Trip Report: November 8 - December 10, 2006
by Ted & Sylvia Blishak
31 Day Grand Tour on Amtrak and the Mississippi Queen
November 22-29, 2006
Ambridge, Pennsylvania
All four of Ted’s grandparents moved to Ambridge in the early part of the 20th century, all from various Eastern European locations, Russia, the Ukraine, and Austria-Hungary. His maternal step-grandfather worked in the steel fabrication works of Ambridge, named after the American Bridge Company, one of the fabricators of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge. His paternal grandfather founded a successful soft drink bottling works. His real maternal grandfather was a victim of the 1918 flu epidemic.
Ambridge was incorporated in 1905, but European settlers had lived there in mass since the founding of Economy, PA, final home of the Harmony Society, in 1826. The Society became prosperous in agriculture and viticulture. Their homes and churches were built upon the high banks of the Ohio River, and their fields, orchards, and vineyards filled the valley. Now called Old Economy, many of the main buildings of Economy are now preserved as a Pennsylvania Historical Site, drawing visitors from all over.
Old Economy Church
Ted was always interested in Old Economy, even as a child, and on one occasion, at age 11, entered the visitor center where he was introduced to the last remaining member of the Harmony Society, Mr. John Duss. Ted remembers shaking hands with Mr. Duss, who at that time was sitting in a wheelchair. A major thoroughfare in Ambridge is Duss Avenue, where Ambridge High School is located.
As with most Utopian societies, it began to decline, and in the early 20th century they began to sell off their prosperous agricultural lands to industrial firms, beginning with the American Bridge Company. Other firms which moved into the area were National Electric Products, HH Robertson Company, (where Ted’s Dad worked all of his life), the Pittsburgh Coal Washer Company, Spang-Chalfant Tube Works, Wykoff Steel, and the great AM Byers Company Bessemer Converter, which would light up the night sky.
All of these works contributed mightily to the war efforts in the years of 1916-18 and again in 1941-45, (Ted’s Dad worked 7 days a week during that era, in addition to being an Air Raid Warden and Auxiliary Policeman). Then after a prosperous era of post WWII construction, the factories began their gradual decline into the Rust Belt of the 1970’s as manufacturing moved to foreign lands.
Some of the aging plants have been purchased by new incoming businesses, but most lie in rusting ruins, or have been torn down, leaving tracts of polluted land where orchards once thrived.
One of the last remaining reminders of the once great industrial age of America is the four track mainline of the Pennsylvania Railroad, once the “Standard Railroad of the World”, which bankrupted to become Conrail, and now is the Norfolk Southern.
Four Track Main Line
There also remains a considerable amount of bulk cargo carried on Ohio River barges pushed by “towboats”.
Ohio River Traffic
The population of Ambridge of course has been in decline as the children of the original immigrants die off and the grand-children find work elsewhere in the country, as we did. Ted’s brother is retired after 30 years of police work and anti-terrorist security consulting in California, and now lives in the family homestead, helping to care for Aunt Helen, the last remaining aunt of his mother’s extensive family of 12 siblings.
Ted’s Aunt Marge, an in-law also of Eastern European ancestry, who is still an active and independent lady, hosted us, along with other family members
of Ted’s generation, for a delicious home-cooked dinner of various (and mostly unpronounceable) ethnic dishes that you’d never see on a menu in this country. She also treated us to some family secrets and scandals that, as children, we had never been aware of!
After enjoying a wonderful week of Thanksgiving feasts and festivities, our next destination will be Greenville, SC, home of our son, daughter-in-law, and grand children.
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