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Southside’s Best Home-Cooked Meals

“In cooking, as in all the arts, simplicity is the sign of perfection.” Maurice-Edmond Sailland, Prince of Gastronomy, 1872-1956

During the beginning of the 20th century, South Bethlehem was known for its enclaves of eastern and central European immigrant neighborhoods, all of which centered around the churches they built.

In the neighborhood near St. Joseph’s R.C. Slovenian/Windish and St. John’s Windish Lutheran churches was Theresa’s Restaurant (now Leon’s), a local eatery on the corner of E. Fifth and Fillmore Sts.

Patrons who frequented Theresa’s Restaurant during the 1920s through the 1980s ranged from Bethlehem Steel blue-collar workers, to white shirt-and-tie office staffers—while nearby Lehigh University students frequented the Royal Restaurant or other Fourth St. restaurants.

But those patrons who took their meals regularly, or families who booked special occasions at Theresa’s, were never disappointed with her simple home-cooked meals, or the prices she charged, as Southsider Carol Henn clearly attests—

“The food was wonderful. I don’t know how she did it, but chicken, ham, potatoes and cole slaw, in Theresa’s hands, became gourmet dishes.”

Dining room of Theresa’s Restaurant during the confirmation dinner for Sandra Augustine, (left) with her cousin, Carol Henn (second left) in 1959.

A Presence on E. Fifth Street

According to the 1929 Bethlehem City Directory, Joseph and Theresa Ballek resided above Ballek’s Restaurant at 325 E. Fourth St.

Two years later in 1931, Theresa’s Restaurant opened on the corner of E. Fifth and Fillmore Sts. Theresa and Joseph Ballek resided in the apartment at 432 E. Fifth St. in the same building with their son, Billy. The apartments above were let to Bethlehem Steel workers who paid Theresa for their room and board.

By 1955, the widowed Theresa was married to Bethlehem Steel Labs employee, Joseph Kelemen. Known to everyone by his last name, easygoing Kelemen always wore a clean, starched and pressed white shirt and tie when tending the bar with Billy.

Twenty-five years after first opening her restaurant, Theresa offered those same home-cooked meals to a new generation of hungry patrons.

Many Hands Make Light Work

Joseph and Theresa Kelemen.

Theresa was formidable in the kitchen. She was not only a good cook but also a businesswoman. She ran her kitchen with assertive discipline and a sharp tongue, recalls Henn—

“Theresa could be very kind and generous, but she could be cruel and heartless as well. Her chief helper was an almost-blind woman around Theresa’s age, named Marika, who essentially lived the life of an indentured servant.

“Theresa berated her continuously as Marika worked day and night in the kitchen; she not only helped Theresa with the cooking— especially the scud end, such as peeling potatoes—but she also washed all the dishes by hand with steaming hot water.

“She did all the washing and ironing for the boarders upstairs, as well as for Theresa’s son, Billy. When Marika was no longer able to work, she was sent to Gracedale County Nursing Home—where she finally had some peace and had someone tending to her.”

Eat, Drink and Be Merry

By the 1950s, neighborhood family patrons kept Theresa busy in her kitchen preparing confirmation dinners, post-funeral receptions, pre-wedding suppers or graduation celebrations. On any of these occasions, patrons were lavished with a bounty of food served with Theresa’s brand of cuisine.

In 1972, when her grandmother   died, Carol Henn remembers the meal Theresa prepared for her family after the funeral—

“Baked ham, roasted chicken, pork chops, roast turkey, roasted potatoes, mashed potatoes, corn, rice, green beans, hot creamed cabbage made with paprika, salads, breads, cole slaw . . . all served country-style in heaping bowls and platters . . .

“For that entire meal, including drinks from the bar, Mom and my Aunt split the tab of $70. Theresa simply didn’t charge a lot if she knew and liked you—and she liked my grandmother very much.”

Sandra Augustine (left) and Carol Henn enjoy birch beer at Theresa’s Restaurant bar room, 1959.

Food—Life’s First Enjoyment

“Despite not charging or charging enough to people she liked,” says Henn, “Theresa was not poor. Heaven knows, she spent next to nothing on herself—she wore old dresses, her white signature apron . . . and men’s shoes—yes, men’s shoes. I don’t know if she had bad feet or a large shoe size, but I clearly remember her walking around the kitchen with those untied men’s shoes.”

