The human salt spreader

Jamie Stache must wear out the heels of his boots fast while dragging his feet and also spreading sidewalk salt, seated in a cart pulled by a mini snow plow. The Washington County Housing Authority worker is shown today at Lincoln Terrace in Washington, Pa. His coworker, Clyde Myers, is steering the rig. (Photo: Scott Beveridge/Observer-Reporter)

A sea of blue

WASHINTON, Pa. - South Strabane Township Police Officer Nathan M. Burnfield was remembered Monday for his humor and compassion at his funeral a week after the 27-year-old man was killed in a freak accident on a Pennsylvania interstate.

"He loved what he did ... whether it was a burning building or flying bullets," the Rev. Gary A. Gibson said while giving the officer's eulogy in Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church in Washington.

Burnfield was struck and killed Nov. 4 while attempting to remove a loose tire from Interstate 70 near Bentleyville. More than 175 police cruisers joined the funeral procession from as far away as Philadelphia, Aberdeen, Md., and Brooke County, W.Va., city police said.

"He truly saw himself as a public servant in every sense of the word," said Gibson, pastor of pastor of North Buffalo Presbyterian Church.


(Captions: Nathan Burnfield's coffin leaves Immaculate Conception Church in Washington Monday after his hour-long funeral. Canton Township fireman Joe Lucas leaves church Monday with the jacket and hat Burnfield wore as a volunteer fireman.)

Detroit and Pittsburgh have bond

There has been much said about the similarities between Pittsburgh and Detroit, as both are one-industry towns in need of jobs. Detroit’s economy bottomed out with the decline of the American auto industry, as did Pittsburgh’s when its steel mills were idled for good.
But, I have argued that Pittsburgh was better off because it is home to world-renowned schools, such as Carnegie Mellon University, and hospitals that include UMPC and Allegheny General.
One thing Eastern Michigan does share with Southwestern Pennsylvania is a direct pipeline of illegal drugs that leave the Motor City, destined for small cities around Pittsburgh with police departments that lack the resources to fight drugs.
The Pittsburgh region already has more old houses than what are needed with its declining population. And many become crack houses where the Detroit drug dealers conduct their business, including the once-stately house, above, in Washington, Pa. The photo was taken by Celeste Van Kirk for a series in the Observer-Reporter on Detroit drug dealers and how they have contributed to the decline of a neighborhood.
Detroit has a serious blight problem, too, as evidenced by the photograph, below, that depicts how one former auto executive’s houses look today in the city’s Brush Park section. It was taken by a photographer known as 51 eggs and posted on the popular photo-sharing Web site, Flickr.
These kinds of neighborhoods just may be the most striking bond between the two big cities.

One famous corpse

Baron Joseph Henry Louis Charles De Palm created a big stink in more ways than one in “Little Washington," Pa., in 1876.
The Austrian immigrant who died penniless in New York made national headlines that year when he became the first person to be cremated in a crematory in the United States in the small town named after the nation’s first president.
He had stated in his will that he wanted to be cremated in a style that would blend Eastern and Western traditions, but, it took his estate six months to carry out his wishes.
New York refused to burn his body at a time when the moral majority thought it would be a slap in Christianity’s face to do anything other than place the dead six feet underground in a cemetery.
De Palm was part of the early Theosophical movement that wanted to create an equal opportunity brotherhood of humanity to investigate the mysteries of nature. His friends made arrangements to make the long trip to Washington by boat, train and wagon after they heard about Dr. Francis Julius LeMoyne, and his crematory project.
LeMoyne was a physician, humanitarian, farmer, scientist and inventor who had earlier opened his home to the Underground Railroad. The over-achiever was among the first people to link death and illness to the pollution of groundwater from decomposing bodies at cemeteries.
So he built a 30-by-20-foot red brick building with two rooms for cremations at his property on Gallows Hill, where executions by hanging had once been carried out.
Journalists and onlookers gathered in Washington from around the world to witness De Palm's body turn to ashes. Strange-colored smoke rose from the chimneys, creating a putrid smell that later turned sweet because of the flowers, herbs and pine branches that had been placed around his body.
LeMoyne would become the third person to be turned to dust at the facility that closed in 1900 after 42 cremations.


Located on South Main Street at the edge of Washington, the building still stands, and is open for tours between 2 and 4 p.m. on the second Saturday of the month between May and September. It’s operated by the Washington County Historical Society, which uses LeMoyne’s stately stone house as its headquarters.

Havoc on the hill

Click on the photograph to view a promotion for a series of articles that will begin Sunday in the Observer-Reporter about Detroit drug dealers and how they have infiltrated Washington, Pa. (video produced by Harry Funk, online editor at the O-R)