Silver bridge encounters

Every summer after school was out my Grandma Gregory and I (accompanied by Grandpa Gregory before he died) were driven down to Mason, West Virginia by my Dad. Along the long winding route 33 I would get oral lessons about Ohio history and geography as well as family history. On each trip I heard some version of the stories and lessons were repeated. The drive to me seemed to last forever and we had to pack as if we would be gone forever (instead of just a week).

We often stopped for a snack at Yankee Burgers (a rip-off White Castles) in Nelsonville where Grandma and I had once taken the scenic train (later I would take Perry and Vincent to help relive pleasant memories). At some point we stopped at the boot outlet in Nelsonville and drove by signs for the college at Hocking Hills. The beauty of Ohio geography could be seen.

Around this area and maybe even before we got to the Hocking Hills area Dad would point out the oil pumps we would pass on the sides of route 33 in various fields. We would also pass a train track with a sawmill almost right on the tracks. We even had to stop once at a brick kiln where they make bricks out of natural clay in the surrounding soil and walk around a park beside a canal because I had gotten car sick. I learned about natural resources of Ohio.

Once we got further along into Athens county the stories really started to pick up. One hill in particular always brought on the explanation of how cars in the old days would have to speed up to make it to the top of the hill because it was so steep. Dad would laugh retelling stories of Grandpa doing this drive and speeding up and Grandma telling him to slow down. We would pass Ohio University (where Perry and I later would explore and find the best bagel place in the world) before slowing down to go up another hill. This hill slowly wraps around a hill leading out of Athens and into the little town of Darwin. Dad always retold the story of putting chains on the tires and driving up this hill in the snow to buy my Mom's engagement ring. Yep, family history lesson 101.

We would wind our way through the hills passing cows munching on grass, steep drop-offs on the sides of the roads, houses perched precariously on the hills, the now two lane route 33 completely canopied by trees, and if we were in the right season dogwoods blooming everywhere. As we drove down the last hill (Dad exclaiming to look out the back window so we could see just how steep the hill was) we would get a panoramic view of the Ohio River and Grandma would explain we were entering Pomeroy, Ohio, "A mile wide and as far back as you could see." Which really isn't very far since it seems to be clinging to the cliffs above the Ohio.

Eventually to the left you could see the bridge and then Grandma would recount the story of a similar bridge from Ohio to Point Pleasant, West Virginia. That famous bridge was the Silver Bridge. Grandma would tell the story of one winter night in the 1960s when the bridge was full of traffic the bridge for some unknown reason collapsed taking all the cars into the frozen Ohio river. Grandma would tell how she had been on that bridge many times before that and the bridge always looked OK, but that night people lost their lives. The Silver bridge was eventually replaced but the story of the Silver bridge stuck with Grandma and now as we would be crossing this different bridge just several miles upstream she would retell the story. It really made me pay attention to the crossing (sometimes fearing if the bridge fell we might fall on a barge floating underneath). Ohio river history lesson brought to life.

Imagine my surprise when years later while living in Tallahassee, a movie came out that was about the Silver Bridge collapse. I saw the preview in the Tallahassee Mall movie theater and was brought back to the drive to the Ohio river along route 33 and all the stories I had heard. It wasn't just a personal drive anymore -- Hollywood had learned about my small area of the world. Richard Gere was even going to be in it! A story about my little Point Pleasant where Uncle Boyd and Aunt Garnet lived. (Bridge above is a railway bridge in Point Pleasant just around the corner from the replacement of the Silver bridge.)

The Mothman Propecies was the story of how strange sightings of a large bird-shaped man or moth-shaped man had plagued the area around an abandoned dynamite factory in Point Pleasant for a year before the Silver bridge collapsed. Legends of this type of apparition in different cultures tell of it as an omen or predictor of some type of disaster. In the movie this "mothman" predicted several accidents that preceded the bridge collapse but was never seen again after the collapse. My cousin Sarah, who lives in Mason (just upriver) tells that they abandoned dynamite factory was a hangout for teenage couples. She swears the apparitions were really large sand cranes (the name of the road a lot of the sightings happened on is Sand Crane road.) But she was excited about having Hollywood come and make a movie in Point Pleasant, but more for economic reasons.

