Father, daughter fine; lake not so good 12 years later
Amy Tedrow gives her daughter, Autumn Tedrow, a hug after Autumn and the Jefferson-Morgan softball team won a game against Chartiers-Houston last year.
Some of the pictures that have appeared in the Mystery Photo feature in this newspaper have been quite old, and sadly, some of the people in those photos have passed away. But the current puzzler is different.
Their images captured just 12 years ago, the father and daughter shown fishing are very much alive; it’s the lake that is gone.
Chuck Tedrow and his daughter Autumn, then 5 years old, had dropped a line in Duke Lake at Ryerson Station State Park in May 2004 when a photographer approached them.
“I really don’t like getting my picture taken. I was surprised to see it in the paper,” Tedrow said. The picture appeared a few days later in the Greene County edition of the Observer-Reporter. And he was even more surprised to see it again, on the front page, 12 years later.
Quite a few readers called or emailed us to identify the location, including Francis Jacobs, who worked at the park for 28 years and was its maintenance supervisor. He identified the buildings in the background as the park boat house, restrooms – both since demolished – and the park office.
Duke Lake was drained in July 2005, not long after this photo was taken. Cracks were found in the concrete dam, which the state contends was caused by longwall mining by Consol Energy near the site.
Chuck Tedrow, his wife, Amy, and daughter Autumn live in Jefferson, not far from Jefferson-Morgan High School, where Autumn, now 17, is a junior and member of the volleyball and softball teams.
We caught up by phone with Amy Tedrow at Pittsburgh International Airport, where she was awaiting a flight to Myrtle Beach, S.C., with a group of J-M High School parents headed for a softball tournament. Autumn and her teammates were en route to South Carolina by bus at that moment.
The other photo accompanying this article shows Autumn and her mother embracing after the Rockets defeated Chartiers-Houston in a softball game in May 2015.
“She’s quite the athlete,” said Autumn’s grandmother, Joan Lemley of Brave. “She has high honors, she’s a good girl.” Lemley said her granddaughter’s goals seem to change daily, but lately she’s expressed an interest in engineering or architecture.
The expectation that Duke Lake would return was crushed last July when the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources announced that the ground continues to shift under the dam, meaning the lake cannot be restored.
The state and Consol reached a $36 million settlement in 2013 to end litigation, and the money was intended to be used to restore the lake. The DCNR had even submitted a permit application with the state Department of Environmental Protection in May 2012 to rebuild the dam. But it became clear there was still ground movement, making it a risky proposition to rebuild the dam. The plan is now shifting to use that money to find other amenities that can be built within the 1,164-acre park to attract families and new visitors.
Look for another Mystery Photo in next Monday’s Observer-Reporter.