Montana returns to Monongahela
Here’s a look at the past. Items have been culled from The Chronicle’s archives of 25, 50, 75 and 100 years ago.
1990
April 28: Joe Montana returned to his western Pennsylvania hometown of Monongahela for a testimonial dinner last night, eight years after an embarrassing squabble in which he billed organizers for appearing at a similar banquet. Montana appeared before 3,800 students at Ringgold High School before an evening dinner at the New Eagle Fire Hall that was to be attended by 49ers owner Edward J. DeBartolo Jr. and coach George Seifert. “Don’t believe everything you hear,” Montana told the students, referring to published reports he had turned his back on his economically depressed hometown. “My roots are here, I grew up here, and I love it here.”
The 1,000 tickets for the dinner, priced at $20 each, sold out in three hours. Montana, who has quarterbacked the 49ers to four Super Bowl victories, rarely has returned to Monongahela since leaving his hometown to attend Notre Dame. His parents have since moved to San Francisco, and some local residents have criticized Montana for ignoring his roots. Montana was honored at a dinner in New Eagle after the 49ers won their first Super Bowl in 1982 but angered many by billing the Mon Valley Progress Council for expenses and an appearance fee. Montana later blamed a former agent for the misunderstanding. “A lot of people in Monongahela hate Joe,” said Chuck Ambranski, Montana’s former coach at Ringgold. But school Superintendent Paul Zolack, who proposed the dinner, disagreed. “Coach Ambranski has his opinion, but I think he is in the minority here. If he wasn’t would the tickets have sold so quickly in such a depressed area?”
1965
May 1: The law may be on the side of the women, but they will have to shout it out with the gripmen if they want to ride the cable car steps. At least one gripman on the Powell line was refusing to let women stand outside yesterday afternoon. “Bless him,” chuckled Tom McGrath, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union. “He got my word. There is no formal order,” he said, “but I am advising the men to protect the safety of their vehicle by requesting — insisting if they must — that women ride inside the cars.” Women, he said, “Aren’t capable of riding out there. They’ll be falling off a dozen to a block — and it’ll be the gripman or conductor who’ll be at fault.” Besides that, McGrath said, “On the exterior they’ll be scraping against parked cars and getting hurt. And no lady, I don’t think, would ride on the steps and expose herself to the passengers, especially on a windy day. It would be beneath her dignity.”
All of which was news to Wesley R. Mason, Municipal Railway transportation superintendent. “Our desire,” he said flatly, “is to let women ride outside.” He has not heard of McGrath’s “advice” to the gripmen. But “this is a management prerogative.” The issue came to head when Mona Hutchin, a comely 19-year-old University of California co-ed, rode the cable car steps three weeks ago, and said she had a constitutional right to do so. The City Attorney’s office, after much searching through law books, agreed. But McGrath is adamant: “Women will be dropping like ten pins, especially on the curves, and in spite of what management says, our men will be to blame.” Until any new rule goes into effect, he said, “I’m telling my men, ‘Get ’em off the steps.’ They don’t belong out there.’ ”
— Bill Cooney
1940
April 29: The golden voice that held 250,000 persons spellbound at Lotta’s fountain in front of the old Chronicle building Christmas Eve of 1910 is stilled. Mme. Luisa Tetrazzini, celebrated Italian soprano, who long thrilled opera lovers all over the world, and whom San Francisco cherished as her own, died yesterday in Milan. She was 65. Only a nurse was at her side when she died. For several days Mme. Tetrazzini had been unable to take any nourishment, other than the occasional sip of Champagne. An earlier generation of San Franciscans, whose acclaim on her first American appearance here in 1904 heralded the diva’s long and successful career, mourned her passing with a strong sense of personal loss. Their memories evoked that Christmas of 30 years ago. Again they stood in that dense crowd, silent, while the notes of “The Last Rose of Summer” swelled and died in the chilly night.
1915
April 28: Uncle Sam now has the legislature of California to reckon with in the matter of that noisy siren of his on Alcatraz island. He has exiled sleep in the North End of San Francisco on many foggy nights, and the protests of the slumber-seeking citizens haven’t bothered him a bit. He has gone right on tootling the Alcatraz siren. But today the Senate adopted Assemblyman Vic Canepa’s resolution, pleading with Congress to discontinue the shrieking whistle, and the measure now goes to Washington. Canepa doesn’t care what kind of substitution Uncle Sam provides for the siren. Neither does the North End. Nothing could be any worse.