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Difficulty:
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Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions
in our disclaimer.
Cache is an ammo box with a logbook and a few trade items. Please
return the cache as you found it.
Parking is available near: N 40° 57.619 W 078° 09.118
This Cache is part of the Clearfield County Geotrail cemetery leg.
Each cache contains a unique self inking stamp to use in your CCGT
passport book, once you obtain 25 CCGT finds your passport can be
validated for our commemorative coin. Please be respectful to the
cemeteries and only cache from dawn till dusk. Please visit
www.visitclearfieldcounty.org/outdoors/geotrail for information on
where to obtain your passport book and how to validate your book to
receive the coin.
Located along a dirt road in Cooper Township lies the “Steps
to Nowhere”. I discovered this a few years ago, and after
much research the mystery was revealed. It is an interesting spot
from years gone by in a small town.
The site is the remains of St. Paul’s German Lutheran Church.
Behind the church area, up on the hill, is a small, old cemetery.
Take some time to inspect the headstones.
Please respect the area and only attempt the cache during
daylight hours.
I received permission from the property owner to place this cache.
The owner informed me that they have had issues with teenagers
using the cemetery as a hangout of sorts to drink and litter. They
try to keep an eye on and pick up after them as time permits and
they would appreciate it if you could leave the area as clean (or
cleaner) than the way you found it.
One more thing to note - be careful not to stray anywhere on the
outer perimeter of the cemetery fencing, as there are several
wells. They are covered, but aren't safe to walk on.
If you are from the area and remember the location, feel free email
me with any further clues to its existence or demise. I will post
any information that I can "dig up" about the history of this
church and cemetery.
*******************************************
I promised you an update on anything I could find related to the
St. Paul’s German Lutheran Church in Winburne. I have an
article that will run in The Progress newspaper on Friday, July
10th. The article is listed below and there are also 3 photos
uploaded to the gallery.
I took a photo of the foundation walls of the church and ran it in
the newspaper last month. That photo was seen by a woman in
Michigan with ties to this area. She contacted The Progress and
provided some information and photos for the article. The story has
a lot of historical information about the church and answers some
questions I had.
Enjoy!
Angel Raymond
Photographs of church provide insight
Friday, July 10, 2009 - The Progress Newspaper
When Inge Logenburg Kyler of Eaton Rapids, Mich., saw a photograph
in June in The Progress of what were called the crumbling
foundation walls of St. Paul German Lutheran Church in Winburne, it
brought back many memories of family and the small old cemetery
behind the church.
She sent photographs, included with this column, of what the church
looked like in the 1970s before someone tore it down and used the
lumber. Her grandparents, Johann Lipka and Marie Lipka Augestin,
and family attended the church, where he was the choirmaster and
she was a Sunday school teacher. Mrs. Kyler has some old songbooks
once used at the church.
She also has the deeds for the cemetery and the church.
Both her grandfather and grandmother plus her Aunt Esther and
Johnny, an uncle who was just 4 years old when he passed away, are
buried in the cemetery, a site they visit when in the area.
A memory of the church from her mother, Marie Lipka Logenburg
Silsby, who met her father, William Logenburg, for the first time
when she was standing on the church steps as he got off the train
after just arriving from Germany.
There were several other young ladies there at the time, but he was
invited to a meal at her home by her mother.
Mrs. Kyler lived in Clearfield in a home behind the Christian and
Missionary Alliance Church.
Her family moved to Michigan in 1953 for employment reasons when
she was a senior at Clearfield High School so she graduated from
J.W. Sexton H.S. in Lansing, Mich.
They travel to Clearfield and the area a couple times every year to
visit family and this year will be staying in one of the rustic
cabins at Black Moshannon State Park the first week of August so
she can attend a CHS reunion, Class of 1954.
Mrs. Kyler is known as a historian and uses her talents as a
volunteer at the state Historical Society Museum, gives tours every
Saturday and extended tours if asked. She has written a monthly
column “Reflections” since 1991 in a local paper.
She writes, “I am an author and poet and have written many
poems about the Clearfield and Winburne area and some might still
be in the Shaw library. I am currently working on my 21st book of
poetry and will have a section on Pennsylvania poetry.”
Mrs. Kyler is a member of the Pennsylvania Poetry Society and just
won first place for her poem about the Winburne area in the Colonel
Henry W. Shoemaker Memorial Award contest. It will be in the
Pennsylvania Poetry Society “Prize Poems 2009.” She has
written a number of poems about the Winburne area that have won a
prize. There are a lot of memories there because of her grandmother
living in the community.
The following is a poem from her book “Snoi-tav-resbo”
(which means Observations). It was published by Xibris in
2006.
To The Grandfather I Never Knew
It was not easy, tramping through brush
and tangled briars, to find you, Grandfather,
but then, so have been my thoughts,
tangled and overgrown while wondering
how things would have been
had I known you.
I have been told of your talents
with music. How I would have liked
to have seen you play in the band
in the pavilion next to the old
Avonale Hotel in the small coal town
where you and Grandmother lived.
You were a deacon, I was told,
in the German Lutheran Church
where men sat on one side
and women on the other.
Some say you died from a blood clot
from a bad tooth, while others say
“no, he died from an accident
in the mines.” Whatever your fate,
Grandmother was left with nine young children
and great sorrow at the loss
of such a handsome man as you.
Take my tiger lily, Grandfather,
it’s all I have to give.
Inge Logenburg Kyler
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
V'z Abg Fzbxvat Nalzber