Irish Immigrants in Tremont, Pennsylvania

From the Carroll Daily Herald (Iowa)
 Married at Tremont  Pennsylvania July 16 1883 by the Rev. Father McDevitt, William Coates of Carroll, to Miss Mary A Craddock of Tremont.  Tremont is the old town of the parties.  They arrived in Carroll July 21 and Wednesday, the twenty-fifth a large number of Mr. Coates friends in Carroll repaired to their farm near town and spent a most enjoyable evening.

So, how could I resist visiting Tremont?  Located along the railroad in Pennsylvania's coal country, Tremont was the home of many Irish and German immigrants who worked in the mines.  It is still a small town today where the churches outnumber the bars.  The houses share the architectural elements of those built in the 1800's and reflect the modest means of their inhabitants. 

We visited the Catholic cemetery in search of any Coates or Craddock headstones.  We only found one of Bridgette Coates.  She died in 1860 and her headstone was erected by her son John Coates.  That one grave site provided the only tangible evidence of my ancestors' past in the area, since a search of the public records showed that neither family owned land in the county.

I was struck by the abundance of Halloween decorations in light of the holiday being a full six weeks away.  The festivity of the decorations seemed to me to reflect an optimism that you may not expect in the depressed working neighborhoods.  During a stop at a nearby convenience store, the young man working the cash register greeted us and commented on the jam we were buying.  He then shared his recipe for making fruit topping for pies and the like.  He just coats fresh berries with sugar and mixes them together, poking the berries a little bit with his fork to release the juice.  Then he adds a little bit of cornstarch.  For strawberries, he uses brown sugar to give it a kick.  He said it is very easy and delicious.  I was left with a kind feeling toward the people of Tremont, but also with a thankfulness that my own ancestors left the coal field for the open fields of Iowa!