Did you know?
In October of 1907, 105 years ago this month, a world renowned Sunday school teacher paid a visit to Uniontown. H.J. Heinz, the noted pickle and catsup industrialist, took a little time away from the major American company that bore his name to give a speech at the forty-third annual convention of the Pennsylvania State Sabbath School Association in Uniontown.
He was the president of the organization as well as he’d been the executive director of the Allegheny County Sabbath School Association; the International Sunday School Association; and the World Sunday School Association.
It was written in his biography, not mysteriously titled “H.J. Heinz — a biography,” that “Heinz would show up to teach on Sundays, and when traveling, he always found a Sunday school to drop in on.” In other words (and please forgive me for the pun) he really “relished” teaching Sunday school.
According to the Oct. 10, 1907, edition of the Titusville Herald, it was reported that Heinz “presided at tonight’s meeting session and also gave the president’s speech” at Uniontown’s Christian church before 500 delegates.
Yet, another noted American business tycoon, John Wanamaker, was absent from the event. It was reported that Wanamaker, who founded the famed Philadelphia and New York City department stores, missed the Pennsylvania State Sabbath School Association convention for the first time in 12 years.
Wanamaker is considered to have been the father of modern advertising and a pioneer in marketing. He, too, was considered a religious leader.
Yet, as far as H.J. Heinz and his affiliations to religious organizations that contain the word “Sabbath” in them, there appears to be something of an irony. There is that structure in Pittsburgh that’s named “Heinz Field” (in honor of Heinz and the worldwide company he built), where there is something that takes place on Sundays — that has nothing to do with religion. Although, I suppose, there are a few people who’d consider a 50-yard, game-changing “Hail Mary” from Ben Roethlisberger to Mike Wallace something of a religious experience, I don’t think that’s the kind of occurrence that H.J. Heinz traveled the world teaching in Sunday schools.
But wait. While wondering if H.J. Heinz would approve of his name being used for a place where Sabbaths are frequently the sites of events where religion is never the main event, I found an interesting passage in his biography. It was in a quote from John F. Kennedy’s essay “A Nation of Immigrants” that seemed to reconcile a good old Sunday afternoon partaking in a football game, with the more traditional mornings and afternoons at church.
Heinz was the son of German immigrants. He was steeped in religious values early in life. As Kennedy wrote, “The Puritans observed the Sabbath as a day of silence and solemnity.” But he added, “The Germans clung to their concept of a ‘Continental Sunday’ as a day, not only of churching, but also of relaxation, of picnics, of quiet drinking in beer gardens while listening to music of a band.”
Let’s look at that statement a little closer. The “relaxation” might include taking in an exhilarating football game. The “picnics” sure sounds like tailgating to me. And the “quiet drinking in beer gardens” can easily mean you can knock down a few beers in your luxury box. “Listening to music of a band?” Well, it may be a stretch, but “Here We Go Steelers, Here We Go” is music to my ears. Maybe H.J. Heinz would be pleased to know his name is being used as the home of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
On another subject, I’ve discovered that the state of Texas has executed 486 people since 1976. That’s easily more than any other state in the country. During the same period, Pennsylvania has only executed three people. But over the years (since the early 1700s), Pennsylvania ranks in the top five states in the number of people who’d died at the hands of executioners — more than 1,400.
Yet I’m always surprised to read the front page accounts of public executions that have taken place in Uniontown. According a story on the front page of the Aug. 13, 1886, edition of the Titusville Herald, 200 people turned out to witness the hanging of a man in the county jail yard in Uniontown. It was reported that the man who was executed had been found guilty of murdering a co-worker on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
I found another execution that took place in Uniontown in September of 1896.
An 18-year-old was convicted for the murder of a Chestnut Ridge farmer two years earlier. According to that day’s Titusville Herald, the victim had been working alone on his farm when the murderer “stepped up behind him and shot him in the head.” According to the article, “The murderer was a cheap novel fiend and at no time showed any particular concern about his fate.”