Jan 8, 2007 3 min read

A legend of the Laurel Mountains passed away last week: the matriarch of a beloved mountain family, the owner (with her late husband) of Glisan’s Restaurant, a half-century old landmark (or is it “good food-mark”?) on the Markleysburg ridge of the National Pike. Isay Rosenberger Glisan has moved on to her reward and we will miss her. When you entered Glisan’s you could not tell where customer ended and friend began, or where friend ended and family began. We were all intertwined and we reported in to “Isey” in the back booth where she sat, keeping an eye on the comings and goings of us all. When needed she would come over to the cash register to check someone out, perhaps selling them some of their famous rolls, bread or a pie to take home.

Certain people showed up on certain nights for that night’s special, like Friday night for macaroni and cheese and salmon cakes. Others came irregularly but always ordered the same thing. Many could not wait for her to mix up the starter to get those wonderful buckwheat pancakes going in September. They stay on the menus until spring. We call them breakfast, lunch or dinner, depending on when we arrived for a Glisan buckwheat pancake fix.

Many of us have celebrated with them as the changes have come over the years, eliminating the U-shaped counters and stools, opening the back dining room for us on weekends and for large parties, closing the Amoco Gas Station when Howard wanted to give it up and expand the restaurant, and reconfiguring the larger front dining room to make things more convenient for the waitresses. Through all the changes, Glisan’s remained Glisan’s and no trip to the mountains, or on to the East, was complete without a stop to be fortified there.

We all will still stop at Glisan’s but it will be different now. While Isey is gone, her spirit will still hover over this special place. The family picture on the back wall of the front dining room is still there, Isey and her family smiling down on all of us. No, we will never forget Isey. She is part of the memories of too many families to ever be forgotten.

So, stop, have a roll, a sweet roll or a piece of pie with the mile-high meringue. But before you eat it, lift it up in celebration to the one who made it all happen. Hail to the legend of the landmark on the Laurel Ridge at Markleysburg.

Linda Rankin

Brownsville