Ask Joan: Special shout-outs edition
Today’s Ask Joan on the blog and yesterday’s Ask Joan in our print edition have a “dedication” component. I’d love to give a special hello to Jim Goodling and Yvonne Altland, two loyal readers, fans and friends who are fighting cancer. I know they’d both appreciate any prayers and good thoughts you’d be willing to send their way.
What’s inside
1. Following up on dance teacher
2. The Sears hot dog lady
3. Calvary Church singles class memories
1. Back in this October Ask Joan, I shared a question from Connie Haller, who was seeking memories of and details about her former dance teacher, Dotti Roffe.
Linda Henry wrote and said she remembered taking dance lessons from Dotti at the high school in Delta during the 1950s. Marty Jacobs recalled that the location of Dotti’s physical dance studio was “located I believe on the corner of N. Hartley St. and Park St. in a neat old Victorian.” Stephanie Beddia also remembered her lessons in the 1950s at Dotti’s studio in York; she recalled it being on West Market Street, however.
Sarann Boring shared a neat memory – she writes, “I went to Dotti Roffe’s School of Dancing when I was 11 yrs. old in the 1950’s for tap dancing. A friend, Shirley Gentzler went there so I wanted to go, my father broke down & paid for a few months of lessons. It sure was fun when we wore Spanish costumes & danced at the Valencia Ballroom.” More on THAT venue is to come Wednesday, by the way… I was just there! (I love when we have past meeting present!)
Dance teacher Priscilla Hoffman said, “I have listed Dottie Roffe as one of my mentors, in my dance studio brochure, for over 30 years. Pretty sure you are on the right track” with the details given in the October post, she said.
And, as seems to be our “Only in York County tradition,” I was lucky enough to hear directly from an immediate family member – Dotti’s son, John Dempwolf! He says, “Margie T ‘Dotti’ Roffe is my mother. She had several studio sites in York, N. Beaver St., N Hartley St. She was on the faculty at Wilson College in Chambersburg, was President of the Washington DC chapter of Dance Masters of America, taught on the national faculty for DMofA, etc, etc. I don’t recall a Spring Grove ‘time’ but I was out of town for many years, College, out of York work, etc.”
I was thrilled to hear from John and find out for sure that we’d found the right teacher of Connie’s. And I appreciate all the memories, as always!
2. OK, for AGES on this blog, we’ve talked about Sears hot dogs. All sorts of past posts on that are here!
Well, in one of them, we narrowed down the brand of amazingly tasty dogs used. We also talked about some people who, in the past, had worked there and were well-known as the “hot dog ladies.” I just have to add that I found out another such lady. Glenda Yaksich wrote to me and said, “The name of the lady that sold the hot dogs at the Sears store at the York county Shopping Center was Ruth Hunt. She was a neighbor of mine – a lovely person.”
Glenda, thanks for sharing that… I am sure Ruth must have sold me my share of Sears dogs in the day!
3. Is there anyone who attended the Calvary Church singles class? We had great times meeting at our homes.
– Janice M. Fix Felzemberg
I’ve reached out to Janice to confirm which Calvary Church she’s referring to for sure, but I’m assuming if you attended, you’d know … so I didn’t want to delay in sharing the question and hopefully getting some folks connected who remember this group!
Got any questions? Ask Joan using the form at right. I’ll attempt to answer them in a future “Ask Joan” column on this blog. I get a large volume, but I will feature three each week and answer as many as possible!
