Schmude Family History: Last Name Origin & Meaning

08/14/2012

Growing up east of Pittsburgh, PA in the forgotten valley known as Dooker's Hollow-North Braddock remains in my own memories as a time lost with my youth. Like any body growing up, there were good times and bad times. The house that was my home for those early years of my life was at #708 O'Connell Blvd--directly under the 1939 built Dooker's Hollow Bridge which carries Bell Avenue high above between Bessemer Terrace and North Braddock.

When I started to attend grade school at Hartman El. School way up on Brition Avenue in North Braddock, there was no school bus sent down into the hollow just for me. So I came to use the Port Authority Transit (PAT) bus route known as the #65E N.Braddock-Swissvale.

The #65E bus was originally created as a run of the Dawson Bus Lines whose crude buses connected Braddock's B&O RR Station w/the upper reaches of North Braddock. The Dawson buses which dated back to the 1920's along with the similar system of the Burrelli Bus Lines were absorbed into the newly formed PATransit system after 1964.

So as a little kid, I came to learn to await the up hill run of the ole'65E coming up through Dooker's Hollow...and getting on--I would drop my 15-cents into the old metal and glass farebox. Sometimes, I would rush down the hill on the bus--at lunch time--and then back up to school on the next trip...Then back home later.

It was during these years that my own interest in mass transit took root. With a strange fondness for trolleys and buses, I came to know people like Bob Burrelli (a son of the original owner of the Burrelli Bus Lines) and Henry Markowski (of Stanton Heights) who slowly answered my questions and tought me things about the equipment. As a grade school kid, I used to get to turn the silver lever to hiss open the fold back front doors and change the route signs.

The deeper seeds of a lifelong interest in railways and mass transit were planted by these simple act of kindness. It is these seeds that later inspired the character of "MR.CONDUCTOR".

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Bryant Schmude

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08/07/2012

Now I was actually born at King's County Hospital in Brooklyn, NY...but at the age of 2, was brought to live in an older two story home located east of Pittsburgh, PA--in the shadows of the mighty J Edger Thomson Steel Mill and the 1930's era Dooker's Hollow Bridge which flew high over the hollow.

It was in this creeky old house at #708 O'Connell Blvd in Pittsburgh's North Braddock section that I spent many growing up years. It was a youth of intersting times, of the death of my dad Theodore when I was age seven and of my own health issues...It was here that I developed my intense interest in buses and trolleys...and the fact that a local mass transit route--the ole' #65E bus--stopped right at our gate was an added plus. The 65E was my way to and from grade school. On the massive bridge above---ran the 61A bus from East Pittsburgh to Downtown Pittsburgh via Wilkinsburg and Oakland. More often than not, we used the nearby #56B which followed Braddock Avenue in the shadow of the mighty steel mill.

Now at the bottom of our little street---which was O'Connell Blvd---was a small tunnel which led to Braddock Avenue and the mill wall. To me, the steel mill was almost God Like---that is, it seemed mighty and forever as it never shut down...It was--Awsome!!! It was on top of this small tunnel that the tracks of the Pennsylvania Railroad were located ever since the mainline was built in the early 1850's.

Growing up down in the hollow, pretty much kept me away from the many school kids who lived way up on the hills of North Braddock...So I kind of grew up isolated and independent in my thoughts and interest.

There was a young blonde girl who was my play mate for years...Her name was Kristine Krul. For years we were almost always found together...I attended grade school at Hartman El School which was way up on Brition Avenue---there were no school buses sent down into the hollow so I thankfully used the #65E--paying my 15-cents into the metal and glass farebox. Many times I did walk to and from school. Going home was all down hill through isloated Ravine Street.

It was on these trips that bus drivers like Henry Markowski, Bob Burrelli and "Burkie" would teach me things about the buses--like how to open the fold back doors or beep the horn. I soon got to know peope working on the trolleys...and got to actually "guest operate" a real trolley car on the actual system when I was age seven.

After my 6th grade year at Hartman, my mother had a job in Eastern PA...so we moved to New Jersey that summer leaving behind the little house down in Dooker's Hollow. My years in Southern NJ turned out to be sad and troubled. Many years later, I revisted the old hollow...By then, little Kristine Krul was a busy teenager who had pretty much forgotten me while the little home I grew up in--after it's abandonment--had been set on fire and then fully torn down. Only a grassy lot with the old back wall...remained.

It was at that home, that my dad passed away on a March night and that I started to come of age...With the major reductions in the J Edger Thomson Steel Mill employment levels conbined with the passing of many of the older folks--Dooker's Hollow and the nearby town of Braddock, PA fell into decay. So many of the oldtimers and their homes which once lined the hollow--were all gone. It was as if I were walking through a Ghost Town Hollow. Even the ole' #65E bus run through the hollow was abandon.

Among my childhood memories was walking with my mom Clara and grandma Verna--up the winding old road that took us up to Bell Avenue. Sometimes we'd watch a passing Penn Central train wiz by...or go up to catch a #61A bus. The 61A's routing--like that of the original trolley #64--took it over the Dooker's Hollow Bridge high above the home I grew up in. Many times I stood there with my mom as a 61A came wizzing down the bridge ramp and hissed to a stop for us...

So much so was this personal memory, that in 2010--when I learned that the ole #61A bus was being cut back to Wilkinsburg & Swissvale and would no longer cross the bridge to Bessemer Terrace....that I took my cameras up to the spots on Bell Avenue where as a child I used to wait....so as to capture on film (digital) the images of the 61A coming down that ramp. Several shots now preserve this memory for history.

FOR more about all of this and Schmude History--contact BRYANT SCHMUDE c/o
PA TROLLEY RAILWAY, #1 Museum Road, Washington, PA 15301

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Bryant Schmude

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07/27/2012

The earliest Schmude's came to settle in Pittsburgh's Woods Run Valley and the Munhall-Mon Valley region of Pennsylvania during the early 1890's. It was told to me-- Bryant Schmude -- by my late Aunt Alice (Schmude) Nordas that after attempting farming in Vermont, that some of the Schmude men too jobs as Trackmen with the Pennsylvania Railroad. This may have been in the late-1880's.

According to her tales to me when I was very young, when the men ended up working with the PRR near Pittsburgh, PA--that they felt that they were getting too far from the women in their families. So they settled in the Pittsburgh area--in both Woods Run and Munhall. They were of the same family origins but later generations lost touch with their kin as the years went by and the elders passed away.

Historically the name SCHMUDE and ZMUDA are the same with PRUSSIAN origins. The family roots go back to Prussia near the Baltic Sea. Parts of this midevil kingdom are now Northern Germany and Northern Poland. The Kingdom of Prussia no longer exist.

The earliest recorded SCHMUDE was Balzar Schmude (Zmuda) who was a decorated warrior in the early 1500's. For more about the early SCHMUDE's--write to
Bryant Schmude c/o [contact link]

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