Mrs. Gothier's 2nd Grade Class - Woodrow Wilson - 1958

Jean O'Donnell(?),Mary Eleanor Barrett,Cindy Thomas,Joe Mahaer,Mike Kevlin,Peggy O'Shea,Joe Manley. 2nd:John Connelly,Jay(?) Mary Jane Kookalo,Genette St. John,Christine Grogan,Mike Coyle,Pat Laffey,Tom Calpin,Kathy Doyle,Tina Connors,Ann Marie Joyce,3rd row: Mary Ellen Ward,Tom Gilhooley,Bill West,Tom Cawley,Gail Tobias,John McIntrye,(?)Don Hart,Georgeanne Chimchick,Jim Frye

Contributed by Kathy Andreoli

Two Perish in Burning House

Scranton, Pennsylvania (Special) - Mrs. Patrick Joyce and her granddaughter, Mary Sweeney, lost their lives in a fire which destroyed the Joyce home in Milnooka [sic], near here. Michael Sweeney and his wife, parents of the child, and Martin, Thomas, Peter, John and Mamie Joyce, children of Patrick Joyce were seriously burned and are in a hospital. Patrick Joyce and his daughter Bettina were the only persons in the house to escape injury.

Contributed by Barbara Cianfichi

Haunted Well in MInooka

December 20, 1901

Minooka, near Scranton, has a sensation in a "haunted well" located in a little grove near the town. Sometimes it appears in a brown garb, at other times in white, and when pursued it glides away among the trees with an airy, swaying motion like a toy balloon tied to a string. It always manages to keep at the same distance ahead of the parties following it, but doubtless this is due more to the fear of the pursuers than the fleetness of spectre.

Contributed by Barbara Cianfichi

Collapse of Temperance Hall - 1885

November 29, 1885

"While 500 people listened to John Connolly's temperance lecture in a hall at Minooka Friday night, the floor gave way and 200 of the audience were precipitated into the cellar, 8 feet below. When all were got out it was found that a daughter of Peter Mullen had a broken leg and many were bruised and scratched, but no one was serious injured."

Contributed by Barbara Cianfichi

Death Notices - 1898

July 18, 1898

On Tuesday, the remains of the six-year-old son of Thomas Judge, who died Saturday, were interred in Minooka Catholic Cemetery yesterday.

The funeral of the late Maria McDonough, whose death was mentioned in Saturday's Tribune, will take place this morning at 9 o'clock. A requiem high mass will be solemnized at St. Joseph's Catholic church. Interment will be made in the funeral plot in Minooka Catholic cemetery.

Contributed by Barbara Cianfichi

History of Minooka by J. J. Powell (Circa 1932)

Minooka is a town excellently located for a residential district. It is about nine hundred feet above sea level and ten minutes drive from the center of the City of Scranton.

The inhabitants of Minooka are not troubled with smoke, ashes, dust, or the noise of railroad trains, or nauseous vapors which are so detrimental to many of the residential sections of the County of Lackawanna.

While we have the conveniences of and easy access to three steam railroads, yet the town is so located that we have none of the noises and smoke incident to their operation. In addition, we have the convenience of a ten-minute street railway service.

Like many other mining communities and as was the custom in the early history of mining, it adopted the name of its earliest mine operators and was known successively as Needham’s Patch, Davis’ Patch, Coary Hollow and Glen Newman, and finally Minooka.

How Minooka Got Its Name

An English captain named Carr owned and operated a mine in the vicinity of what is now the National Colliery of the Glen Alden Coal Company, and all of that section of the 20^th Ward, adjoining Minooka was originally known as Carr’s Patch. He had a niece who was very fond of an Indian maiden with the quaint name of Minooka, and she prevailed upon Captain Carr and the early settlers to call the community after her friend, the Indian maiden, hence the name Minooka.

The first dwelling built in Minooka was located upon Birney Avenue on the land now owned and occupied by Patrick Higgins, grocer. It was a large wooden structure and did not have a single nail in its entire construction. Wooden pegs being used throughout.

Many of the present residents remember the building but the name of the person or persons who owned and built it is always the subject of debate. As the story goes, it was built as a center for a group of peddlers (or merchants of the road) and used by them for many years. The first authentic owner was Joseph Nulkie, recently of Taylor.

The first Tavern stood upon the plot on Birney Avenue now owned by Jeremiah McCarthy, and was conducted by James Whitley and known as Whitley’s Red Tavern.

Memories of Minooka by Shamus Corbett and Sharkey Lydon

St. Pat’s Day – A Bit Early by Tom Fox

The Philadelphia Inquirer

(Probably from the 1970s)

St Patrick’s Day was celebrated a little early this year by a small circle of Scranton Irish. Shamus Corbett, the most decorated state trooper in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and his pal John (Sharkey) Lydon, an Irish tenor with sky-blue eyes and an insatiable thirst for fine Irish whisky, invited me up to Scranton for this year’s big St. Patrick’s Day Dinner at the Casey Hotel.

“Gov. Thornburgh’s coming,” Shamus Corbett said with a touch of awe. “He’s going to be the main speaker.”

The Scranton Irish are survivors. They worked like hell for Bob Casey, the Scranton attorney, for governor last year. And when a Republican WASP from Allegheny County won the office and all the power that goes with it, damned if they didn’t invite the WASP to be the principal speaker at the big St. Patrick’s day dinner.

Born in Lifeboats

But it figures. The Irish were born in the lifeboats. “There never was any downfield blocking for the Irish. It was all elbows and knees, but that’s how the Irish learned to survive. That’s why the Irish are such masters of American politics.

“Shall I tell the governor to expect you at the dinner?” Shamus Corbett asked.

I said I couldn’t make it. The dinner’s this Saturday night and I’m committed to spend the evening at Joe Hindsley’s saloon, The Fiddler’s Green, out in King of Prussia. It’s the only place to be on St. Patty’s night around here.”

“Well, then,” Shamus Corbett said, “we’ll celebrate a little early. We’ll have a party for Jim Crowley. He’s one of the original Four Horsemen of Notre Dame. We’ll hoist a few to Jim.”

So I drove up to Scranton with Bob Herdelin in his big, fancy Rolls Royce, and Shamus Corbett had a real cork-popper for Jim Crowley at Preno’s, one of Scranton’s finest watering holes.

There was a lot of belting and singing and a whole lot of outrageous Irish stories, all set in the old coal mining town of Minooka (now Scranton’s 24^th Ward) where Shamus Corbett was born.

A Cruel Town

“Minooka was a cruel town in a way,” said Shamus Corbett’s brother, Jakey, a car dealer. “The nicknames for some people were brutal. The ugliest man in Minooka was known as ‘Stop-the-Clock’ O’Hara. Oh, in some ways it was a mean, cruel place.”