CROSSINGVILLE — The music of Joe Matczak’s Orchestra playing the “Red River Valley” square dance filled the air Saturday night at Crossingville’s Sts. Peter and Paul Orthodox Church Hall as dancers filled the dance floor.

Nick Sekel, 80, of Cambridge Springs watched and listened from the social hall’s kitchen with a bit of melancholy in his mind and voice. After more than 50 years, it was the last time such music would play for a public dance.

The church council has decided to convert the social hall into Sunday school classes.

Sekel sold tickets at the first dance. One of only a few dance halls in the county at the time, it was the meeting place for singles to find dance partners and perhaps partners for life.

“Most of them were singles,” he said of the early crowds. They danced to the music of the Missouri Fox Hunters and the Woody Woodell Band from Sharon. Orest Seneta’s band started playing in 1991 and did so on a regular basis until his death several years ago.

Clicking off the names of well-known musicians from the area, Sekel allowed his mind to go back to those days of fun and dancing. While he first sold tickets, he eventually was in charge of the dances. He also advanced to the dance floor to join others. His favorite? “I loved to square dance.”

As the years went by, the crowds disappeared, according to Sekel. “Now, it’s mostly seniors,” he said, noting as the older folks die and others can no longer dance, there aren’t enough people to warrant keeping the hall open.

The original dance hall was built in

the 1930s — on blocks. “The dancing was shaking the whole hall,” Sekel said with a grin, so about 1950, a basement was built under it. That’s where chicken dinners and other events were held.

The dance hall had no tables; just benches around the perimeter for dancers to sit between songs. “It was full,” he said, noting people were told “you can’t get in yet unless you stand.”

The hall was expanded and the maple hardwood floor was put down in the new hall, which had enough room for 550 people. Tables were added and people were encouraged to take snacks and make a night of it.

They did.

But, as the 1950s turned to the ’60s, fewer people were showing up. Sekel said the young people didn’t go out as much, preferring to stay home and watch television with their dates.

That wasn’t the case for JoAnn Schlosser Bidwell, who was in attendance for the “last dance” on Saturday night.

She and her husband, Bob Bidwell, “had our first date here,” she said. Asked why she was attracted to him, she grinned, “He had a job and a car and he loved to dance,” but quickly added, “and his good looks.”