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Johnny Grodzicki
was born on Monday, February 26, 1917, in Nanticoke, Pennsylvania.
Grodzicki was 24 years old when he broke into the big leagues on April
18, 1941, with the St. Louis Cardinals. His biographical data, year-by-year
hitting stats, fielding stats, pitching stats (where applicable), career
totals, uniform numbers, salary data and miscellaneous items-of-interest
are presented by Baseball Almanac on this comprehensive Johnny Grodzicki
baseball stats page.
George Sisler is on top row 2nd from left; Joe Garagiola is 4th from
right on top row; Red Schoendienst is 4th from left in middle row; John
Grodzicki is 2nd from right in middle row; Stan Musial is 3rd from left
in bottom row.
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Joseph Kanon |
An
Author's Tale by:
Elizabeth Skrapits - eskrapits@citizensvoice.com
Publisher Joseph Kanon's fascination with World War II history brought
him to the doorstep of the nuclear age and a new career as an author,
light years away from his birthplace in Nanticoke.A
vacation trip from Manhattan to the site of the Manhattan project transformed
a book publisher into a book author.
In the summer of 1995, Joseph Kanon took time off from his publishing
job in New York City to visit Los Alamos, New Mexico. He was interested
in the World War II era, and wanted to see the birthplace of the first
atomic weapons.
"It just absolutely fascinated me," the 60-year-old Nanticoke
native said during a recent interview. "It looks like an average
American town. But 60 years ago it was the most secret place on earth.
If you signed on for the project, you effectively left the planet."
The research and development team at Los Alamos, made up of some of the
greatest scientific minds of the era and led by physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer,
worked in an isolated former school building to create the atomic bombs
that would be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
People knew something was going on out on the mesa, but they didn't ask,
Kanon said. The scientists were completely isolated from the general public.
Even police weren't allowed near the laboratory - which gave Kanon an
intriguing idea for a thriller.
"What would have happened if there had been a crime? How would they
have gone about solving it?" he said.
That speculation led to Kanon's first novel, the Edgar award-winning historical
mystery "Los Alamos."
Since then, he has written three others, "The Prodigal Spy,"
`Alibi," and "The Good German" - which was made into a
movie last year starring George Clooney and Cate Blanchett - and is working
on a fifth.
When he was growing up with his two brothers in the family home on Kosciuszko
Street, Kanon had no inkling what his future would hold.
"I had a perfectly reasonable and, I suppose, perfectly happy childhood,"
he recalled.
Kanon's father Albert, one of seven siblings born in Nanticoke, worked
in the mines. He died several years ago, Kanon said. His mother Hildreth,
originally from Harveys Lake, is alive and well and living in Tunkhannock.
In his youth, Kanon especially enjoyed hopping a Martz bus, either with
his parents or on his own, for a visit to what he considered the most
exciting city in the world: New York.
"It wasn't that I was yearning to get out of where I was - children
don't think in those terms," Kanon said. "But I suppose if people
asked me where I wanted to live when I grew up, I would have said New
York."
After graduating from Greater Nanticoke Area High School in 1964, Kanon
attended Harvard for undergraduate studies, then took his master's at
Trinity College, Cambridge, England.
He did end up living in New York City with a career in the publishing
industry. Kanon was CEO of E. P Dutton, then later, executive vicepresident
of Trade and Reference Publishing at Houghton Mifflin.
`Almost all my life I was in publishing," Kanon said. "I didn't
have manuscripts secretly in drawers; I wasn't looking to do anything
else. I would have stayed in the industry forever."
Until that fateful trip to Los Alamos.
Kanon was intrigued by World War II and its aftermath. He considers the
war "the worst thing that ever happened." Hitler needed to be
stopped, Kanon said, but 65 million people were killed.
"What I'm drawn to about it, is it is really the hinge of the 20th
century," he said. "In the postwar period, we have 50, 60 years
distance and we know the world shifted on its axis then."
It was the atomic bomb thatchanged everything, Kanon said.
He believes much of the Manhattan Project coverage is skewed. He calls
Los Alamos the "Silicon Valley of the 1940s," populated with
youthful - their average age was 27 - and patriotic scientists.
