A parade to celebrate 1934's general election became a bloodbath as one political faction opened gunfire on the other, unarmed faction in an incident that became known as the Kelayres Massacre.
The incident will be detailed in the third edition of "Keystone Tombstones," which is being written and published by Joe Farley, a Hazleton native, and Joe Farrell.
The authors recently visited St. Patrick Cemetery, McAdoo, where Joseph Bruno and some of his family members are buried - as well as the victims.
Bruno's tombstone said he was born in 1881 and died of natural causes in 1951 at the age of 70.
About 100 feet away, Dominic Perna, the last of the five victims to die, is interred. Perna, who died two days afterward from his wounds, is listed on the tombstone at 37 years old.
Farley and Farrell also found the graves of Frank Fiorella, 65, of Kelayres, and William Forke, 37, of Silverbrook, who died in the street that night with Joseph Galosky, 30, of McAdoo. Andrew Kostician, 36, of Lofty, was shot when he heard the gunfire and drove to the corner to find his daughter. He died the next day.
Kline Township Democrats carried red lanterns as they marched past the home of Bruno, the township's Republican leader, on the eve of the 1934 election. The parade set Bruno off, and the Schuylkill County detective and his family used the arsenal he had in his home to open fire on the paraders, killing five and wounding 13 others.
A single funeral was held for the five victims. The funeral Mass was held in the bullet-riddled Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church, across the street from Bruno's home. Their coffins were ferried to the McAdoo cemetery by five hearses as 20,000 people lined the parade route to watch.
Bruno received three life sentences. His brother, nephew and two others were tried and convicted of the crime.
Others in the book
The cover of the third edition will be adorned by the statue of former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, which was removed from outside Beaver Stadium after the child sex scandal involving Paterno's former assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky.
Another subject of the book will be those who died on Flight 93, a jetliner hijacked by associates of Osama bin Laden and intended to crash into the White House on Sept. 11, 2001, but instead passengers crashed it into a field in Somerset County.
Others included in the book will be former big band leader Jimmy Dorsey, who was born in Shenandoah; heavyweight boxing champ Joe Frazier; Pittsburgh Pirates baseball immortals Honus Wagner and Pie Traynor; actor Nick Adams, who hailed from Berwick; author John Updike; Willie Thrower, the first African-American quarterback in the National Football League in 1953, and "Mad" Anthony Wayne, who is buried in two places.
Many of the subjects in the book have unusual stories.
"Mary Pinchot Meyer was a mistress of JFK (President John F. Kennedy) who was convinced the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) was after her," Farley said. "She died the year after Kennedy was assassinated. One of the big shots in the CIA stole her diary.
"Dave Garroway, the first host of the 'Today' show, who suffered from depression, had a lab to study depression named after him at the University of Pennsylvania."
Musicians Teddy Pendergrass and Grover Washington Jr. also had unusual stories attached to their health.
"Teddy Pendergrass was in a horrific auto accident that left him a paraplegic," Farrell said. "Grover Washington Jr. died from a massive heart attack after performing on the CBS 'Early Show.' The sextant of the cemetery where actor John Barrymore is buried would not let us in. He claimed Barrymore's grave is his intellectual property."
The book will be available at Sunbury Press (Sunburypress.com).