When Perry and I went to the Schwarz family reunion in Point Pleasant this summer, we managed to get away for just a small amount of time to go to the Ohio river front area. There we were able to go to the new Mothman Museum and see public art. There was a huge metal sculpture (12 feet) of what one artist thought the mothman must have looked like. In the picture below there also seems to be a mothwoman whose lost her wings.

Here is mothman without his mothwoman. There was a sign near the sculpture explaining that there is now an annual mothman festival. It not only memorializes the Silver bridge collapse but people from around the world (according to the sign) come to look for more signs of the very existence of a paranormal/otherwordly phenomena that predicts disasters. Stories in the Mothman Museum tell of "men in black" coming to Point Pleasant and interviewing people around the time of the bridge disaster. Supposedly those men were from the government and might have been hiding something.

In the museum Perry and I were able to look at old newspaper articles describing the sightings of the mothman. Many of the articles were from before the bridge collapsed and postulated that maybe it was a deformed bird from all the chemicals at the abandoned dynamite factory or as it was called in the area TNT. They also had some other artist representations of what the mothman might have looked like along with recorded interviews of those in the area that reportedly saw this figure. Even some of the TV shows that I've watched at various times on Discovery and Travel Channnels that focused on the mothman figure were playing on different monitors around the room.

The museum also had some of the Hollywood props used during the making of the film. Even though some of the movie was filmed in Pennsylvania instead of Point Pleasant the museum still had Laura Linney's police uniform from the movie (below). They also had one of the telephones used in the movie (you'll have to see the movie to know why this is important). While we were in the museum we called Vincent (who has seen the movie) at his Dad's house. We asked him what he wanted from the gift shop and ended up getting him a Mothman t-shirt...in black of course.

Lots of depictions of the mothman were in the museum. Some were more recent than others. At the museum we were directed by an employee to check out a shop across the street that had mothman paraphernalia and also Chief Cornstalk paraphernalia (that will have to be another blog entry). So after taking one last look around at all the mothman exhibits (we were on a tight schedule to get to Columbus for our flight to Vegas) we headed over to the other shop.

As we crossed the street we saw our own personal mothman! It wasn't nearly as tall as some of the other exhibits made it out to be but it had a striking resemblance to someone we know.

The shop keeper came out and explained that if you took a picture of this creature with your flash on the lights really did seem to glow. I'm not sure about the glowing eyes but if this creature was going to be on a plane with me to Vegas I was a little scared.

The shop keeper took us inside where he had a cute little Chihuahua walking around the store. He had everything from baseball caps, postcards, posters, and t-shirts about both the mothman and Chief Cornstalk. We started asking questions about some of the artwork (which was different from the museums) and he explained that some of the artwork was based on more recent sightings. He and his son and his son's girlfriend had gone out to the old TNT area. They took digital cameras and took lots of pictures. When they viewed the film there were lots of orbs and strange shadows. When he got home and enlarged some of the orbs he found figures of the mothman inside of them. In his orbs the mothman has a slightly wolf like face. He says his son's girlfriend won't go out to the sigh with them anymore after seeing the pictures. I'm not sure if I would have either. He got out copies of his pictures since we seemed interested. They were a little dog eared but we could definitely see there was something off in the pictures (see below).

Point Pleasant in my mind has now changed. It is no longer a sleepy little West Virginia town where my family has roots. It now has a commercial Hollywood exploitation feel. Perry and I drove from Point Pleasant to Columbus to catch our flight. Now my memories of route 33 and then the following drive from Mason to Point Pleasant have been changed. Route 33 has been straightened and makes the drive from Mason, West Virginia to Columbus, Ohio only an hour and a half long. No more winding roads, no more drives through Darwin, it even has a bi-pass around Lancaster. We made it in time for our flight...but then a whole other adventure started.