On weekdays, when steel workers went for lunch at Theresa’s, “there were no printed menus,” recalls Henn. “She told them what she had, usually a selection of three meats: pork, ham, or sliced beef with gravy.

“Her Friday menu,” says Henn, “featured breaded flounder or haddock. Her crab patties were terrific; she made them herself and kept them in the big freezer.

“Nothing was more satisfying on cold days than a hot lunch,” says Henn, “consisting of home-made chicken soup, cream of mushroom soup, cream of potato soup or with lima beans, chicken paprikash, Windish noodle dishes, strookla (dumplings with sour cream and cabbage noodles), and strudels.

“On seasonal occasions, Theresa served kiffles and nut/poppyseed rolls—all made on her huge Garland stove in the kitchen.”

Food For The Soul

New York writer and publisher, Harry Golden once mentioned, “A tablecloth restaurant is still one of the great rewards of civilization.”

“In Theresa’s Restaurant,” says Henn, “the tables were covered with clean, white tablecloths . . . there were long potted stalks of variegated green snake plants in the corner of the dining room, and the windows were clad with curtains, shades or blinds—then came the bar room. The big double-door freezer in the kitchen is where Theresa told me to take ice cream for myself . . . and the zillions of birch beers that I drank (oh, all that foam on top)!”

Many who regularly ate meals at Theresa’s shared similar recollections and similar gastronomic experiences which stick in their minds today as it “stuck to their ribs” back then. “

As I look back,” concludes Henn, “a vivid experience that comes to mind was Theresa’s oilcloth covered kitchen table where I sat for so many nights, listening to the women gossip or listening to the boarders talk about their lives here and in the old country.

“There was one light bulb hanging from a cord above the table, giving the kitchen a glow and a timelessness that never changed— season to season, year to year . . .

“It was—and still is, truly unforgettable.”

Commemorating 150 Years:
Holy Infancy Church

Emergence of a Parish

Lithograph of the second edifice of Holy Infancy, built in 1886.
Courtesy Holy Infancy Parish

With an Irish labor force working on the Lehigh Valley Railroad and the iron company in the 1850s, it was not until 1861 the Most Rev. James Frederick Wood (1813- 1882), fifth bishop of the Philadelphia Diocese, established Holy Infancy as a parish in the village of Bethlehem South with permission to build a “territorial” church in the Diocese.

Technically, this appointment had no bearing on its predominantly Irish congregation living in the Third Ward, or on any other of its ethnic people: Belgian, German, English, Welsh, French, Swedish, Italian or Polish. It was the “mother church,” open to all nationalities of Catholics within the territory of South Bethlehem.

In 1862, Rev. Michael McEnroe was appointed pastor of Holy Infancy and later resided in the rectory built on the southwest corner of Locust and E. Fourth Sts.

Establishing An Identity

While both Holy Infancy Catholic Church (1864) and the Episcopal Church of the Nativity (1865) were under construction in South Bethlehem, the name “Nativity” was first chosen by the Catholic congregation; later, they relinquished use of the name in favor of “Holy Infancy.”

South Bethlehem’s first Burgess, James McMahon (1865-1866), a respected Irish citizen, had been an active participant in the organization of the borough’s first Catholic church.

Patrick Briody, an Irish immigrant who came to America in 1850, was also a dedicated founding parishioner of Holy Infancy Church. Like him, many community leaders of Irish decent contributed to the community by the close of the century: John Donegan, Charles Quinn, James Broughal, Thomas O’Reilly, to name a few.

The First Holy Infancy

JamesMcMahon

Construction of the church began in 1863; it measured 40 feet by 80 feet and was located on the corner of Locust St. (now Taylor) and E. Fourth St. It was dedicated by Bishop Wood in 1864. After its completion, a plot of 2.5 acres lying on South Mountain was donated to Holy Infancy Church by Asa Packer for a cemetery in 1867. The first interment was that of James Griffin in what is now St. Michael’s Cemetery—the burial site of at least 26 nationalities.

In 1877, Rev. Philip McEnroe succeeded his brother, Michael as pastor; in time, he saw the growing congregation in need of a larger church. By 1882, Bishop Wood, now elevated to first Archbishop of Philadelphia, gave approval to begin work on the larger Holy Infancy Church to be built on the site of the existing structure.