But because of 60 years of nuclear baggage, Los Alamos "seemed like
it was made up of Dr. Strangeloves who had gone out into the desert to
plot the end of the world," he said.
"It was a critical time," Kanon said. ""Perfectly
ordinary people are placed in the role of having to make decisions that
will affect people for years to come."
When he got the idea to set a mystery in Los Alamos, Kanon wondered, as
a publisher, which author he could pass it to. Nobody came to mind.
He got so wrapped up in the story he decided to take a stab at writing
it himself. However, he didn't tell anyone: it would be embarrassing if
it turned out he was a publisher who couldn't write a book.
But he could.
"I discovered, somewhat to my surprise, I loved doing this,"
Kanon said.
He gave up his job in publishing for life on the other side of the business.
Each morning he takes the subway to the New York Public Library - he needs
a routine; he can't work from home, and envies people who can.
Kanon's wife, Robin Straus, is a literary agent. Not his, though.
"That would be like doing your own dental work. You have to keep
things separate," he said.
They have two sons:
Michael, 22, a jazz pianist who just graduated from Oberlin, and David,
25, a pre-med student who is a paramedic with Lenox Hill Hospital.
Read more @ josephkanon.com |
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Governor
John Sydney Fine (1893-1978)
January 16, 1951–January 18, 1955
Republican
The son of a coal miner, John S. Fine rose to face
post-war challenges as governor and the birth of “suburbia.”
Fine was born in a mine “patch” home in the anthracite coal
town of Alden, Newport Township, Luzerne County, on April 10, 1893.
Fine was the son of Jacob W. Fine and Margaret Croop Fine. Fine learned
about hard work at a young age as he labored on the coal company’s
farm, plowing fields, milking cows, and doing other chores. While Fine
was still young, the family moved to Nanticoke where he attended Nanticoke
High School and wrote community news part time for a small newspaper.
After graduating from high school, Fine earned his
LL.B. degree from Dickinson Law School in Carlisle in 1914. The following
year he was admitted to the Luzerne County Bar, practicing law in Wilkes-Barre,
near his hometown of Nanticoke, until the start of World War I. In May
1917, Fine enlisted in the 23rd U. S. Army Engineers, advancing to the
rank of sergeant. In 1919, while stationed in Ireland, the future governor
advanced his education with post-graduate work at the University of
Dublin’s Trinity College. He was discharged from the military in
August 1919 and returned to his law practice, eventually as a partner
in the firm Coughlin and Fine.
His direction toward public service and politics was
noted soon after law school when he became Republican district chairman,
Fourth Luzerne District, serving 1916 to 1920, except during military
duty. He became secretary of the Republican County Committee, 1920–1922
and Luzerne County Republican chairman, 1922–1923. In 1927, Fine
began a 23-year career as a court judge. Governor Gifford Pinchot appointed
him to the bench of the Court of Common Pleas, Luzerne County, where
he served from January 3, 1927, through a successful public election
for a ten-year term that November, and was re-elected for another ten
years in November 1939. Soon after that election, on December 5, 1939,
at the age of 46, Fine married Helene Pennebecker Morgan, and from this
marriage were two children, John Sydney Jr. and Donald.
On July 15, 1947, he was elevated to the Pennsylvania
Superior Court after being appointed by Governor James Duff to fill
a vacancy left by retiring Judge Thomas Baldrige. In November 1947,
Fine was successfully elected to a permanent term, serving until he
began his campaign for governor on March 1, 1950. Fine was the choice
of Governor Duff to succeed him as governor and together they campaigned,
with Duff running for the U. S. Senate. A continuing feud between Duff
and the Pennsylvania Manufacturers Association forced Fine to contend
with a bitter multi-million dollar primary among opposing Republican
factions, but he was victorious in the primary. In the fall election
of 1950, Fine faced the charismatic Democratic mayor of Philadelphia,
Richardson Dilworth, a Yale cum laude graduate and a former marine with
a Purple Heart from World War I and a Silver Star in World War II. Dilworth’s
running mate was Michael A. Musmanno, who eventually became a state
Supreme Court justice. Duff managed a victory by a slim 86,000 vote
margin, the narrowest margin for a Republican in twenty years. Fine’s
favored lieutenant governor nominee, Lloyd H. Wood, defeated Musmanno
by 126,000 votes.
