Spring Garden Township’s Elmwood Mansion move led to shapely dinner crowd
A footnote to the last York Town Square post on moving the Elmwood Mansion in 1905:
As the three-story Spring Garden Township house was rolling along on its 800-foot journey atop greased logs, Catherine Small Keesey and others in her family had to find temporary lodging.
The moved into Mrs. Large’s boarding house on East Market Steet.
Keesey explained in her booklet “My Town and I” that Catherine and others in the Small family enjoyed a group dinner each night.
“This does not sound like a true story but I can assure you it is,” Catherine wrote. “Each night at dinner there were Mrs. Large and her daughter, Miss Large, my mother, Mrs. Small and two Misses Small, and I sat beside a Mr. Bigger!” …
Rich stuff.
Mrs. Large and her husband had been missionaries in China before her spouse was killed in the Boxer Rebellion. This dinner group with names of various sizes no doubt heard great stories from afar.
By the way, Catherine Small Keesey applauded the movers.
“It was a wonderful job for we had taken nothing out of the house,” she wrote, “and after it was permanently settled into place there was hardly a crack in the plaster.”
*Post updated with new information, 3/26/10, based on York Gazette article, 4/4/1905.
