m not a building owner, so it’s for sale.”
The last straw for Malsky was vandalism. A group of kids, ages 13-15, were caught be police in the building in mid-September, but not before they broke windows, hammered holes in new drywall, destroyed wall fixtures, set off fire extinguishers and blew apart a toilet. The vandals left lighters and aerosol cans behind.
[email protected]
http://pittstonprogress.com/news/vandalism-last-straw-for-st-casimir-s-owner-1.1955011
The 100th anniversary of Lithuanian Independence fills me with hope.
It was hope that brought our grandparents here to this valley over 100 years ago.
Lithuanians, then under Russian rule, came here with the promise and the dream of dignity.
That is all any human being wants and needs.
That need compelled them, as others today, to cross oceans and scale walls of prejudice and hate.
I have the same need — we all do.
Unlike most immigrants during the mid to late 1800’s and early 1900’s Lithuanians were denied the dignity of their own language. Books, records, and education could not be in Lithuanian - they had to be in the Cyrillic alphabet of Russia. The public site where they could openly use their language was during the Latin Mass when they were allowed to sing Lithuanian songs, songs they sang in their homes and fields - songs they even sang in the mines here. From Forest City in Susquehanna County to Shenandoah in Schuylkill County American Lithuanians constructed church after church where they could sing their songs. The first Lithuanian language publication in the United States was a church song booklet published in Shenandoah in 1874.
America’s freedom of the press inspired them to establish printing houses throughout the Wyoming Valley. Their newspapers, periodicals and books were read here and sent in secret back to their homeland. They helped inspire a nation that had disappeared from the world map for over a century to resurrect its freedom.
The majority of early Lithuanian immigrants were farmers who left the fields of their landlords, bayori, for the mines of coal owners. Despite the caveat of industrial robber barons: “I can hire half the working class to fight the other half,” Lithuanian Americans together with other immigrants refused to sell each other out. They defied the mine owners - risked everything for their dignity, the dignity of a living wage. They stood together with the Italians, the Slovacks, the Irish and others at Lattimer and during the Anthracite Coal Strike. They succeeded and on February 16th, 1918 they succeeded in helping establish the Lithuanian democratic nation.
Unfortunately at the end of World War II the Soviet Union took possession of Lithuania and once again Lithuanians faced Russification. The secret 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Russia and Germany set in motion the betrayal of Lithuania’s freedom — until they resisted - standing together against oppression, soldiers and tanks. In July of 1988, 100.000 Lithuanians gathered in Vilnius and sang the Lithuanian National Anthem for the first time since World War II. A little over a year later, on the 50th anniversary of the Molotov Ribentrop Pact Lithuanians with Estonians and Latvians stood together in a human chain of 2,000,000 million people across their three nations in a non-violent singing revolutionary protest called The Baltic Way. Non violent singing protests escalated into what today is called The Singing Revolution. On March 11, 1990, Lithuania became the first Baltic nation to declare its freedom from the Soviet Union.
Today in Lithuania a very special and appropriate musical composition will premier in honor of Lithuania’s 100th anniversary. The tolling of the oldest and the most famous bells in Lithuania will be an integral part of the special composition that will, of course, also include singing. One of the bells that will be heard is the Lithuanian Liberty Bell, based on the American Liberty Bell a gift from Lithuanian Americans to Lithuania. The bell was unveiled at the Lithuanian Congress in Chicago in 1919. It rang for the first time here in the United States. The second speaker at that unveiling was the President of the Central Committee for the Relief of Lithuanian War Sufferers and the sole Lithuanian American to be seated at the Paris Peace Conference, the Assistant District Attorney of Luzerne County, John Lopatta.
From the Sesupe and the Nemunas rivers in Lithuania to the Susquehanna and the Lackawanna in this Wyoming Valley Lithuanians came here with the dream of dignity, they stood with their fellow laborers, they stood with their neighboring nations - they know there is no dignity at the cost of another’s.
The 100 bells of Lithuanian churches will sound in the project "Gloria Lithuania"Published: 09/19/2012
Plačiau: https://www.vz.lt/laisvalaikis/akiraciai/2017/09/18/projekte-gloria-lietuvai-suskambes-100-lietuvos-baznyciu-varpai#ixzz581t5w2nh
The project "Gloria Lithuania", presented on Monday in Vilnius Cathedral's bell tower, is a grand ambition to record 100 voices of the Lithuanian churches and use them in 2018. February 16th, in an impressive, technically complex piece.
The idea of the project is simple, but brilliant, and implementation is complicated. His creative team is now riding Lithuania after recording and filming a sound of 100 bells of Lithuanian churches, all of their "voices" being used by the composer Mauricio Goria, "Gloria Lithuania", which will be performed by the Symphony Orchestra at the Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theater on February 16 next year, mixed choir, electronic instruments, music will be accompanied by technically complex visualization.
"Coordinated" means that p. Maṇauskas writes the culminating part of Gloria Lithuania, where the sounds of the bells will be played and recorded, and other composers invited by Anatolijus Šenderovas, Raminta Šerkšnytė, Linas Rimša, Mindaugas Urbaitis and Vaclovas Augustinas.
Why bellsAccording to the author of the project Dalius Abari, the idea of the project arose two years ago, when a journalist, Edita Mildizytė, the TV broadcaster, was loudly considering how cool it would be if the carillons of Klaipėda, Kaunas and Vilnius were simultaneously heard for the century of Lithuania.
