Hundreds expected for Smock Homecoming
SMOCK – On Saturday, some 200 people over the age of 60 will return home to Smock to go to school. Only, they won’t be learning lessons. They’ll be reuniting with friends.
The current and former residents of Smock will meet for dinner and reminiscing at the old Smock school as part of the community’s 12th homecoming.
Held every two years, the Smock Homecoming, designed to reunite those people who lived in the small coal patch town in the 1930s and 1940s, was started in 1979 by resident John Vaselenak. He had originally planned to host the event for all the old “patch” residents, but when more than 500 people agreed to show, the event was moved to a local hotel.
Meeting at the old Smock school allows all the former students a chance to touch base and remember the old times, event committee member George Vargulich said. The school was closed like many other small community schools at the end of Word War II. So, the reunion allows all of the former students from the 1920s on to the closing to keep in touch, said Vargulich.
And, it also explains why the attendance has dropped off a bit since that first homecoming in 1979. Illness, infirmity and deaths have dropped attendance, but remarkable numbers of people still manage to make the event, Vargulich said.
And they don’t just come from near. Some come from as far away as Australia.
To understand why people would be willing to travel so far to visit their old homes, “well, you just got to understand patch people from these old coal mining towns,” Vargulich said.
Growing up, everyone was close knit, he said, and even the grocery in town was run on a credit system over cash.
That store, which was operated by the Jendral family in the 1930s and 1940s, was as much a part of the community as any one person.
“They had a big heart to allow people to buy on credit in those days,” Vargulich said.
If socializing isn’t enough to bring back the flavor of “those good old days,” the Smock Historical Society opens the second floor of the old Union Supply Company Store that now serves as the community center next to the Smock Volunteer Fire Department. Items there – from a wedding gown from the late 1800s to wringer washers and old coal mine tools – date back to the 1800s and later, Vargulich said.
“We go there and look through things, and that helps us remember even more,” he said.
Vargulich recalls things like the old days when Smock had its own football team. In the 1930s, the Smock football players would get together for night games in a field near the old school. There was a grandstand with a roof and even a dancehall for other social occasions.
“The grandstands could hold 500 people. I was 10 years old at the time and remember having to pay to get in and watch the games,” Vargulich said.
All that came to an end in 1937, when a terrible storm moved across the area and winds blew the grandstand over and into the dancehall. The effects of the storm were so severe that when the dancehall was hit, an upright piano inside was pushed over and accidentally killed two pre-teen boys seeking shelter from the storm.
Today, Vargulich said, things are different with new families moving in and old families moving out and away.
“Today, I don’t know half of the people in the community,” he said.
As a way of introducing the old and new, Vargulich said he hopes to see some of the new residents stop in and meet with the old at either the Old Union Supply or at the Sunday night dinner sponsored by the fire department.
“This way everybody can get to know a little bit about each other and about the great community they live in,” he said.