The Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy by Val D. Greenwood

I became involved with genealogy after inheriting my grandfather Lynne O. Ramer's personal papers, including genealogy research on the Ramer family by Grant L. Schadle.

In the early 1990s I began my own research through the Internet and Family Tree Maker. I already had Robert Evan's published book on Jacob Gochenour and His Family and Grant Schadle's Ramer family tree research. I wanted to find out about my British roots and my husband's ancestry.

Looking back, my early work was shoddy. I relied on family trees that lacked supporting documentation and my record keeping consisted of saved "Favorites" on the search engine, saved files to my computer, and printed off copies of documents, trees, and other sources.

I later committed to World membership with Ancestry.com and the family tree I have created there is my main source of records keeping.

What I needed at the beginning was a better understanding of family history research. A 'researcher's guide.'

Val D. Greenwood's first published The Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy in 1973, selling over 110,000 copies. Because of the huge impact of the Internet in research, he revised the book for the 4th edition published in 2017.

It is massive in size, nearly 800 pages. It is a comprehensive reference book that covers every aspect of family research. Part I addresses Background to Research and Part II Records and Their Use. Greenwood has included illustrations and charts.

The 4th Edition specifically is updated to reflect the new sources available in research provided by the Internet. Greenwood includes overviews of  all the major family history websites, including Ancestry, Family Search, Find My Past, and My Heritage, explaining what they offer and how to use them.

As he notes in his Preface, "though it is a great boon to this work, it [the Internet] is still an imperfect tool. Many important records...are not on the Internet." I know this for a fact! I have been the gracious recipient of help from researchers who have visited places I could not and shared their findings with me. A researcher who visited my grandfather's hometown courthouse shared information with me through Ancestry. In this way I discovered my great-grandmother on the 1910 census under a married name--a marriage I was ignorant of!

Greenwood separates family research as a compilation of another's work and true scientific, systematic, documented research. Of course, my early work was merely compilation of other's findings.

I can at least feel good that I have created family trees that includes not just my direct ancestors but their families. Greenwood promotes a complete family as most important. He also urges researchers to consider all the spelling variations.

"Family history...is a "marriage" of sorts between history and genealogy--what seemed like a most unlikely union in years past....Family history also includes...demography, geography, psychology, sociology, and literature." --A Rearcher's Guide

My interest in family history is rooted in my lifelong fascination in history and biographies and understanding the past. When I learned that my great-grandfather Greenwood's nephew died in the Ranua death march during WWII it brought to life a history of which I had been ignorant. When I learn about ancestors who immigrated across Europe to Volyhnia, and note the social and political conflicts they were leaving behind, I realize the root causes of immigration have always been a part of population migration.

There is so much information in Greenwood's book I realized it was not meant to be read it cover to cover. It is a remarkable acheivement.

I received a copy of the book through Book Review Buzz in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Good instructional guidance is critical to the success of family history research, and this is where The Researcher's Guide is unsurpassed. It is both a textbook and an all-purpose reference book, designed to help the present generation of family history researchers better understand the methods and principles of family history research, and learn how to utilize all available resources. As Val Greenwood writes, "These are our ancestors we are talking about here; we owe it to them to get it right." from the publisher

"Recommended as the most comprehensive how-to book on American genealogical and local history research."—Library Journal

Allie Aller's Stanied Glass Quilts Reimagined: Fresh Techniques & Design

I have enjoyed following the Allie's in Stitches blog and thought it was time I looked at Allie Aller's book Stained Glass Quilts Reminagined.  The quilts are gorgeous. Black makes colors pop and its use as 'leading does something wonderful to colored fabric.

The three approaches used to make stained glass quilts are:

• Couched leading, sewing a thick fiber thread down around applique or pieced blocks
• Appliqued leading, sewing ribbon or trim along the seams
• Iron-on leading, using bias fabric treated with fusible web

Modern Rose Window by Allie Aller

 Allie offers ideas for pattern idea sources to develop and create an original pattern. There are practise exercises with photographs showing the steps to help quilters master the skills needed.

Silk fabrics will give the quilt luminosity, but batiks and solid cottons and even wool will also work for stained glass quilts. The fabrics must have a tight, fine weave.

Six beautiful projects are included in the book:

• Windy Sunshine, a summer throw made in pastels and an abstract block pattern
• Leaf Vine, a bed quilt with green vines on white
• Mondrian's Window, a geometric pattern  'couch quilt' 
• Window for Frank, an improvisational couch quilt inspired by the designs of Frank Lloyd Wright
• Welcome Wreath, a wool and cotton applique floral wall hanging
• Tiffany's Peacock, a classic stained glass wall hanging, seen on the book cover

The Parish Farm by Allie Aller

Allie's quilt gallery illustrates stained glass technique applied to applique, printed fabric, and pieced quilts. I had never considered couching or stich-in-the-ditch leading on a quilt before. I was pleased to see her made her own fused bias; the one stained glass quilt I made used purchased prefused bias tape, which was costly.

I recieved a free ebook from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

This book is available now fro C&T Publishing.

The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World

Jeff Goodell traveled the world to report on how rising sea levels are impacting human society across the globe. His new book The Water Will Come takes readers to shrinking Alaskan glaciers with President
Obama and into the flood-prone homes of impoverished people living in Lagos, Nigeria.

"By that time, I'll be dead, so what does it matter?" Quote from a Florida real estate developer, The Water Will Come 

I long wondered how bad it would get before people broke down and changed how we live and do things. I consider how Americans gave up comforts during WWII rationing, all pulling together for a great cause we all believed in. I don't see that happening today.

As Goodell points out, "fossil fuel empire" Koch industries money has swayed government. Private citizens can recycle and lower the heat and ride bicycles but the impact is small. As long as governments are more worried about big business than national security endangered by climate change we can't alter what is coming.

What? you ask; national security?

Well, consider that military bases across the nation and world are located in areas that WILL FLOOD. Like the Norfolk Naval Base, the Langley Air Force Base, and NASA's Wallops Flight Facility! Along with the financial district of New York City and expensive Florida beach front homes, we will be losing the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site in the Marshall Islands, where 12,000 Americans operate space weapons programs and track NASA research.

So if the loss of Arctic ice and habitat and the Inuit way of life doesn't concern you, perhaps this information will.

So many issues are raised in the book. Consider: We have not established how to deal with climate change refugees. Where are these people going to go? Countries in Europe, along with the U.S.,  are closing borders--the same countries whose fossil energy use is the primary cause of climate change behind rising sea levels! What is their responsibility?

There are a lot of ideas of how to deal with rising sea levels, including the building of walls and raising cities. It seems, though, that people are more interested in coping with the change than addressing the root cause of climate change. We just don't want to give up fossil fuels.

The book is highly readable for the general public. Although the cover photo made me think of an action disaster movie, the books is a well-researched presentation of  "fact, science, and first-person, on-the-ground journalism."

I received a free book from the publisher through Goodreads.

Hear an interview with Goodell with NPR at https://www.npr.org/2017/10/24/559736126/climate-change-journalist-warns-mother-nature-is-playing-by-different-rules-now

The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World
by Jeff Goodell
Little, Brown & Company
$17.95
ISBN-13: 9780316260206

As Bright as Heaven: Surviving And Thriving

In 1918 the Bright family leaves a tobacco farm in Quakertown, PA to move to center city Philadelphia. The father is to work for his uncle's funeral parlor, which he would then inherit. They have suffered the devastating--but at that time all too common loss--of a baby. Their grief travels with them into their new life.

