Vestaburg natives maintain longtime friendship through frequent lunches
Mark Marietta/Observer-Reporter
From left are “Vestaburg Girls” Lois Ricci, Johanna Boback, Cindy Meszaros, Cecilia Popielarcheck and Gail Menhart.
Mark Marietta/Observer-Reporter
As “Little Sister” Karen Ricciuti listens at right, “Vestaburg Girls,” from left, Johanna Boback, Cindy Meszaros, Cecilia Popielarcheck and Gail Menhart recall an episode from their youth. The “girls,” best of friends for more than 70 years, had a semi-annual reunion at Rye’s Bar and Restaurant on March 1.
Mark Marietta/Observer-Reporter
Best of friends for more than 70 years, “Vestaburg Girls,” from left, Johanna Boback, Cindy Meszaros, Cecilia Popielarcheck and Gail Menhart, share photos on their cellphones at a reunion lunch at Rye’s Bar and Restaurant.
Time can take its toll on even the deepest friendships.
Lives wander in different directions, interests change and distance makes keeping up harder. Arguably, social media and email has made it easier to stay in touch than it was in the days when a stamp and a long-distance plan were necessary if you wanted to know what was happening in the life of an old compatriot.
But, still, the number of us who can claim to have deep and enduring friendships that have lasted from kindergarten to retirement is exceptionally small.
That’s what makes a group of women who hail from the southern Washington County community of Vestaburg so unique. The friendship of Johanna Boback, Cecilia Popielarcheck, Cindy Meszaros and twin sisters Gail Menhart and Lois Ricci has remained unfailingly close since the 1950s. Now seventysomethings – all five graduated from Bethlehem-Center High School in 1965 – they continue to stay in close contact and frequently gather for lunch at Rye’s Bar and Restaurant in Malden when Popielarcheck, who lives outside Raleigh, N.C., makes return trips to the area.
“We’ve had good times together and bad times,” said Boback.
The fivesome grew up on Front Street in Vestaburg when it was a thriving coal patch – a “picture postcard,” as Boback puts it – and they readily recall days lazing along the Monongahela River, which runs through Vestaburg, and waiting for the bus to take them to school.
All of them grew up in the same neighborhood, and have held together since the days when they were fans of Frankie Avalon, Elvis Presley, the Emeralds and the Del-Vikings.
Disagreements were rare, Boback said.
“We might have had an argument at the bus stop,” Boback said. “But by the time the bus got there, it was over.”
“It was like a ‘Happy Days’ community,” Meszaros pointed out. They all note that Vestaburg has changed dramatically since their idyllic childhood – its population has declined by almost 30 percent since the turn of the century, with about 300 people now calling it home.
According to Ricci, “Everything we did, we did together. There wasn’t a time when we weren’t together.”
To what do they credit their longtime bond? It comes down to “respect and caring,” Popielarcheck said.
“We’ve always had each other’s backs,” she said.