A trip to Pottsville
Jan. 13-14, 2001
We started Sunday with a bad buffet breakfast at the Quality Hotel (which was just sold again, to a local chain, according to last night's bartender). The only highlight was when the waitress said "Y'z want anything else?. (How do you spell that?)
We found Rest Haven around 11:30 a.m. Dad kept asking whether his siblings were dead, and whether today was Sunday, but he showed his usual flashes of sharpness. Jacqueline didn't have to spell out the joke when she mentioned Yuengling's being next door to St. Patrick's -- he kidded right back. He did make mention of feeling old, and after sitting up for a while he had to lie back down.
He asked about the other two boys, but he kept repeating that they were in Arizona and Washington rather than Arizona and New York. I asked if he had ever gone to New York, and he said he saw a Brooklyn Dodgers game once.
This time when we asked what he did at GM, he said he took parts orders, which seems as unlikely as the previous accident-reconstruction story. With as good as his long-term memory appears to be otherwise, it's odd that these little fabrications crop up. He did show a little short-term memory, finally remembering that the answer was "Saturn" when he asked what kind of car I drive.
After spending a little less than an hour at Rest Haven, we headed into Pottsville to photograph houses and other locations, then three miles north to St. Clair, where a lot of the family lived before coming to Pottsville. Jacqueline has dates and details on these.
A house Mickey lived in on Third Street.
A house Mickey lived in in St. Clair.
A house Mickey lived in on Norwegian.
A house Mickey lived in farther out on Norwegian.
A house Mickey lived in at 517 Howard St. Dad gave a nearby address on Howard as where he was living when I was born, but there's nothing there now.
An address Dad said he once lived in on Market Street.
The high-rise Stella and Kenny lived in when they died.
The same high-rise from the back, from the sidewalk in front of the jail.
The medieval-fortress-looking Pottsville City Jail, where our great-great-grandfather Martin Bergen was hanged in connection with a killing he allegedly committed as a member of the Irish-Catholic mine-worker terrorist group the Molly Maguires.
A plaque commemorating the hangings.
The entrance to the jail, which is now the Schuylkill County Prison.
Pottsville Hospital.
The most historic-looking of three buildings housing the Republican newspaper.
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