Nostalgic mural evokes 1950s-era Zelie
ZELIENOPLE — Visitors who saw a mural unveiled in Zelienople Thursday evening, Oct. 13, became lost in the borough’s past, watching shops form in hazy hues along a canvas.
“That’s Hartmann’s Drugstore,” one visitor exclaimed. Other visitors recognized a vision of the Strand Theater from Christmastime in 1956. “The Ten Commandments” is shown above snowy streets on the theater’s marquee.
“1956 was a big year in our town,” said Randy Hart, city planner and leader in Zelienople’s Historical Society. “That’s when you say the interstate highway system came through. Brand new elementary school. Brand new community park. We were busting at the seams. Then, the ’80s came, and the economy tanked. We lost our manufacturing, so we were in trouble.”
The “Christmas in Zelienople 1956” mural was unveiled at Haute Designs at an event featuring hot mulled cider, live music and a gathering of people young and old.
The artwork marked a chapter for more than the town’s collective roots at a critical juncture in its past. The commissioned work also honored lost loved ones who had passed from the community since 1956.
These included Randy Hart’s daughter Jackie Hart Morris, who died from cancer at the age of 32. It included children such as Rehanna Lyndon and Jennifer M. Zeigler, who died from health problems at the ages of 12 and 8, respectively. Tom Berlaine, another name linked to the work, died in Vietnam at the age of 22.
The mural also honored others, including the late Colton Paul Slayback, 20, and Kevin Neal Jackson, 26.
Created by artist Jason Ruggiero, the mural is a work in progress and,just like Zelienoplie, continues to evolve.
“This is very important, a very emotional day for all of us,” said Mary Kelly Wallace.
Wallace is the daughter of Alfred or “Al” Hartmann, who once owned Hartmann’s Drugs.
“My father was here from 1951 to ‘73,” she said. “His father was a pharmacist, my father was a pharmacist and now my brother’s daughter is a pharmacist,” she said.
She said her father was the leader for Zelienople’s Chamber of Commerce and helped organize Zelienople’s Horse Trading Days, an equestrian festival that has taken place each summer for the last 58 years.
He, too, died early, at the age of 30, Hartman said.
Speaking before the dedication crowd, Hart took a moment to reflect on each of the loved ones commemorated in the mural.
“Mr. Lydon, a fellow teacher of mine, his daughter died at 12,” he said. “Now, at 12 years old, she never got to go to the prom. She didn’t graduate from high school. She didn’t go to college or anything. So that’s the way that I look at the positive side for my family is that our daughter got to do all those things.”
Hart had proposed the idea to Haute Designs gallery owner Cynthia Slayback. It signaled another step in the community’s ongoing revitalization work, yet another bridge between the past and present.
Hart pointed out some of the visions yet to take shape on the mural’s canvas that the artist is considering. For instance, a Christmas tree is being hauled by a pickup truck that will soon display an “I Like Ike” sticker from the period.
Then there’s another whimsical detail — not yet added — of a chicken in one of the windows.
In his speech, Hart said the town would never look just as it did in the 1950s.
“We have to keep up with society,” he said.
But the mural shows that honoring the past is more than a prologue for how Zelienople will move forward.
