The Sauerkraut Diaries
On January 2, 2018, I wrote an article about New Year’s Day memories from the early 1900s. Some of these remembrances were gleaned from the diary entries of my mother, Irene (Faus) Hagenbuch. Of...
Tagged: Irene “Faus” Hagenbuch
Christmas Ornaments
The tradition of decorating an evergreen tree during the Christmas season is believed to have started in Germany during the 1500s. Our early Hagenbuch ancestors certainly knew and practiced this custom before coming to...
Quilting: A Family Tradition
Many families have traditions of creating crafts, often times American folk crafts, that have been handed down from generation to generation. Joanne (Hagenbuch) Griffith is an example of this, as she is a quilter....
Letters From Nana, Part 3
The first part and second part in this series examined letters and postcards that Nana, Irene (Faus) Hagenbuch (b. 1920, d. 2011), sent to me between 1999 and 2001. This article—the final in the...
Letters From Nana, Part 2
In the first part in this series, I shared letters and postcards from Nana, Irene (Faus) Hagenbuch (b. 1920, d. 2011), dating from my first semester at Ithaca College in the fall of 1999....
Letters From Nana, Part 1
A few months ago while rummaging through a box of old papers, I found a number of letters and postcards sent to me from my grandmother, Irene (Faus) Hagenbuch. “Nana,” as she was known...
New Year’s “Back in the Day”
New Year’s Day is celebrated in many ways. In our family on the Montour County farm, it was a day of traditional foods: pork and sauerkraut accompanied by fresh baked bread smothered in butter...
Oh, The People We Don’t Know! Part 2
The Hagenbuch Family Archives have a large number of unidentified photos, and many of these could be featured in future articles. Numerous ones are portraits—people with identities lost to time. Some are interesting to...
Scraps of Paper: Recipe for Bean Chow-Chow
Over the years, this site has featured a number of articles detailing family artifacts and letters. Of particular interest to me are the scraps of paper containing the thoughts and scribbles of our ancestors....
Powwowing: A Pennsylvania Deitsch Tradition
Those who are not from a Deitsch background rarely understand the term powwowing as it is used among Pennsylvanians. When confronted with the term, most people will quip “Sure, I’ve seen American Indian dancers”,...
