The Parnassus Pen

The Wedding Dress Post

My youngest sister, O., is planning her autumn wedding.

Last month, she invited all of us Gaffron sisters and several of her fiance’s family members to shop for dresses with her. We sisters had a “Girl’s Weekend” which included pool time at a hotel. In fact, another hotel guess commented to me that it looked as if we were having a “Girl’s Weekend.”

O. did say “yes to the dress” that weekend. Almost everyone that loves her will need to wait until this autumn to see the “big reveal” for this dress. So let me tell you about a dress from another autumn wedding.

I present to you “The Dress” that my mother, Shirley, sewed for her wedding to my father in the autumn of 1974. Mom met my dad several weeks before her 16th birthday. Dad gave her roses for her Sweet 16 because his mother told him that it would be a nice thing for him to do. They married several weeks before Mom’s 20th birthday. Dad had just graduated from college and he had just started his first teaching job.

Both of my parents are no longer with us. I can tell you about how young they were and show you photos of how cute they were without getting myself into trouble.

The summer before the wedding, Dad took what little money he had and he went shopping someplace in Westmoreland County near where he grew up. He needed a suit for his new teaching job, and he needed a suit for his wedding. He only had enough money to purchase one of these suits. The salesman at the suit store approached him. Dad introduced himself and explained the purpose of his shopping trip. The salesman said, “What did you say your name is again?” Dad repeated his name. The salesman said, “I’m the owner of this store. My last name is also Gaffron. I’m your dad’s cousin. Tell you what. If you buy one suit, then I’ll throw in a second suit as a wedding gift from my branch of the family.”

At least that was how Dad told the story. I have no idea how much of this is actually true. Any questions would just destroy the “magic.”

Anyway, back to The Dress. Mom sewed it on the same sewing machine that she used to sew all of the clothes that she made for our family. (My sister blogged a little bit here about the “Little House on the Prairie” outfits that Mom made us.) The leftover material from the sleeves ended up in her fabric scrap collection. I used some of these fabric scraps to make accessories for my Barbie when I married Barbie off to Ken. I still have some remaining scraps for an as-yet unknown future project.

Here’s a full length portrait of my mom wearing The Dress. My dad is also in this portrait. He is wearing the suit that his “surprise cousin” allegedly gifted him on behalf of a mystery branch of the Gaffron family.

I took Mom’s dress, her veil, and her wedding album back to my house when we prepared to sell the house in Berlin. My sister O. modeled The Dress (Mom’s dress, that is) and The Veil in front of my Christmas tree last December. It fit her!

My mom’s name was Shirley. O’s middle name is also Shirley. So now we have two brides with Shirley in their names.

Let me tell you about yet another bride named Shirley. This Shirley was my maternal grandmother’s only sister. She passed away before my mom was born. Here is a photo of Shirley on her wedding day, standing with Grandma.

Shirley didn’t have any children of her own. So, I get to be the one to tell you blog readers about her. Here is what I know about this Shirley: my grandma missed her very much. A few years before Grandma passed away at the age of 90, she and I sat down with all of her photo albums. Grandma showed me many photos of her with her sister Shirley.

It is my understanding that this Shirley got married in the early 1950’s. I don’t know anything about her dress or about the dress that my grandma wore in this photo.

Even though my mom made her own wedding dress, I know a tiny bit about wedding dress shopping in the 1970’s. My late mother-in-law, Fran, married my father-in-law, Dennis, in 1974. They actually got married just a few weeks before my own parents got married. My in-laws and my own parents all belonged to the baby boomer generation. (My parents disliked the term “baby boomer.”) Fran told me that so many women shopped for wedding dresses in the 1970’s that the Pittsburgh department stores had dedicated wedding dress sections. Fran found her wedding dress in one such department store. Fran said “Yes to the Dress” because the embroidery included one of her favorite flowers.

