2009-11-17 08:13:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
Lancaster County each year raises just over 100,000 acres of corn for grain, more than any other county in the state. But corn takes second place to a crop you might not expect. It's something you can't salt and butter and crunch on row by row. Unless, maybe, you're a shee......
2009-11-13 08:12:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
Mark Malkoff, a Hershey-born comedy writer and filmmaker, has spent the last month driving around the country hitting up mayors for keys to their cities. He is six shy of his 100-key goal. Malkoff received one of his first keys here in Lancaster from Mayor Rick Gray. But he didn't......
2009-11-10 08:52:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
Three decades ago Wednesday — Veterans Day — Lancaster's Vietnam veterans installed a bronze plaque memorializing all Vietnam veterans on the Soldiers and Sailors monument in Penn Square. Gary Levinson, one of the original members of the Vietnam Era Veterans Association that......
2009-11-06 13:48:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
Marlin Groft, a Marine rifleman, and Francis Miller, a B-17 gunner, had radically different experiences in World War II. Groft fought his way through several horrendous battles with the Japanese. Miller was captured, imprisoned and underfed by Germans until the end of the war. These L......
2009-11-03 15:07:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
In the summer of 1905, when cars were uncommon and roads were rough, Thomas Edison took an automobile tour of central Pennsylvania. In Lancaster, he stayed overnight at the Stevens House. In Harrisburg, he blasted road conditions. "You have the finest farms and the worst ro......
2009-10-30 15:10:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
Here is a spine-chilling poem for Halloween by the late Ernest Waldo Bechtel, as translated from the Pennsylvania German by C. Richard Beam:
A skeleton is not pretty, has hard white thin legs. The head is bared and hard and the eyes are gone. The skeleton s......
2009-10-23 12:55:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
A few years ago the road designers, business owners and political leaders who want to ram a Route 23 bypass through the heart of eastern Lancaster County's agricultural community proposed to elevate the highway 25 feet above farmland and existing roads.Including a 10-foot sound barrier......
2009-10-13 08:43:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
When John Brown raided Harper's Ferry 150 years ago this week, he hoped to spark a slave uprising that would spread across the South. After the raid failed and Brown was speedily prosecuted and executed, many Northerners viewed President James Buchanan as "a tool of Southern slave......
2009-10-09 12:29:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
A York resident recently took a train out of Lancaster. As she walked through Amtrak's parking lot, Ann Pettigrew heard something unexpected. "There was a lot of noisy calling going on at the far end of the parking lot," she told others tapping into the Pennsylvania birds list at Audubon.o......
2009-10-02 12:28:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
Dear Dr. Scribblernuke:
Very interesting column (Sept. 25) about the giant generators moving to TMI, and their historical precedents. Do you know: 1. How the old generators will be disposed of? Will they be radioactive? 2. Why the flanges for the new ......
2009-09-29 09:49:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
American Indians never fought a battle at the Cove in Mount Joy, but a group of picnickers did encounter a "beast" in a cave there in the 1860s. So writes Vera Albert in "Short Stories from Mount Joy's Past," this year's contribution to booklets the historian pr......
2009-09-25 00:02:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
Dear Dr. Scribblergenerator:
I have been following the articles about the new generators for TMI with much interest. My friends and I are trying to recall (and can't) what was involved when the current generators were installed. Were they as large? Did they arri......
2009-09-08 07:52:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
Many Amish farmers sell produce and crafts from roadside stands. Now tourists — or residents, for that matter — can buy tobacco straight from the farm. An Amish family along Route 30, just east of Route 896, is selling individual stalks of tobacco. The m......
2009-09-04 12:22:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
Kyle and Jillian Schmidt spent their summer-long honeymoon biking across America on a traffic-stopping half-recumbent tandem bike. Jill, who grew up in Mountville and graduated from Hempfield High School, wouldn't trade the adventure for a month in Montenegro. "We have so ma......
