Turned the Corner

Gerald took his state test on Saturday, July 31, and passed. His official nursing license arrived in the mail yesterday. He is now a fully-licensed and practicing RN. This is not the end of the road. He has just reached the intersection and turned the corner onto the next road. He'll reach the next intersection when his six-month internship ends in December.

Shirktown Threshers

Yesterday Leroy and Gene went to a threshing demonstration held at the Peter Martin log cabin. This demonstration, known as the Shirktown Threshers, used to be held on a farm but the location was changed this year. I was having company for supper so I didn't go along but it was a nice day and an estimated 1000 people showed up.
Naturally, there were several steam tractors and several types of threshing machines being demonstrated. There was also a line of tractors, old cars, and other things on display. The one that got Leroy's attention was this scale model 730 John Deere tractor and threshing machine made by Irvin Showalter of McVeytown, Pa.

The little threshing machine, powered by a belt connected to the tractor, actually worked but of course could only handle a handful of stalks at a time. Leroy is still working on his scale model John Deere B and every time he sees a finished one this size he gets excited. Someday he might be able to show off his own little tractor. It's coming along but there's a ways to go before it looks this good.

Triple Treat Torte

I found a good dessert recipe that fits my style of cooking---quick, easy, and cheap. And it's good too. Try it.

Triple Treat Torte

1/2 c. margarine
1 c. flour
2/3 c. chopped roasted peanuts
Mix until crumbly and press into a 9 x 13 pan
Bake at 350 for 15 minutes

Filling:
1 c. powdered sugar
1/2 c. peanut butter
8 oz. cream cheese
1 c. whipped topping
Mix all together and spread on cooled crust

Topping:
1 pkg (3.9 oz.) instant vanilla pudding
1 pkg. (3.9 oz.) instant chocolate pudding
2 3/4 c. cold milk
Mix all together and spread over filling. When it is set, top with a layer of whipped topping and sprinkle with chopped peanuts or chocolate curls.
Refrigerate at least 4 hours before serving.

New and Improved Edition

Someone asked me recently what I look for when I do research in a cemetery. That's one of the things that makes looking at gravestones so interesting. You never know what you might find on them. Some give nothing more than the person's name and years of birth and death. But often a stone will give more detailed information. It might give you the names of a person's parents, a woman's maiden name, marriage date, name of a child who died young, number of children, family genealogy, or any number of variables.

Here are a few amusing stones I came across on the FindAGrave website.

John Denby DDS

"I'm filling my last cavity"

Bristol County, Rhode Island

Monroe county, Florida

Paul G. Lind (apparently a Scrabble fan)

Multnomah County, Oregon

Here are a few other unusual epitaphs of the famous and non-famous.

Arabella Young, 1771

Here lies as silent clay

Miss Arabella Young,

Who on the 21st of May

Began to hold her tongue.

(Hatfield, Massachusetts)
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Grave of Ellen Shannon in Girard, Pennsylvania
Who was fatally burned March 21, 1870

by the explosion of a lamp filled with

"R.E. Danforth's Non-Explosive Burning Fluid."

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Alexander the Great

A tomb now suffices for him

whom the world was not enough

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Quoth the Raven,"Nevermore."

Edgar Allan Poe

(Westminster Presbyterian Cemetery; Baltimore, Maryland)

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...If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea....

Anne and Charles Lindbergh (Palapala Hoomu Congregational Cemetery; Kipahulu, Maui, Hawaii)

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And here is my favorite:

The Body of

B. Franklin, Printer

Like the Cover of an old Book

Its Contents turn out

And Stript of its Lettering & Guilding

Lies here. Food for Worms

For, it will as he believed

appear once more

In a new and more elegant Edition

corrected and improved

By the Author

Benjamin Franklin

(Christ Church Burial Grounds; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)

I don't know if you have ever given any thought to what you would want on your memorial stone, but I have. The genealogist in me would want my maiden name included. And I want this verse which is my statement of faith. "But thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." Death is not the end of life. Our Lord Jesus Christ won the victory over death and because He lives I shall never die. I know without a doubt I shall reappear in a new and more elegant edition, corrected and improved by the Author. Thanks be to God who makes it possible!

Lost and Forgotten

I went back to a place yesterday that I used to visit as a girl and had not seen for close to fifty years. I don't know when or how I learned there was an old family cemetery on our neighbor's farm but I went there every spring to pick huge bunches of lily-of-the-valley that covered the cemetery. It was not very well maintained. I remember the groundhog holes and poison ivy in it as well as the lily-of-the-valley. But I liked to wander around in there reading the names and ages on the stones. I wondered about the lives of the people and why (especially the children) had died. (Yes, I was infected with the history bug when I was nine years old.)

