Stahlstown man watches childhood tree light up Rockefeller Center for NYC holiday tradition

When Mitch Schultz Jr. watched a rainbow of lights bring a holiday glow to this year’s Christmas tree at New York City’s Rockefeller Center, it added a stunning final chapter to his family’s 60-year history with a Norway spruce.

“I trimmed it tons of times as it was growing,” said Schultz, 61, of Stahlstown. “I can remember playing around the tree. I never climbed in it, but my younger brothers did.”

Standing about 75 feet tall and more than 50 feet wide, this year’s iconic tree made its way to the Big Apple from Schultz’s childhood home, about 60 miles north in Orange County, New York.

Schultz and other family members watched Dec. 4 as his mother, Carol Schultz, 80, saw a decades-long dream fulfilled — to have the tree she nurtured for more than half a century take center stage in New York City’s famed holiday celebration.

“It’s my mom’s tree,” said Mitch Schultz, who manages the NAPA Auto Parts store in Ligonier. “I was one year old when she bought it as a tabletop Christmas tree.”

After that year’s holiday celebration was over, “She planted it out in the front yard. She had dreams of it coming to Rockefeller Center some day,” he said.

She offered the tree to Rockefeller Center officials a decade ago. “Finally, they came around this year and picked it,” her son said.

In return for donating the tree, the family was treated to deluxe accommodations at Omni Berkshire Place, dinner and a chauffeured tour of St. Patrick’s Cathedral and the Top of The Rock observation deck while they were in Manhattan for the tree-lighting. “It was a great time,” said Mitch Schultz. He was accompanied by his wife, Catherine, who has family ties in Connellsville, and their son, Mitchell, 17.

Even better, he said, was the Nov. 7 sendoff in his small hometown of Florida, just north of the Pennsylvania state line in southeastern New York. His mother’s 12-ton tree was cut down, lifted by a crane, wrapped and placed on a tractor-trailer for shipment to the city.

For the community of less than 3,000 people, he said, “It was a pretty big celebration. There were schoolkids there and everything.”

A local company, Orange County Monument, donated a granite marker that Carol Schultz will place on her property to commemorate her now-famous tree. A crew funded by Rockefeller Center will grind out the remaining stump, plant a new tree of her choice and install a new sidewalk, her son said.

“They treated her real well,” he said.

The tree is expected to remain on display at Rockefeller Center into January.