A New Edifice

Designed by Philadelphia architect Edwin Forrest Durang, the new Gothic Revival church measured 67 feet by 147 feet and was built of stone in the Perpendicular Style. A cross topped the distinctive, centrally located 196-foot spire, later lowered and modified during WWII.

The church bell was donated “to the Church of the Holy Infancy, South Bethlehem, by three friends of the pastor [Rev. McEnroe] and his people.” The donors were William W. Thurston, John Fritz and Samuel Adams.

Italian immigrant painter, Philipo Costaginni.

James Wohlbach headed construction, John Stewart Allam provided the church’s carpentry work and millwork was furnished by Ritter & Beck—all of South Bethlehem.

The interior wall behind the altar featured three paintings: the central “Crucifixion” painted by Philipo Costaginni (1839-1904), and two others flanking it, painted by Constantino Brumidi (1805-1880)—both Italian immigrants trained at the Accademia di San Luca in Rome, Italy.

Holy Infancy interior with triptych paintings behind the altar. Brumidi painted the two frecos flanking Costaginni’s center

When completed in 1886, the second Holy Infancy Church was dedicated by Archbishop Patrick John Ryan. Toward the end of the century, Holy Infancy Church offered Mass in languages other than English for an ever-increasing ethnically-diverse congregation.

The Ethnic Churches

During the 1880s, Rhineland, German- born Rev. William Heinen, came to South Bethlehem by way of Mauch Chunk and Lansford, coal regions of Carbon County. He believed the Philadelphia Archdiocese lacked stewardship in providing spiritual guidance to Slovaks, Hungarians, and Italians— Roman Catholic immigrants from eastern and southern Europe. These immigrants later created a rich and diverse cultural mix to what is now the city of Bethlehem’s South Side. In the early part of the last century, the influx of these diverse nationalities settled in South Bethlehem, having been lured by jobs at the Bethlehem Steel Co. New ethnic parishes formed to fit the needs of these non-English speaking immigrants and were recognized by the Diocese:

• Holy Ghost (German) 1871;
• Ss. Cyril and Methodius (Slovak) 1891;
• Our Lady of Pompeii of the Most Holy Rosary (Italian) 1902;
• St. John Capistrano (Hungarian) 1903;
• St. Stanislaus (Polish) 1906;
• and St. Joseph (Slovenian/Windish) 1913.

Today, Holy Ghost and Ss. Cyril and Methodius (now Incarnation of Our Lord Parish) are the only two Catholic churches originally founded by ethnic groups that still exist in South Bethlehem.

At 150, Holy Infancy remains the first Catholic church established by the Diocese before South Bethlehem became a borough. Today, the church not only continues serving an English speaking, multi-cultural congregation but also includes its Spanish-speaking members from Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Central America and Guatemala; and Portuguese-language members from Portugal and Brazil.

To mark its 150th anniversary, Holy Infancy parish celebrates with various activities planned throughout 2011. See the events calendar on the back of Southern Exposure, or visit the SBHS website under “Events.”

The South Bethlehem I Once Knew

by Carol Dean Henn

The Municipal Market—a favorite shopping experience on E. Third St.

“Um-brel-las! I can fix your um-brel-las!”

I can still hear the sing-song voice of the peddler and fix-it man who drove through our South Bethlehem neighborhood every week. His ancient and rickety truck was loaded to overflowing with brooms, pots, pans, washboards, bolts of cloth, and tools to repair almost anything.

When he stopped at the corner of Morton and Fillmore Sts., women came outside to look at his wares and make their purchases. Money came from small leather coin purses tucked into apron pockets. He spoke with a heavy accent, doing transactions among the Windish, Hungarians, Slovaks, and Italians in “broken English” that sufficed for everyone. For reasons I’ve never known, he was called “the boney man.” He seemed to have no name. Word simply preceded him from backyard to backyard: “The boney man is coming.”

One of the many “specialty shops” on Third St. was Cotton Crest, pictured third from the right.

I thought about the boney man frequently in 2010, as the Sands Hotel took form, as a new Broughal welcomed students, and as SteelStacks moved from dream to reality. Before I lose the memory of them, I want to savor the South Bethlehem places I knew in the 1950s and ’60s.

