JOHNSTOWN —
For Jack and Jewell McCreary, growing up in Johnstown meant street cars, five-and-dime stores, nickel popsicles, barbershops.
And trains.
Now retired in southern New York, the McCrearys have in their home a model train city that celebrates life in the 1940s and ’50s, and features many sites from their youth in and around Johnstown.
“It’s reminiscent of what we remember from our days in
Johnstown,” Jack said from their home in Owego – a small town just across the Pennsylvania-New York border, near Binghamton, N.Y.
“Most of what we have made comes from places we would go when we lived there,” he said. “My father worked at Thomas Kinsey Lumber Company. He would take me down there and I would see everything happening. The machines ran off a single (power) line. They were just converting to electricity at the time.”
The McCrearys called their model train city “J-Town.” It has many features that would be familiar for folks who lived in this region in that era, they said, such as:
• Sanitary Dairy, where Jewell’s father worked. The model of Sanitary Dairy – later Sani-Dairy and in operation until 1999 – is complete with a logo lifted from a coffee cup and recreated on a computer by their granddaughter, Natalie McCreary.
• Lopresti Market in Geistown, where Jack said he bought nickel popsicles as a boy. The market closed in 2003.
• Shank’s Cut Rate store in Jennerstown, run by Jack’s stepmother and “depicted on the layout much as her original store looked back in the early 1950s,” he said.
• Evangelical United Brethren Church in Dale – now Beulah United Methodist – which Jack attended as a child.
• Hork’s Barber Shop on Ohio Street in Moxham, where Jack said he got haircuts from his uncle, Forest “Hork” McCreary.
“We’ve thought about adding an Inclined Plane,” Jack said.
“We have a pop-up hole waiting for it.”
They have taken some liberties with names. The five-and-dime in “J-Town” is called McCreary’s, not McCrory’s. And there’s a Chal’s Coal Company named for Jack’s uncle, who once ran a coal business in Windber.
And the model train town reflects more than a retirement hobby. It is a vehicle for the McCrearys to share their experiences with their grandchildren – who now number 15, with a 16th on the way.
“It’s an opportunity for us to convey to our kids and grandkids what we remember,” Jack said. “Our family history is built into this train layout.
“I use this to tell them about what life was like, and they listen,” he added. “It’s fun to have an opportunity to do that with the grandkids.”
Jack McCreary spent his early days in Geistown, and later moved south to Jennerstown.
Jewell Naugle’s family had a home at the top of Tire Hill, near Davidsville.
The two met as students at the original Pitt-Johnstown campus in Moxham – Jewell studying chemistry and Jack on the way to becoming a chemical engineer.
“The chemistry was just right,” he joked.
It still is. The McCrearys celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on Jan. 20.
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