Clippings from when Retiring Guy subscribed to the print edition of the Warren Times Observer, accompanied by items from the Archives.
August 5, 2004
I remember WAHS '68 classmate Linda Loomis as someone who was always in motion. I have a vague memory of her tap-dancing up a storm in a junior-high assembly or some other community event. But then maybe I'm just confusing this snapshot in time with one of those "let's put on a show" movies I watched on TV.
For years, she operated a dance studio in the former Ralph's Market on Conewango Avenue in Warren PA. It's now a second-generation business.
Linda was a mainstay on the cheerleading squad from 9th through 12th grades, captain in her senior year, if I recall. I wonder what direction her life would have taken had she been able to take advantage of Title IX opportunties.
August 9, 2004
The building is now home to the Faith Fellowship Church of God. Retiring Guy recalls attending an instructional basketball clinic held at the First Baptist Church gym when was in 4th grade. That would have been early 1960.
August 12, 2004
Often referrerd to as a "singing bridge" due to the humming noise made by the tires of a car crossing its open-grate steel deck. Its narrow roadway oftentimes made crossing it a white-knuckle experience, especially when the surface was wet.
August 20, 2004
As for the "many challenges like declining membership and conflicts within the congregation", they had been going on for a long before prior to 2004.
Today we were at First Methodist for the Lenten noonday service. Ate lunch with Vi Lilja, Arlene Hornstrom, and Eva Terry. The subject of St. Paul pastor came up and Arlene, who is outspoken, said she hoped he didn't stay 23 years. No one else said anything but you could read their thoughts by the silence. He isn't too well liked and it is too bad as it is a good situation but he doesn't call and isn't the least bit friendly. It's sad as we have such a good group of people.
As a current member of St. Paul's described to me in a text last year:
The building is the same, some of the original members are still there, but a lot less of them. The 2 pastors after your dad killed the membership.
Front-page news in 1970
August 29, 2004
In 1958, the parish council of St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Warren PA, where Retiring Guy's dad served as pastor from 1957 to 1981, voted to approve the purchase of a Victorian-era house located across the street from the church. The large 3-story structure had been subdivided into apartments some years earlier and was now going to be repurposed as a parish center housing the church offices and plenty of classroom and meeting space for Sunday School operations, as well as confirmation classes and Luther League
Grade school students attended Sunday School on the second floor, where Harriet Carlson Johnson held court each Sunday morning. Once a new church at a different location was dedicated, the house was sold and reverted back to its apartment status, the same purpose it serves today.
August 28, 2004
Harriet, Eric's wife, served as the program leader for children (kindegarten through sixth grade) attending Sunday School at St. Paul's. Prior to our classroom instruction, she led us in a brief worship service, with the emphasis on singing. Songs in heavy rotation included "Jesus Loves Me", "Jacob's Ladder", and this crowd pleaser...
...which Miss Carlson, as she was first known to me, encouraged us to sing at the top of our lungs. We always obliged her.
September 2004
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