by
Larry Pearce
12/31/25
The year 2026 marks the 25th anniversary for this family history webpage. I began thinking about what will have made this time memorable beginning in January of this past year. To the top of my mind comes the passing of loved ones, the repair and replacement of old faithful things that can be fixed or have to be replaced, the addition of new technology, and of course the medical miracles that keep my wife and I alive to serve others. Why am I bothering to post this, you ask? It’s simple. I’m hoping you can relate – does that make us “relatives”? I’m wishing you can learn from my experiences and perhaps even e-mail me your response. Are you ready for the recollections? Here we go.
Loved Ones Gone
Let’s start with what is to me the most important memories: the lives and deaths of dear friends, both with family names and those with nearby addresses, church and community (in no particular order, but all important): Baer, Berkey, Eash, Flower, Spory, Lehman, Stemmler, Gilbert, Glessner, Chiappelli, Harris, and more that I’m sure haven’t made it from my notes to this page. They WILL be missed. Starting with their obituaries, which I look for in two local papers each day, books could be written about their lives and experiences. I’m happy to have known them.
Expendable Stuff
The material “things” in our lives will eventually die or need to be repaired or replaced too. This seemed to be a year for that. While the human body cools when it quits, some appliances warm. After 55 years of dependable service, our Sears Coldspot refrigerator quietly called for a new replacement. Without much shopping around, my son, wife, and I answered a Lowe’s ad and selected an LG to fill the cold spot. Perhaps the best part was receiving a $50 check from our electric company for recycling the old girl. The problem was, we had to haul it to the end of the driveway for pickup because Lowe’s moving van-sized vehicle couldn’t get in the driveway. I split the money with friend Joe, who helped lug and load. He told me he gave it to his grandson who volunteers at the local food back. Sounds like paying it forward in Forwardstown.
Later in the year the microwave began to smoke. Again, Lowe’s came to the rescue, only this time I wheeled the relatively small LG in a cart to the car and returned the old one to the store for recycling. The only problem was that the new one “air fries,” whatever that means, and Susan has yet to read the manual to find out and do it. Oops! A tap on the back from her reminds me that the chocolate birthday cake for our friend Karen was done to perfection using the convection feature of the tiny oven. She DID read the manual after all.
Let’s go to the living room now. After my Scots-Irish nature, I have refused to subscribe to a television cable service ever since the introductory price went over $25 a month years ago. Instead, I attached a simple rooftop antenna to our chimney with a wire coming down the side of the house to a converter box on the TV. I managed to get 13 channels when the directional antenna was aimed just the right way, and usually when the leaves had fallen along with a nice coating of snow. The problem was that my favorite pastime, watching the Pittsburgh Steelers, was almost always unattainable through their anchor stations KDKA, Pittsburgh, and WTAJ, Altoona. Though we’re about halfway between their towers, our house sits in a valley with the Laurel and Allegheny Mountains in between. In recent years the NFL teams have been carried by a number of other services, most of which are unreceivable without a healthy subscription fee. Alas, my little sister Ellen, a retired resident of the Sunshine State, Florida, came to the rescue. She purchased two Fire Sticks and pays the single per month fee for both. Guess who was the benefactor of her good will? None other than her older brother. She sent the unit up and spent hours on the phone and internet explaining how to get every Steeler game and any college matchup I could want. The unit has an internet selection key where I watched both Pennsylvania Division II and III games. The Fire Stick has movies and series by the hundreds, if one is willing to search.
Oh, I should say in all fairness that our son gave us a ROKU unit, through which we were able to watch national, international, and local news for free through the internet. The only problems this cheapskate has are that the premium channels like NetFlix, Paramount Plus, etc. are pay-per-view and sometimes live news is delayed. Our ROKU does have video games, three of which I cherish at any time of the night and day, when my wife is on the phone or playing her own games on her laptop.
Four and Two-wheel Must Haves
Now to the garage and the car. No sooner did I have it inspected than the battery needed replacing in the summer heat. I had new brake linings installed when they started to sqeak when I backed out of the garage. Fortunately, my garage man Rick lives just a few houses down. But I called on a tire specialist in nearby Somerset to get the correct valves in the tires after a year of continuing problems with tire pressure. That was done while my wife and I were at Bible study, so I don’t feel too bad for Rick and will probably go back to him next summer for inspection. Hope I don’t need new tires.
Going down to our barn now, the gentleman, Chance, who does my field mower repairs lives a few houses down from Rick. I have to admit to being embarrassed that when I took the big mower in, saying it wouldn’t start, Chance quickly explained that I need to turn the gas valve on first. I\He did and it started right up. Yet another generous man named Rick, this one from Somerset, fixed my old push mower. I’m waiting to hear from our preacher as to his interest in my BCS walk-behind cyclebar, mower, and snowblower. Maybe 2026 will be the year I say goodbye to this dependable machine I first saw climbing the high pastures in Switzerland.
Now for the most upsetting (not literally) thing, dealing with the four-wheel member of my family, our Polaris 850 Sportsman ATV. The three most demanding jobs it is called on to do are: hauling firewood from various places on the property to the back porch for splitting and stacking, pulling the 48” field mower over our 6 acres of pasture, and plowing snow from our 900 foot-long driveway. After I could no longer get the engine to turn over in July of 2024, I took it back to the dealer for an overhaul – you know, oil change, lube, tire check, and in this case a new battery. The $300+ bill wasn’t a problem, and it worked fine through the winter and spring of 2025. But then it wouldn’t start again. I got along for several months with a jumper cable, but by June nothing seemed to convince her to run. I called the dealer and he said, “Bring it in.” Again my friend Joe helped me load it up for the 40-minute trailer ride behind my Nissan Rogue north to Ebensburg. Away we went up the four-lane. In just a few days and another $300+ bill I was able to bring it home, and it worked fine. I was told that, again, the battery was dead in the various kinds of weather we had, and that a trickle charger would be the answer.