The long-gone Central Elementary School on Vine St. was built to last for centuries. Periodically, students were assembled in a large second-floor room to watch grainy black and white films warning us of the ominous threat of communism, always shown as red arrows sweeping across Europe. In frequent air raid drills, we would be quick-marched into the dark tunnels The South Bethlehem I Once Knew by Carol Dean Henn of Central’s stony basement and were told to crouch on the floor and cover our heads with our hands.

Quinn School on E. Fourth St.

A few decades earlier, my mother attended Quinn School, located where the parking lot now serves St. John’s Windish Lutheran Church. Like other children of immigrants who had yet to learn English, she wore a name tag with her address on it—labeled like a piece of doors away, the delicatessen always had a free pickle from the barrel for a kid. Movie theatres abounded in South Bethlehem, none more colorfully nicknamed than the “Bughouse,” officially named the Lehigh Theatre at 20 E. Fourth St. There you could see movies for 25 cents and, on Tuesday nights, get free dishes. baggage in danger of being lost in a new country.

I remember almost every inch of the Municipal Market at Third and Adams Sts. I can still picture Rich’s Produce stand, Peter Heinrich’s Sausages, and Joe Phillips’s Meats. The Bethlehem Police Department was crowded into the second floor space above the Market.

Next door to the Municipal Market was the tiny A&P store, with its gigantic (to a five year-old) red coffee grinder. A few doors away, the delicatessen always had a free pickle from the barrel for a kid.

Movie theatres abounded in South Bethlehem, none more colorfully nicknamed than the “Bughouse,” officially named the Lehigh Theatre at 20 E. Fourth St. There you could see movies for 25 cents and, on Tuesday nights, get free dishes.

In pre-television days, you could build a fine set of tableware, and South Bethlehem families dined for decades on “Bughouse” dishes, just as they served food from platters advertising Miller ’s Furniture, and poured beer and soda from pitchers advising “Bank on Banko.”

A Third St. “five and dime.”

Long-gone stores along Third St. included Alexy Shoes, Tom Bass, Eagan’s Menswear, Cotton Crest, the Victory Shop, Phillips Music Store, Kroope’s, the HUB, and 5- and 10-cent stores including the “up and down fivie.”

Martin’s Furniture remains as a multi-generational icon of the area. Evans Street had cigar factories and Fourth Street had factories producing “intimate wear” for ladies.

Fourth Street also offered the Royal Restaurant, Archond’s Ice Cream Parlor, Zavacky’s Shoe Repair, Dora Lee’s, Geir’s Jewelers, Devers Drug Store, the Fabric Center, the New Merchants Hotel, and always Cantelmi’s Hardware.

Every block seemed to have its grocery store—the Purity, Kay-Gee’s, Johnny Gregar’s, Albert’s, and Gergar’s. On Fifth St., the Roosevelt Restaurant had homemade crab patties, and Theresa’s Fillmore St. Restaurant at the corner of Fifth and Fillmore had the best food on the planet. Period.

In the 1920s, my paternal grandfather owned the Globe Theatre at Fourth and Wyandotte Sts. Even in the Depression, people paid to go to the movies.

My grandfather once placed an ad in the Bethlehem Globe Times announcing that “America’s only female projectionist” was showing movies at the Globe—it was only my grandmother, helping in the projection booth; but people lined up to see movies shown by a woman.

I’m glad I was born at a time when back doors and front doors were left open all day, a habit my Aunt Mary on Webster St. maintained into her 80s— when people who lived six blocks away from you, knew your name and when you had to be home— when I could sit in the sun with white-haired Mr. Connell in front of Francis J. Connell’s Funeral Home and tell him all about my school day, a school day created by students’ curiosity and teachers’ skills, not by state tests.

South Bethlehem produced workers for Bethlehem Steel, the Railroad, Laros, and Sure Fit, but it also produced scores of doctors, lawyers, teachers, and engineers.

“South Side” children and grand-children of immigrants attended Harvard and Yale, as well as Lehigh and Moravian.

 I’m certain that the entertainment at SteelStacks will be splendid . . . but I’ll close my eyes, at least once, and remember summer evenings filled with fireflies on Fillmore St., and once again I’ll hear Mr. Jaroschy in his back yard, three houses away, playing “When a Gypsy Makes His Violin Cry.”

