Detective Snuffy Sowa turned off Butler Street onto 44th Street. As he passed Zalewski’s Funeral Home, he could see the construction of new homes where the former St. John Neumann School stood. Originally the school was called Holy Family Elementary when it was opened in 1964. It was a state-of-the-art facility with carpeted classrooms that were heated by electricity and air-conditioned.
The school underwent a name change four years later in 1968 when the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh merged Holy Family with St. Mary and St. Augustine schools. The schools all became known as the Lawrenceville Catholic Schools. Holy Family was used for grades K-5 and was called Lawrenceville Catholic Elementary School. St. Mary’s on 46th Street came to be called Lawrenceville Catholic Middle School and served grades 6-8; while St. Augustine on 37th Street became Lawrenceville Catholic High School.
Most people continued to call these schools by their original names. The merger was a historic event, since it was the first merger of Catholic schools in the nation. Later, when St. Mary was closed, Holy Family was renamed again. It was at this point that it became known as St. John Neumann and served grades K-8.
It was March 2024 when Snuffy passed the new construction site. The school was demolished, but Holy Family Church, which was only a short distance further up the hill, was still standing. The building, a boarded-up shell of its former self, built in 1940, was no longer used as a church. Snuffy’s grandfather had told him that the church once had five Masses every weekend. The Masses often were filled to standing room only.
It caused some confusion when the Catholic Diocese starting merging churches as they had merged the schools. Holy Family Church merged with three other parishes to form the new Our Lady of the Angels parish in 1993. While the old parishes were suppressed, the remaining church structures retained their original names. Many people couldn’t comprehend that these churches were no longer individual parishes. Some called all three churches Our Lady of the Angels Church, but Holy Family Church remained open until December 2008. The structure was eventually desanctified and sold, along with the school and rectory.
As he drove up the street, Snuffy noticed an ambulance pulling from a parking space across the street from the church. Snuffy pulled into the same spot. He thought that it was ironic that this was the same cluster of houses where mystery author Tom Lipinski set the beginning of his novel A Picture of Her Tombstone. It was Snuffy’s favorite novel, and now he was investigating a shooting in the same block.
Officer Patty Berk greeted him with a smile. She always greeted him with a smile. She always wished he would ask her for a date, and she was always disappointed when he didn’t. “You just missed her, Snuffy. She was in the ambulance. Her brother is dead inside.”
“What went down?”
“A family squabble. The brother apparently owed money to a loan shark. He wanted a certain family treasure, so he could sell it and pay his debt. The sister wouldn’t give it up, so he started to beat her up. She eventually said she’d give it to him—and she did, with a .38 pulled out from a drawer. She shot him three times in the chest when he attacked her to wrestle the gun from her.”
“What was the treasure?”
“It was a speech written and delivered by President John Adams on July 4, 1801, to celebrate the nation’s 25th birthday.”
Snuffy shook his head and said, “She should have given him the document. It’s a fake.”
“Wait a minute, Snuffy. How do you know it’s fake? You didn’t even see the speech.”
How did Snuffy know it was a fake? The answer is below.
Mini-Mystery Solution
Snuffy knew that since the Continental Congress ratified the Declaration of Independence on July 2, President John Adams felt very strongly that Independence Day should be celebrated on the 2nd and not the 4th. Consequently, Adams refused to celebrate the Fourth of July or to give any speeches on that day.
Jude Wudarczyk has co-authored several books on Lawrenceville history as well as many articles that have appeared in local newsletters, websites, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Strip! magazine, and international journals. This is his first published fiction story.