Hog Butchering with Family and Friends
Pennsylvania has been having some chilly weather this winter. A few weeks ago, the lows were in the single digits and the highs were only in the teens! While many people grimace at the...
Tagged: Harold Sechler
Looking Back at Homer and Irene’s 60th Wedding Anniversary
Love grows more tremendously full, swift, poignant, as the years multiply – Zane Grey On December 21st of this year, Linda and I will celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary. Because of my precarious health...
Reunions Are the Glue! Save the Date: June 15, 2024
As we did two years ago, the Hagenbuch family will gather for a reunion on Saturday, June 15, 2024. This time the event will occur at Hidlay Lutheran Church in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. Similar to...
Reapin’, Bindin’, and Thrashin’ with Myron and Harold
Readers may wonder how Andrew and I select topics for our articles. In my case, I usually run across or search for something in our family history that is interesting: a curious situation, a...
Saving Recipes: Harold Sechler and the Chef Boyardee Story
Harold F. Sechler (b. 1923, d. 2018), my first cousin twice removed, saved recipes. He cut them from newspapers, wrote them on scraps of paper, and held onto promotional recipe booklets. His collection of...
Seven Cemeteries in One Day, Part 2
Back in 1983, I was 30 years old and my father was 66 years “young” as they say. We were both fit and able to walk and walk past rows and rows of gravestones...
Homer Hagenbuch’s Scrapbook, Part 2
In Part 1 of this series, details about the different types of ephemera found in the scrapbook of Homer Hagenbuch (b. 1916) were discussed. His mother, Hannah, and his sister, Ellen, were instrumental in...
Hagenbuchs and Sechlers Entwined
Back in about 1978, I first walked through the graveyard at New Bethel Union Church near the Hagenbuch homestead in Albany Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania. I had been looking for the farm where Andreas...
First Thoughts on the 1950 Census
April 1, 2022 marked an important occasion for genealogists—and, no, it had nothing to do with April Fools’ Day! On this day, family historians celebrated the release of the 1950 United States Census records,...
Can You Document That?
During our 2024 family Thanksgiving festivities in my Colonial Room, I noticed that the grandchildren were playing some old-timey games from my game cupboard. My son-in-law, Nelson, was playing pick-up sticks with his daughter,...
