Sutersville dedicates town park to '14 Sons' who died serving their country

Lucy Barber Petershankski looked at a sign attached to the fence of the 14 Sons of Sutersville Memorial Park. The park was dedicated Saturday morning to 14 native sons of Sutersville who died while serving in the military in the last century.

The sign had pictures and text about each of the 13 soldiers from Sutersville who died while in combat during World War I, II and the Korean War, and a 14th — Joseph Feltes — who died in fall off the Great Pyramid in Egypt in November 1945, six months after the war in Europe had ended.

World War I was the nation’s first war after the town was founded by Eli Suter in 1902.

Petershankski, 97, of nearby Elizabeth Township was focused on the photo of her younger brother, Frank Barber, and the text accompanying the picture. It tells park visitors about his service during World War II and the date when he was killed in the Normandy province on July 12, 1944, a little more than a month after he landed on Utah Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944. He was 22 years old when he was killed by shrapnel while in a foxhole with a soldier from Herminie, Petershanski said.

“He never got to live a life,” said Pershanski, who was among about 25 people at the dedication ceremony to officially name the park along First Avenue for those service members.

Sutersville fire Chief Mark Ghion, who has spearheaded an effort over the past four years to gather information about the 14 Sutersville sons, thanked the borough for its efforts in naming alleys in the town for those 14 and for the renaming of the park.

“It is hoped this will remain a park for 14 Sons of Sutersville and never a park for 15, 16, and 17,” sons of Sutersville, said Ghion, himself an Army veteran. Ghion’s father, Alvin, was the town’s last living World War II veteran when he died at age 95 in August 2018.

Ghion said he also was hoping, with the cooperation of borough council, that a fundraising effort could be initiated to place bronze plaques on rocks in the park to tell the story of those Sutersville sons.

“These guys’ stories are much more detailed,” Ghion said. The stars beside their name on plaque at Sutersville’s veterans memorial “doesn’t tell where it (their story) began and what led up to that star,” he said.

Ghion has spent countless hours on the internet researching military records and talking with townspeople and relatives of the soldiers to create thumbnail sketches of the men’s lives. He has searched military records for wounded personnel admitted to a hospital and the Army’s mortuary affairs branch on deceased soldiers.

About their lives, Petershanski recalled how her brother was working in the Copperweld mill in Glassport when he joined the Army. He had graduated from high school a few years before.

And she recalled the terrible day when her family received a telegram from the Army announcing his death and then a telegram the following day, leaving them with doubts about his fate.

“It is wonderful to have them remembered,” Petershanski said.