---- Stephanie

Family reunion (July 18)

Stephanie and I left Mason (WV) after that big breakfast and headed towards Point Pleasant, WV. It turns out that the WV State Fair Museum is actually in between Mason and Point Pleasant. All of these drives are along the Ohio River. In a way, it was a good thing we didn't have Frisco, since the place he was scheduled to be while we were at the reunion was at a dog salon in Point Pleasant, which would have been out of the way. He probably could have come with us (you'll recall he was sick and stayed home back in Lousiville at Dr. Kaur's.) The museum complex is adjacent to the Mason County fairgrounds. Family activists had rented an air-conditioned fellowship hall-type building and were ready for us, as we arrived a little late, at about 10:20.



The Schwartz family is Stephanie's paternal grandmother's father's family. Greeting us with Darlene Haer (below left), who had helped organize the retreat, and her mother, Garnet Schwarz, who lives in Point Pleasant (and whose house we once tried to find) and whose husband died a few years ago. Garnet had been married to Stephanie's great-uncle Boyd. Stephanie remembers going to Boyd and Garnet's store on drives with her grandparents between Point Pleasant and Mason and stopping at Boyd and Garnet's house to play with Meg and Ken in one of the upstairs bedrooms when she was much younger.

Both of them were very nice. Cousin Paula sent us newspaper articles not only about the reunion but also about Garnet's quilting club. I believe she's the last person in Stephanie's grandmother's generation - except for Aunt Velma, with whom we stayed in Mason, still alive. Lady, in Texas City, died a couple of years ago, as did Aunt Catherine, Paula's mother.

Stephanie's father, Larry, was already there. He hung out some with Jimmy Schwarz, another 60ish retired Columbus social studies teacher who was nevertheless not exactly Larry's spitting image. Even if Larry isn't massivly into family history, some of the general history thrown in was no doubt interesting. Jimmy took Stehanie's senior pictures when she was in high school. He now does more professional photography with models and weddings, even teaching some photography classes at Columbus State. Jimmy's father owned the large piece of land on Williams road with Stephanie's grandparents. She remembers going there to help with the corn, potatoes, tomatoes, green beans, bell peppers, pigs, and cabbage.

Several people in the extended family have gotten into family history - even visiting places in Germany where ancestors came from. Stephanie remembers hearing about how one of her great uncles got better treatment as a U.S. GI and German POW because of his German roots. Nevertheless, all of these folks suffered because of the anti-German hysteria during the two world wars. Stephanie's grandmother grew up speaking German at home - Appalachican German, in West Virginia - but never spoke it again after WW2.

Here's Jimmy and Larry, sitting outside. We sometimes get holiday cards from Jimmy and his family but I don't think I'd ever meant him. Stephanie hadn't seen some of these people in years, including Garnet, Darlene, and her sister Sharon Pafford. It's amazing that a number of these people have stayed around the area since there are not an infinite number of economic opportunities (although no doubt knowing local people helps.) I believe Darlene's daughter, Becky, is a teacher in the elementary school in Point Pleasant (which she hinted was a tad rough - we eventually deduced that some rich kids - to the extent that there are any in town - go to the Catholic schools.)

Stephanie and I took a break and walked around a few of the farm museum buildings. I think this was the old school, relocated from elsewhere in the state - a la the Ohio Villlege or Sturbridge Village.

We got to walk around all of these old buildings, including the old office of the Point Pleasant newspaper.

We ran into other family reunion folks doing the same thing (plus letting some of their kids run around). This group was partly from Florida. Stephanie remembered many of these people from when they were all kids. The sky turned out to look particularly stunning, including pictured against this cousin's pink top (with the relocated church in the background). Meg and her twin brother, Ken had gone to high school in Miami but now both live in Virginia. Ken wasn't able to get away from his work in D.C. to come to the reunion. John and his wife had their teenage son, Benjamin, at the reunion. Benjamin was the only one in Vincent's generation of the Schwarz family.

The sky kept getting more stunning, as I panned to others in this extended family.

Like Teresa's (John's wife) orange shirt against the sky also.