In the autumn of 1918 the Spanish Influenza hits Philadelphia, leaving over 12,000 dead in its wake. The mortuary fills and the uncle dies. When a daughter falls ill, the mother keeps her alive but, worn down, succumbs and dies of the disease. Friends die, and a beloved neighbor leaves for the trenches of France. Amidst all this loss, one of the daughters rescues an infant in distress in a house full of the dead, and the child becomes the family's heart and reason to go on.

The women, the mother and her four daughters, speak in alternating chapters, their unique personalities and perspectives revealed through their own words. Philadelphia has a distinct presence, although fictionalized and geographically ambiguous at times. (The cover photo shows Logan Circle with City Hall in the background.) The time period, between 1918 and 1926, covers the flu and the war but also prohibition and the rise of the speakeasy.

The story is about people who suffer great loss and live through horrible times, who carry their ghosts and demons with them, until they are able to see that life goes on and somehow the world can be bright again.

My Goodreads friends have rated this a four or five star book and found it very engaging. So I will safely say that readers of historical fiction and woman's fiction will enjoy Meissner's book.

SPOILER ALERTS

I had several issues with the writing.

I lacked emotional connection to the characters. It could be the multitude of voices, but I think it was because the story is too much told and not enough shown. For instance, one daughter develops a crush on an older man who goes to war. He is gone for the bulk of the novel, and returns at age thirty-eight and the girl is still "in love." There is not enough interaction between them to make me believe she is "in love" with him for life. It seems contrived.

I found the book preachy and full of clichéd lessons. The ex-soldier, once returned home, consoles his now grown-up lover that the war was horrible and he had to heal. All this healing happened off camera and lacks emotional impact; he is just telling her a lesson he learned. Make peace with the past, he advises. Later, the foundling brother's family is discovered to be alive. The father forgives the Brights, saying that he was angry for a long time by his losses and is finally seeing there is good in life, ending with the old chestnut of 'we are all doing the best we can with what we have'. Nothing new here, kids.

And the story wrapped up with far too many predictable and implausible outcomes. I won't even go into them. There is talk of fate and destiny and finding patterns.

END OF SPOILER ALERT

Consequently, although I had looked forward to reading As Bright As Heaven, especially for its setting and the time period, I found the book an average read. For those who are not familiar with the Spanish Influenza, who like feel-good endings, and who want the horror of history softened by wish fulfillment romantic endings, this is the book for you. It was not my cup of tea.

As Bright as Heaven
by Susan Meissner
Berkley Publishing Group
Pub Date 06 Feb 2018
Hardcover $26.00
ISBN: 9780399585968

Favorite New Classics: Stoner by John Williams and Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

I was thrilled to find John Williams' novel Stoner on my library book club list. Soon after I had bought a Kindle I purchased the ebook and it became one of my favorite discoveries.

Stoner is one of literature's great characters, an Everyman/Job/Willie Loman who endures life's bitter realities, often dejected but with bursts of resistance and empowerment.

Stoner was the child of uncommunicative, distant, Midwestern parents, observing their joyless life fighting the barren land to survive. His father was convinced to send him to agricultural school to learn modern methods that would perhaps make their farm successful.

Stoner is disconnected and passive until he faces the big unknowns and questions posed by literature. He struggles to understand, switching his major to English. His mentor realizes Stoner had  found something he loved.

When he learns his son will not return to the farm, Stoner's father merely replaces his son with a hired hand.

During WWI, Stoner's mentor convinces him not to enlist and abandon his studies; his duty is to keep the world from snuffing out the flame.

Stoner falls in love with a woman who 'doesn't mind' and seems to be more interested in escaping her father than desiring a marriage. Their relationship is a disaster and a disappointment to Stoner.  His wife punishes him every way imaginable, even interfering with his writing and career. He carries on, accepting rejection and isolation.

He never leaves his Alma Mater, eventually becoming a good teacher. Then a new department head promotes a gifted student who relies on charm and blarney while neglecting true scholarship and mastery of his subject. Stoner and his boss clash over the student's dissertation when he insists the student is unworthy. He will not lower his standards. Stoner is punished for not playing the game with the loss of his specialty course and only given freshman level classes.

There are moments of glory in Stoner's life.

His wife got the idea of having a child but found no joy in motherhood. She became an 'invalid', so Stoner had to care for the infant and child, cook and clean. His daughter bonds with him, and in vengeance's Stoner's wife separates them.

A graduate student falls in love with him and their relationship is carried on behind closed doors for a year. When the department chair learns of  their relatiobship, Stoner is pressed to make a decision; he cannot abandon his wife and their daughter. The love of his life moves on to her own career.

Depressed and feeling his age, Stoner plods on until one day he throws away his freshman texts and instead teaches the upper level material he has been denied. His freshman class finishes with higher scores than their peers.

One book club member used the word miserable for Stoner's life. We discussed his fatalism and acceptance, his inaction to better his life, and the reasons behind his choices and lack of action.

I drew attention to his achievements: he held to his values at any cost. He was, as a college friend pointed out early in his life, a Quixotic dreamer out of joint with the world. At the end of his life he understands and accepts his life with unexpected contentment. In his last moments, there is a clarity to his life. Stoner and his wife forgive each other, and a strange comfort envelopes him.

The book group filled the entire hour with our discussion. And that is the sign of a great book--it made us think and reflect and endeavor to probe the mystery of the human experience.

Read the New Yorker review here.

“A masterly portrait of a truly virtuous and dedicated man” —The New Yorker

*****

This month I was also thrilled to reread another of my favorite 'new classics', Marilynne Robinson's Pulitzer Prize winner Gilead. I read it nearly ten years ago, then reread it for a book club. I believe this is my third reading of the book. It is an affirming book that inspires us to pay more attention to the wonder of human existence.

Yes, being married to an ordained pastor who spent 30 years in the pulpit does impact my love of John Ames, a third generation pastor living in a small Kansas town. His grandfather came to Kansas from Maine during the Bloody Kansas days, a vehement abolitionist who knew John Brown. The image of his sainted grandfather was Biblical in size.

But when he returned to his pulpit with a gun and bloody shirt, preaching abolition and taking up the sword, his son went to worship with the Quakers. His pietism was also strong, and lived on in his son, John Ames.

John lost his wife and newborn baby early in life. In his years of sadness and isolation, he resorted to his books for consolation. His dear childhood friend Broughton is a neighboring pastor, once a vigorous man and remarkable preacher, now crippled with arthritis. Broughton named a son after his friend, a child to 'share.' But John Ames Broughton, known as Jack, was a troubled child prone to pranks and deviltry, culminating in an act that drove a wedge between him and John Ames.

A miracle happened to John in later life. A woman wandered into his church. He noticed her sad and quiet face. She asked to be baptized, and in time proposed that he marry her. They had a son. The joy they brought into his life is profound. But John Ames is now turning seventy-six. He has heart disease and knows his days are numbered.