"The idea turned out to be very interesting, but I did not imagine either technically or otherwise how to realize it. Then I began to think - maybe it's possible to record the hangings, not necessarily the carillion? I shared the idea with Cyprus, he agreed: yes, it should be very strong, and director Romas Lileikis joined the project, "said Mr. Abaris
Live part of historyI wonder if there is any other country in the world that has recorded and archived its "voices" of bells that people have heard a hundred or several hundred years ago. According to cultural historian Aurimas Švedas, listening to the bells, we listen to history. We do not read, watch and listen, and it's unique.
"The bells help to survive emotionally their own history, they are one of the few historians, especially witnesses of the old Lithuania, who are coming to this day who are still not in any archive, museum or museum fund, but are alive, are part of our lives," - says Mr. Sweden
The essence of the project "Gloria Lithuania" is to actualize that part of history, - to select Lithuanian faces, to film them, to record their sound.
According to Mr. Abarius, historians have worked very hard and consistently on the selection of the bells - the oldest Lithuanian bells, bells of Lithuanian craftsmen, bells with their own stories, and so on. On the other hand, when selecting the bells, it was attempted to cover the whole of Lithuania - small towns, villages, and church elders. Of the 249 ecclesiastical bells included in the Register of Cultural Values, 100 bells have been selected, of course, this is a symbolic figure.
The program "Gloria Lithuania" is scheduled for February 16th by LNOBT. The sequel to the project is the 6th of July of next year during the Song Festival, when the bells will pop up the national anthem.
2018 February 16 12.30 Bells of all churches will sound in Lithuania.
Pla
Plačiau: https://www.vz.lt/laisvalaikis/akiraciai/2017/09/18/projekte-gloria-lietuvai-suskambes-100-lietuvos-baznyciu-varpai#ixzz581scVH7t
You can listen to the premiere of the entire work on the link below.
The bell composition begins at approximately 48 minutes.
http://www.lrt.lt/mediateka/irasas/1013685383/iskilmingas-vasario-16-osios-koncertas-gloria-lietuvai
Remembering Lithuanians in Northeastern PA
Every Roman Catholic Church that Lithuanian Americans established in northeastern PA is no longer open as a Lithuanian American Roman Catholic Church. The Polish National Church controls the Lithuanian National Church in Scranton.
All of the early legal battles Lithuanian Americans fought for their churches have been lost - within the span of a century - there are no Lithuanian parishes/churches.
What has not been lost are the roses from their gardens. They grow today in the Kosciuska Healing Garden.
JACK SMILES / PUBLISHED: OCTOBER 11, 2015:
Vandalism last straw for St. Casimir's owner
Lighters and aerosol cans were found at the scene of vandalism at the former St. Casimir’s Church. At left, holes were hammered into the new drywall.
Image Gallery for Vandalism last straw for St. Casimir's owner
Smoke pouring from St. Casimir’s Lithuanian Catholic Church across Church Street woke Mrs. Tishler at 2:45 in the morning on Feb. 6, 1909. She sent her son, Otto, to pull the alarm on Box 43 at the corner of Butler and Main streets.
Two Pittston fire wagons arrived in 10 minutes. Two lines were laid but the frozen hydrant at the corner of Carroll and Church streets produced a meager stream.
The wagons were sent back for more hose. By the time the firemen got two strong streams going, the church was forsaken for the homes around it. West Pittston responded and concentrated on keeping the back wall of the church from falling and burying the Smith and Raeder homes, which were only five feet away, while Pittston wet down the other homes around the church.
The flames were sucked up the church bell tower like up a flue. The bell fell down through the floor to the basement with a resounding clang. When the flames burst from the tower with an explosive pop, onlookers ran as the cross was engulfed. It was said that seen from the West Side the flames flared in the shape of the tower and cross then collapsed.
A month later, the cornerstone was pulled out of the ruble. Inside were foreign currency coins, a newspaper clipping of the laying of the cornerstone on June 28, 1889, and a description of the cornerstone laying in Latin.
The parish contracted with Louis Giele of New York City to design a new church and M. Stipp of Scranton to build it. The cornerstone was laid in May of 1909. The contract was for $40,000 for a 1,000-capacity brick, iron and stone church with Indiana Limestone trimmings. The price did not include heating, art glass windows, pews or altars. The church was dedicated on Easter Monday, March 28, 1910.
The church was built to last and did. Today it is 105 years old and in good condition. The Scranton Diocese closed the church on April 6, 2008 and consolidated it with the Parish Community of St. John the Evangelist.
Gina Malsky bought St. Casimir’s in 2011. Malsky had hoped to repurpose the church as a multi-use arts center. A local theater troop leased it for a time and tried to rehab it, but struggled to get the century-old building up to modern building codes.
Malsky still believes the building — with 7,600 square feet of interior space, 50-foot ceilings, a full basement and 30-space parking lot — is a perfect setting for a venue for weddings, parties, concerts and theater productions.
“Right now,” Malsky said, “I would love for the right person to buy it and turn it into a venue.”
Malsky is the proprietor of the Dance Theatre of Wilkes Barre and the Work of Art Learning Center in Exeter, but, she said, “I’m a businesswoman, but I found out I’m not a building owner, so it’s for sale.”
The last straw for Malsky was vandalism. A group of kids, ages 13-15, were caught be police in the building in mid-September, but not before they broke windows, hammered holes in new drywall, destroyed wall fixtures, set off fire extinguishers and blew apart a toilet. The vandals left lighters and aerosol cans behind.
[email protected]
http://pittstonprogress.com/news/vandalism-last-straw-for-st-casimir-s-owner-1.1955011