2009-09-01 08:03:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
For decades, visitors to the Pennsylvania Dutch Convention & Visitors Bureau on Greenfield Road have passed a sign held up by two giant fiberglass Amish figures. "Wilkum," it said. "Holiday Inn Visitors Center." It really wasn't the Holiday Inn Visitors Cente......
2009-08-21 14:01:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
Two readers have weighed in with new thoughts about why the Amish go to church only every other Sunday. • An Amish friend in the eastern end of the county talked to an Amish friend of his in Ohio. The Ohio man suggests that the practice originated in Europe when early Anabaptist......
2009-08-21 00:02:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
Two readers have weighed in with new thoughts about why the Amish go to church only every other Sunday. • An Amish friend in the eastern end of the county talked to an Amish friend of his in Ohio. The Ohio man suggests that the practice originated in Europe when early Anabaptists show......
2009-08-14 10:53:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
The Scribbler has been collecting historic descriptions of Lancaster city and county for many years. The other day he encountered a specimen he had never seen before. It's from Rudyard Kipling's "Rewards and Fairies," a book published in 1910, three years after Kipling......
2009-08-11 09:08:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
Flies can be a nuisance, particularly on farms with manure piles, but most people these days are insulated from the outdoors and have learned to live with the filthy little insects a lot better than people did a century ago. Back then, flies were considered a major menace to health. Communiti......
2009-08-07 09:41:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
Here's a summertime quiz created especially for this column by Lancaster historian John W.W. Loose. Answers will be provided next week. • What were the original names of these streets?
Pearl Street.
Vine Street southwest of West Strawberry Street....
2009-08-04 10:49:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
Dear Dr. Scribblerprez:
President Buchanan's gravesite is a disgrace and is an embarrassment. It needs a complete landscape makeover and regular maintenance. Perhaps The Scribbler can shed light on this topic and can arouse some enthusiasm in improving the gra......
2009-07-31 08:04:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
Most Christian churches hold services every Sunday. Many hold mid-week services as well. So why do the Amish, who function as members of the church every day of their lives, hold formal church services only every other Sunday? A number of Amish scribes who report on their communities fo......
2009-07-28 16:06:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
Sunday morning, four territorial yellow jackets, disturbed by what they perceived as a threat to their nest, attacked a friend visiting from Virginia. He had parked his car next to a nest that had erupted from the ground overnight. The little black-and-yellow buggers stung him as he tried to get......
2009-07-24 09:53:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
Watt a mystery! Years ago, long before Lancaster had a block-filling convention center and a high-rise hotel, a sizeable bronze plaque was bolted to the Watt & Shand department store. The plaque provided a brief history of the White Swan Hotel, which stood on that site and was the m......
2009-07-21 09:56:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
Dolores Perezous has a beaky problem. A male cardinal has been banging away at the windows of her Barrcrest home for several weeks. The bird has rammed its beak into windows in the dining room, living room and basement. It has smeared its droppings on the windows and the ground around t......
2009-07-17 10:05:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
New commercial development in Lancaster County is inevitable, but it does not have to undermine Lancaster's uniqueness. That's James Cowhey's reaction to last Friday's Scribbler column exploring the development community's contention that the county is "understored&quo......
2009-07-14 10:16:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
Historians of 18th century America in recent years have looked beyond the settled eastern fringe to the back country, where American Indians and frontier settlers clashed before the Revolution. One of the events central to their studies is the slaughter of Lancaster County's Conestoga Indians ......
2009-07-10 10:20:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
Whenever developers announce plans to build a new shopping center in Lancaster County, you can count on someone to hold this conversation. "Did you see they want to build another shopping center? They say Lancaster is 'understored."' "That's what they always say. How can we be understore......
2009-07-03 10:30:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
George Washington was first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen. But he was not first to give a Fourth of July oration. Washington's contemporary, David Ramsay, did that. Ramsay, who was born in Lancaster County in 1749, provided this groundbreaking addre......
