Finding Mrs. Young

According to the Atlas of Northampton, Pennsylvania, published in 1874, a one "Mrs. Young" was the owner of 609 and 611 High Street, two row houses that were at one point, a larger building.

Which makes sense - we share the same roof, 609 has the cellar door while we have the small back porch.

So I'm writing from the Bethlehem Room at the Bethlehem Area Public Library. Quite the gem of an archive - I think I'll be spending many hours here...

I've also become friendly with a guy named Jack who owns the photo lab down Broad Street. We chatted for an hour when I went to pick up some film. He's got two front teeth, a pot belly, and wears a thin silver cross on a long chain around his neck.

"I keep tellin 'em that they gotta go over and check out what's in their back yard. Just once. It'll tell ya a lot about what could come in the future. Me? They're not gonna get my money. I walk in with a buck, and I'll walk out with a buck. But it's a first class operation they got goin' on over there."

Jack's a traveler and a photographer - a self procclaimed country guy who bopped around several mining towns and Vermont hillsides before ending up in Bethlehem. He spent a few years in the fabled Centralia, PA - the mining town whose grounds spew smoke from the fire below... like something right out of The Time Machine.

"We were just kids down there, y'know?" said Jack. "We'd spit on the rocks down there, and they'd go 'tsssss!' cuz they were red hot!"

A bit of a digression, yes, but that town's always fascinated me. Jack spent a few years documenting every building and every street in the town, before the whole thing was decimated, sunk, or abandoned. He said he'd bring in the work next time I stopped by the shop.