Do you ever wish you knew what your ancestors were like? After all, they were living, breathing souls just like you and me. Most of you probably know or knew your parents and all or many of your grandparents. Some even remember a great-grandparent or so. Just multiply those family
This is my favorite time of year. One big reason is the abundance of locally grown fruits and vegetables. My mother was a very active gardener nearly all her life. One on my first memories is awakening at a very young age and going out to find her in the
Take a look at the recently created Trailblazers online exhibit on the York County History Center website. It tells the story, through photographs and transcribed diary entries, of the 1938 cross country journey of four York County women from Brogue, Pennsylvania to California and back. They took the long way
In my April York Sunday News column, which I posted a few weeks ago, I shared my shock at how many children were included in the migrant workers that came to help harvest York County crops in the late 1940s. An August 1948 Gazette and Daily article and accompanying full
I started working on my April York Sunday News column, which you can read below, about two months ago. We were just starting to hear more about COVID-19 then. By the time it was finished and published in the paper a couple of weeks ago, it became even more relevant.
I became interested in Meyer and other York County printers because several also printed Taufscheine, the birth and baptismal certificates that I have been researching for years. Most of them were also very interesting individuals, especially as they used their newspapers as a political platform. One good example is Solomon
Some of us can remember when the big furniture factories in Red Lion were in full production. Local workers crafted fine furniture shipped around the country and perhaps beyond. A couple of weeks ago, while I was writing my recent York Sunday News column, I saw a news item that
We sometimes seem to have a love/hate relationship with old buildings. We act like we would love to save them for their historical ties or architectural significance. On the other hand we often seem to hate committing funds to preserve them. This isn’t a new problem. There have always been
Earlier this year I wrote about Daniel May, printer and newspaper publisher in York from about 1829 to 1843. He was one of several York County printers to produce Taufscheine, or baptismal certificates, also known as Fraktur. These colorful certificates, popular from about 1770 to 1870, recorded the birth and
It is almost time for the Fifth Annual York County History Storytellers Night at 7 p.m. next Tuesday, December 10 at the Appell Center’s Capitol Theater, a beautiful historic site in its own right. We have had great turnouts in the past and expect the same this year, so we