In the very late 1970’s or the very early 1980’s, Mom brought me to her own sister’s wedding shower. It was held at somebody’s apartment in Pittsburgh. I ghosted the event (otherwise known as a “French exit” or an “Irish goodbye”) in order to check out the building’s elevator. I was still riding in the elevator when Mom found me. I wasn’t a big fan of weddings back then. But I enjoy them now.

Voluntold; The Story of the Time that My Dad Volunteered My Mom for a Project

This is my second grade soccer photo.

If anybody reading this blog identifies themself in this photo and they object to it, please reach out and I will put a big ‘ol Eat N’ Park Smiley Face or something over your mug. Most of this post is actually going to be about the team banner shown in this photo.

For the first few years after we moved to Berlin, I played AYSO soccer. A lot of my classmates also played AYSO soccer. The team in this photo was just one of many teams of kids my age who went to school in Berlin. Our AYSO teams were all co-ed. I later graduated from high school with many of the kids in this photo. The exceptions were the kids who were my age but were in other grades, and the kid who moved in junior high. (The birthday cut-off for teams for AYSO soccer was slightly different than the birthday cut-off for our school district.)

Berlin’s varsity soccer program started after I left high school. Our town didn’t have any “permanent” soccer facilities when I was a kid. The “soccer fields” that I played on during my short soccer career all became other things. For instance, most of our elementary school soccer games were held on a farmer’s then-fallow cornfield. A few years later, it became a planted cornfield. There was another, smaller “soccer field” in town where the kindergarten kids practiced and played their AYSO soccer games. We also played pick-up soccer with the neighborhood kids on the “kindergarten soccer field.” When I was in high school, the parents of one of those neighborhood kids custom built their Forever Home on the lot that was formerly the “kindergarten soccer field.”

(Disclaimer: I think that one of my childhood soccer fields was a fallow cornfield. I could be wrong about this. Maybe it was a wheatfield? I saw farms from my backyard. Our house was on the very edge of town. We certainly smelled them. My entire eighth grade class was required to take Vocational Agriculture. A lot of my classmates lived on farms and I didn’t. I mis-remember a lot of things, so I could be wrong about the corn.)

My soccer career started in March of second grade, a few months after we moved into “Joe’s House.” I am pretty sure that my soccer career was my dad’s idea.

Now it’s time to talk about something else that was my dad’s idea.

Dad took me to my soccer team’s introductory meeting, held in the school cafeteria. This was where we learned the rules, and voted on a team name. (“Firebolts” won the vote for team name.) This was also the meeting where the coach asked for a volunteer to make the team banner. Our team’s official sponsor was Keidel’s Hardware. Both the team name and the team banner needed to include Keidel’s. Spoiler: my dad volunteered my mom to make the team banner! And she wasn’t there! She was at home with their other two young kids.

I do remember how all of this went down. We came home from the soccer meeting. My dad said to my mom something like, “I volunteered you to make the banner since you like to sew!” My mom wasn’t as excited as my dad was.

Less than two months later, my parents purchased their house in Berlin. My mom repainted the living room while we were at school. My parents moved all of our stuff out of “Joe’s House” and into “Our House.” I celebrated my First Communion at our new Catholic parish the same month that we moved into Chez Gaffron. Mom found out during my First Communion rehearsal that every mom there except for her had planned a family party to celebrate their child’s First Communion. (Mom’s own parents didn’t “do” First Communion parties. Dad’s family were Protestants. Mom didn’t realize that First Communion parties were a thing. She threw one together for me. Our extended family showed up so that they could see my parents’ new house. I got a cake and presents, and it wasn’t even my birthday yet.)

My first soccer game happened a week after we moved and a week or so before my First Communion.

I understand why Mom didn’t realize that when she dropped me off for the warmup before my first soccer game, that she was also supposed to drop off the banner. There was a lot going on in our family. Also, Mom didn’t want to make the banner in the first place.

The coach and the “team mother,” or whatever they called the woman who organized everything, said to me, “Jenny, where is the banner that your mom made?”

