A Deitschy Day in PA
The deepest roots of our Hagenbuch family tree stretch into Switzerland and Germany. However, for those Hagenbuchs living in the United States, it is an oversimplification to refer to ourselves only as Swiss-German. After...
Tagged: Pennsylvania Dutch
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...
Book Review: Powwowing in Pennsylvania
As a boy I was an avid reader, and I especially enjoyed stories based on historical fact and mysteries. One particular book sticks in my mind; a book of which I cannot remember title...
The Book, Part 5: The Facts
My obsession with Johann Arndt’s Wahren Christentum (True Christianity) began in July of 2015 when my son, Andrew, wrote an article about Andreas Hagenbuch’s will. I learned at that time that Andreas had willed...
The Book, Part 4
This is the fourth in a five part series about “the book” owned by Andreas Hagenbuch (b. 1715). At the end of Part 3, the immigrant Andreas Hagenbuch has died and willed the book,...
Letters From the Past: Part 1
A few weeks ago I was in our barn looking for something. The upstairs of the building is storage, and we have a lot of “stuff” stored there. Most of the boxes are marked...
Shrove Tuesday, Fastnacht Day
Although this day was celebrated last week, the following article will give some insight into this very Pennsylvania Deitsch tradition. This article appeared in the March, 1984 Beech Grove newsletter. Literally translated from the German,...
On Beech Trees and Dutchiness
For the past year and a half, since Andrew had the idea that our Hagenbuch genealogy should be shared on the Internet through weekly articles, a new awakening has occurred for me. I’ve shared...
Pennsylvania Deitsch Recipe: White Peppernuts
The first few generations of the Hagenbuch family in America spoke a German dialect. This is evident from their wills which were written in Sütterlin – a form of German cursive script. German appears...
