Tuesday, November 2, 2010

A Piece of Our History -- Pop Gruver's Writing Desk



As you enter the Historical Society’s repository and museum, you’ll notice a sign-in desk that really is a piece of Shickshinny’s history. A special thanks to member Frank Evina of Mocanaqua who donated it for preservation.

The desk belonged to ‘Pop Gruver’ who ran a blacksmith shop out of a row of garages once located on West Vine Street in Shickshinny. The garages were located directly behind the old Reider Bus Station building on Route 11. Many of the buildings literally hung over Shickshinny Creek and were unfortunate casualties of the 1972 flood.

Gruver used it to write out his bills and keep his receipts and bookkeeping records for the shop in the storage compartment, according to his housekeeper whom Evina got the desk. He was quite good and creative with his hands and took a lot of scrap metal and made things with it; Evina said he regrets an electric lamp made out of scrap iron taken from the Shickshinny-Mocanaqua Covered Bridge that burned in 1918.

‘Pop Gruver’ died as a result of his work. A horse stepped on his foot and it became infected with gangrene and he refused to have his leg amputated, despite the advice of his doctor and soon died. Both Gruver and his wife are buried in the cemetery on the hill off Butler Street. Pop’s son Pete operated the G&W Lunch Room on Union Street. His other son Russell was tragically killed by a train as a young boy.

The desk itself is likely made of a manufacture piece of wood, but it does contain a lot of dovetailing on the corners and has wooden pegs in the lid (there are no nails). Desks like these were very common in shops and commonly referred to in the antique world as ‘portable slant-top writing desks’ since they could be picked up and moved around.

Thanks for Frank for saving this local piece of history!

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