I didn’t know. (I think that she was at my younger sister’s soccer game, which was probably held at the exact same time, at the “Kindergarten Soccer Field” that I mentioned above.)

They asked me for my parents’ new phone number. I didn’t know that either. We had only moved a week earlier.

Someone tracked my mom down (probably at my sister’s soccer game) and asked her to bring the banner to my soccer game.

Mom showed up at my soccer game with the banner and explained, “I haven’t finished it yet.”

I don’t think that Mom ever finished the team banner for Keidel’s Firebolts. The top of the banner looks sort of “unpopulated” in our team photo. However, the bottom of the banner has a cool-looking thunderbolt. You just can’t see it because kids are standing in front of it in this photo. So maybe that was her artistic vision for it. Mom was very talented in multiple textile arts, although we never said it like that. We just said, “Mom is good at sewing,” or “Mom is good at needlepoint,” or “Mom is good at crochet,” or “Mom just taught herself how to knit a sweater from watching YouTube videos,” or “Mom owns a lot of yarn.”

Mom also sewed her own wedding dress. I plan to post a photo of it soon. Unlike the soccer banner for Keidel’s Firebolts, Mom decided on her own to make her wedding dress. We still have it and cherish it very much, just as I cherish the memories of my parents during our first spring in Berlin.

Snyder of Berlin and the “Joe’s House” Era

My four sisters and I sold the house where we all grew up, in Berlin, PA, a little over a year ago, after our dad died.

A few months ago, I learned that the company who owned the town’s potato chip factory intended to shutter it. The news was so shocking that my sisters and I texted each other about it. The Chip Plant? Oh, no, not the Chip Plant!

(We all called it the “Chip Plant.”)

Snyder of Berlin potato chips were one of my first introductions to Berlin.

My parents moved us to Somerset County when I was seven years old. My dad had accepted a position teaching Special Education at Somerset Area High School. Berlin is not in the Somerset Area School District. Berlin is in the Berlin Brothersvalley School District. My dad’s brother and the brother’s family lived a few miles outside of Berlin. My dad wanted to live close to my uncle. So, he rented a house a mile or two down the highway from my uncle. My dad knew that it would be an “easy” commute to Somerset because my uncle also worked in Somerset.

My sisters and I called the rental house “Joe’s House.” My parents rented it from a man named Joe. They also rented the house from Joe’s wife (we called her Joe’s Wife) and Joe’s daughter, Rita.

Joe used to live in Joe’s House with his wife and several kids. All of the kids left the nest except Rita. Joe, Joe’s Wife, and Rita moved out of their house and into an apartment on top of their garage. Then Joe rented Joe’s House to my parents.

Joe’s Garage was actually Joe’s Welding Shop. Joe’s Wife worked at Snyder of Berlin. The day after my parents moved us into Joe’s House, Joe’s Wife brought us several bags of Snyder of Berlin potato chips. She introduced us to the potato chip brand and to the role of Snyder of Berlin in our new community.

A few days later, I visited Berlin for the first time. The potato chip factory was a short walk down a residential street from our new school.

Rita rode the school bus with me and my sister K. Rita was a senior in high school. I was in the second grade. K. was in kindergarten. The Berlin Brothersvalley School District at that time educated their entire student population in two buildings connected by an “underground tunnel.” (Just like the US Capitol, except that it was traversed each day by a few hundred kids.) I thought that Rita was cool because she sat with (and horseplayed with) the other high school kids in the back of the bus.

Rita told me that my new bedroom at “Joe’s House” had been her bedroom. You know, before her parents moved her out of her house and rented the house to another family. Rita had to ride the bus each morning with the little girls who now slept in “her” bedroom.

I wonder if we should have all called the house “Rita’s House.”

A few months after my family moved into Joe’s House, we moved out of Joe’s House. My parents found a house to purchase in the town of Berlin. We walked to school. Berlin was small enough that we rode our bikes to every corner of the town. I often rode my bike past the Chip Plant.

