By Patrick F. Cannon

When you reach my age – I’m 87 now – you sadly get used to your contemporaries dying, both friends and relatives. After all, life expectancy in 2022 was 74.8 years for men and 80.2 for women. So, when my cousin James Mark Goldstrohm died on December 2 at age 89, he beat the odds. Still, for me, it was hard to accept.

            “Jimmy” to many of his relatives, “Goldie” to many of his friends, but always “Jim” to me, for most of our lives, we were not just cousins, but friends. We attended the same school, St. Peter’s in McKeesport, PA, for a few years, and even had the same jobs: setting pins at the McKeesport Elks Club; and working in the restaurant at nearby Kennywood Park, Pittsburgh’s legendary amusement park. After my brother Pete died, Jim was the person I knew the longest.

            I went  to my first concert ever with him, Jazz at the Philharmonic at Heinz Hall in Pittsburgh. Appearing were legends like Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, Roy Eldridge, and Gene Krupa. A highlight was Ella’s 10-minute-long version of “How High the Moon.” After the concert, we had a couple of drinks at a nearby bar. We were underage – I was probably 17 – but wearing jackets and ties, so weren’t carded. I drank screwdrivers!

            The last time I saw him was at this summer’s Donnelly family reunion, held for many years in Western Pennsylvania’s beautiful Laurel Highlands. No one there bore the Donnelly name, but they were all descendants of my grandparents, Frank and Catherine Donnelly, and their seven surviving children (one boy and six girls). He was the second oldest of 20 first cousins and was eventually the patriarch. With his death, I am now the oldest of six  survivors.

            When we were kids, at family events he would gather the cousins and perform (the best word I could think of) movies he had seen. Movies were a lifelong passion, and he would describe the plot and action, and even quote dialog. He was an only child, and he lived next door to our grandparents with his parents Vernal and Clare in North Braddock. We went to the movies weekly in those days, and he often went with Grandfather Frank, who also loved them.

            When we were teenagers, I remember talking about a particular movie, one of whose cast members we couldn’t remember. It drove us both crazy, but the name escaped us. So, when I woke up in the middle of the night and remembered it, I picked up the phone and called him. It must have been 3:00 am, but when he groggily answered and I said “Franchot Tone,” he was happy I called.

            He was a handsome man, but on the thin side, and not at all athletic. But he had courage. One day when we were about 12 or 13, he lured my brother Pete and me to the nearby Westinghouse Bridge, which carried US Route 30 over Turtle Creek, Braddock Avenue and East Pittsburgh. On one side was the Westinghouse factory; on the other the Edgar Thompson Works of US Steel in Braddock, the mill where his grandfather was general foreman, his father an electrician and where Jim himself  would work for 35 years.

            At one time the longest concrete-arch bridge in America with a total length of 1,598 feet, its center span of 460 feet is 240 feet above the valley floor. Underneath is a cat walk, put there I imagine for maintenance and inspection. I’m sure there was a hatch of some kind to provide access, but we reached it by gingerly walking across a 2×10 board suspended over a gap. Looking at a photo now, I see that had anyone fallen off the board, there would have been a steep drop into the valley below. We walked all the way to the other side on the cat walk, and the views were impressive, but lurking in my mind was the reality of going back over that board! Jim, of course, had done it before!

            We walked to the bridge from the later Goldstrohm family home in North Versailles Township, a new house they had moved to from North Braddock. After his parents died, Jim lived and raised his own family there until he and his wife Rhoda moved into an apartment created for them in the home of his daughter, Emily Belchick, and her husband Tom. He was also loved and supported by his other children, Paul Goldstrohm and Claire Pingree, and his seven grandchildren.

            He spent his last years doing what he enjoyed most – watching his beloved movies, reading the great fiction of all eras, and listening to the jazz and classical music contained in his extensive record collection. While he was able, he was a prodigious walker, even often walking many miles to and from work. As I mentioned, he worked at US Steel for 35 years. He made many friends during those years and told wonderful stories about the characters he worked with. Of all the people I’ve known, he was the purest in spirit. He had no animus, but much love and loyalty to his beloved relatives and friends.

            For some reason, I’m reminded of the story in John’s gospel of Jesus asking the crowd about to stone the adulteress: “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” Had Jim been among the crowd, he likely would have been that one without sin, but he never would have cast that stone. He was buried on December 8 at St. Joseph’s Cemetery, joining my parents and other members of the Donnelly clan. I know he will rest in peace.

Copyright 2025, Patrick F. Cannon