My Trails into the Past

Even though my mother, Lela "Lea" Nell (Johnston) Hork had four children under 6 years old, she was active with the Junior Woman’s Club in Pittsburg, California. In 1960, she was installed as secretary. Mrs. Bess Gibson was president, succeeding Mrs. Edward Marchoke, Mrs. Frank Pietruszkiewicz was vice president, Mrs. William Hork was secretary, Mrs. Cyril Bruno was treasurer, Mrs. Ally Petrial was parliamentarian, Mrs. Marchoke was auditor, and Mrs. James Hanges was club coordinator. [1] In September, Louis Armstrong performed for a hospital benefit at the Pittsburg High School creative arts building. The sponsored show's proceeds were to purchase a circoelectric universal hospital bed for the Pittsburg Community Hospital. The following women were involved with the program: Mrs. Bess Gibson, Mrs. Ally Petrini, Mrs. Cyril Bruno, Mrs. Bernard Krieg, Mrs. Edward Marchoke, Mrs. Donald Meyer, and Mrs. William Hork. [2] A photo of Louis Armstrong appeared in the newspape...

This week I visited the Pittsburg (California) Historical Society. We lived in Pittsburg from about 1956 to 1963 in a two-story house on East 9th Street. The Society runs a museum in a huge building with some really fantastic displays and I took a glance at that before asking what kind of archive records they had. In their library, they had binders with indexes to other collections. Under the surname index, I found several references to our family surname HORK. Boy did I find some treasures. These were newspaper clippings that had been indexed by volunteers. They were located into two different binders, but both about women’s clubs. My mother was a member of the Junior Woman’s Club, which later was known as Pittsburg Woman’s Community League. There were several articles about my mother on various committees. Here is an undated printout of the officers and chairmen of the club. My mother had two jobs: Ways and Means and Press. There was an article about the club’s plannin...