Fine’s term would be a tough challenge and within
three months personal tragedy struck. During the campaign in late October
1950, Fine’s wife Helene fell from a platform and began to suffer
from severe headaches. A month after the inauguration, Mrs. Fine underwent
surgery, but her condition became critical and she died on April 23
following more brain surgery at University Hospital in Philadelphia.
Fine was only the second Pennsylvania governor to be widowed while in
office, the other being Simon Snyder in 1810. The bitterness of the
loss to his family was nearly matched by the bitterness of a divided
legislature arguing over the governor’s tax proposals.
One of the problems of postwar Pennsylvania was a lingering
recession and an unemployment rate that had doubled in just two years
prior the Fine administration. Fine inherited requirements to meet interest
payments, mandatory teacher salary increases, veterans’ bonuses,
and other state government expenses combined to be about $120 million
short of revenues. In addition, the postwar “baby boom” was
just beginning. While the upper grades of public schools were not yet
feeling the effect of the population boom, the lower grades were becoming
strained to accommodate more pupils. School enrollments increased by
about 38,000 students each year of Fine’s term. A new word, “suburbia,”
was coined as areas and counties surrounding cities began to have population
explosions, from 50 percent growth in suburban Harrisburg, for example,
to 46 percent in Montgomery County, and 387 percent for the new community
of Bristol. The urban areas, such as Philadelphia, Harrisburg, and Lancaster
grew by more than 18 percent.
School buildings were generally becoming run-down,
classrooms understaffed and overcrowded, equipment outdated and worn
out, and only half of the state’s teachers held college degrees.
There were still more than 330 one-room schools and the average teacher’s
salary was just $3,410 per year. The poor state of the Commonwealth’s
schools was despite the fact that education expenditures had been tripled
since 1940, but it was inadequate to meet the modern demands of educating
the state’s growing population.
Fine believed strongly that state government was in need of reorganization
and the Department of Health was one such agency updated to meet the
health needs of local communities. Fine expanded mental health programs,
highway programs, and a clean up of state waterways begun in previous
administrations. The governor formed the Chesterman Committee to study
government structure and to make recommendations. However, recommendations
were not completed until after Fine left office. To pay for new or expanding
programs, Fine proposed a one half percent income tax, but the General
Assembly rejected the idea. The governor wanted to avoid increasing
the tax burden on businesses, believing that it would cause more unemployment.
In fact, he gave employers retroactive tax credits in connection with
the Unemployment Compensation Reserve Fund. Fine instead turned to other
revenue sources. Except for a limited six-month sales tax during the
Pinchot administration, the state’s first permanent sales tax,
amounting to one percent, was passed in 1953 and has increasingly remained
a part of Pennsylvania’s budget ever since. Under the State Public
School Building Authority, created in 1947, more than $430 million was
borrowed and committed to 714 school building projects, the biggest
school building boom in state history. In 1951, the legislature expanded
the ability of local school districts to form their own taxing authorities.
Fine also signed laws in 1951 providing training in
areas such as nursing for the unemployed, licensing for commercial homes
for the elderly, rehabilitation programs for drug users, and safety
regulations in the handling of liquid gases. Pennsylvania had been ranked
near the bottom in public health by the American Public Health Association
and Fine saw to improvements in health care. He approved a pay raise
for legislators, congressional redistricting, allowing a truck weight
limit increase from 15,000 to 60,000 pounds, and extending the Turnpike
into his native Luzerne County.
Although Fine came down on the side of privacy when
he vetoed the General Assembly’s attempt to publish the names of
welfare recipients, he considered himself a Cold War warrior and was
a strong anti-Communist. Because of the fervor raised with the hunt
for Communists in the United States during the era of Joseph McCarthy,
whom Fine supported at the time, the Communist Party was outlawed and
Fine required all state workers, including teachers in state supported
colleges, to each sign a loyalty oath. In his farewell address, Fine
expressed the fear of many Americans who firmly believed that a surprise
Russian nuclear attack and war with the Soviet Union was a real possibility.
During the second half of his administration, Fine
signed into law a uniform child adoption law, prison reform, and he
established the Governor’s Commission on Race Relations, a cross-section
of respected civic leaders to work with local communities to end discrimination.
