The Letter Archives
I like writing letters and receiving letters. It’s a shame that we’ve lost the art of letter-writing and saving correspondence. –Elizabeth McGovern, actress in Downton Abbey. Andrew and I often refer to the Hagenbuch...
Tagged: Milton
Let’s Party Like It’s January 1, 1897!
I possess this imagination that can take me back to past times and places and wonder what may have transpired. I am not a science fiction/futurist type of fellow. Since a child I have...
Ghost Stories from Childhood
My eldest son, William, is fascinated with ghosts, and not just because of Halloween. His ghoulish obsession actually began last year when he played with some old Ghostbusters toys, and grew after his great...
Homer Hagenbuch’s Scrapbook, Part 1
Sometime before 2005 my father, Homer Hagenbuch’s (b. 1916), sister, Ellen Hagenbuch (b. 1926), presented him with a scrapbook filled with a few photos, lots of newspaper clippings, and several old postcards that their...
School Picture Day
An important day in the calendar of public school life was “picture day.” Having taught elementary school and serving as an elementary principal, all told for 35 years, that special day was filled with...
Mangoes and Molasses, Or Maybe Not!
Here is a riddle: When is a mango not a mango and a bottle of molasses something else entirely? Earlier this month, I was on a video call with my good friend, Clint Shearer,...
Mother’s Day: May 10, 2020
The first Mother’s Day was celebrated in 1908. It was initiated by Anna Jarvis as a memorial to her mother in Grafton, West Virginia at St. Andrew’s Methodist Church. A campaign was started to...
Love Letters Continued: Samuel Sechler and Mary Davis, Part 3
Samuel Sechler and Mary Davis were married on December 1, 1880. They are the parents of Hannah Margaret Sechler who married Clarence Charles Hagenbuch—great great great grandson of the patriarch Andreas and grandfather of...
Photos from the Hagenbuch Family Archives
Many of our readers are fond of seeing the numerous old photographs found in the Hagenbuch Family Archives. Noting this, here is a collection of unrelated photos and information about these: Henry W. Hagenbuch...
Family Matriarch: Catherine (Messersmith) Lindner
The Hagenbuch archives contain three photographs depicting Catherine (Messersmith/Messerschmidt) Lindner. Catherine was the mother of Mary Ann (Lindner) Hagenbuch who was born in 1853 in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. Mary Ann married Hiram Hagenbuch (b....
