Dear Diary
Along with letters, baptismal certificates, newspaper articles, old histories, and other ephemera, diaries can be a very important part of learning about past generations. Knowing this, when I retired in 2008 I purchased a...
Category: Stories
A Continued Conversation with Andreas Hagenbuch
Newspaper correspondent John Smith continues his conversation with Andreas Hagenbuch one spring evening in 1784 as told in first person by Mr. Smith. In reference to the previous article, Andreas and his son Michael...
A Conversation with Andreas Hagenbuch
If family historians only worked with names and dates, they would not get to know the type of people their ancestors really were. Many of us have photos of our relatives and ancestors back...
Family Icons
The word icon is defined as “a thing that is revered.” In past articles many pieces of family history have been written about and described that fit this definition. Photos, books, documents, certificates, and...
Stories My Father Told Me
As stated in previous articles, family history is more than names and dates. Most interesting can be the family stories that have been passed on from one generation to another. Oral traditions are often...
Cemetery Stories
The story has already been related of my Sunday sojourns to the Oak Grove Church cemetery with my great Uncle Perce. Cemeteries often hold a morbid fascination for most people and stories abound that...
Schambacher’s Tavern: A Real Ghost Story
The scariest ghost stories are the real ones. And while not all the facts in this one can be verified, many can be. Best of all, this particular story is connected to the Hagenbuchs...
Butchering Day Memories from the Farm, Part 2
This article is a continuation of last week’s Butchering Day Memories from the Farm. In it, we got started with the pig butchering process: killing the hog, sticking it to bleed it out, scalding...
Butchering Day Memories from the Farm, Part 1
Last Tuesday was Fastnacht Day here in our part of Pennsylvania. In our Montour County household we called it Doughnut Day. It wasn’t until I moved to York County thirty years ago that I...
Wintertime Memories from Montour County
Preface One problem with writing about memories is that others who experienced those same moments may not remember them the same way. My siblings and cousins who also grew up in Montour County in...