At the same time, he opened up the State Police to African Americans
and ended segregation in the state divisions of the National Guard.
Fine initiated the construction of the State Vocational Rehabilitation
Center at Johnstown, of which the dedication would be left to the next
governor, George Leader. Other rehabilitation centers around the state
were established to retrain injured workers. The governor also sought
revisions in the state constitution, but Pennsylvanians voted down the
idea and would not be ready for such a change until 1968.
Fine was the first Pennsylvania governor to have his
inauguration televised, but television would also prove to cut both
ways. During the National Republican Convention in July 1952, Fine led
the Pennsylvania delegation. Privately, Fine supported General Douglas
McArthur for president, but a group within his own delegation favored
Senator Robert Taft. Fine requested time from the chair of the convention
to caucus his delegation before casting votes, which would normally
be granted as a floor courtesy to a state delegation. The chair reportedly
reneged on the request, which made Fine appear indecisive to television
viewers. Further, Fine was snubbed by the convention leadership when
he sought to cast Pennsylvania’s vote to put Dwight Eisenhower
over the top as the party’s nominee. Again, the discourtesy made
the governor appear foolish to viewers. This incident hurt Fine’s
public image and overshadowed his accomplishments as governor.
Fine faced great challenges in a postwar economy, political
enemies within his own party, negative headlines from the news media,
and a booming population, but despite overwhelming opposition in some
instances, his administration reached many noteworthy goals that he
set. It was also during Fine’s term of office that Dr. Jonas Salk,
who was working at the University of Pittsburgh, succeeded in finding
a vaccine for polio, which had crippled thousands of Pennsylvanians,
as well as people around the world. Philadelphia was reorganized under
a new charter and the nation’s first commercial nuclear generating
plant became operational in 1954 in Shippingport, Beaver County.
Following his term of office, Fine returned to the practice of law and
lived on a farm in Loyalville, Luzerne County. He also partnered with
his brother-in-law in coal stripping and construction. In 1957, he made
an unsuccessful bid to return to the bench on the Common Pleas Court
of Luzerne County.
John S. Fine died on May 21, 1978, and is buried in Oak Lawn Cemetery
in Nanticoke, Luzerne County.
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Billy Speary
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3
Time National AAU Golden Gloves Boxing champ Billy Speary held 15 titles
& fought the best in the world. Original newpaper, magazine articles
& press photos follow his brilliant career.
http://www.speary.com/
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Russ Morgan
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Russ
Morgan was born on April 29, 1904, at Scranton, Pennsylvania. He attended
schools in Scranton, Wilkes-Barre and Nanticoke, PA.
Morgan and his wife Shirley lived at 2283 Bridlewood Drive. They had
four children, Jack, David, Judy and Patty.
Morgan was an Orchestra Leader, musician, arranger, composer, singer,
as well as playing at the Dunes. He belonged to the Masons, Shriners,
Elks, Moose, Lions, Kiwanis and was one of the Nevada Kentucky Colonels.
He held five gold records and received an award for Best Recording 1949
from Cashbox Magazine for "Forever and Ever", and an award from ASCAP
for Best Theme Song "Does Your Heart Beat for Me". Other songs he wrote
were "So Tired", "You're Nobody Until Somebody Loves You", "Homespun",
"Somebody Else is Taking My Place", Sweet Eloise", "So Long, Please
Think of Me", and "Don't Cry Sweetheart".
He was a coin collector, gun collector, loved to garden and do photography.
He travelled the complete U.S., except Alaska; the Bahamas, Puerto Rico,
England, and Mexico and has lived in PA, New York City, Chicago, Berkeley
and Beverly Hills, CA, and owned two homes in Vegas and FL.
Morgan died on August 8, 1969, from a cerebral hemorrhage at Las Vegas.
Morgan's film credits include Mister Cory (1957), The Great Man (1956),
Nat 'King' Cole and Russ Morgan and His Orchestra (1953), Disc Jockey
(1951), Russ Morgan and His Orchestra (1949), Sarge Goes to College
(1947), Cigarette Girl (1947), Melody Master: Russ Morgan and His Orchestra
(1939), and Band Leader Russ Morgan Meet the Maestros (1938). He also
appeared on Your Chevrolet Showroom TV show in 1953.
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