Richland Township man pens 'Glosser Bros. Holiday Tales'
Dec. 3—JOHNSTOWN, Pa. — Ian and Betty, two fictional characters, were trapped inside the Glosser Bros. Department Store when waters rose in the streets of Johnstown during the 1936 St. Patrick's Day Flood.
Floor by floor, the co-workers headed to the roof of the building, while along the way a "touch of romance" developed amid "the danger and the mayhem that's going on around them," as written by Robert Jeschonek, author of the new novelette "Saint Patrick's Day at Glosser's."
Shortly afterward, they met President Franklin Delano Roosevelt when he visited the city to talk about the disaster and future flood protection.
The story is one of almost a dozen pieces in Jeschonek's new 522-page book, "Glosser Bros. Holiday Tales."
"(The flood) was something that I hadn't really read a lot about before in other books," Jeschonek, a Richland Township resident, said. "And I thought, 'Wow, this is a great subject for that holiday,' because it was, of course, when it happened."
New novelette
The book includes another new novelette, "New Year's Eve at Glosser's," along with other fiction and nonfiction works Jeschonek previously published about the iconic local store. The promotional blurb for the book encourages folks to "Grab your brown-and-white striped shopping bag, breathe in the smell of roasted nuts, and celebrate the good old days in Glosser Bros. style," which is certain to evoke memories for longtime Johnstown residents.
Jeschonek said he personally spent many hours shopping in Glosser's, which was open from 1906 until 1989.
Good memories
"I really loved spending time there as a kid," Jeschonek said. "I had such good memories about the place, and I wanted to try to revisit those in some way and bring them back. But I also have a strong affection for classic department stores, stores of that era and that type, like Glosser Bros. and Penn Traffic, or in Altoona, Gable's for example."
Those stores are part of a bygone time, much different from today's world of online shopping and large retail chains.
"It was more of an event to go shopping there," Jeschonek said. "People would dress up in their Sunday best or as close to it as they were able. It was more of a communal thing. It was part of the heart of the community, alongside churches and schools and workplaces. It was much more of a central part of people's lives, I think, than the stores of today are.
"I try to recapture that because I think it's of value. I think it's something that people today could learn from and retail providers could learn from in trying to bring some of that feeling back."
Book signing Saturday
The book is available at bobscribe.com and amazon.com, along with local sites — Barbara's Hallmark Shop, Johnstown Flood Museum, Frank & Sylvia Pasquerilla Heritage Discovery Center, Bottle Works, and Books-A-Million in The Johnstown Galleria.
Jeschonek plans to hold a book signing at Classic Elements, 345 Main St., Johnstown, from 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday.
The Glosser Bros. book is part of Jeschonek's varied catalog.
As a young writer, Jeschonek, who grew up in Geistown and earned a journalism degree from the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, won a Simon & Schuster Star Trek writing contest.
"That really got me going, got me involved with the writing community and got me started even more determinedly down that road," he said.
"Since then, I've really continued to publish a lot, write a lot. I write fiction every day. I also work as a technical writer, business analyst. I write at least a thousand words a day."
Jeschonek has written across different genres, including sci-fi, mystery and young adult, along other projects about local shopping centers — "Penn Traffic Forever," "The Glory of Gable's" and "Richland Mall Rules."
His work also includes comics, essays and articles. He has won an International Book Award and Scribe Award from the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers.
He has finished a still-unpublished authorized biography of Steve Ditko, a Johnstown native who created the Marvel comics characters Spider-Man and Doctor Strange.
"I always loved writing from a young, young age," Jeschonek said.
"I love to read and I love to write. I can think of nothing better in life, to me, than writing books. It was what I wanted to do more than anything. I studied it in school, went to college for journalism."
Nowadays, Jeschonek mentors interns through his Pie Press Publishing company, bringing in students from numerous colleges, among them the University of Iowa, Brown University, New York University, Columbia University, University of Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, Indiana University of Pennsylvania and University of Virginia.
"I wanted to give something back," Jeschonek said.
"I wished when I was coming up that I had somebody with my kind of direct experience in the industry help guide me, help me get started, as far as writing and publishing, on that kind of level. I thought, 'You know what, I'm in a position here that I could help some of these younger people out and I would love to do that.' It's just my effort to give something back.
"I really enjoy it. It seems like it's a good program."