The novel is John's letter to his son, to be read when he reaches adulthood. In the letter he writes about his love for his son and tells stories of their family history, his personal life, his personal theology, and Jack's story. 

Each entry is gorgeous and moving. John has suffered and struggled. Love comes late. But he is in awe and wonder at the beauty of existence. "I love this life," he writes to his son while watching him blowing bubbles with his mother.

****

Gilead is the story of fathers and sons. John Ames loves the son of his late life, and is concerned for what his life will be like growing up without a father.

John returns again and again to the journey he and his own father took during the Depression to find his grandfather's grave. The journey took many weeks across dusty roads. They were thirsty and people along the way had little food to spare them, even for cash payment.

He talks about his father's troubled relationship to his grandfather. During the days of Bloody Kansas, Grandfather was a supporter of John Brown, and perhaps had even killed a man.

Then there is Broughton's son Jack, named for John Ames to compensate John for his lost child. Broughton's children, Glory and Jack, have returned to help their elderly father. John knows Jack's failings and sins. He is distrustful of Jack. As a pastor, this causes a crisis of conscience and calling and he struggles with his inability to trust and forgive Jack.

Jack has been friendly with John Ames wife and son. He plays catch with the son while John watches, his heart too frail for activity. Should he warn his wife and son against Jack?

In his journal, John writes about his morning sermon on Abraham and Isaac, Hagar and Ishmael. John notes that Abraham, who is too old to father more sons, must trust the Lord to watch over them both, one sent into the wilderness and the other intended to be a sacrifice. And he continues,

"...any father, particularly an old father, must finally give his child up to the wilderness and trust to the providence of God. It seems almost a cruelty for one generation to begat another when parents can secure so little for their children, so little safety, even in the best circumstances. Great faith is required to give the child up, trusting God to honor the parents' love for him by assuring that there will indeed be angels in that wilderness."

At one point, John Ames spends considerable time mystifying the Fifth Commandment, honor your mother and father, as related to our relationship to God more than to community. He contends that we must see the spark of God in every human, and learning to see God in our parents is the beginning.

*****

Can people change? Is Jack a changed man? John's wife is sure that people can change. She has not shared her secret past with anyone, but John has seen the sadness in her face and known she had a hard life. What did she need to do to survive all those years before they met? She had no family, and lived through hard times. She and Jack seem to 'understand' each other; unlike John and Broughton, they have been out in the world beyond Gilead.

In the last pages of the novel Jack finally tells John why he has really returned to Gilead, the sorrow and pain of his inability to believe, and the secret heartache that has worn him down.

*****

It happened that the book club members who most loved the novel had all settled next to each other. Most wish there was a stronger, linear story line, or less theology and religion, but most appreciated the beautiful language describing the simple joys of existence and fatherly love. One woman hated the book, hated Jack, and said she hated the Prodigal Son parable he seemed based on. And another could not read about fatherly love, having been denied the opportunity himself.

It is always interesting in a book club to hear how one work of art affects people is such diverse and personal ways.

Self Portrait With Boy

Art is rooted in experience, and artists plumb their lives for their art. I think of F. Scott Fitzgerald and how he appropriated Zelda's letters and diaries and story for his work, or Thomas Wolfe whose first novel Look Homeward, Angel caused a ruckus in his hometown that was so thinly veiled in the book. And I think of Elizabeth Strout's recent novel My Name is Lucy Barton whose character is told she must be ruthless in her art. Artists are faced with telling the truth or protecting others.

On the first page of Self Portrait With Boy, we are told the main character,  photographer Lu Rile, is described as "ruthless," single minded. Lu, looking back on what happened twenty years previous, talks about the trauma behind the work that catapulted her into the limelight.

The novel begins with Lu admitting that at age twenty-six "there were so many people I had not yet become." I loved that line because it reflects how I have seen my life since I was a teenager: life as a continual process of growth and change, so that we become different people as we age.

Lu was a squatter in an old factory inhabited by artists. She worked several low paying jobs and barely scraped by. She felt like an outsider, a girl who grew up poor and does not understand the world of the well-off and well-known artists around her.

Because she can not afford anything else, Lu became her own model and every day takes a self portrait. One day, she set the timer on her camera and jumped, naked, in front of the large windows in her unheated apartment. When she developed the film she discovered that in the background she has captured the fatal fall of a child.

The child's parents became alienated in their grief, the successful artist father moving out while the mother, Kate, leaned on Lu for support. It had been years since Lu had been close to anyone. She is unable to tell Kate about the photograph.

Weird occurrences made Lu believe the boy was haunting her and she became desperate to get rid of the photograph. Lu's father needed money for surgery, and she was pressured to join the others in the building in hiring a lawyer. Lu knew her photo was an amazing work and she struggled between reaching for success and the love she felt for Kate and her admiration for Steve.

Rachel Lyon's writing is amazing. I loved how she used sights, sounds, and aromas to make Lu's world real. This is her debut novel.

Self-Portrait with Boy: A Novel
by Rachel Lyon
Scribner
Pub Date 06 Feb 2018 
ISBN: 9781501169588
PRICE: $26.00

Intuitive Color & Design: Adventures in Art Quilting by Jean Wells, Updated 2nd Edition

Jean Wells started one of  America's first quilt shops in 1975, which she runs with her daughter, quilter and author Valori Wells. She has published thirty books, including the updated, second edition of Intuitive Color & Design.  

Wells begins with the basics of design and its application to quilting then teaches how to design and complete an original quilt. Assignments throughout the book offer readers a chance to learn through experience. The book is heavily illustrated, showing inspiration photographs, finished quilts, and line drawing showing the processes.

Inspiration for Quilt Design explains how Wells uses photographs, inspired by light and lines, for the basis of her abstracted interpretations. In her chapter on Journaling she illustrates how she uses journals and sketchbooks.

In Elements of design, she shows how to create abstraction from life, and use scale, shape, pattern, texture, value, and color.  Principles of Design explains balance, center of interest, repetition, variety and proportion, unity or harmony.

Color Through My Eyes considers inspiration, palette choice, color and pattern, principles of color, value and contrast, intensity, contrast, and volume. Palettes can reflect seasons, places, or personality.

The Design Process in the second part of the book leads quilters through tools and techniques used in art quilting, including piecing techniques, choosing batting, and finishing the quilt. Piecing techniques include intuitive angle piecing, rulerless butting and piecing, narrow-insert piecing, straight-line insert, detail piecing, and corner-curve piecing. Piecing techniques used for art quilts is very different from traditional piecing. Wells offers assignments to help quilters to master them.

Finishing the edges of art quilts include raw-edge finish, using a facing, creating a fabric 'matting' behind the art quilt, and creating 3-D quilts.

Wells offers Advice on What To Do When You Get Stuck and the critique process.

Fields of Provence by Jean Wells 

This is an essential book for serious art quilters.

from the publisher's website:

Jean Wells gives you the assignment of your life: put away your ruler and use your inner vision to design and piece spectacular, free-form quilts you'd never have guessed you could create. In this updated edition of best-selling Intuitive Color & Design, Jean’s workshop assignments get your creative juices flowing, giving you challenges to expand your quilting horizons. Start by learning to see line and color; study the nuts and bolts of design; develop your color work and composition; and when you get stuck, there’s expert advice on problem solving. You will never see quiltmaking in the same way again.

