TimesLeader.com

September 21
This service station Delivered

By Rebecca Bria rbria@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

Call it chance or fate but in 1958, two Back Mountain women in labor both stopped at the same Dallas gas station to call an ambulance. The babies, one boy and one girl, were born just nine months apart.

Nancy Cilvek and her son, Paul Cilvek, pose for a photo in 1988 in Walla Walla, Wash. Nancy delivered Paul on December 1, 1958 at the former Clyde Birth’s Esso Station in Dallas.

Clyde Birth’s Esso Station, shown here, was located where the current Dallas Uni-Mart is. Two women went into labor at the station in 1958, with one of the women delivering in her car in the station’s parking lot.

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Clyde Birth’s Esso Station in Dallas opened in 1956 with two service bays. The 24-hour station expanded to four bays in 1960. After two separate women in labor stopped at his service station for help in 1958, with one delivering there, Birth began to advertise with an image of a stork holding a baby. The station was closed in 1969 after Clyde Birth died.

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Strange? Perhaps. What’s even more bizarre, though, is the station owner’s name was Clyde Birth.

The “babies” are celebrating their 50th birthdays this year.

Nancy Cilvik, now 68, of Lehman, was having contractions with her third pregnancy late in the evening on Monday, Dec. 1, 1958 so she and her husband, Edward, went to Dr. Irvin Jacobs’ office. Jacobs told the couple he would follow them to the hospital. Not long into the trip, Cilvek felt her baby moving.

At about 11:25 p.m., Edward pulled into Clyde Birth’s Esso Station in Dallas where the current Uni-Mart is now located.

Jacobs stopped and delivered the baby in the front seat of the Cilviks’ blue Ford station wagon. Birth was at his station and called for an ambulance.

“My ex-husband was in the business of selling herbalm products (cough syrup) that were filled in the back seat, so I was stuck in the front seat,” Cilvik said. “I laid my head up on the steering wheel and the doctor did the rest.”

Cilvik gave birth to a boy, Paul, who weighed six pounds and four ounces. Although she had expected to go to Wilkes-Barre General Hospital, she and her baby were taken by ambulance to Nesbitt Memorial Hospital in Kingston because it was closer.

“I remember when we got down to Nesbitt, my ex-husband went into the nurses’ dormitory by mistake,” Cilvik laughed.

Although she gave birth to six children, Cilvik says Paul’s birth was the most eventful. She remembers when she arrived at the hospital to deliver her fourth child, the doctor was glad to see she had made it to the hospital that time.

Paul now lives in Walla Walla, Wash. and is a father himself – to a 20-year-old daughter, Megan. His mother is planning to visit him in Washington this month.

Similar circumstances occurred at Clyde Birth’s Esso Station at 9:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 6, 1958 when Ruth Sevenski could not make it all the way to the hospital. Her husband, Ben, pulled the family car off the highway into the gas station and Birth phoned for an ambulance. Joan (Sevenski) Strub weighed seven pounds at the time of her birth and was delivered in the Dallas Community Ambulance by former Dallas Borough Police Chief Ray Titus who was a member of the ambulance crew. Joan is the youngest of five children.

“My father came home and my mother’s water broke, so he had my oldest sister, Mary Ann, gather up some towels and blankets,” Strub said. “They pulled into the gas station and Clyde Birth called the ambulance. They delivered me there. I was supposed to go to General Hospital but instead they took me to Nesbitt because it was closer.”

An article in the March 14, 1958 edition of The Dallas Post reports what happened after Sevenski was placed in the ambulance.

“The baby was born as the ambulance sped through Shavertown,” the article reads. “A reception committee met the ambulance at the emergency entrance to Nesbitt Hospital. The baby, born outside the sacred precincts of the delivery room, had to be banished from the nursery, to prevent possible infection of babies already in residence. Mother and child are doing fine.”

Strub now lives in Linglestown, Pa. with her husband, Greg, and 17-year-old twins, Stephen and Chelsea. The couple also has a 24-year-old daughter, Carly. Strub’s parents have both passed away, her father in 1994 and her mother 10 years later.

The December 5, 1958 edition of The Dallas Post features an article about Paul Cilvek’s birth titled, “Birth Considers Changing Name Of Station To Discourage Storks.”

“Clyde Birth is not seriously considering changing the name of his service station,” the article reads. “Monday night was the second time within less than a year that his Esso station on Memorial Highway has given aid and comfort to a heavily-laden stork. Both mothers were patients of Dr. Irvin Jacobs of the Noxen Clinic and both finished an interrupted trip in the family car by Dallas Community Ambulance.”

Clyde Birth’s Esso Station opened in 1956 with two service bays. The 24-hour station expanded to four bays in 1960. After the two incidents at his service station, Birth began to advertise with an image of a stork holding a baby.

Birth’s son, Harry, believes there may have been a third woman in labor at the station, however, he is unable to recall details.

Harry Birth says his father, who served as president of the Dallas Kiwanis Club at one time, chose one day every year and donated all of his profits to the Dallas Kiwanis-sponsored Key Club. If fundraising goals were not met, Birth reached into his pocket and donated his own money to make up the difference.

The station was closed in 1969 after Clyde Birth died. An award in his memory was established through the Circle K Club at Penn State Wilkes-Barre.