History is history
History can occur anywhere: in our backyards or on the other side of the globe.
My epiphany on this subject is the Thomas Jefferson-Albert Gallatin statue at the corner of Beeson Boulevard and Main Street in Uniontown, in which the two old friends and political allies are shown plotting the route of the National Road, important alike for Uniontown and the early pioneers moving west.
The distinction between so-called local history and national history — in some quarters, real history — is often not much; sometimes there is no distinction at all.
Here are some examples.
The great George C. Marshall was born and raised on the National Road — today’s Business Route 40 — in Uniontown.
He told his biographer, Forrest Pogue, that as a boy he was well aware of the significance of the road that ran past his house — of its role in facilitating the migration of Americans from the east coast to the frontier.
In the summer of 1899, Marshall was a young man a year away from graduating from the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington. He wasn’t exactly sure what he would do after graduation. His older brother Stewart was a chemist; his father George Sr. was in the coal and coke trade. There was the military, but the young man just wasn’t certain.
In late August 1899, the men of Company C of the 10th Pennsylvania National Guard Regiment returned to Uniontown after spending a year fighting the Spanish-American War in the Philippines.
According to contemporary newspaper accounts, Uniontown was blanketed with over a thousand American flags and red, white and blue bunting for the homecoming that took place on Aug. 29, 1899.
The centerpiece of the day was a parade featuring the men themselves marching from the train station on Gallatin Avenue, up Fayette Street to Shady Lane, and then onto Main.
The town went wild. And in the middle of the celebration was young Marshall. He was just as excited as everyone else. He later told Pogue that the Uniontown parade was his “first great emotional reaction.”
As the Uniontown celebration unfolded around him, Marshall made a decision — a fateful decision. Moved by the outpouring of love and respect for the men of Company C, Marshall chose to pursue a military career after graduation from VMI.
There has never been a more momentous decision ever made in Uniontown.
Just reflect for a moment on its ramifications — only the future of civilization itself. Without Marshall as head of the army in World War II and as secretary of state after the war, goodness knows what would have happened.
So, is the parade in Uniontown in August 1899 local history or national history? Trying to make a distinction is pretty silly
(Two asides. It was Forrest Pogue who stated that Marshall “learned the American tradition” in Uniontown. In addition, Dr. Pogue once let it be known that while preparing his four-volume Marshall biography he read every available Uniontown newspaper from the time of Marshall’s birth in 1880 until he left town for the service in 1902. Clearly, Pogue blended “local” with “national” history for his Marshall portraiture.)
Let’s bring this “history is history” notion into more contemporaneous times with our own. That would be 75 years ago during World War II.
For part of the war, a canteen operated in Connellsville. Connellsville has always been a big railroad town. What were called troop trains — literally, trains carrying troops — passed through Connellsville with some frequency during the war.
So, a woman by the name of Rose Brady got the idea that the women of Connellsville might contribute to the war effort by getting together a canteen, to serve coffee and cakes and such to the men and women in uniform when their trains stopped in Connellsville.
It was a brilliant idea brilliantly executed. In two years’ time, the Connellsville Canteen, situated near the B&O train station on Water Street, served better than half a million sandwiches, more than 300,000 doughnuts, 108,000 cartons of cigarettes, 28,000 quarts of milk, and assorted other items, including hard-boiled eggs, oranges, soft drinks and magazines.
It was an all-volunteer undertaking. When I first wrote about the Canteen in the mid-’80s, more than a few of the volunteers were still around.
One was Louise Rull. Louise’s story is that she wanted to join the military. Women didn’t fight in those days; they did clerical and other work; many were nurses; some risked their lives flying military aircraft across the Atlantic to Great Britain. But most were not in harm’s way.
Nevertheless, Louise’s mother absolutely refused permission for her daughter to join the service.
Lavina Maricondi was another of the volunteers. She was married to a GI; they had a 4-year-old son. When not working at the Canteen or looking after her boy, she operated the family business, a dairy bar.
It was hectic, but Lavina managed — somehow.
I spoke with Rita Smyth. Rita worked at Troutman’s Department Store in Connellsville. Besides volunteering at the Canteen, Rita performed other war-related duties. One involved chauffeuring local leave-taking GIs home to their families. Taking place late in the evening, these motor-car excursions were frequently uncertain trips into the hinterlands. Rita didn’t know where she was a lot of the time.
For their part, the soldiers, sailors and others who rode the troop trains that stopped in Connellsville were unusually appreciative of the Canteen.
Private John Boland passed through Connellsville twice during the war. The second time was at 1:30 in the morning. In a note he wrote afterward, Boland related a story. Reboarding their train, the GI in front of him turned and said, about the volunteers who were on hand at that late hour, “These are our people.”
Is the Connellsville Canteen part of local history or national history? Let’s just say it is part of history, period.
Lastly, here is some fun speculative history that has to do with our theme: The Fayette County Historical Society is headquartered on Route 40 between Uniontown and Brownsville. The society has set up shop in an old tavern-house built in the early 19th century.
Now, Abraham Lincoln probably — probably — used the National Road on his way to Washington in 1847 for his one and only term in Congress.
Lincoln’s coach would have passed today’s Fayette County Historical Society.
Not to get carried way with the romance of it all, but if at the moment of passing Lincoln had looked to his left, he would taken in the tavern-house.
Now, we all know Lincoln saved the Union. What we don’t have a handle on are the scenes — the physical scenes — that came to Lincoln’s mind as he brooded over the fate of the Republic. Perhaps, once even, he thought of that tavern-house in western Pennsylvania, incorporated, as it was, into his mental image of the country.
Too fanciful? Too silly? History vast, history small.
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown and is the author of two books — Grand Salute: Stories of the World War II Generation and Our People. He can be reached at dick.l.robbins@gmail.com.