(The Wheeling, WVA, Suspension Bridge, Completed in 1849)

It is blowing like crazy out there. We are 1/16th of an inch south of the monster storm that is dumping a foot on new York City. South of the snow, anyway, but we are collecting the wild swirl of the circumference of the storm. Gusts to 60 miles and hour, traffic lights down, and of course we are supposed to be at Bolling Air Force Base with a long walk this morning.
 
The wind sounds like it is scouring the pink brick outside. The upper Midwest got pummeled, too. Lot of snow dumped on poor old Detroit, and all along the Buckeye state south of the lake. Pennsylvania’s mountains are getting fifteen inches, according to Terrible Ted, who is trapped in his home trying to mend a broken leg.
 
He has plenty of time to talk on the phone, which is how I got the weather report from Pittsburgh, and how I got onto Google Earth to look at a little town just west of there.
 
I have gone most of my life without a single thought about Dillonvale, Ohio.
 
I drove through the area one time with my sons, since we had stopped at the National Football League Hall of Fame in Canton. We took the Blue Highways east, rather than head back north to the turnpike. I thought we would hook up with the freeway near Wheeling, where the old National Pike crosses the Ohio River.
 
To do so I wanted to swing by and see the grand suspension bridge that crosses the main channel of the broad brown river.
 
It did not occur to me that the bridge, longest in the world when it was completed in 1849, would have had anything to do with family lore. As far as I knew, the story was anchored down in Bellaire, and in the two cemeteries up on the hill above the crumbling little town.
 
I told my sons about the town as we drove, and the stories that I knew that went back to the Civil War.
 
Great Great Great Grandfather James enlisted in the Union Army at Steubenville, I explained, parsing the number of “greats” to accommodate their generation. That much was true, but I recently found out that I was also completely wrong.
 
For whatever reason, Mom has recently had the thoughts of her girlhood on her mind.
 
She told my sister the same stories she told me. They circled around her grandfather, the son of the Civil War veteran. That is Pop, who I have only seen in one dim and ancient copy of an old photo.
 
He was married twice, I understand, his first one having died. He later married a certain Mrs. McDermott, who everyone hated- I am not certain about who “they” were, but that is how the story went.
 
Mom firmly believed that Pop was Santa Clause, because she heard him laughing downstairs on Christmas Eve.
 
This was at his home in Dillonvale Ohio, where Mom went to school through third grade, I think, and where she suffered that awful burn she that resulted from an accident that happened while she and her sister Hazel were playing with matches.
 
She fell off the porch, which put out the fire, which was good, and the house was near the church.
 
I have not been able to track down the church or the house, though I do know now that the current population of Dillonvale, is 781, and is older and poorer than the average village in the Buckeye State. I don’t think it is unusual in its bedraggled state, and more typical than a lot of the little villages left behind by the great westward expansion.
 
Grandfather Mike worked there on the railway before moving the family down to Bellaire. Mom grew pensive when she talked about Aunt Bernice Munjes, and aunt (one of five?)  who was married to the famed Pittsburgh football star Miller Munjes.
 
I have been able to find no reference to him in the Golden Age of NFL football, in the Steel City or anywhere. According to Mom he drew a lot of water back in the day, and Bernice wound up divorcing him.
 
I have a scrap of a note about Aunt Barbara (I assume this is the charming Great Aunt Barbara we met in Wheeling, with the sparkling eyes and the memory of Grandpa Mike as fresh as if he had just stepped out for a beer.) Mom says with a little wonder that they sometimes went to  visit Barbara in The Big City of Wheeling.
 
I also have the name “Eddie Schwab” written down, but have no idea who he was. I imagine I will drive up that way sometime and check it out, once this accursed winter is over.
 
Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
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