When the Bells Stop Ringing

Some years ago, I was a resident at Conemaugh Memorial Medical Center in Johnstown, a small postindustrial town in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. In a free moment, I walked an old ethnic neighborhood on the west end, known as Cambria City. At its height it must have been a hub of ethnic color, the quintessential American immigrant neighborhood, here on the edge of Pennsylvania’s vast western forests. It still maintains a Sunday street market, where vendors trade in local produce and crafts beneath the great bells of the town’s church towers. The streets were populated by many unusual churches: the Hungarian Reformed Church, ­Holy Protection of St. Mary Byzantine Catholic Church, some small Polish and Irish parishes, German Catholic and Slovak Lutheran churches, and a lovely little brick building on the river, charmingly labeled “First Catholic Slovak Band.”