Hagenbuchs and Sechlers Entwined
Back in about 1978, I first walked through the graveyard at New Bethel Union Church near the Hagenbuch homestead in Albany Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania. I had been looking for the farm where Andreas...
Tagged: Myron Cromis
First Thoughts on the 1950 Census
April 1, 2022 marked an important occasion for genealogists—and, no, it had nothing to do with April Fools’ Day! On this day, family historians celebrated the release of the 1950 United States Census records,...
A Box Full of Goodies, Part 1
Several weeks ago my first cousin Kathleen (Robb) Shuler and her husband Gerald “Butch” Shuler were in the area so they stopped over to see Linda and me. It was a beautiful day so...
The Last of Their Generation
Harold Sechler and Ellen Hagenbuch were first cousins. Harold’s father, John Sechler, was a brother to Ellen’s mother, Hannah (Sechler) Hagenbuch, born 1889. Only a year apart in age Harold and Ellen died within...
A Picture’s Worth: Butchering Day Redux
“A picture is worth a thousand words” is an oft-heard phrase first coined in 1911 by newspaper editor Arthur Brisbane. In the article Butchering Day Memories From the Farm – Part 1, I mentioned...
Butchering Day Memories from the Farm, Part 2
This article is a continuation of last week’s Butchering Day Memories from the Farm. In it, we got started with the pig butchering process: killing the hog, sticking it to bleed it out, scalding...
Butchering Day Memories from the Farm, Part 1
Last Tuesday was Fastnacht Day here in our part of Pennsylvania. In our Montour County household we called it Doughnut Day. It wasn’t until I moved to York County thirty years ago that I...