We checked out the church.

And then the school.

Back at the Fellowship Hall they were doing some family history presentations.

Pictured below is a man who I believe was Ed. He taken some of the trips to Germany, and was well informed but also good natured.

Ed gave some interseting family history, including who were the original immigrants, Fredrika and her sons (Louise) the one that our family goes back to. Darlene was organized enough to have name tags for everyone that had not only our names but also our lineage so that we could tell which branches of the family we were more closely related to.

Below is another man who'd done some family history research, but had to leave early.

Darlene and her sister also talked. They had handsomely reproduced two self-published books - part memoirs/part biography - and we picked up both of them. I've read the shorter one about people more closely related to us, about a couple growing up separately and then meeting, marrying, and growing old togethether in early 20th Century West Virginia. Stephanie remembers reading them when she was younger and both her grandparents were still alive.

We sat near these folks. We also sat near Larry, but he spent most of the time talking with Jimmy. Carrie, in the pink shirt, is Stephanie's great-uncle Frank's granddaughter.

Below Erma joined in with Larry and Jimmy.

Below is Jimmy's wife, Kathy, who was somewhat quieter than he.

Darlene's sister, Sharon, reviewed with us some familiy pictures that Stephanie had put together in a collage frame when she still lived in Westerville (below).

Larry looked at them too.

Stephanie posed with Carrie in front of some of the family history materials.

Larry and Stephanie wound up on opposite sides of these posed big family pictures.

I think this picture below is important, but I couldn't get it to go horizontal. It was a picture of Viva and Erma when they were little.

Stephanie looked at some little shoes that were her grandmother's first pair of shoes.

This posed pictures may exclude people in the family by marriage (I'm in some versions of some of these pictures (probably the bigger ones above) - but not these, the ones I took myself. This is the picture of all people related on the Schwarz side through Louise and Hiram.

Sharon led some more discussion. The group decided to meet next in two years in Marietta (OH) (about 45 minutes up river, where my maternal maternal relatives are from).

Sharon also led a raffle and Kathy (below) won something. We didn't win anything. There were no all-expenses paid trips to Germany, even though we did learn what part of Germany the Schwarz family came from. Ironically it wasn't Schwarzburg, but Thuringia. Schwarz also seems to be a rather common name in Germany since it just means black, so could have been used in ancient times for any blacksmith or smith or some sort. Sharon also shared with us the story about how a "t" got in our name. There are two ways two spell Schwartz or Schwarz. Stephanie's grandmother claimed the name did NOT have a "t". But on some legal documents some of family is Schwartz. It turns out a well meaning family relative (Aunt Pearl's husband Cecil) had added a "t" when he worked with Frank, Ray, and the other brothers at American Standard in the southend of Columbus and filled out the paperwork for social security withholdings.

We got to relax more as all the official business ended and the crowd thinned out a bit. As usual, we were among the last people there, even though we were in a bit of a hurry (and even more than we realized - although you'd never know it - after we started driving).

The lunch food wasn't bad - some cooked by the staff there - some homemade by people there - but not super Weight Watcher-friendly. We saved a piece of pie for Vincent, just in case. We took some pictures of Larry up against the exterior wall of the Fellowship Hall-type building. He smiled less the closer I got with the camera.

I walked a little bit around the farm museum while Stephanie chatted at the end. There were some visitors there for that, not for the family reunion at all (although there appeared to be another family reunion-type event at an open-air but covered picnic table. Below was a relocated barber shop.

Going through some of these houses reminded me of the houses that Mom and I saw in Louisville in May (except this was all self-guided). One of these was the Summer house, associated with a politician from Virginia who President Lincoln apparently offered the 1864 vice presidential slot to. He declined, and East TN War Democrat Andrew Johnson ran with Lincoln on a Union ticket. I wonder if Reconstruction would have turned out differently at all if this man had been vice president, instead of Johnson, when Lincoln was shot.

Pondering these big issues, I left with Stephanie - as scheduled - around 4 p.m.

-- Perry