Rita graduated from high school. I saw her name proudly written on a paper graduation cap taped to the wall of our shared school cafeteria. I was proud that I, a newcomer and a second grader, recognized a name on that wall. I graduated from that same school ten years later.

I smelled fried potatoes on windy days while I sat in class. We took Economics and did Junior Achievement in our senior year. As our “field trip,” we walked down the street and toured the Snyder of Berlin factory. There were 78 of us in my senior class. We divided ourselves into groups of five to ten each and laughed at the hair nets that we all wore. Some of my classmates waved at their family members working on the assembly line. When my sister K. took Economics / Junior Achievement two years later, a manager from the Snyder plant visited their class several times. He gave her a bunch of Snyder swag.

Every time my family rode past Joe’s House, we explained, “That’s Joe’s House!” Then a few moments later we pointed out the house that my uncle and aunt used to own. Two of my sisters were born after the “Joe’s House” era, so they needed to know about it.

I’m not going to get into the details about why the potato chip factory in Berlin got shuttered. You can Google all that. However, it closed last month.

I assume that Joe’s Wife eventually retired from the Chip Plant. However, a bunch of my former classmates and / or their family members probably didn’t have this opportunity. The Chip Plant’s role in Berlin will be hard to replace.

Party-Crashing Egret (Lake Erie, PA)

Great Egret. Framed by ducks o the left and geese on the right. — Great Egret, Marina Lake, Presque Isle State Park, Erie, PA, Sunday, September 21, 2025

Sunrise at Drummond Island, Northern Michigan, Late August (Lake Huron)

Mackinac Island – Fresh off First Ferry of the Morning – Labor Day (Lake Huron)

On Labor Day, the Mackinac Bridge Authority in Michigan closes the bridge from 6:30 a.m. – noon. Brave pedestrians walk across the bridge. Jonathan participated the past few years. (A one-way walk, plus all of the extra walking involved for walking from one’s drop-off spot to one’s pick-up spot, ended up being 7 miles for Jonathan.) Last year he crossed the bridge and then crossed back! (I’m so proud of him.)

While Jonathan walked this year, I took the first ferry of the day to Mackinac Island. This is the earliest that I’ve ever been to the island.

Mackinac Island was a sacred spot to the local Native American tribes. It’s now a tourist attraction.

European settlers colonized it. An Astor traded furs here. (Same family as the guy who went down on the Titanic generations later.) The island now hosts two old forts, three cemeteries, many Victorian houses, and the Grand Hotel. (And a Starbucks!)

And horses. Lots and lots of horses. (“HORSE” is pretty much the entire theme of this island.) And bicycles.

Motorized vehicles are banned here except for emergency vehicles. That’s why folks pay the big bucks to come here. Tourists sightsee by bicycle, horse, or walking.

If you’re staying overnight on the island, you either schlep your luggage to your hotel or get it delivered by horse or bicycle. Same with any souvenirs that you buy. Same with the food that you eat. Same with the food that the horses eat. Same with the ingredients used to make the fudge that the tourists buy. (There are a lot of fudge shops on the island.) Same with the alcohol. It’s expensive to consume things and experiences on the island.

My in-laws used to visit as day-trippers every few years. (My husband’s parents used to live in St. Ignace, one of the towns on the mainland where one can park and catch a ferry to the island.) My father-in-law likes to joke around family and friends about the smells of the horse shit mixing with the smells of the fudge.

I’ve never spent the night “on island.” I first came here as a day-tripper 20 years ago this summer. However, this month’s Labor Day trip was my first since before 2020.

I personally find the island stressful when it’s crowded. The island is crowded every day that I ever visited, which are days with nice weather during tourist season. (Funny how that happens!) However, the crowds vary depending on the time of day and the day of the week. The only reason that I was able to take any photos of the “main drag” this year was because I got there as early as I possibly could. I arrived on the same ferry as about a dozen hotel employees. (I am under the impression that they were housekeeping staff who lived on the mainland.)

I wanted to show my blog readers what Mackinac Island looks like in the summer before “all of the rest of us day-tripper tourists” arrive on Labor Day.

