Rimersburg Community Days provides a trip back into time

“Several years ago I was given some old copies of the Rimersburg newspapers and I was hooked,” he said. “After that, I started collecting everything I could get my hands on about the town.

The photographs jogged the memories of many who were present, leading to several lively discussions about who owned what and when.

Many people recalled a female teacher at Cherry Run School who seemed to defy time and taught several generations of students in the same family.

A photo of Armagost’s Hudson car dealership started a discussion about Hudsons, other makes of cars and the owner who seemed to be involved in many community activities.

A photo of the Catfish post office, in which a group of men appear to be miners, did not ring any bells. The store that housed the post office also sold Graham and Bumgardner Co.’s Pioneer Shoes.

Several photos of a group of Rimersburg residents from the 1950s and earlier led to a lively game of “guess who?”

“A bunch of us would take some of the pies from the truck,” she said. “We would hide them in the barn, and what we couldn’t eat we would take out to a pond in one of the mining jobs and throw them in.

“Well, they were in boxes and they floated. So we took rocks and threw them at the pies to sink them.”

Yeany also had a story about misappropriated baked good.

“We would watch for the donut truck, and when the guy was in the store we would grab some donuts,” he said. “One night the manager came busting out of the hedge. We dropped the donuts and took off, but he had already spotted us. Next day the manager came to the house with the donuts we dropped.

“My dad marched us down to the store and we had to go through the checkout line and pay for the donuts. I learned never to steal donuts, at least when someone was looking.”

Yeany, who had a display of memorabilia from the town’s history, also operates a web page based on old Rimersburg.

Another borough resident, Melody Prior, said, “It was a good way to grow up.”