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Congratulations to Idalee Hansel and
Billie Reda
When the missionary was told that it was inappropriate for her to be seen going to the movie theater, he took the boarding house projector and movies from the theater and showed her films on the dining room wall. The first film they watched was The Wizard of Oz. They dated for number of years until he joined the army. He was part of an engineering battalion that built bridges and camps throughout the Pacific Islands. He was pinned down under a piece of metal during the Pearl Harbor attack. During a Japanese attack on another Pacific Island, he was wounded and found himself lying alone for several days. Another soldier happened to come by and kept him alive by killing and cooking chickens that were wandering around the battlefield. He hated chicken for the rest of his life. Immediately after WW II, he located the pretty missionary and proposed marriage over the telephone. They married and lived in Mississippi for a while before returning to the Kentucky hills they had both come to love. Vic enjoyed growing cucumbers and tomatoes and experimenting with hybrid fruits. He also loved jokes. Once he used a blow torch to burn a circle in the grass of his yard. He convinced the neighborhood kids that a UFO had landed there. Vic worked for Sam Papania at Papania Jewelry Store on Main
Street. When Sam retired in the early 1950's, Vic bought the
business but kept the Papania name since it was so established. He
had a degree in watch making and was a member of the governor's
watchmakers board through the '60's and '70's. For many years, he
was the master watchmaker for the L and N railroad. He was also
trained as a jeweler. He ate lunch nearly every work day at Don's,
which was just a few doors from his business. Vic ran the store
until his death in 1989. Thanks to Vic's daughter, Suzanne Vittitow,
for providing us with information for this week's Mystery Person.
Thanks for putting us both in the winner's circle. Billie Reda and I have talked over the clues and she told me that her cousin, Victor Tedesco, married Ollie and she was a missionary. She also said that he lived and worked in Blue Diamond at one time. We had a long conversation today in which I read her the clues. We kicked around the fact that Vic was possibly born in Pennsylvania instead of West Virginia, but he was raised in Canada, which she had told me before. He and her brother, Orlando, went to a part of Memphis which was across the river from Mississippi, where they attended a workshop to learn how to work on watches. Vic worked for the Reda Theater and at that time they had branched out in a lot of places and that is where I got the idea that he took one of their projectors to Olive's house to show her the films. Also, for a fact, I knew he ate everyday or about everyday at Don's. Well, Billie and I worked on this one for several house and then decided it had to be him. This was a good one and it had everybody stumped it seems. Without my conversation with Billie and her bringing back to my memory some of the things we had discussed about her family, etc, I would never have put this together I don't think. Idalee Hansel, Spartanburg, SC Could it be "Powder Can" Turner? Mary Jo Gregory Edwards, Carmel, IN I am trying to figure out the year, but this throws me "They ended up watching the "Wizard Of Oz" but it wasn't in a movie house". Vaden in Littcarr, KY
This is a tough one for me. I still have no idea. Carlene Shackelford,
Hazard, KY I'm guessing ...Scott Day. Dexter Gabbard, Newton. NJ I'm guessing ...Reeves Clark? Darlene, Richmond, KY |
Vic Tedesco was born in
Durbin, West Virginia in 1917, but raised in Cochrane, Ontario where his
parents ran a bakery. Vic worked in Detroit in a car factory as a
teenager before coming to the Hazard area to work for his sister's
father in law running a theater. He lived in a boarding house at
Blue Diamond. In 1938, the boarding house owner sent him to Hazard
to pick up the new missionary who was arriving on the train in Hazard.
The pretty young girl had graduated from a missionary school in
Tennessee to run programs for the youth and children of the Blue Diamond
area. 
Ready for a new mystery? 
