A burgeoning immigrant population resulted in a school-age population. Ganister’s children attended a one-room school situated atop the southern ridge overlooking the quarries and the miners’ homes. These two photos come from my family and portray students in 1936 and what we believe is a few years earlier.
In the top photo, the boy with his hands up in the back row looks a lot like Bernard “Manny” Guerin. The girl in the back row, two to the left of Manny looks like his sister, Beatice Guerin. They are the children of Fred L. Guerin and Barbara McCauley Guerin. Two other siblings of that family that might have been there are Phylis and Louis Guerin, also Marian “Miney” Guerin.
Yeah, I’ve heard my grandfather and great aunt are in that same top photo, standing in that first row. I know they knew the Guerin family.
Brendan, here is a clipping I just came across :
Ganister, PA Stone Quarry Explosion, Mar 1927
Submitted by Stu Beitler
Pennsylvania | Explosions | Mining Explosions and Accidents | 1927
FOUR GANISTER QUARRYMEN KILLED IN PREMATURE EXPLOSION.
BLAST OCCURS WHEN 4 VICTIMS CHARGE PRIOR TO THE BLAST.
FOUR INJURED IN ALTOONA HOSPITAL WILL RECOVER — FIVE OTHERS ESCAPE.
CORONER WILL HOLD INQUEST.
Four men employed at the Saint Claire stone quarry at Ganister, one and one half miles from Williamsburg on the Petersburg branch, were instantly killed at 3 o’clock yesterday afternoon in a premature dynamite explosion. In the same explosion four men were seriously injured and are now patients in the Altoona Hospital. Surgeons at the hospital this morning announced that the four injured men will recover.
The dead are:
LUCINO CALDERONE, age 36.
RAPHAEL BORARDINELLI, age 47.
GUIOVANNA ALOISI, age 34.
ANGELO CIOLLI, age 53.
The injured are:
ERCOLE CALDERONE, age 32.
MARTANO ALOISI, age 27.
CARMINE RAMBINI, age 41.
PASQUALL SANDONSALI, age 40.
The explosion is reported to have been heard distinctly three miles away, and houses in the nearby vicinity were rocked. Thirteen men were at work in the quarry at the time of the explosion but the five who escaped were working in another section. The men whose lives were snuffed out were engaged at packing the explosive prior to attacking the fuse.
Funeral services for the four men will take place tomorrow morning at nine o’clock with requiem high mass in St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church in Williamsburg. Burial will be made in the St. Joseph’s cemetery at Williamsburg.
The coroner of Blair county is conducting an investigation and an inquest will be held later in the week.
Daily News Huntingdon Pennsylvania 1927-03-09
In the top school picture dated 1936. In the front row going right to left. The scound boy in with the bibs looks like my father John M Krajacic Sr.