People of Conshohocken – Joan DeCerio

People of Conshohocken – Joan DeCerio

8/1/2017

by Brian Coll

This is part of our People of Conshohocken series…
We have close to 10,000 people in our borough, add in the residents of West Conshohocken, Plymouth, Whitemarsh and Lafayette Hill and we have a large community. Some of the people that will be featured will be well known in the area, some will have just moved into the area, some will have been here their entire lives. Some of them may be business owners, or people who walk around the area, or maybe work in the area. Maybe you know them, maybe you don’t. Everyone has a story. While we are only going to take their picture and maybe ask a question or two, we want to share these stories with you.

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       We released our book Conshohocken & West Conshohocken – People, Places and Stories and one by one people have been coming by our store (Coll’s Custom Framing) to pick them up. Most people walk in, say hi, grab their book and actually even before they crack the book their eyes light up and they start telling us about themselves, their family story and some fun Conshohocken stories….. yesterday a young 85 year old lady walked in and started talking about her family and her extended family and their ties to Conshohocken. I think I grabbed my pen and a sheet of paper when she told me about her mom feeding the hobos getting off the train…..

So, I think I asked her to give me a second to start writing this down. Our People of Conshohocken is Joan DeCerio. Joan then started to tell me that when she was little, her mom would feed the hobos (homeless wanderers) as they came off the train. She grew up on Hector Street and the interesting thing to me was she mentioned that the hobos would leave her house and then would “mark” the sidewalk so that other hobos would know that this house was friendly to travelers.

As the conversation went on, she was very proud of her family members and spoke very highly of the Zimmer side of the family. If the name Zimmer is familiar to some of our older readers, yes they had stores in Conshohocken. She spoke of them making tubs full of donuts on Fat Tuesday.

When I asked her, her favorite Conshohocken memory, of course there was too many to count…. she did tell me about when she was in a Conshohocken film when she was about 6 years old. You could see her walking out of the Riant movie theater and turning down Fayette Street. I know I’m going to have to find this film and check it out. (if I can share it with all of you I will). One more thing….. she spoke very highly of her moms baking skills. her mom would have been Mrs. Murphy and at most bake sales back in the day her cakes and baked goods were always a hit.

Joan, thanks for talking to me yesterday. I hope you enjoy the book and give us a call and let us know what you think if you see this….