October 4, 2019
Daniel M. Telep
SEWICKLEY POSTAL HISTORY
How many of you as a child collected stamps? Many magazines like Mad Magazine, Boys Life and comics contained advertisements and special offers targeting stamp collecting.
Our speaker Daniel Telep began Stamp Collecting as a small boy of 7. This original interest eventually became a lifelong passion and hobby. Over the years his collections of stamps and envelopes grew and resulted in several awards. He now collects items focused on Sewickley Postal Operations.
In addition, he also has collected postcards, letters, envelopes many which bear images of local landmarks and the names of famous families such as the McCready’s, the Shields’, the Darlington’s, The Mellon’s, the Semple’s, and the Raymond’s. It is also interesting that what we call now Sewickley was originally called ‘Sewickley Bottom’.
So, come and learn more about stamp collecting and local history which can be found in postal related archives.
October 11, 2019
Todd DePastino
Veterans Breakfast Club
In the fall of 2008, a group of thirty World War II veterans came together to fellowship and share stories about their service during the war. Based on the success of this first gathering, local businessman Dan Cavanaugh and historian Todd DePastino scheduled additional meetings which were also open to the public. By 2010, The Veterans Breakfast Club had held thirty meetings and was drawing 50 to 150 people. Based on this continued success, it was decided to record and share the stories so they could be shared with the public. The Veterans Breakfast Club has reached out to documentarians, digital story tellers and podcasters to create an oral history of Veterans in the Pittsburgh area.
Todd DePastino is the founding director of the Veterans Breakfast Club. Todd is interested in the stories of veterans and this fed into his work as a historian and author, Todd has authored seven books including his award-winning book “Bill Mauldin: A Life Up Front”. This a biography of the noted WWII cartoonist.
Todd earned a Ph.D. from Yale in American History. He has taught at Penn State Beaver and Waynesburg University.