• Creative exercises take your use of color, line, design, and piecing in dramatic new directions
• Use photographs and journals to find inspiration and develop your ideas with Jean’s updated, expert guidance
• Learn innovative finishing techniques to show your quilts at their best
• Classroom-proven techniques make the adventure easy for any quilter

Available now from C&T Publishers in soft cover and ebook.

Daphne by Will Boast: Fleeing from Passion

When thirteen-year-old Daphne was reading The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy she was overcome with the wild passion of teenage imagination; first a buzzing sensation lit her body and then she dropped the book and was unable to move.

It happened, too, with sudden noises, fear, or strong emotions. She hid her affliction as best she could, for Dr. Bell's infinite tests brought no cure, only an unwelcome explanation: an autoimmune disorder had attacked part of her brain.

Daphne became an expert in tightly controlling her life--no unexpected jolts allowed, no passion--just routine, and her mantra and calming images to ward off the attacks that left her immobile and vulnerable.

Until into her life came a man, sweet and kind and patient. But can Daphne allow him into her life?

I read this short novel in a day. The inspiration is the myth of Daphne, a nymph pursed by Apollo who was saved from his lust when the river god turned her into the Laurel tree.

Apollo and Daphne by Bernini

Daphne grapples with numerous challenges along with her disability. Her father died when she was only five. Her mother has finally met a man and is ready to move on with her life. Daphne feels responsibility to her support group members, her childhood best friend who takes big risks for business contacts, and to her staff at her job in a lab which uses dogs as test subjects studies in longevity. She tries to keep boundaries up and yet she would also like to free the dogs.

When life seems too much to bear, she considers her options. Should she, like her support group friend, end it all? Return home, vanquished, admitting she failed at having a life of her own? Or accept that no one is perfect?

Daphne by Will Boast is a beautifully written book that caught me by surprise. I understood Daphne's weariness at being 'different', having grown up with a mother with psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis; Mom once asked me if I had been ashamed of her. For all the pain and isolation of Daphne's life, the disappointment that no one can ever really understand her reality, she is resilient.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Daphne: A Novel
by Will Boast
W. W. Norton & Company
Liveright Publishing
Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
Hardcover $25.95
ISBN: 9781631493034

And a Little Child Shall Lead Them: Only Child by Rhiannon Navin

Zach is seven years old when his world collapses. A mentally ill man enters his elementary school with a gun. One of those murdered is Zach's ten year old brother Andy, a bright and vivacious child with Oppositional Defiant Disorder whose management had already stressed their parent's marriage. They are unable to agree on anything now: the mother bent on revenge, the father showing understanding of Zach's regression while he goes to work and carries on.

Zach is left on his own to deal with the conflicting feelings he is experiencing. In his secret hideout in Andy's closet he colors his emotions on separate paper; they are easier to handle this way. Red for embarrassment for peeing in bed like a baby. Black for for being scared and the bad dreams at night in which he relives the day of the school shooting. Green, like the Incredible Hulk, for anger. Gray for the sadness, like clouds on a rainy day.

He also returns to his favorite book series in which children learn the secrets of happiness.

Rhiannon's debut novel Only Child is written in Zach's voice, told from his perspective. The adult world feels distant and nearly unmindful of his existence. As adult readers, we understand the hints that pass over Zach's understanding. And we are heartbroken for Zach and for his parents as well.

It is marvelous that Zach is the moral compass of the story. He demonstrates a wisdom that the adults lack; caught up in their own pain they are oblivious to each other's needs. Zach seeks for healing and wholeness, and as the novel ends with Christmas time arrived, he is truly the light which comes to show the way to salvation for his broken family: forgiveness, kindness, thinking of others, and clinging to love.

The journey into the horror of a school shooting resolves by showing us how to live in this world. In the end, I was glad to have read this book, even now in mid-December when others turn to light holiday fare.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through First to Read in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Only Child: A novel
By Rhiannon Navin
Hardcover $25.95
Knopf
Publication Date: Feb 06, 2018
ISBN 9781524733353

The Which Way Tree: Revenge and Obsession in the Old West

The Which Way Tree by Elizabeth Crook commanded my attention from the fist page. I loved the voice and the story kept my interest.

In 1866 Texas, Ben is called to testify about a murder incident that occurred three years previous. The judge hopes to determine if  Hanlin murdered eight Union soldier prisoners. Ben said he had come across Hanlin at the scene of the crime and that he was also at Hanlin's death.

A natural story teller, the boy's statement starts at the beginning of his life and the circuit judge, needing to move one, asks the boy to write down his testimony and mail it to him.

In a series of letters the boy relates a tale of single-minded vengeance.

Ben's mother died when he was a few years old. His father brought home a former slave to take care of the home and children; Sam was soon born.

When Ben was eight a panther attacked Sam. Her Sam's mother fought the cat and hacked off several of its toes. She died saving Sam's life, but the girl was left hideously scarred.

After the death of their father, the children struggled on their own. The nearby Civil War prisoner of war camp have cleared out ready game. Ben must travel far for game and one day he happened upon Hanlin pick-pocketing the bodies of dead Union prisoners.

Sam is obsessed with killing the panther. While stalking the panther, the children come into conflict with Hanlin. They rescue his prisoner Pacheco. Hanlin now holds a grudge against them, but in Pacheco they have found a friend.

Ben's Testament is told in a series of letters, showing a fatalistic acceptance of his hard life in a hostile environment filled with danger from Secesh, Indians, and bandits. He works a job and takes care of their few livestock but Sam is idle and defiant. Her obsession with killing the deadly panther takes the children on a journey fraught with danger and filled with colorful characters who have lived ungodly lives.

Preacher Dob warns Sam that vengeance belongs to the Lord, and she replies, only if he can beat me to it. Preacher Dobs found religion and seeks to expiate his sins. The Mexican Pacheco knows all his mistakes are behind him.

Ben's life is filled with loss and hardship but there is something noble and perfect about him. He is unassuming and grateful and earns the judge's esteem. And the readers. He is a marvelous creation.

Ben is a natural story-teller and the judge comes to appreciate the boy's love of writing. When Ben requests more paper and ink, the judge readily provides them. When Ben complains about his worn quill pen, wishing he had a modern pen, the judge sends that as well. The judge's gifts increase, sending Ben books including Tristram Shandy.

When Ben threw ears of corn over the fence to the Union prisoners someone in return threw back his treasure: a copy of Moby Dick. The novel enthralled the boy and he mentions the book twice in his Testament.

Ben's tale is inspired by Melville's novel. There is Sam's single-minded obsession with revenge on the beast called El Demonio de Dos Dedos--the Demon of Two Toes. I also noted how Pacheco face scarred by pocks of black gunpowder parallels Queequeg's Maori tattoos. I had to wonder if Ben has embellished his Testament, writing not subjective truth but transforming his tale. Isn't that what writers do? Take life and tweak it, giving it meaning and form?

An Act of God, or nature, brings Ben's tale to a nail-biting conclusion, revealing at last what the judge wanted to hear at the beginning: why Ben is convinced that Hanlin was a murderer and is deceased.

