Last edit of this page 2021.NOV.29
I have only a dim understanding of the fellow who would have been my Uncle Pete. He died decades before I was born. My father and his other siblings always had kind words for him.
His name is subject to confusion. He was born February 26, 1905, given the Hebrew name Peretz to honor his grandfather Peretz Swiersky. The quick translation would give him the name Peter, and he was identified as Peter in the 1910 United States Census. That census listed his age as 6, clearly a mistake.
At the 1920 census, he was Philip and listed at age 13. On his death certificate and on his grave marker, he is also identified as Philip.
My father referred to him most often as Pete.
He was enrolled at Wyoming Seminary for the 1922-1923 year.
Wyoming Seminary is a Christian school in Kingston, Pennsylvania. A Jewish boy like Philip was able to attend. Given the twenty-mile distance from Mocanaqua, it’s likely he boarded at the school.
A small prayer book, a siddur, has this writing on the inside cover. Papa (Jacob) may have felt this should be with him at this Christian school.
There remains a three-inch by five-inch pocket notebook from his attendance at Wyoming Seminary for the 1922-1923 year. The inside front cover gives his name as Phillip Simon, taking a class in bookkeeping, with a home address as simply “Mocanaqua.” The same handwriting that gave his name and his class also gave him desk 31 and chapel seat 532. This book, along with his own writing in the prayer book, has the double letter in Phillip. In a pencil scrawl next to his chapel seat is the word “excused.” The school, it seems, was gracious enough to permit him to skip chapel.
The notebook contains many pages of information about the school. Phillip scattered scrawls throughout, some of them incomplete thoughts.
***Rags to Riches, Wesley Barry. (This was a 1922 silent movie.)
***Without vision people are destroyed. Without education there is no vision.
***Arrived in Norfolk Oct 23 1922, left Dec 16 (Some of the Swiersky family lived in Norfolk.)
***A wife like a bird, not much to look at but the service is good.
***Call a woman a hen and she might lay for you. (Humor appropriate for a 17-year-old.)
***Plain folks on avoided subject.
***While beer brings gladness don’t forget that water only makes you wet.
***Social mentor publications, 200 Fifth Avenue, Suite 256, N.Y. (This must refer to a 1922 book by W.C. Green, “The Book of Good Manners.”)
Several pages have been erased and cannot be deciphered. Names are scattered through the notebook. These may have been school acquaintances.
The final few pages reveal Pete’s grim situation. These doctors are noted:
***Dr. G. E. Pfahler, 1321 Spruce St., Phila
***Dr. Astley P.E. Ashurst, 2132 Spruce St., Phila
***Lombard 5, metastases, Smookler, 1320 So 5th St, Phila (A box was drawn around “metastases.”)
Philip (Pete) was treated for one week in Wilkes-Barre City Hospital in April, 1922. This bill does not disclose his problem. The rate was $6 per day.
The condition was serious. Jacob was billed $500 from a Philadelphia physician in December, 1922. This would correspond to about $8,000 in 2020.
He died on February 12, 1923, just short of his eighteenth birthday. The cause was a sarcoma in his left leg. An amputation did not save his life.
I’m saddened that I never knew Uncle Pete.
Gary Simon 2020.DEC.31, updated 2021.NOV.29
The death certificate, February 12, 1923.
The address on Filbert Street is only a few blocks from Thomas Jefferson Hospital.
Philip rests with his parents in Wilkes-Barre.
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