It was a quick trip to Bellefonte Pennsylvania for two nights while I started the ‘roots’ part of our adventure. A couple of hundred miles west of New York, this area was opened to commercial logging followed by coal mining in the 1800s.
We stayed at a nice campground that obviously catered to Penn State football fans in the Fall. A lot of unattended large rigs are covered with Penn State hoo-ha. They had a game the coming weekend so a few early birds were there. The facility was very nice, had a nice pond next to some horse pastures. It also had a rather elaborate set of tracks for motocross bike racing.
My 2 x great grandfather Thomas Tubridy immigrated with his young family to the mountains just north of here in what is now the Burrough of Snoe Shoe. His youngest son, Thomas Anthony, was a successful coal miner and his son Edward Bernard – my grandfather – went to college at Penn State nearby to our RV park. More detail is on my Tubridy page.
It was a steep climb to the exit right off of Instatestate 80 for Snoe Shoe. I identified three different places in my genealogy research: Snoe Shoe, Moshannon, and the village of Gillentown which lies in between. This is where my grandfather lived with his father and two aunts in the 1900 census.
I imagined my grandfather making his way down to State College where he attended Penn State in the 1910s. Did he ride a horse or have a carriage? How long did it take?
St. Mary’s Catholic Cemetary is located near the Catholic Church in Snow Shoe. Two generations of Tubridys and some of their children are buried here. The first generation headstones were in pretty bad shape but the second generation had held up very well. The cemetery was well kept up.
It was moving to touch the headstones knowing that my ancestors had once touched them too.
Moshannon is an unincorporated community about 3 miles outside Snoe Shoe to the northwest. Right before you get into Moshannon is the village of Gillentown. There is a large facility here that is part of the Snoe Shoe Rails to Trails Association. This provides access to the old railroad bed that was vital to the extraction of lumber and coal. Membership in the association allowed the use of the trails for ATVs.
I imagined if my ancestors would ride the train into the coal mining areas.
Moshannon has a Post Office and to my surprise a small memorial to the veterans that fought in World War One – including my grandfather Edward. Like the cemetery, the monument was well kept up.
I imagined being there when the locals including my family were there to see its dedication.
I was planning to visit a museum the Lions David House museum in Snow Shoe, but alas no one showed up at the time it was supposed to be open. It has a collection of memorabilia and books on local history – it would have been interesting to see what was in there.
I spent time driving around. It is rural, to say the least. Mostly nice brick ranch houses like I remember my grandparents had. Felt pretty red 🔴.
Snow Shoe had a pizzeria, a discount beer store, and a laundromat. There is a nice Catholic Church next to the Cemetary and a Firehouse / Community Center. There was a large veterans memorial next to the Firehouse. There is a very large area with baseball fields and a pool at the edge of town. Right outside of town next to the Interstate is a large FedEx facility.
I felt I had accomplished what I was expecting to create a better connection to my past. Makes sense given the fact that it’s really all we have, and all of that is responsible for me being here, now. Pretty ethereal if you ask me.
