Schmude Family History & Genealogy
Schmude Last Name History & Origin
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SCHMUDE // ZMUDA is the same name going back centuries in the region of Northern Poland known as Pomerania up near The Baltic Sea.
History
The earliest noted SCHMUDE ((also spelled in Polish//Prussian as ZMUDA where by the Z has a dot over it and equals "Sch" in English.)) was Balzar Schmude who lived in the late 1400's and early 1500's. His was noted for his roll in a war with the Mongolian Tartars in 1514 and was rewarded by a duke in January 1515.
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Ernst and his family came to live in homes at 957 and 959 Woods Run Avenue but soon spread to other nearby streets and communities. It was from these two shown here that the family links grew to include Pittsburgh's Munhall Valley, Garfield, The North Side and even to places such as Oil City & Titusville, Pennsylvania. All of the SCHMUDE family of Western Pennsylvania appear to be the result of the union of Ernst & Bertha Schmude and their offspring.
Both of them are buried in Highwood Cemetery located along Brighton Road in the Woods Run area of present-day Pittsburgh, PA.
This image from the archives of Bryant Schmude was taken from the far side of the Davis Island Dam looking toward the bluff of Bellevue, PA. The small white "bird-house" looking structure was the lower end waiting room of this short lived "T" railway. If you look closely, you'll see that this station sits atop a steel column which contained a vertical elevator. This primitive electrical elevator connected the West Bellevue Station of the Pennsylvania Railroad with the white incline waiting room. Just to left of the small station was the hillside platform and track of the Bellevue Incline.
Here you boarded the small tram car which used a Fisher Storage Battery for power. The trackway went along a cliffside right of way to a point where today's Suburban Hospital is located----then via what is present day West Street and the up grade of South Jackson Street. The rails ended just before Lincoln Avenue in the new community of Bellevue, PA. A passenger loading area was near the top of South Jackson Street.
This crude railway was plagued by mechanical and management problems. It's actual intent was to link the growing town with the West Bellevue Station of the Pennsylvania RR----the link to Pittsburgh and elsewhere. In 1892, electric light rail trolley service began via a new trestle from Brighton Heights over the Jack's Run Hollow. Modern "T" links extended onto Emsworth/Dixmont and to West View.
The Bellevue Incline was formally abandon in 1892.
All of this was accomplished so that work on the ex-Fort Worth TANDY PCC could continue. Later that evening, Bryant continued onto Corpus Christi, TX without a hitch.
After a year of service in 1917, he was returned home very injured in his lungs. It is unclear if it was a result of mustard gas exposure or another cause. His health never recovered. Sadly at age 26 in 1921, he lost his life and was buried with other family at Highwood Cemetery along Brighton Road near Pittsburgh, PA.
It's ironic that in both WW1 and later in WW2, there were Schmude cousins who both fought with US forces as well as Axis forces. Hence Schmude cousins fought each other as a result of these horrible wars.
The other people in the photo are not identified.
Names of the other people in this photo not offered.
More views can be seen under "schmude" on FLICKER
People in photo include: Bryant Schmude
He was born in Brooklyn, NY however grew up--from the age of 2--in Dooker's Hollow-North Braddock located east of Pittsburgh, PA in the shadows of the once mighty J.Edger Thomson Steel Mill.
The photo shows MR CONDUCTOR with some delighted passengers aboard a 1947 electric trolley car which Schmude was operating for a special birthday run. (Names of passengers not given.)
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The average age of a Schmude family member is 74.0 years old according to our database of 140 people with the last name Schmude that have a birth and death date listed.
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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
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]
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".