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Making way for progress
Staff writer
Joann Charles was hanging laundry on a line in 2000 when, from her hillside beneath Interstate 79, she saw the last mentally disabled residents moved from Western Center.
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But not for long.
Four years later, the state sold the 225-acre property, formerly known as Western State School and Hospital and the reform school Morganza, to Washington County for $2 million.
The Washington County Authority reached an agreement with Charles to buy her personal care home known as the Charles House for $309,000 and closed on the sale in March. The gray Insulbrick-covered structure will be demolished to make way for a widened Morganza Road and traffic signals at the Southpointe Boulevard bridge over Chartiers Creek.
"Demolition won't start until we award the bid for intersection work and traffic work in a couple of months," said Bill Sember, director of operations for the Washington County Authority. He plans to update Cecil Township officials on traffic control plans on Monday.
It's not the first time Joann Charles has been affected by redevelopment. Her husband, the late David Charles, owned a hotel on Beaver Avenue in Pittsburgh's Manchester neighborhood that was torn down to make way for a bridge project. Afterwards, Joann Charles operated a boarding house on Chateau Street in Manchester for 15 men, cooking them three meals a day.
Washington County residents might recall her culinary skills from another venue, from the Washington County Fair, where she ran the Bubby's Kitchen food booth for 20-some years, selling cabbage and noodles and homemade pies.
The 18-room house in North Strabane Township that David and Joann Charles purchased in 1971 is two-and-a-half stories tall. The Charles family doesn't know the age of the house, but thinks the property was once owned by the Morgan family.
A state historic marker at nearby Morganza and West McMurray roads states that Morgan, "noted Indian trader and agent," lived on the site of the marker from 1796 to 1810. "It was here that Morgan was visited by Aaron Burr," the marker says. Morgan told President Thomas Jefferson about Burr's conspiracy to lead the former Louisiana Territory as a rival to the fledgling United States.
The 3,432-square-foot Charles House has decorative wooden columns - Corinthian and Doric - where one would least expect them, even in the kitchen. "All of the rooms had chandeliers," said Doreen Corey, Mrs. Charles' daughter.
Beneath the house are what the family calls four cellars, including one for coal.
"I heated with coal when I first came here," Charles said. "In 1974, I got the first oil furnace."
The wrecking ball had better be a strong one. "The house is like Fort Knox as far as structure goes," Corey said.
At its peak, the Charleses recall 25 residents living in the personal care home. More recently, a state license that runs through August listed the capacity at 12 residents. The last one left Sunday. "I had to give them 30 days' notice," Charles said. She plans to still look after one resident who has called the Charles House home for 311/2 years.
The Charleses estimate hundreds, if not thousands of residents have lived there over 38 years.
"To tell you the truth," Charles said Tuesday from the large dining room. "I didn't want to come back. My last resident moved out. I couldn't say goodbye. You get attached to somebody."
Progress? More like STUPIDITY. : 5/9/2009
Another pc. of your history falls into the dust. You people have no clue how important your history is - ignorance breeds stupidity - and then you tear down indiscriminately instead of putting it to good use - without historical assets to showcase your history to help attract people to your area and region. What good is history if there is nothing to show for it? How stupid is it to have "progress" that entails destroying something of substance and interest, and once destroyed can never be retrieved. Absolutely STUPID and then you have a nothing emptiness where once something that could be used for tourism, or a "parking lot", or some other stupid, ugly thing that will not last one way or another. Back in the old days, things were built to last - now you get cheap and ugly and you are lucky if it lasts 2 decades. What a crock.
: 5/9/2009
The house was beautiful and Mrs. Charles very welcoming. Our car had broken down by there one very cold night pre cell phones. My partner when up to ask to call for a tow truck. Mrs. Charles insisted that my son who was about six and I come up to the house also, she also tried to give us drinks and food and make sure that we were comfortable. I still remember how kind she was. Thanks again. Good luck to you.
