St. Aiden's Church





We moved next door to St. Aidan's church in the summer of 1943. Father Leo 

Phillips was the resident priest having replaced Father Munley. The parish 

included Ellengowen, Maple Hill, and Patriotic Hill although often we had 

folks from Yatesville and Jacksons attend Mass. 



The main source of income for the parish was the annual picnic which was held 

in late August. There was an open area alongside the state road between 

Shenandoah and Mahanoy City where the picnic was held. Several weeks before 

the picnic the parishoners would get together and build a ticket booth, a bar 

and refreshment stand, and a dance floor. All the lumber for these were 

secured from the company timber bank thanks to the supervisor, Jim Benedict, 

who incidentally was not of the Catholic faith. One of the more active 

workers was my Dad, Harry Jones, who also was a non-Catholic.



The picnic would get underway on Friday afternoon as the guys who drove the 

old chain drive Mack trucks for Carey, Baxter & Kennedy finished their work 

and headed for a cold beer to wash down the dust from the truck road. People 

driving to and from Shenandoah would pull off the road and join in the fun. 

In the evening, the juke box on the dance floor would entice the younger 

folks to stop in for a beer and a dance. Usually around ten PM on Saturday 

nite my Grandfather, Jim Fogarty, would give an exhibition of his soft shoe 

dancing which he had done professionally as a young man.



After the picnic ran its course, everything was torn down except for the 

dance floor. We attached a home made basketball back board to it for our 

games. Several top Mahanoy Township players , such as Joe Buchanan and Jimmie 

O'Brien, had their skills honed on that floor. 



Eventually the Parish lost its priest and became a mission of the 

Annunciation B.V.M. church in Shenandoah. 



The church and the rectory are gone now.