Global True Lithuania Encyclopedia of Lithuanian heritage worldwide

Osceola Mills

Osceola Mills is a town of 1500 in Pennsylvania. Originally a coal mining and a lumber mill town, it has attracted a considerable Lithuanian community ~1900. To this day, their Osceola Mills Lithuanian club operates.

Entrance to the town of Osceola Mills

The Lithuanian club is a white wooden building with no external signs. Inside, there is a bar hall and a larger events hall. There are details reminding us of the clubs' Lithuanian heritage, such as Lithuanian emblems and flags, which also appear on the club‘s shirts. However, since some 1960s, non-Lithuanian members have been also allowed to join, and, by now, with the settlement of the town having taken place so long ago, most of the town inhabitants are mixed or know relatively little about their heritage.

Osceola Mills Lithuanian club

Osceola Mills Lithuanian club

The shirt of Osceola Mills Lithuanian club

The Lithuanian club also owns a large Lithuanian cemetery. Most of the land there is, however, empty, as the community never reached the expected size, likely due to the Great Depression of 1929 obliterating the town's coal mining industry (which never fully recovered, and thus never really attracted that many immigrants anymore). Less than 50 people were buried in the cemetery. At first, only those who joined the club below 40 years of age had a right to be buried there but this has been extended to 50 years since. Other Lithuanians are buried in Polish or general Catholic cemeteries of the town.

Osceola Mills Lithuanian cemetery

Lithuanian club started as the St. Anthony Beneficial Society, incorporated in 1907 (and, in the Lithuanian cemetery, there is a cross dedicated to the St. Anthony's Beneficial Society). In many historic Lithuanian communities of the era, Lithuanians would establish such religious fellowships which typically would then become Lithuanian parishes that would have built their own churches, with secular activities and schools also becoming a part of those parishes. With Osceola Mills being heavily hit by the Great Depression, however, no Lithuanian church was ever built, while the club itself slowly lost its semi-religious character, operating more like a bar these days.

Original documents of the Society has some 100 members listed ~1919. A 1916 document hanging on the wall in the club also shows that the organization (or some of its key members) was affiliated to Lithuanian Alliance of America as its Lodge No 256. Society's documents were written in the Lithuanian language until ~1940s and in English since then.

In addition to the Lithuanian club, there is a Slovak club in town while the Polish club no longer exists. There is a Polish cemetery and a Russian Orthodox church and cemetery, as well as the (largest) general Catholic cemetery. There are likely Lithuanian graves in the Polish and the general Catholic cemeteries as well.

Osceola Mills is far from any other Pennsylvanian towns that have Lithuanian heritage sites. The closest Pennsylvanian town has a Lithuanian cemetery is Portage almost 100 km away. While there are numerous burials with obviously Lithuanian names there, only one lists the buried person as a Lithuanian. Many burials date to the era around World War 2.

The only grave in Portage Lithuanian cemetery with Lithuania specified on gravestone

As was common in the times, Lithuanian names changed in America. In this case, the same woman's name is written differently on different memorials on her own grave; while the main gravestone has hear as "Agota Ambrazevicze", the smaller post has her as "Agata Ambrazatas". Likely real name was "Agota Ambrazevičienė" or "Agota Ambrazaitienė".