10.24.07 Matilda Belan's 100th Birthday!

On October 24, 2007 Matilda Belan celebrated her 100th birthday. Her family was gathered around her to share in the happy day. Below is a little write up about Matilda and an overview of her life as told by her granddaughter and fellow member of CLW, Arlene Fath.

My grandmother, Matilda Belan turned 100 on October 24, 2007.  She arrived in this country on November 1, 1920 with her older sister.  Her parents had left them both in Yugoslavia with adoptive parents, while they came to this country to get settled.  When WWI broke out, they could not send for them as quickly as they had intended.

Her parents had settled in Dysart, PA, a little town just outside of Altoona.  She lived there until she was around 14.  At that time she left on her own, because her mother wanted her to marry an older gentleman and she refused.  She went to stay with a relative in Rankin, where she got a job working in Homestead at the Jewish Home.  She then met my grandfather, John Belan, who was from her village in Yugoslavia.  They married when she was 17. They had two children: Frank, the oldest and Rose. 

Matilda and John lived "below the tracks" on Lindon Street, in Duquesne where they took in boarders.  She cooked, cleaned and did laundry for them, while taking care of her own family.  During WWII, she also worked in the Duquesne mill running a crane.  After the war ended, like many other women that worked in the mill, she was forced to quit.  She worked at the Green Gables (where McDonald's now stands) near Kennywood and after that, she worked in the cafeteria in Kennywood.  In 1954, she and John built a house on Pennsylvania Avenue in West Mifflin, where she still lives.   That house in West Mifflin has housed nearly all of her family at one time or another.  Her son Frank, her daughter Rose. with husband and children Rocky, Gene and Bobby, my brother Jack, when he moved back into the area, my cousin Gene when he came home from the Navy, Rocky's daughter Melissa, my son David and me (when I was in high school and now with my husband Dave).

When people ask her what her secret to looking so good at her age, she said she always worked hard and kept busy.  She still cooks, cleans, crochets, gardens and sews.  When she is not watching her favorite TV shows (Little House on the Prairie, Bonanza, Walker Texas Ranger and Gun Smoke) she plays solitaire with a real deck of cards, not on a computer.