It’s soon mid-winter, and I’ve had no problems, using the small charger, but then we haven’t had much activity in the form of snow. Stay tuned on this one. We’re to get six inches of the white stuff on New Year’s Day. By the way, my concern with the barn burning down with anything plugged in should be allayed with my various circuit breakers. Not only that but the dealer installed a battery terminal extension wire for easier application.
I Pool my Resources
As you may know we’ve had a side yard swimming pool for over 40 years. Living along the woods has always been a problem when spring comes and I have to rake the winter cover before folding it to vacuum the 25,000 gallons of water. No matter how hard I try, some of the pine needles and maple seed mix with the algae on the cover and silently slip into the water. We’ve had two years of tremendous spring rainfall, which makes timing of the cover removal a guess. With all the other outdoor work I’ve had this year, preparation of the pool for swimming lasted into late June. I had to reconnect the pipes to the pump before running it, and I’ll be waiting for warmer weather this spring to readjust those pipes. They are the main arteries for the life of a healthy swim.
Here’s to My/Our Health
And speaking of health, it seems that my wife and my regular schedules always include multiple visits to doctors and hospitals for testing and shots: The discovery of cancer in the Spring of 2023 and the removal of 16 inches of my small intestine which contained dozens of tiny neuroendochrine tumors may have hurt for a little while. but with monthly shots that with continue the rest of my life, I feel much better and am determined to make the most of the time and talents I have.
A few years earlier I began to itch at various times and places from what the dermatologist called eczema. I get a shot several times a year and apply ointments and anti-itch lotions for relief. All that, along with essential tremors, a gift from my father, I was told by one specialist at Pittsburgh’s Presbyterian Hospital that it could be coming from unwelcome growths in my pancreas. He added that he could operate, but I would probably outlive any benefit from such intricate surgery.
As if all this isn’t enough, my primary care physician, who has predicted most of my other ailments and referred me to specialists, has been absolutely certain this year that I have pre-diabetes. Something about blurred vision, tiredness, and elevated blood sugar – but I wasn’t about to give in to pills and regular finger jabs, let alone possible sugar control injections. Well, after continuing symptoms and more elevated A1C counts, I gave in and took her pills. I must admit that I’m feeling better, except for some loss of mobility in my shoulders, which I’ll reach out to her about in the new year.
To finish this section, I need to mention the time I’ve devoted to being taxi driver and earpiece for my wife’s very uncomfortable ailments. After some basic knee surgery and a few shots in her back, she had major back surgery to replace parts of her mid to lower spine with rods. That was done in far away Sewickley Hospital, just across the Ohio River from where I grew up, by a doctor who practiced in our Somerset for years. As with many such procedures, the outcome seemed successful for a while, but whether incomplete or failure of physical therapy follow-up, Susan still has pain. And that seems to radiate into her knees and legs. Recently, she had injections in her back and knees at the Altoona Pain Clinic. She will try three gel shots in her knees there in the new year to see if those help before scheduling added non-invasive back surgery in Pittsburgh. Just yesterday she had four tests and three blood draws at Somerset hospital to keep an eye on all her medical ailments. She was born in that hospital, now a part of UPMC, Pittsburgh, and we all all pray that they can give her a rebirth in the new year.
Now for Some Good Things
Along with celebrating our 55th wedding anniversary the day after Thanksgiving this year, we thanked our Good Lord for the many blessings He’s showered upon us in our rural residence along Somerset Pike near Boswell, PA. With the aid of our parents and kin we moved in the day after Christmas 50 years ago. We were fortunate to have an abundance of fresh, pure spring water over the years, not just from one source, but three. That all came to and end in recent years as the nearly 100-year old cisterns began to cave in and drought conditions beginning in 2024 found us hauling water from friends and our church. In November of that year I signed an application and rather large check to receive public drinking water. While the reservoir sits along the mountain visible from our living room window and the municipal offices are located in our adjacent township, the water main had come on to our roadside property right under our mailbox for many years. To make a long story short, the authority had scheduled major improvements along the dozens of miles of water line, including moving it on the other side of Somerset Pike. Perhaps another roadblock was how busy our neighbor-contractor was with spring and summer flood repairs in the southern part of the county and other jobs. Our connection was moved to the other side of our driveway and house. Once the project was begun, public water began flowing in our house within a week. The 900+ foot line was expensive, but the “watch your water use” jokes have stopped. With much of our back yard backfilled with muddy clay,there will be lots of raking and seeding in the spring.
St. Paul’s UCC, Somerset, PA
Praise the Lord
Susan and I are so grateful for our continuing ability to navigate the community and property terrain in doing our chores and church activities. In addition to attending worship, Bible study, quilting, and choir practice, we meet with friends and go to programs when we can. I’m reminded of an old question and answer I first heard in graduate school: “How do you eat an elephant?” The answer: “One bite at a time!” Another humorous morale: “When you’re handed lemons, make lemonade.” It all boils down to taking the bad with the good. As a former little league coach, I used to tell my kids, “When you’re thrown a curve ball, bunt, and take off running, sliding under the tag if necessary.”
Perhaps the best examples here pertain to my health: My Propranolol tablets for essential tremors have brought my blood pressure down to a normal range, and my Metformin pills to control my pre-diabetes have reduced my appetite and helped the excess pounds come off for each quarterly doctor’s visit. Now if I can keep my muscle strength and stamina up, I should be able to do all the work in years to come to make country living the healthy lifestyle my wife and I enjoy. We hope our happiness is spreading to others.
Last revised 1/2/26