Family Foods
What foods conjure memories of your family past and present? A few weeks ago, while planning a trip to my parents’ house, I asked if they had any favorite dishes that their parents used...
Tagged: Irene “Faus” Hagenbuch
Friends of the Family
Growing up in Montour County, our family was associated with neighboring farm families that were good friends of my parents, Homer and Irene (Faus) Hagenbuch. There were the Durlin brothers—Bob, Bill, and Fred—and their...
Five Years On
Earlier this year, I was telling someone about a few of the articles that had been published on Hagenbuch.org. Their response: How much can you write about one family? Well, according to our most...
Family Connections Across the Divide
In January of this year, my wife Sara and I traveled to California where we had lived for nearly a decade. Along with seeing some of our old haunts, we looked forward to visiting...
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...
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...
