YOUR STORY MATTERS HERE: Jeremiah Allshouse

By Tim Wesley

Jeremiah Allshouse seems to have mastered the fine art of seeing the forest and the trees – that is, focusing on the big picture, while cherishing the little details.  Which comes in handy, whether he’s on the job as a jack-of-all-trades product manager, or wading through a mountain stream as an avid fly fisherman.

And no matter the task, he strives to pursue it with a positive, can-do spirit, in keeping with lessons learned from his faith and his family, especially his grandmother Sandy. 

“She really taught me how to just keep your spirits up no matter what your hardships,” Jeremiah said.

Now approaching her 80s and living in DuBois, Sandy Gahr continues to demonstrate that example to her grandchildren and others around her.  Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis about 35 years ago, she is limited in her movement and now confined to a wheelchair, but “she always keeps a smile on her face,” Jeremiah said.

“Every time I see her, she’s always laughing and joking no matter what.  I’ve always admired that.  How could someone who had such hardship bestowed on her, keep her faith alive and spirits alive?  She has just been a big inspiration to me, always trying to help any soul who needed help, whether it was with food, shelter, or whatever.  If she can go through her hardships and still be willing to help other people, and to laugh and enjoy life, it should be easy for the rest of us.”

Of course, Jeremiah knows that life is rarely going to be easy, and that’s when a positive attitude comes in especially handy.

Take, for example, a typical day on the job at Schroeders Industries, a manufacturer of advanced filtration technologies for hydraulic industrial equipment such as waste trucks and excavators.  As a product manager for the company’s filter element group, Jeremiah finds himself dealing with customers and colleagues all along the supply chain.

“I’m almost like a Swiss army knife, a jack-of-all-trades,” he said.  “I work with all departments, including engineering, marketing, purchasing and production.  I’m kind of the centralized hub, so I see the product as it starts with a salesman and moves along the whole product development process.  I work with many different types of people and many different parts of the company.”

The job comes with many challenges, especially in today’s Covid-constrained environment.

“Right now there are a lot of supply chain issues,” he said.  “Orders are backlogged because we can’t get enough material, so customers don’t have what they need to build their equipment.  It’s very challenging to deliver on time and that creates a domino effect down the line.”

Which means that Jeremiah’s ability to see the big picture (the forest) while managing the little details (the trees) – and all with a positive, can-do attitude – offers his colleagues a welcome respite.

“Because I deal with so many different departments, there are a lot of people who come to me for guidance and what to do in different scenarios,” he said.  “I try to keep an open mind and a positive attitude.  I try to remember that this is only temporary and there are much worse things that are happening right now.  So if someone has a problem I want to drop everything and say, ‘OK, let’s try to work through this.’  You face the problem together, and get through it together.”

A Butler native, Jeremiah earned a mechanical engineering degree from Penn State Behrend in 2015.  While at Behrend the year before he graduated, he met Mackenzie Yoho of Ellwood City when they both served on committees for “24 For A Cure,” the school’s fundraiser for Penn State’s massive THON event.  Mackenzie graduated from Behrend in 2017 with a degree in supply chain and logistics and now works for the Steelers.  They were engaged the next year, with Jeremiah designing a scavenger hunt that ended on the beach at Erie with him down on one knee. 

At the time, they each had home churches, so they split Sunday mornings between his and hers until deciding to look for a new one in Cranberry Township.  While searching on-line, they discovered that the then-pastor at Jeremiah’s church – Rev. Bruce Gascoine of Christ Community UMC in Butler – happened to have a brother who was a pastor at Dutilh.

“We decided to check out Dutilh and felt a strong connection right off the bat,” Jeremiah said.  “The people were just so welcoming and friendly.  And then we saw everyone come together to support the remodeling of the church, something I hadn’t seen before.”

Dutilh’s Pastor Tom Parkinson married them in the fall of 2019, and they’re now members and looking to get more involved as Covid conditions permit.  In the meantime, they’ve helped with several events, including Worship in the Park and Blessing of the Backpacks, and Mackenzie has joined Dutilh’s volunteer marketing team.

“Pastors Tom and Jim are just amazing,” Jeremiah said.  “Being able to talk and communicate with them, and learn more about them, has been great.  Every time Tom speaks, I’m so captivated and focused.  He makes me really think about the things he says and how it affects my life.”

The Allshouses don’t have any kids yet, but one “crazy cat” named Jenkins, which they adopted and named after an area of the woods near Brockway where Jeremiah’s dad found the freezing kitten stuck in a tree.

“Mackenzie is a big cat lover, and I’m allergic,” Jeremiah said.  “But I quickly fell in love with her.”

Fly fishing is another “love” for Jeremiah. 

Reverently referred to as the “surgeons” of fishing for the meticulous way in which they approach their craft, fly fishermen embrace the big-picture beauty of tiny mountain streams and cherish the little details that beckon.  Consistent with his personality, Jeremiah appreciates the beauty and delights in the many challenges:  From “reading” the water to find likely spots where a trout sits waiting for a meal, to picking just the right color and type of fly – it’s called “matching the hatch” – to performing a perfect cast that drops the fly at precisely the right spot in the stream.  And if the fish doesn’t take the bait – on a per-cast basis, it rarely does – then you try, try again.  And again.

“I love every aspect of it,” Jeremiah said.

That love began as a family affair, when he started fishing at age 10 with his father, Gerald (Jerry) Allshouse, and grandfather, Gerald (Whitey) Allshouse, near Kettle Creek State Park, which sits in north central Pennsylvania, about 80 miles northeast of DuBois.

“That first day of trout season, I’m wearing my little hip boots and standing on the bank with my spinning rod, salmon eggs and worms,” Jeremiah said.  “Meanwhile, my dad and grandfather were fly fishing in the middle of the stream and they were catching a lot of fish.  I always wondered what they were doing because it looked pretty cool, so I asked to try and my dad started to teach me.  We would go out in the back yard and he would show me how to cast by having me aim at dandelions in the grass.  A couple years later I tried it on the water and I was hooked.”

Since then, he’s made many special memories while fishing with them, such as the day they caught more than 100 trout (they mostly fish in catch-and-release areas).  Or when Jeremiah was 16 and landed an 18-inch rainbow trout by himself, while his dad was fishing downstream.

“I was in a fast-moving hole all by myself, and it was one of the coolest moments I remember,” he said.  “I took pride because I knew what to do, knew exactly how to bring it in.  It made me feel good, to be doing something they were so good at, and now I could do this, too.  We have had some amazing times together, and it has made me feel closer to them.”

Of all the memories, perhaps one stands above the rest.

“My grandfather passed away in 2014 and he had stopped going fishing with us a few years prior to that,” Jeremiah said.  “The last time I ever saw him fish was up at Kettle Creek on the first day of trout season.  He just came up to watch; ‘I’m retired,’ he said.  Well, none of us could catch fish that day, no matter what we were throwing in and he was sitting there laughing at us on the bank.”

“You guys don’t know how to fish like I do,” Whitey said. 

“OK, then show us how to do it,” came the friendly retort.

So Whitey obliged, pulling on his gear and heading out into the stream.

“Within two casts he had a fish,” Jeremiah said.  “And that was the last time he fished.  I will always cherish the time I spent fishing with him.”

He continues fly fishing with his dad and other family members on treks to favorite spots around the state, and he regularly ventures out solo to Slippery Rock Creek.  No matter where he goes, he’ll always remember the many lessons learned from his father and grandfather.

While fishing in the forest. 

Among the trees.

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If you or someone you know in the Dutilh family has an interesting story or profession, send us your ideas! We would love to help tell the story. Email: communications@dutilhumc.org.