In her Acknowledgement, Crook states that her manuscript came to Robert Duvall, who played Gus McCrae in Lonesome Dove. (A marvelous movie and book!) I can imagine Crook's book as a movie. Here's hoping!

I received a free e-book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

From the publisher:

Early one morning in the remote hill country of Texas, a panther savagely attacks a family of homesteaders, mauling a young girl named Samantha and killing her mother, whose final act is to save her daughter’s life. Samantha and her half brother, Benjamin, survive, but she is left traumatized, her face horribly scarred. 

Narrated in Benjamin’s beguilingly plainspoken voice, The Which Way Tree is the story of Samantha’s unshakeable resolve to stalk and kill the infamous panther, rumored across the Rio Grande to be a demon, and avenge her mother’s death. In their quest she and Benjamin, now orphaned, enlist a charismatic Tejano outlaw and a haunted, compassionate preacher with an aging but relentless tracking dog. As the members of this unlikely posse hunt the panther, they are in turn pursued by a hapless but sadistic Confederate soldier with troubled family ties to the preacher and a score to settle. 

In the tradition of the great pursuit narratives, The Which Way Tree is a breathtaking saga of one steadfast girl’s revenge against an implacable and unknowable beast. Yet with the comedic undertones of Benjamin’s storytelling, it is also a timeless tale full of warmth and humor, and a testament to the enduring love that carries a sister and brother through a perilous adventure with all the dimensions of a legend.

The Which Way Tree
by Elizabeth Crook
Little, Brown and Company
Pub Date 06 Feb 2018
ISBN: 9780316434959
PRICE: $26.00

Helen's Heir Finds Me! The Diary Is Going Home!

In 2001 I found a 1919 diary in a South Lansing antique/flea market and brought it home. The writer's personality enchanted me but I did not know who she was until December 31 when she signed off as Helen Korngold.

Helen Korngold photo from Normandy H.S. yearbook where she taught

Since that time I have researched to know more about Helen and to understand the people and places and activities she talked about in her diary. I held off sharing the diary and her story, wanting to fill in some gaps, including how Helen, a career teacher in St. Louis, meet and marry a brilliant mathematician who was teaching at Cornell University in New York?

I had decided to begin sharing the diary and my research on my blog this year as part of my Saturday posts on family histories, and was preparing my work to be shared.

Then--This week I was contacted by a woman who told me I had her great-aunt Helen's diary! She, like most of us do, was noodling around the Internet seeing what popped up when she typed in family member names. And my blog post about the quilt I made for Helen came up.

The quilt I made for Helen included scanned diary pages

I am learning so much about Helen and her husband Fritz Herzog. She was as lovely and fun to be with in real life as she appears in her diary.

Today I will be mailing the diary to her family, along with copies of my typed transcription and research. Helen is finally going home to her family.

Read my posts about Helen:

https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2012/03/helen-korngold-quilt-close-to-10-years.html
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2013/11/researching-helens-diary-on-ancestrycom.html
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2013/11/researching-helens-diary-on-ancestrycom.html

Helen Korngold photo from Normandy H.S. yearbook

Tilda Sewing By Heart: New Patterns and Fabrics from Norway

Tilda Sewing By Heart cover with patchwork pumpkins 

These fresh quilts and sewing projects from Norway are ADORABLE!  

Tone Finnanger is the founder and sole designer of the internationally recognized Tilda brand, which she started in 1999 at the age of 25. She was at the 2017 Quilt Market in Houston, TX and won "Best Newcomer."

Bumblebees quilt on left. 

The book features 7 full-size quilts plus smaller sewing projects such as pillows, pincushions and  soft toys.

All the projects use the Tilda fabric lines including Cabbage Rose, Bumblebee, Circus, Harvest, and Cottage lines. You can view the fabrics at https://www.sewandso.co.uk/category/saq-tilda-crafts-tilda-fabrics?TRE00049.

Sewing From the Heart is the first Tilda book in English. Expert technical editing from Linda Clements, bestselling author of The Quilter’s Bible, offers in-depth instructions. The photographs are gorgeous and the book is filled with illustrations showing construction and fabrics used.

The instructions are detailed. There are 21 pages for The Bumblebee Quilt, 55" x 73," including:

• multiple full and close-up photographs of the quilt
• swatches of fabrics used and yardage chart
• preparation and cutting instructions
• overall quilt layout illustration
• cutting instruction with illustrations
• block construction instructions with color illustrations
• border construction with illustration
• and assembling and finishing the quilt instructions

I love love love this soft fox

The patterns have some unusual methods. For instance, the stuffed Santa doll's legs are made with pieced fabric. To construct, one sews the various widths of fabrics into one unit. The leg pattern is laid over the pieced unit, traced, and cut with seam allowances. Each leg has two pieces which are sewn and turned.

Projects include

• Bumblebee Quilt, pillows, pin cushion, and stuffed bees
• Flower quilt, pillows, and fabric flowers
• Circus Quilt
• Tree Pillow
• Applique Elephant quilt
• Cabbage Rose Quilt
• Patchwork squirrel and rabbit stuffed animals
• Birds and Sunflowers quilt and pillows
• Patchwork Fox stuffed animal
• Pumpkin Harvest Quilt and pillow
• Patchwork Santa and stocking

Cottage Quilt

Visit the website at https://www.sewandso.co.uk/product/tilda-sewing-by-heart/402389

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Tilda Sewing by Heart
by Tone Finnanger
F+W Media
SewandSo
ISBN: 9781446306710

The Winter Station by Jody Shields

The Winter Station by Jody Shields was just the read I needed. I was experiencing a lack of motivation and knew it was time to pick up a book that would sweep me along into it's world.

Based on a "true story that has been lost to history," the atmospheric setting is beautifully detailed, the mystery revealed with a slow build up of suspense, the characters fully realized and sympathetic.

The story takes place in the winter of 1910 in a remote Manchurian city built as a train station and hub of the railroad that brings freight and passengers across Asia. Divided into quadrants, each with its own character and government, Chinese and Russian, with Japan champing at the bit to invade Manchuria, the city's peace is precarious.

The Baron has rejected the life of wealth and privilege to become a doctor. He embraces Manchuria, marrying a Manchu woman and learning the customs and language. He is more comfortable with smugglers and misfits than with his own class. He is open to new ideas, including modern medical practices such as hand-washing and the use of masks.

The Baron is a student of calligraphy, struggling to find the calm center which allows the brush to lead his hands. He enjoys the formality of the tea ceremony, boiling water poured over a hand turned, unglazed clay teapot to warm it, the rolled leaves set inside and steeped three times, each steeping of tea offering a new experience. His lovely young wife is his refuge, and he marvels at his happiness with her.

In the bitter snow of winter the dead appear, frozen and blood splattered. As the weeks go on, it is clear there is an epidemic of monstrous proportions. Dr. Wu, the Baron, and other doctors clash over methodology, and the Baron argues against the orders of secrecy and the disposal of the deceased. The Baron seeks a balanced path between East and West, the interests of state and business versus medical practice and wisdom, considering needs of the poor and rich and even the quick and the dead.

Scenes of unimaginable hell become commonplace, and every decision made could mean life or death. The historical plague took 40,000 to 60,000 lives over the winter of 1910-11.