I’ll offer a toast to the success of SteelStacks, but that toast will also be to the Market, the “Bughouse,” the Globe Theatre, and the magic that was small-town life in South Bethlehem.

—Carol Henn lives in Hanover Township, Northampton County, and is the Executive Director of the Lehigh Valley Community Foundation  

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Site of the first Holy Infancy (1864) Tradition has dictated that the original site was donated by the Moravian Church (see the Borough of South Bethlehem Semi-Centennial, 1915); however, a deed search by Christian Carson, former SBHS Board of Director, revealed the property was sold to “South Bethlehem Catholics and Rev. Wood, Bishop of Philadelphia” by “Joseph McMichael and Wife,” on Sept. 29, 1863 for $500.

South Bethlehem ~ Faith and Industry

The 1887 Church of the Nativity incorporated the original 1865 structure, its belfry facing Wyandotte St.

In 1791, the discovery of anthracite coal in Carbon County, attracted predominantly Welsh and Irish coal miners—by 1833, they had built the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Canal to completion.

Barge builder and wealthy politician, Asa Packer believed that a steam-driven railroad could transport coal faster. Packer hired an Irish workforce to build the Lehigh Valley Railroad along the Lehigh River—and by 1855, the first coal cars passed through Bethlehem South at the North Penn Railroad Junction.

After the Civil War in 1865, the village of Bethlehem South had become the Borough of South Bethlehem. Evidence of Asa Packer’s influence on the fledgling town was clearly visible: a diverse population of workers in the iron industry; the growth of an affluent Fountain Hill neighborhood, home to the industrial entrepreneurs; and through Lehigh University on South Mountain—a polytechnic institute founded by Packer.

A resident of Mauch Chunk, Packer financially supported St. Mark’s Episcopal Church. Inspired by his faith, South Bethlehem industrial businessmen, relatives and vestrymen saw the need for their own Episcopal Church. These individuals included Robert H. Sayre, William H. Sayre, Tinsley Jeter, Garrett B. Linderman, Ira Cortright, Samuel Wetherill, John Smylie, Jr., Dr. Frederick A. Martin and E.P. Wilbur.

By 1865, the slate-covered stone Church of the Nativity was consecrated by Rev. William Bacon Stevens (1815-1887), Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese in Philadelphia.

From its beginning, Lehigh University was connected with the Episcopal church, not only through its founder, but also in his choice of Bishop Stevens, first president of the Board of Trustees and designer of the university seal. In 1871, the charter of St. Luke’s hospital required that “a majority of the Board of Trustees be Episcopalians.”

On Easter Sunday, 1887, the Church of the Nativity was enlarged. Architect C. M. Burns designed it parallel to Wyandotte St. and incorporated the earlier 1865 stone church, making efficient use of the site.

Included among the members of Church of the Nativity were a “Colored Congregation,” black individuals employed as servants and coachmen by the same Fountain Hill church founders. In 1901, the black congregation had acquired enough capital to build their own church on Pawnee St. in Fountain Hill, at that time under the pastoral leadership of Rev. C.H. Brown. St. John African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Zion Church, still exists today.

In 1891, John Fritz founded and endowed the Fritz Memorial Methodist Church at Packer Ave. and Chestnut St. (now Montclair Ave.) and dedicated it to his parents; today the church continues to serve its South Side congregation.

Your movie ticket got you more at The Lehigh Theatre

What we remember most [about the Lehigh Theater on E. Fourth St.] is that it was the cheapest theatre in town, and you could sit in there all day on one ticket. It was not very clean, but if you were collecting dishes, you Your movie ticket got you more at The Lehigh Theatre got one free dish every time you went.

You dare not skip a week when the dishes were given out because you wouldn’t be able to complete the set. My mother had a beautiful set of dishes, a Renaissance ballroom scene with gold rim around the edge. As kids, we were embarrassed about where the dishes came from—but years later, they were worth something. Mother was a widow with eight of us kids, so buying a set like that was out of the question—they were our “best” set.

When we went to the “Lehigh,” we would look around to see if we knew anyone before buying a ticket because we’d be embarrassed going in [to buy the dishes]. Now, it all seems so silly.

—Lucille Bringenber