First Gifts
As I have mentioned over and over, I remember starting into genealogy as a boy and looking at lists of Hagenbuch names, dates, and places from various sources. Back then, one could buy a...
Category: Culture
The Hagenbuchs and The Grange
I have mentioned in a few, previous articles that I was familiar with the Grange organization when I was growing up. A few weeks ago, Linda and I were visiting our daughter, Julie, her...
Deitschy Humor: Professor Herman F. Schnitzel
Who doesn’t enjoy a good laugh? I believe most everyone does, and in this way the Pennsylvania Dutch (also known as the Pennsylvania Deitsch) are no exception. They even have humorists whom they call...
Birds of a Feather: 18th-Century Berks County
It is a known fact within my immediate family that my sister, Barbara (Hagenbuch) Huffman, is an avid birder. She began educating me 50 years ago when she would take Linda and me to...
Friendships in Fabric: The Story of a Family Quilt
Over the years, my father, Mark, and I have featured several stories about quilting. Quilts, unlike the mass-produced textiles of today are one of a kind, personalized items. They are handmade with kindness, love,...
The Twelve Days of Andreas Hagenbuch’s Christmas
In the town where I live, 12 houses along one street coordinate their holiday decorations. If you guessed that the theme of their ornaments is “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” you are correct! In...
Wreaths of Remembrance
As Christmas approaches, each year for the past several years my wife, Linda, has made evergreen wreaths to give to friends, to hang outside at our abode, and to place on relatives’ gravesites. These...
Does Food Define Heritage?
On New Year’s Day, Linda and I were supposed to have friends of ours over for the traditional Pennsylvania Dutch meal of sauerkraut, mashed potatoes, and pork. However, since it was just to be...
What Did They Read?
Books, magazines, newspapers, fiction, nonfiction, autobiographies, biographies, historical fiction, pure history, romance, poetry—the list could go on and on of what people read. What we read is a reflection of our pleasures, our beliefs,...
Doughnuts or Fastnachts?
In March of 2017, I wrote an article about Fastnachts, those holeless, wholesome doughnuts that appear every year in parts of Pennsylvania on Shrove Tuesday to usher in the Lenten season. So as not...