So, keep in mind that I took all of these photos within an hour of stepping off of the morning’s first ferry on Labor Day. Don’t expect downtown Mackinac Island to be this empty when you arrive midday for your visit.

Also, the irony is not lost on me that I (as a tourist) witnessed a lot of service and tourism industry employees up bright and early at work on Labor Day.

After I took all of these photos, I booked a rather expensive carriage tour around the island on the first tour of the day. To make a long story short, the carriage ride was in two parts. For the first part, I had a Romanian carriage driver / tour guide. I learned that he was a university student and he was in a program that permitted him to work in the United States for three months each year, and then travel for a fourth month. He is only eligible for this program while he is a student. Next year, he will graduate and he will no longer be eligible for this program. He drove us past the traditional tourist trap staples such as the Grand Hotel and the Grand Hotel’s golf course. Some poor little girl wiped out on her bicycle in front of our carriage while we were at the Grand Hotel. (The roadway there is a steep hill.) She cried. Her parents were there and she got back on her bike. I saw the same little girl walking around on a different part of the island several hours later, so I like to believe that she was fine. It must have been mortifying for her to fall like that in front of a full carriage, though.

Then our Romanian driver / tour guide drove us past the dormitories where many of the service industry employees reside and past the stable where the horses reside.

I learned a lot about horses on both the first and second parts of the carriage tour. I forgot most of it already. I do remember that the Romanian driver / tour guide finds it necessary to rest his horses behind trees and shrubs when he is on the section of roadway that borders the Grand Hotel’s golf course. This is to prevent golf balls from hitting the horses, causing them to bolt. I learned several details about the Romanian guide’s personal life. I learned absolutely nothing about the personal life of the driver / guide that we had for the second part of the tour.

The tour company had a “moderator” who managed our transfer from the first carriage and the first part of the tour, through a building that had a souvenir shop and concession stand, and onto a second carriage for the second part of the tour. I learned that this man lived in St. Ignace. He told us that if he did not go to work on Labor Day, he would otherwise be stuck at home all day due to the traffic backups that result from the closing of the Mackinac Bridge.

After Jonathan walked across the Mackinac Bridge from St. Ignace to Mackinaw City, he took a ferry from the Mackinaw City side to the island. (The two ferry companies offer service from both sides of the bridge.) The ferry that Jonathan rode to the island almost wiped out two small power boats that stopped directly in front of that ferry. Also, a freighter passed in the shipping channel on one side of this whole scene, so the ferry couldn’t swerve in that direction to avoid the power boats. Then Jonathan watched sailboats and other small watercraft leave the island’s marina until I finished my carriage tour. (Jonathan is a boat nerd.)

By then, downtown Mackinac Island had a lot more people out and about. We had lunch at the Pink Pony. We waited almost an hour for our table, but it was okay because we haven’t eaten there since before 2020. Also, we overheard the hostess tell patrons who came in after us that the wait was now one and a half hours. The Pink Pony is one of those places where you have to put your name on a list even to be seated at the bar. Jonathan watched the bartender confiscate bar chairs from “patrons” who stole them from the bar in order to join their friends at a table. (“Fine, I guess we’ll just stand then!” said the now chair-less guests.) A bunch of other patrons wore tee shirts announcing that they completed the bridge walk.

The Pink Pony is the restaurant on the ground floor of the Chippewa Hotel, seen in the background of this photo, on the right side of Main Street.

I shopped for overpriced souvenirs. (The souvenirs arrived on the island by ferry. Then I purchased the souvenirs and took them off of the island by ferry.) We returned to St. Ignace on the ferry. By then I had reached my limit with crowds and the smell of horses.