Shields' novel brings alive a city and place that was totally new to me. I loved the descriptions of the tea ceremony and calligraphy lessons, although some readers may complain that these scenes impede the plot. I say, bosh, the scenes make the world come alive. My only disappointment was the open ending. I had invested a great deal in the lives of the characters and I was left stranded on the ice.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Winter Station
by Jody Shields
Little, Brown  & Company
Publication January 30, 2018
$27 hard cover
ISBN: 9780316385343

See photographs of the historical plague at http://hahn.zenfolio.com/manchurian_plague_2
Viewer discretion advised.

Lynne O. Ramer's Memories: Lt George H. Ramer

Last week my grandfather Lynne O. Ramer's article referred to Maude Shannon Ramer and her husband Harry W. Ramer. Today I am sharing the 1963 article which appeared in Ben Meyer's We Notice That column of the Lewistown Sentinel about their son George W. Ramer. George died in the Korean War. Ben wrote the article based on a letter received from my grandfather.

*****

Honors for Lieut.

George H. Ramer

A former local school teacher whose son was killed on Hearbreak Ridge, Korea, has been notified that a new combat training facility at Marine Corps Schools, Quanitco, VA., is to be named in his honor.

The mother is Mrs. Maude D. Ramer of 424 Burnley Lane, Drexel Hill. Her son who died in the Korean War was Second Lieutenant George H. Ramer.

Mrs. Ramer has received notification from Lieut.-Gen. F. L. Wiesman of the U.S. Marine Corps that his command is planning a dedication of a new building, naming it Ramer Hall as a memorial to her late son.

“We believe that naming this facility after Lieutenant Ramer will be both decorous and appropriate since the facility will primarily serve newly-commissioned lieutenants in the Marine Corps, says the notice received by the mother.

“Mrs. Ramer, you are most cordially invited to attend the acceptance and dedication of Ramer Hall. Your travel expense to and from Quantico can be provided for, if you desire.

“I hope that you can accept this invitation and that we may have the honor of your presence with us Oct. 4, 1963.”

Scholar at 3 Yrs.

The Ramers formerly lived in Milroy. George, or Bud Ramer, the Marine lieutenant mentioned above, was the only son of Mr. And Mrs. Harry Ramer. The father died some time ago, and the mother is now residing in Drexel Hill with her daughter, Mrs. Ethel Coulter.

The then President, Harry S. Truman, awarded Lieutenant  Ramer the Congressional medal posthumously.

News of the dedication of the new building at Quantico to be known as Ramer Hall comes to us indirectly by way of Mrs. Ramer’s nephew, Lynne O. Ramer.

No doubt some of our teachers will recall the episode concerning Mrs. Ramer and her daughter Ethel, related for this column by Lynne Ramer some time back.

It seems that Mrs. Ramer was substituting for an ill teacher in the Burnham schools during the 1915 era. She had taken the assignment at the urgent insistence of the school board, which was unable to secure a regular substitute.

Well, Mrs. Ramer not only took the assignment, but she took her three-year-old daughter Ethel along to school with her—in her crib! Believe Ethel was the youngest “scholar” ever to matriculate in the Burnham district.

“Ethel and I plan to accept the invitation and be in Quantico for the dedication,” says Mrs. Ramer in her letter.  “Naturally we are thrilled, but after all we will have mixed emotions during this experience. Harry’s branch of the Ramer tree ended with Bud, but his name will go on at Quantico.”

Maude Pearl Ramer, Evelyn Ramer (Lynne's wife), and Ethel Ramer

at Lynne and Evelyn's home in Royal Oak, MI. 1960s.

‘Polly Kicks Bucket’

“Vacation is over—back to work”, continues Mrs. Ramer’s letter to nephew Lynne. “You speak of Mackinac Island. We have never been there, but have ferried across from Upper Michigan twice. Of course, at that time no bridge.

“We hope to get back into that country some time. Our trip this year took us down one side of Cape Cod and back the other. From there to Nova Scotia along the coast. It was fascinating and we want to go back to ferry across the Bay of Fundy from Maine and drive around to Nova Scotia.

“The ferry trip is 100 mile and takes six hours, but it cuts off about 700 miles of driving through Maine and New Brunswick. Polly (her car) chirped right along for over 2,000 miles but kicked the bucket after we got home, causing Ethel to be late for work after having to get a new battery.”

‘O How Good!’
Lieutenant Ramer was among the 434,000 U.S. Marines engaging in the Korean War. Of his number, there were battle deaths consisting of just about one per cent—or 4,267 to be exact.

According to records revised by the Department of Defense, the ratio of Marines slain in combat in Korea during what President Truman called “a police action” was about twice as great as the combined battle deaths of all branches of the service being engages—Army, Navy, Marines and Sir Force—over the three year period extending from the mid summer of 1950 to the same time of year in 1953 when the armistice was signed and fighting ended within the next 12 hours.

We’ve included Mrs. Ramer’s address in the story today so that any of her old friends who might desire to get in touch will be able to write or send her a card. We are inclined to believe that she would like this very much.

Word from the old home always comes as a refreshing breeze in the heat of summer or as the old proverb goes: “A word at its right time is O how good!”

*****

Lt. Ramer was a real hero.

This branch of the Ramer tree traced its mutual ancestor to Nicholas Romer.

The Ramer family tree:

Matthias Roemer (1746 Germany-1828 Berks Co, PA) Matthia served in the Revolutionary War.
   Nicholas Roemer (1791-1867). He is the mutual ancestor with Lynne O. Ramer
      Isaac William Ramer (1829-1869) He was a blacksmith and served in the Civil War
        Charles Maurice Ramer (1855-1920)
           Harry Webster Ramer (1883-1944)
                George H. Ramer (1927-1944)

A January 8, 1953 article in Stars and Stripes noted that Second Lietenant George H Ramer, 24, was a Bucknell University graduate, who was killed while covering the withdrawal of his platoon in an assault on an enemy held hill. Medals were presented to his wife Jeanne Grice Ramer.

Somerset.org website has a detailed story about George including newspaper articles and his genealogy:  http://www.somersetflag.org/BeyondTheCall/Ramer.pdf

HonorStates.org has this story: Second Lieutenant Ramer commanded the 3rd Platoon, Company I, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division. On September 12, 1951, he led his platoon in an attack against a heavily fortified position. Although wounded he and eight of his men finally captured his objective. Upon an overwhelming enemy counterattack, he ordered his men to withdraw and singlehandedly fought the enemy to furnish cover for his men to evacuate three wounded comrades until his was mortally wounded. For his leadership and extreme valor.

George has his own Wikipedia page at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H._Ramer

Building the Great Society: Inside's LBJ's White House

I was in Seventh grade in the spring of 1964 when I was asked who I was voting for in the mock election. I asked who was running.

"Well," I was told, "there's Barry Goldwater who wants war and may use the Atom bomb, and there's LBJ who wants to end poverty." 

I voted for LBJ, enchanted by his Great Society idealism.

I have been fascinated by President Johnson for years and have read multiple biographies him. My political awareness was formed under his presidency. I was a junior in high school when President Johnson gave his speech that ended announcing he would not seek reelection.

Building the Great Society by Joshua Zeitz is exactly the kind of book I enjoy, one that puts my personal memories into historical perspective, fleshed out with insight that I lacked at the time. I also appreciated learning how the Great Society programs impacted lives and the motivation behind their critics' desire to dismantle them.