I did not remember any of the names that were on the stones and decided after all these years it was time to pay another visit to the cemetery. What family had started that cemetery? How old was it?

Yesterday we were down that way for a reunion so we stopped at the farm and asked if we may walk back to see the cemetery. The farm is owned by the third generation of the Lauver family and the current owner is my second cousin. He told us how to find the cemetery which is now surrounded by corn. A few years ago he cut down the trees that used to be around it so if he had not told us where to go into the cornfield we would have had a hard time finding it.

The condition of the cemetery has not improved with the passage of fifty years. In fact, it is even worse than when I last saw it. The iron fence that surrounded it is still there but it has fallen over. The lily-of-the-valley has been choked out by the weeds. The groundhog holes are still there and more numerous than ever. The stones that are still standing are few and far between with no semblance of rows. Some of them are lying face down while others are leaning against the fence or half-buried in the ground.

We tromped down or pulled out weeds to be able to see the stones. Some of them are weathered smooth but others were still readable. I photographed fourteen stones, most of which are readable. I did not find any one predominant family name but an assortment of Becker, Hauck, Ressler, Sauter, and Fry names. The oldest one I found was John Sauter, born January 6, 1760, died December 10, 1811.

I satisfied a little of my curiosity about this old cemetery but there are still many unanswered questions. I still wonder who these people were, exactly where they lived, and who started the cemetery. Restoring the cemetery would yield more information but it would also be a tremendous amount of work. The owners of the farm said the last burial was done there in 1933 but there was no visible stone for a burial that recent. I couldn't help feeling sad for the people who lie here with stones saying "in memory of" but are lost and forgotten in history.

1728 Naturalization Petition

My historical research jaunts have taken me to Illinois, Georgia, and several other states. But I never went to the archives in Chester County which is only a hop and skip from Berks County. All of my ancestors settled in Lancaster County when they arrived in the 1700s and stayed there generation after generation until the 1960s when my parents made the big move to the next county. So, naturally, the majority of my family research has been done in Lancaster County and I just don't have much reason to go to Chester County.

Lancaster County was part of Chester County until 1729. I have to go back pretty far to find any of my ancestors in Chester County records. In 1728 more than 200 Germans met at Martin Mylin's house in the part of Chester County known as Conestoga. They signed a petition requesting permission to become naturalized citizens of Pennsylvania with full rights and privileges other citizens enjoyed. Although the rights they were after are not stated, their land was their life and wealth. They wanted to be able to sell the land they purchased and pass it on to their children.

The petition was notarized in (now) Lancaster County and sent to Chester County where the original document is retained. I have a copy of an article that was published in The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine in 1992 which lists the names of all the signers of this rare document. The original spelling and capitalization of the names has been preserved in the article.

Even if they are hard to read, I wanted to see the actual signatures on the petition. So today I made the trip across county lines to Chester County and got a copy of the petition. I have seen some of the signatures often enough on other documents that I recognized a few of them instantly. Others take a good bit of imagination to read. But by comparing the signatures with the list in the magazine article, I can decipher them.

I have not counted how many signatures of my ancestors are on it, but there are quite a few. Wendel Bauman, Hans Good, Hans Groff, George & Henry Weber, and others. I am delighted to have this many signatures on one document for cross reference. Here is a sample.

If you need an interpretation, the names are (from top down)

Hans Good [his mark: HG]
Gabriel Zimeman
Mathias Shyarmister [his mark: ma?]
Jacob Stauffer
Conrade Strickland [his mark: K]
Bendicte Knoll [his mark: B]
Peder Gut
Abraham Steiner

Oh yes! The petition was granted on February 14, 1729/30 and their lands were passed on to their posterity. They had no idea their signatures would be as valuable to some of their descendants 300 years later as their land was to the generation who inherited it from them.

The Lady With The Big Fat Purse

Did you ever have one of those moments when something from your dim past surfaced and you could remember some of it but not the whole thing?

I had one of those moments this week and it's driving me crazy trying to remember the rest of it. Maybe somebody can help me out. We used to say these lines:

"In came the doctor, in came the nurse, in came the lady with the big fat purse.

I don't want the doctor, I don't want the nurse, I don't want the lady with the big fat purse.

So out went the doctor, out went the nurse, out went the lady with the big fat purse."

When did we say these lines? Is it a rhyme we used when we were jumping rope? If so, how was it done? What was the rest of it? What does the lady with the big fat purse have to do with the doctor and nurse?