SUMMIT TWP — John Hasychak suspects his cherished late friend had a hand in a delightful discovery in the lineage of a favorite co-worker.

Hasychak explained that as a young man, he worked at the former Castle Rubber in East Butler, which was a significant employer in the county in years past.

There, he met a co-worker named Arthur Schnur, who grew up on the farm that now houses Schnur’s Country Market in Jefferson Township.

Hasychak was raised on Main Street in Butler, but the unlikely pair struck up a friendship as they worked at the factory, which made rubber components for parts used in various industries.

“He was a really died-in-the-wool, hardworking country boy,” Hasychak remembered of his friend.

The pair worked hard together, but Hasychak admitted their high jinks at work almost got them fired a few times.

“We laughed, and we just had fun together,” Hasychak said.

He remembered the crew at Castle Rubber supporting Schnur when his son was killed in Texas.

“We went through good times and bad times together,” Hasychak said.

Then Castle Rubber closed its doors in 2003, and as so often happens, the friends went their separate ways as they attended to finding new jobs and moving forward with their lives.

“I would bump into him here and there, and we would talk,” Hasychak said.

Then one day, he saw Schnur at a restaurant in Butler.

“He called me over to his table and he said they found a spot on his lung,” Hasychak recalled.

After that report, Hasychak made it a point to keep up with Schnur, even if only on the phone.

“He called me one day and said ‘Hassy, I have six months to live,’” Hasychak said. “It broke my heart.”

Hasychak began picking Schnur up each week at the Summit Township home where Schnur’s widow, Judy, still lives, to take his friend to lunch.

“We would sit there and talk more than we would eat,” he said. “We would laugh and talk about old times.”

Judy Schnur said those weekly lunches with Hasychak were a much-anticipated outing for her husband as he went through treatment for two types of lung cancer.

“It would lift his spirits,” she said. “Art considered John his best friend. One was as crazy as the other.”

Judy said the chemotherapy her husband received did well against one type of cancer, but not the other.

“He said ‘I’m going to beat it,’ but the cancer had the last word,” she said.

Hasychak recalled phoning Schnur to invite him to lunch as usual.

“He said ‘Hassy, I don’t think I have the strength,’” Hasychak said.

So Hasychak came to visit his old friend, and the two sat and talked awhile.

“I said ‘Well, I’ve got to go,’” Hasychak said. “I looked at him and thought ‘This is the last time I’m going to see him alive.’ I think he knew it, too.”

Schnur succumbed to the cancer on Dec. 4, 2019.

“I was honored to be a pallbearer at his funeral,” Hasychak said quietly.

After his friend’s death, Hasychak became bored with retirement and got a job at Sprankle’s Neighborhood Market in Saxonburg.

“I acquired a good buddy over there,” Hasychak said. “She’s bubbly, and she never shuts up.”

The young woman Hasychak befriended, Lindsey Green, also of Summit Township, said she also felt drawn to the older co-worker, and the two would seek each other out to discuss their activities, Hasychak’s wife, Green’s fiancé, merchandise at the store or any other subject that cropped up.

“We just really bonded with our personalities,” Green said. “He’s always yacking.”

She then saw a comment on her late great-grandfather’s Facebook tribute page by John’s wife, Sue, that said “John really misses you.”

That got the wheels turning, and Green could hardly wait until the next time she was scheduled to work with Hasychak.

“I came to work the next day and asked him ‘Do you know Arthur Schnur?’” Green said.

It turned out that Green’s beloved great-grandfather was none other than Hasychak’s old friend, Art.

“I was shocked,” Hasychak said. “Here’s a person I became friends with and we never put it together.”

Green also was stunned at the coincidence.

“He was like ‘How do you know him?’ and I said ‘(Art and Judy) are my great-grandma and great-grandpa,’” Green said.

“We were trying to put it together,” John said of being told his new friend was Schnur’s great-granddaughter.

“It was very confusing for me to line it up,” Green said of the connection.

The discovery did not change the unlikely duo’s friendship, as they continue to have fun joking around at Sprankle’s.

But Hasychak, who said Schnur would absolutely love the situation, said he feels the happenstance has a deeper meaning.

“It’s like Art and God put us together to finish the story,” he said.