*****

In 1963 America was at a pinnacle of economic boom with the rise of the Middle Class and a huge increase in the Gross National Product. It was a time of fast food restaurants and power steering, electricity in every home powering refrigerators and televisions and stereos. My family had just moved to Metro Detroit, Dad seeking employment in the auto industry. Getting that job gave my family economic stability and badly needed health care.

At the same time millions of Americans were left behind in poverty, including populations in Appalachia and rural America. One-fifth of the population lived at or below the poverty line of $3,000 for a family of four. The majority of the impoverished were Caucasian, but a higher percentage of African Americans were impoverished--40%. And female headed households were 50% impoverished.

After assuming the presidency following the assassination of President Kennedy, President Johnson identified himself as a "Roosevelt New Dealer" who found Kennedy "a little too conservative." But his history of voting with the Dixiecrats against legislation addressing African American equality left many doubtful.

Zeitz paints a picture of Liberals' belief in the sustainability of the Great Society programs, writing that "the idea that the economy might someday stop growing rarely factored seriously into liberal thinking."

Government's impact in solving social ills was not a new idea. The programs envisioned by President Johnson were rooted in the New Deal public works programs of President Roosevelt. "The War on Poverty" was an term first used by President Kennedy in a 1960 campaign speech. "The Great Society" was the title of a book by Walter Lippmann. President Johnson used the term "Great Society" in a speech at the University of Michigan in May, 1964, drafted by Richard Goodwin.

According to Charles Roberts, Bill Moyers was the "Presidents' good angel, representing his conscience when there's a conflict between conscience and expediency."

The Great Society programs were not instituted predominately for urban African Americans; that stereotype came later from Republicans who were hostile to the programs.

Zeitz follows Johnson's presidency and the events of the time: the impact and legacy of the Great Society programs; the Viet Nam War siphoning money and energy away; Robert Kennedy's candidacy and assassination; riots and civil unrest at home; the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.; George Wallace and his platform of rage and hate (giving my little brother nightmares!); and Nixon's secret campaign to sabotage Johnson's peace talks.

Nixon did not dismantle all the programs; many continued to thrive while others did not. It was a time of environmental awareness, and Nixon established the EPA and NOAA and addressed clean air and water issues.

The economic theories of the early 60s did not pan out. Poverty is still with us. But the Great Society programs have impacted society for the better, especially in areas of equality, access to food and health care. Zeitz warns that the Trump administration's dismantling the Great Society programs may cause a backfire: "When the pendulum swings back, it may swing hard," with a more radical approach.

More than 'just' a history lesson, this book also informed me about the changing attitudes and policies concerning social issues and especially how we got to 'here', a time when Republican leaders are determined to dismantle the Great Society legacy.

I received a free ebook from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Building the Great Society
Inside Lyndon Johnson's White House
by Joshua Zeitz
PENGUIN GROUP Viking
Publication January 30, 2018
ISBN:9780525428787
PRICE $30.00 (USD)

Lynne O. Ramer's "Stories and Sagas" of Reedsville, Mifflin County 100 Years Ago

Between 1959 and 1971 my grandfather Lynne O. Ramer wrote hundreds of letters to his hometown newspaper which were published by Ben Meyers in his We Notice That column.

Lynne O. Ramer, age six

Today I am sharing Gramp's memories of a hundred years ago in which he recalls people and places in and around Reedsville, PA. I have added information about the people mentioned in the article wherever possible.

*****

August 1, 1960

We Notice That
By Ben Meyers
The Heights       Phone 8-8430

‘Twont Be Yours Again
Hustle this moment to yourself and hold it close,
and warm it with your flesh.
But do not spoil the new and uncut cloth of time
Around yourself, enhancing you.
Turn it gently, fit it, give it shape
And do not overstrain the weave.
You want it perfect, strong, unmended, whole.
It won’t be yours again.

Dear Ben: No, it won’t be ours again, to recall the memories of those olden, golden days back in Mifflin County. So I’ll include a few more for the sake of your readers who like to linger in memory’s lane.

He has passed to his reward, but Hyman Cohen* often recalled the time when it was my privilege as Boy Scout counsel or to initiate him into the mysteries of frying eggs on a heated rock, then making them the basis for a grand outdoors meal.

Also he leaned how to mix water and flour and wrap it round a stick and bake his own bread. And eat it amid the glories and wonders which Mother Nature so lavishly furnished.

I still remember those days. Also how I used to attend Mr. Cohen’s theatre, the Embassy, also the Rialto, long ago in the silent movie days.

If Jimmy Mann* were here, he would recall all the series of boy’s books I borrowed from his library.  Also the pheasant-on-toast I once dined upon at his folks’ table. (Haven’t had any since either!) Jimmy’s books were the beginning of a liberal education for me: Rover Boys, Rocky Mountain Boys, Motorboat Boys, mentioning just a few.

Of course “Boozer” (Lester Charles) Bobb* of Valley St. and I used to hide the contraband books such as Jesse James, Liberty Boys of ’76, A-One Books of Hobo Life, etc., in the barn and read them where Nammie [pet name for his grandmother Rachel Barbara Reed Ramer] wouldn’t catch us. And we got them all from old “Al” Nale*, Civil War veteran, Milroy’s last member of the GAR.

If Jim Young, my Reedsville pal*, is around, tell him I remember his dad’s bakery with its luscious pastries. Also how I almost broke my hip, slamming into a tree on Young’s Hills and how his mother massaged my bruised hip. And was I ever embarrassed at the age of ten!

Frank Barr would remember the time when he advanced threateningly to the front of Reedsville seventh grade room where the teacher, Mr. Manwiller, was chasing his girl friend, Hazel Shupe*.
At the instant Frank arrived up front, with clenched fists, Charles Hilbish*, principal, stepped in. Now wasn’t that a tableau! And we were all so disappointed, for we thought it would be a feast of fists---Barr vs. Manwiller.  But it all vanished into nothing.

Lynne O. Ramer, left, in his first long pants at age 15

purchased by his Uncle Charles Smithers in 1919

Stories and Sagas

Stories and sagas about the Rev. A. H. Spangler*, Lutheran divine of Yeagertown-Reedsville-Alfarata in the first decades of the present century, are legion and probably growing in numbers.
Thus, like Lincoln, if Mr. Spangler lived all the events he is reputed to have experienced, he’d have to be living still. And in the memories of many former parishioners, he probably is.

It’s well known that he outlived two wives and was married to a third. His jovial companions oft queried, “When will you make it a home run,” that is, “outlive a third and a fourth wife?”

This story about the Rev. Mr. Spangler comes from Mrs. Maude Ramer*, 7 Linn St., Harrisburg.  [Editor’s note: LOR wrote “Lives in Drexel Hill, PA (1965)”]

It seems the clergyman and Harry W. Ramer*, first principal of the now absorbed Burnham High School, were very good friends. At one time Dr. Spangler was sick and his family doctor prescribed pills and whiskey. At some banquet which Harry attended Dr. Spangler spoke thus: “I am glad to be here. I have been sick, in fact, sick enough to die. If I had died it would have been too bad because Mrs. Spangler here (seated beside him) waited so long and wanted to make home rum.

