AGATHA CHRISTIE WOULD BE ENVIOUS OF LINDA LOPEZ GANDY

 

Monongah High Alumni Association president Linda Lopez Gandy is a super sleuth who finally found out who was the original owner of the 1941 Monongah High graduation ring with EY on it.

My cousin!

Elizabeth Yuhas Dudash, who later married Andrew Dudash. Her mother was Clara Kerkes Yuhas whose brother, Steve Kerkes, married my father’s sister, Helen Olesky Kerkes. Clara married Andrew Yuhas. After Andrew passed away Clara opened a boarding house for Carolina miners to earn money. Her home was near the top of the hill on one of the Carolina streets. In winter we had to park our car at the bottom of the hill and walk, slipping and sliding, to Clara’s home.

Liz’s siblings are Irene Yuhas Ice, who married Guy Ice; and Clara “Tunny” Yuhas Knicely, who married Jimmy Kniceley.

Here’s Linda’s post:

 

The ring belongs to Elizabeth Yuhas. She married Andrew Dudash. Her son Andy is the one I gave the ring to. He was so happy to get it. Very emotional.

 

The husband of the Hines woman who attended the Alumni Banquet husband searched for someone in ninth grade that would’ve graduated in 1941 and found Elizabeth’s name and that she was the aunt of Trudy Ice Lemley.  Trudy came to Donna Davis’ home on Monday and brought her cousin Andy Junior and we presented the ring to him.

 

Here are some pictures of Elizabeth when she went to the prom can’t understand why she didn’t graduate because back then graduation was usually a week or two after the prom but Andy said his grandmother went to Maryland to make bullets for the war and he thought his mother stayed home.

 

In the teacher Miss Gaskins group photo with Elizabeth is Kathren Ahern Loss, Class of 1942, who still attends Monongah High Alumni Banquets! I’ve hugged and been hugged by Kathren year after year at the Banquets! Small world, huh?

Also in the photo is Mary Jane McDaniel Pritchard, mother of Beth Pritchard Brooks, Jane Pritchard Moore and Jonna Pritchard Barnett. Mary Jane’s father was Ted McDaniel, legendary Monongah stationmaster on the trolley line that went from Fairmont to Clarksburg. Mary Jane’s siblings are Jo Ann McDaniel Huff, Class of 1949; Jim McDaniel, Class of 1960; and Donald McDaniel.

 

Elizabeth’s sister Irene, Class of 1946, had four children: Trudy Ice Lemley, Tom Ice, Terry Ice and Todd Ice. Both Irene and her sister, Clara “Tunny” Yuhas, Class of 1944, had a thing for the musical Vingle boys during their Monongah High days. Tunney “thought the world of” Raymond Vingle, Irene once told me. Irene dated Anthony “Bugs” Vingle, now deceased, as is Bugs’ widow, Mary Martha Cavrich Vingle, who passed away in 2011.

 

Aunt Helen was the world’s greatest nut roll baker! She would mail me the delicious treats every Christmastime.

 

Frances Olesky Fazio, who married Renzy Fazio and helped him run the Fazio Grocery at the bottom of Jackson Street hill, was the sister of Aunt Helen and my father, John W. Olesky, Sr.

 

Irene was a Monongah High student going to summer school, not for catchup credits but to get a course out of the way that she wanted, when I was about 12 years old. Irene stayed at Steve and Helen’s house on Pike Street at the Walnut Street intersection that is occupied today by Mary Chris Fazio Ramsey and her husband, Tom Ramsey. I visited Mary Chris and Tom over Memorial Day Weekend during my Friday tour of Monongah before I attended the 99^th Monongah High Alumni Banquet on Saturday.

Wow, Linda, you put Angela Lansbury to shame. You found the owner of the 1941 Monongah High class ring and photos of Kathren Ahern Loss, always the oldest graduate showing up at the Monongah High Alumni Banquet, and Mary Jane McDaniel Pritchard of the famous stationmaster’s family.

Well done!