Jonathan confessed that the ferry rides to and from the island contribute significantly to his enjoyment of these trips. I agree. For several years, we brought our bicycles and pedaled around the island’s perimeter. We toured Fort Mackinac once. One year, I toured the Grand Hotel. (The Grand Hotel charges non-guests $10 per adult and $5 per child to walk up on the porch and enter the hotel in order to keep out the “unwashed masses.”) Other years were more low key. Jonathan likes to look at the boats in the marina. For several summers, we visited the island during the Race to Mackinac. This is an annual sailboat race (in July) from Chicago (sponsored by the Chicago Yacht Club) to the Round Island Lighthouse / Channel at Mackinac Island. So, Jonathan sat on the beach at Windermere Point to watch boats cross the finish line for several hours. (I think that Jonathan watched the race while I toured the Grand.)

I read a lot of beach reads about the island of Nantucket off of the coast of Massachusetts by Elin Hilderbrand. I like to think of Mackinac Island as a sort of “Nantucket of the Midwest.” Except with no automobiles. And probably with more horses.

Postscript: Here are some photos that I took of the Mackinac Island Area (Round Island Light House, Mackinac Bridge at Sunset, etc.) several years ago.

My Great-Grandfather Left His Immigrant Family to Serve in World War I, Become a POW, and Lose the Use of His Arm

I will occasionally blog about stuff that my sisters and I found when we cleaned out our late parents’ house.

For instance, here are two books that we found. They belonged to our paternal great-grandfather, Leonard Robert Gaffron. (My uncle Leonard and my father Robert were both named after him.)

Leonard Gaffron was a veteran of World War I.

The book above says on the cover:

80th

DIVISION

SUMMARY OF OPERATIONS

IN THE

WORLD WAR

PREPARED BY THE

AMERICAN BATTLE MONUMENTS

COMMISSION

The inside page says the same thing, with this added:

United States Government

Printing Office

1944

So, while my grandfather Carl was away serving in World War II in 1944, his own father, Leonard, received a book from the US government about a summary of operations in World War I.

The second book says the following on the cover:

WAR DIARY

COMPANY “E”

320TH INFANTRY

Compiled upon the occasion of the Eighth Annual Reunion, commemorating the Tenth Anniversary of the Company’s organization at Camp Lee, Virginia

September Nineteen Seventeen

June Nineteen Nineteen

The inside page says:

DEDICATED to all the men of Company “E”, 320th Infantry [80th Division], who made the supreme sacrifice.

According to family lore, Leonard Gaffron was a tremendous athlete. Before the War, he pitched a no hitter in a local baseball game. During the War, the Germans wounded him in the arm that he used to pitch the no-hitter. The Germans also took him prisoner. The Germans released him, but he lost the use of that arm due to his injury. At some point after the War, he went back to playing baseball- with his other arm. He pitched another no-hitter.

According to my dad, his Grandfather Gaffron earned a living by farming with one arm and two mules. He named one of the mules Kaiser Bill. (This was a reference to Kaiser Willhelm II, the German emperor during World War I.)

Years after World War I, a local newspaper interviewed my great-grandfather about his experience as a POW. My dad’s cousin brought a copy of this article to last year’s family reunion. He put the article up on a big screen so that we could all read it.

The article left out stuff that we Gaffrons had heard in the family lore. For instance, the article downplayed my great-grandfather’s ability to communicate with his German captors. My great-grandfather spoke German fluently. His parents were German immigrants.

My family concluded last fall that the article differed from the family lore because the article writer – or my great-grandfather, or both of them – didn’t want to draw attention to his German immigrant background. Somebody was apparently worried about the optics of his experience as a POW.

I never met Leonard Gaffron because he died before I was born. I have no idea if the Gaffrons who immigrated from Germany were a bunch of jerks. This doesn’t matter. Leonard had to farm and play baseball with one arm after he was captured as a POW in the War. From the family lore, the household struggled between World War I and World War II. The Great Depression happened, everyone struggled, but Leonard had to struggle with one arm.

Leonard’s son Carl went off to serve the U.S. in World War II. Then Carl came home and eventually married into another German immigrant family.

While we consider ourselves Americans now, some used to consider us outsiders. Interesting how a generation or two can affect our viewpoints.