“But now I have recovered due, I believe, to the fact that when the doctor inquired about my progress in taking the prescribed medicines, I was able to tell him, ‘Although I might be a day or two behind on the pills, I’m several days ahead on the whiskey!”

This apparently was said at a public gathering and is typical Spanglersque. I would not detract one whit or one iota from his revered memory, but thought you’d like to hear this bit of folklore.

I sat in the pews of Dr. Spangler’s church in Reedsville during 1913-15 and preached my very first sermon (a horrible thing, if I must say so) in the pulpits he once graced—Yeagertown and Alfarata.  That was back in 1925 when I was still a seminarian at Susquehanna University.

The time draweth nigh when a bus load of 50 PA Dutchmen invade the Motor City en route to the famed Wisconsin “Dells” from the Harrisburg-York-Hanover area. John L. Getz*, now of York’s Hannah-Penn Junior High School faculty, will be the leader. He’s my former fellow teacher-neighbor from Kane. A Michigander spots a Pennsylvanian for the latter always refers to his home state as PA.

     Sincerely,
     Lynne O. Ramer
     514 Gardenia Ave.,
     Royal Oak, Mich.

[Editor’s note: LOR wrote: “Dr. Spangler was once president of the “S.U.’s board” and “Lottie: I wrote this right after a trip ‘home.’ This is the last year I met you and Kep! (No! 1962!)” My grandfather often sent the articles to friends, who returned them. This clipping must have been forwarded it to Lottie to read.]

*****
Notes:
* Hyman Julius Cohen (b. 1878 in Lithuania, d. 1952) appears on the census with his wife Lena and their children Harold, Miriam, Wilton, Miles, Isabella, Solomon and Samuel. In 1910 and 1920 he owned a clothing store. In 1940 his occupation was listed as Real Estate. The 1930 census shows his son Harold D. was a theater manager. The City Directory of 1929 shows the family owned the Embassy Theater at 380 S. Main in Lewistown.

* Jimmy Mann appears in the records as James Hutchinson Mann (b. 1900) to Walter Mann and
Mary A. The 1920 Brown Twsp, Mifflin Co. Census shows Walter manufactured lumber. Lynne's grand-father Joseph S. Ramer had operated a saw mill. In 1930 James was an office clerk living with his uncle Percy G. Mann.

*Lester Charles Bobb (1895-1981)was Lynne's cousin, the son of his mother's sister Carrie Viola Ramer Bobb. After the death of Lynne's mother Esther Mae Ramer, he and "Boozer" were staying with their grandmother Barbara Rachel Reed Ramer when she died. Lynne then lived with his Aunt Carrie or Aunt Annie Ramer Smithers.

* Albert Weidman Nale (1844-1932) See more at Find A Grave here.

*The James Youngs I found, of which there are several generations by that name in a Reedsville
family, did not have an occupation of running a bakery on the census.

*The 1910 Brown Twsp, Armagh County, PA census shows Hazel Shupe/Shoop 9b 29015, d 1998) was the daughter of William P. Shupe and Edith G. She had siblings Andrew C., and Rebecca. William was an axe polisher in an axe factory. The 1920 census shows Hazel was a department store clerk.

*Charles Edgar Hilbush was a 1909 Bucknell University graduate from Northumberland. The 1910 Census in Northumberland shows him living at home, working with his father in real estate at age 25, with parents John and Melissa and siblings John and Sara. A WWII draft card show Charles, age 57, was the Sunbury County Superintendent.

*The Reverend Alexander Hamilton Spangler appears on the 1900 Derry Township Census with his wife Cynthia and their sons Thaddeus and Luther who both worked in the steel mill.
Find A Grave has his obituary of Feb. 21, 1924 published in the Lewistown Sentinel:

Rev. Spangler was born near Shanksville, a son of Daniel & Sophia (Myers) Spangler. After being educated in the local public schools he attended Wooster University in Ohio, graduating in 1873.
He began the study of law in New Bloomfield, Perry Co. and was admitted to the bar at Johnstown. In 1885 he entered Union Theological Seminary and graduated three years later. He served as pastor of the Lutheran congregations at New Bloomfield, Middleburg, Port Royal, Braddock, Yeagertown, Reedsville & Alfarata.

He was married to Cynthis Penrod in 1874. They had three sons, H. Kelly, L. Stoy & Thaddeus S., all of whom survive. [In 1920 the census shows his second wife Catherine.]

Rev. Spangler was vice president of the Saxton Coal Co., director of Saxton Vitrified Brick Co., Russell National Bank, Burnside YMCA (also 1st vice president), Gettysburg College Theological Seminary & Burnham Medicine Co., member of the board of trustees of Susquehanna University & Tressler Orphans' Home (president of the board), member of the State Democratic Committee, Masonic Lodge at Mifflintown and the Harrisburg Consistory, grand chaplain of the Masonic Order of Pennsylvania, etc.

*Harry Webster Ramer was a distant cousin of my grandfather. His wife and gramp's pen pal was Maude Shannon Ramer. Their son George Henry Ramer died in the Korean War.

*Teacher John Lewis Getz (1898-1970) appears on the 1930 Kane, PA Census and the York, PA 1940 Census with his family: wife Goldie and children John, Donald, and Richard.

Dust by Mark Thompson: A Loving Portrait of Boyhood Friendship

"Early in life, my grandfather told me that only three things were certain: birth, death and time. And time only ticked one way: it went forward and never back. It came to be a recurring wish with me, the desire to turn back the clock, to undo what I had done." from Dust by Mark Thompson

For as long as I can remember, part of me has faced backward, tied to the past by nostalgia and longing. When I read Maria Rainer Rilke's advice in his Letters to a Young Poet that one's childhood "treasure house of memories"* offers the creative artist a wealth of inspiration I knew it was true.

I share this to explain why I so enjoy writing that is turned backwards, considering a childhood's treasure house. The newness, the first contact, the adventure of life--and its sorrows and disappointments and questions--always has a poignancy for me.

Mark Thompson's slim debut novel Dust  is about the friendship and adventures of two eleven-year-old boys growing up in New Jersey in the late 1960s. It is full of lyrical nostalgia as J. J. Walsh recounts his last summer with his best friend Tony 'El Greco' Papadakis.

The boys still imagine sticks are swords, but they also sneak Kent cigarettes and drink coffee black. They imagine the larger world, planning a trip to see the Pacific Ocean. In a freedom rarely allowed today, the boys get into trouble and have misadventures, and they come to terms with death and pursue knowledge of sex. Details of American life offer a deep sense of time and place.

Near the end of summer, Mr. Walsh takes the boys to see his hometown of Savannah, GA, whose exotic beauty enchants JJ. During their travels, the boys experience the Jim Crow South with its poverty and division.

Dust is a love song to the endurance of love, love of a boyhood friend, a wife, a son.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through Net Galley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Dust
Mark Thompson
RedDoor Publishing
ISBN: 9781910453223




*"For the creative artist there is no poverty—nothing is insignificant or unimportant. Even if you were in a prison whose walls would shut out from your senses the sounds of the outer world, would you not then still have your childhood, this precious wealth, this treasure house of memories? Direct your attention to that. Attempt to resurrect these sunken sensations of a distant past."