Mystery repeats itself
Jane Teagarden of Claysville must have had a sense of deja vu when she picked up her newspaper last Monday morning. In May 2014, she recognized her late father, Gaylord Sheller, as one of several men in that installment of the Mystery Photo. And last week, she saw his image in the feature once again.
“He must have been doing something involving the Washington County Soil Conservation District,” Teagarden said.
He was. Both times.
In the May 5, 2014, Mystery Photo, Sheller was one of the men standing around a young pine tree, one of hundreds planted on property in Taylorstown in the late 1970s. At the time, Sheller operated a dairy farm in West Finley Township and was a longtime member and director of the soil conservation district. Sheller died in 2005 at age 97.
Teagarden called last Monday morning to identify her father – again. So did Senior District Judge Jay Dutton, also of Claysville. But Teagarden and others she contacted could not identify the younger man in the picture, nor did they know what exactly was happening or where the image was captured.
Bryan McConnell wrote in an email he recognized the location as the Junior Building at Washington County Fairgrounds. But by mid-week, we still did not have two or more readers confirming the identity of the other man.
We told our readers last week the photo was taken by a member of the staff of the O-R’s Canonsburg office in 1968. We were wrong about that. Under magnification, a partial date is visible on one of the bags of seedlings held by the men, and that was enough of a clue to eventually solve the puzzle.
The date on the bag reads either 4/18/70 or 4/18/71. The Canonsburg office was closed before 1972. Scanning microfilm, we discovered the same photograph in the April 25, 1970, edition of the Observer-Reporter.
The man on the left was identified in the caption as Lee Musselman of the Pennsylvania Department of Forests and Waters. According to the newspaper, Musselman and Sheller “distributed over 230,000 tree seedlings and 20,000 wildlife shrubs. The trees have been purchased by landowners to be planted for soil erosion control and timber production. The shrubs were furnished to the District by the Pennsylvania Game Commission to provide foods and cover for small game.”
Sycamore resident George Summersgill was the only reader to correctly identify Musselman.
Much has changed over the 45 years since this photo was taken. For instance, a glance at the TV listings in the same edition shows how slim the pickings were for viewers back then. At 8:30 p.m., the only shows to watch on commercial television were “My Three Sons,” “The Lawrence Welk Show” and “Petticoat Junction.”
Some things never change, though. A headline on the front page read, “Planners give top priority to Mon Valley Expressway,” a highway project the article stated would take just six years to complete.
sixty years would have been more accurate!
Look for another Mystery Photo in next Monday’s Observer-Reporter.