Laurels & lances: Memories cherished, memories lost
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Laurel: To owning a piece of history. Fundraising often includes more than a simple donation. It can be more transactional, like buying Girl Scout cookies or a fish dinner at your local fire company.
The Carnegie of Homestead Music Hall found a way to make money by selling off something that was being discarded anyway.
Almost 1,000 antique seats dating to the concert hall’s construction in 1898 were sold in pairs for $50, giving people the opportunity to take home more than a program or a cherished memory.
The seats are being replaced with new, larger, cushioned cherry wood seats. The old seats were at the end of their useful life. New ones could make a night at the theater more attractive for some patrons, which could be an additional bottom line benefit.
But for longtime supporters of the Carnegie of Homestead like volunteer Chuck Zapf of Whitaker, the seats are a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have a tangible keepsake from an historic building while also contributing money to the hall’s coffers.
Lance: To a priceless theft. On Monday, Westmoreland County Common Pleas Court Judge Tim Krieger sentenced Christina Louise Ankney, 40, of Braddock to 306 days to 23 months in jail. She was paroled for time served after her 2023 arrest.
Ankney pleaded guilty in April to two misdemeanor counts of theft and receiving stolen property. Her crimes? A nurse aide, she stole the rings from the hands of a dementia patient at Redstone Highlands in Murrysville and pawned them for cash. Even worse, the elderly woman’s hands were badly contracted due to a medical condition, meaning the rings would have to have been pried from her fingers.
Theft from anyone is callous and unfair. Theft from the vulnerable is worse. But to take the engagement ring and wedding band from a dementia patient is to steal the last connection to a person’s past — and the ability to share something no longer remembered with loved ones.
Ankney was ordered to pay $9,500 to the family, but there are some things that simply cannot be bought back.