When I was a kid we played baseball on land behind the garages that housed cars from those who rented Consolidation Coal Company’s homes on Thomas Street in Monongah.

Our ballfield was between the long row of garages, under one massive roof, and Camden Avenue (U.S. 19) and the Lawrence and Regina Boone Godby home, where their children, Sonny and Jackie, lived.

Along came the Catania brothers, Angelo and Alex, trying to make a living after serving in World War II. So they paved over our Paradise, not to make a parking lot, but a Sinclair service station.

In April Angelo, 90, and his daughter Paula Catania visited the site of Angelo and Alex’ business venture.

Reports sister Mary Catania Heywood, who lives in Covina, California where the clan moved from Monongah near seven decades ago:

“Angelo and Paula were in Cleveland in April for our great-nephew’s wedding and, from there, went to Monongah for several days.

“Your ballfield, as you call it, was something he found very changed. He just couldn’t believe how different it looked.”

Mary added:

“They saw so many changes. They had a great time.  They brought back pictures of the houses on Thomas Street. Hard to believe the changes. However, he said they all looked nice.”

It was Angelo who convinced his siblings and father Mandala Catania to make the move from Thomas Street in Monongah to Covina, which he discovered and fell in love with during his Army Coast Artillery training days of World War II.

Alex Catania, Class of 1944; Mary Catania Heywood, Class of 1945; Josephine Catania, Class of 1952; and their father, Mandala, much like the Conestoga Wagon families before them, joined Angelo, Class of 1943, in the expedition to a new land and a new life. For Mandala, widower of Schiro Catania, it was a reminder of his native Italy.

Today, Alex and Josephine – closest to my age and therefore a playmate during our childhoods – have passed away. So did Pauline Layne Catania, the Monongah girl that Angelo married.

Angelo’s sister, Carmella Catania Allard, Class of 1947, wound up in San Antonio because her husband, Omer, still was in the Air Force when the Catania migration took place. He retired after a pair of decades in The Wild Sky Yonder branch. But Carmella made it to Covina for Angelo's fire-hazard 90th birthday candles-lighting several months ago.

Mary’s husband, Arthur, is in a wheelchair.  

Mary closed with:

“It's beyond me how many hours you spend doing the MHS blog.  Without contradiction, it is excellent, very newsworthy and what a wonderful updater.”

Coming from a Catania, I consider that one of the highest compliments I have ever received. I do spend hours EVERY day scouring the Internet, Facebook in particular, looking for items about Monongah High alumni to share with each other.

I think God, Sister Agnes and Mary Turkovich, who embarked me on my 43-year newspaper career, were just preparing me to pay back with this Monongah High Alumni blog venture, 19 years after my 1996 retirement from newspapers in Charleston and Williamson, West Virginia, St. Petersburg, Florida, and Dayton and Akron, Ohio.

He works in not so mysterious ways, too, you know.