By Colleen Nelson
This photographic keepsake hangs in the quilt room of today’s Waynesburg Community Center at 1505 Morris Street. It keeps an elegant watch over a new generation of quilters who spend mornings rocking their needles before lunch as quilters have done at the center for more than forty years. When “Waynesburg Senior Center” opened in 1974, Blueprints was known as Community Action Southwest and this fine old mansion on Richhill Street across from the First Presbyterian Church was the center’s first home. The finely patterned woodwork and richly colored stained glass windows were a wonderful throwback to a gas and oil boom past that many still remembered from childhood, along with memories of how to rock a needle and spend time together doing good work. A quilting frame was set up after the center opened and the genteel art of helping pay bills the old fashioned way – with needlework – was resurrected.
Thanks to the newspaper story Tara Kinsel wrote in 2012 when the house was razed, some of the backstory is on file at Cornerstone Genealogical Society. Lots and parcels on the north side of town were sold and resold in the 1800s. Tara tells us that the land the house sat on once belonged to the secret society of the Ancient New York Masons of Waynesburg. The Masons would sell it in 1849 to two attorneys and the lot would be resold over the years to a number of “distinguished citizens.” Somewhere in the early 1900s the big house was built. By whom? The history I saw doesn’t say.
By 1953 this fine old piece of post Victorian splendor was owned by Waynesburg College History Professor Arthur Mintier. He sold it that year to the Hundertmark family, who had emigrated from Germany in 1884 and were active in the Presbyterian Church. That October ,the Hundertmarks dedicated the house to be the church parish and for the next 20 some years it was the gathering place for sororities, scouts and social organizations – Waynesburg Women’s Club, Mother’s Study Club, DAR, Polly Wayne Garden Club and the Greene County Rural Letter Carriers Association.
By the mid 1960s, state and federal programs were coming to the county under the nonprofit umbrella of Community Action Southwest. Keeping older residents healthy and engaged in the community was a priority. Those tough old timers who didn’t mind being called seniors now had a place to call their own! They came to a historic piece of the past that had a ballroom upstairs, ornate marble mantles and a servants staircase in the kitchen – and found that it suited them just fine. Here they would socialize, play games, eat lunch, get free health screenings and above all, share the energy and the smarts that come with living a long and healthy life, connected to others in the community.
It was a great beginning to the kinds of human services programs that are still with us today, supported in great part by those who use them and are savvy enough to accept the benefits that modern life brings to their lives and their community while still remembering a past that has much to teach us.
When the old center was razed in 2012, there was a new home awaiting, with plenty of room to quilt, do yoga, have an exercise room and more. Stop by someday. Turn at the Marathon Station on the east side of Waynesburg and go to the top of the hill. Turn right and you’ll see it. There’s no stained glass but plenty of memories and wisdom to share.
And to wrap up this story about the Waynesburg Center, I found myself wondering why Community Action Southwest had changed its name to Blueprints. I reached out to the agency I once worked for as a VISTA volunteer and got my answer from communications manager Anastasia Barr: “When we changed our name in 2017…..we didn’t change our focus on helping people on their own path to self sufficiency – we just added more ways and more programs to better serve our communities. …Blueprints is now able to offer over 50 programs in both Pennsylvania and West Virginia because of the name change, but Blueprints is still a change agency powered by Community Action – that will not change!”