2009-06-26 08:44:00
Jack Brubaker, The Scribbler
Isaac R. Horst, who has been mentioned from time to time in this column, died last November at his home in Ontario, Canada. He was 90 years old. The Center for Pennsylvania German Studies at Millersville University has just published a memorial tribute containing some of Horst's writing and......
2009-06-16 12:06:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
Thirty-five thousand Lancastrians jammed themselves into Buchanan Park to watch a fireworks reenactment of the bombing of Hiroshima on Sunday, June 16, 1946. The next day's Lancaster New Era reported that the assemblage represented "the largest mass gathering in the city's history." The cr......
2009-06-09 13:42:00
Jack Brubaker, The Scribbler
In the depths of the Depression, government workers thought long and hard about how to put people back to work with public funds. Then they began pulling strings. In the 1930s, the Federal Theater Project, part of the New Deal's Works Progress Administration, employed people all over t......
2009-06-05 12:31:00
Jack Brubaker, The Scribbler
When Terry Kauffman traded his lumber company owner's cap for a government service hat nearly two decades ago, cooperation among Lancaster County municipalities was severely limited. "There was a degree of cooperation," he recalls, "but it was pretty much informal. A township......
2009-06-02 13:59:00
Jack Brubaker, The Scribbler
Stoodthere.com is running a contest to rank "The 100 Greatest Places in the USA." The Web site lists 100 of the nation's "most wondrous, inspiring, or thought-provoking locations." Each listing contains photos......
2009-05-29 13:03:00
Jack Brubaker, The Scribbler
The most extraordinary accomplishments of the Great Depression are the enduring creations of the New Deal's Works Progress Administration, including magnificent stone structures in parks, lively sculptures on college campuses, and the wonderful series of writers' guides to states and cities ...
2009-05-26 09:04:00
Jack Brubaker, The Scribbler
A crack-shot, foul-tempered leader of the Montana Vigilante Committee, "X" enjoyed many and varied adventures in the Wild West. Closer to his hometown of Mount Joy, "X" proved he also knew how to make lemonade from lemons. ("X? You are wondering, who's "......
2009-05-22 14:45:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
Here's a newspaper story with an attractive headline: "Former Pin-Up Girl, Now 102, World's Oldest Columnist." The Scribbler found the story after googling for the world's oldest newspaper column. The Google search engine doesn't always provide precise information. Oldest newspaper columnist? ......
2009-05-19 13:59:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
The first time the Scribbler heard a recording of the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" he was sitting on an overstuffed couch in someone else's room in the Alpha Chi Rho fraternity house at Dickinson College. Suddenly, just another day in college life became a mind-blowing expe......
2009-05-15 13:54:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
News has come from western Pennsylvania and Indiana in recent days about Amish practices that seem alien to Lancaster County's Old Order settlement. The Cambria County sheriff locked a couple of Swartzentruber families out of their homes because they refused to abide by municipal sewage dis......
2009-05-08 12:36:00
Jack Brubaker, The Scribbler
When Veterans Memorial Bridge opened in 1930, there was a toll booth on the Wrightsville side of the Susquehanna River that collected 5 cents from every car passing it, coming from or going to Columbia. "My dad had cousins in York," recalls Stan Buch, "and it was a thrill for me as a little kid......
2009-05-05 12:36:00
Jack Brubaker, The Scribbler
Unless you are a Mason, it's doubtful that you know much about William Morgan or the repercussions in Lancaster County and throughout the United States that followed his disappearance in 1826. Morgan was a Freemason in Batavia, N.Y. He grew disenchanted with the organization and threatened ......
2009-05-01 08:02:00
Jack Brubaker, The Scribbler
Most of the books in Lancaster's first library, founded in 1759, were printed in English. Only a few were printed in German. The first German library didn't open here until 1787 — nearly three decades later — even though Lancaster was predominantly a German town. The di......
2009-04-28 14:46:00
Jack Brubaker, The Scribbler
Nancy Santaniello and Monica Forte are determined and relentless. They have worked for months to stop a plan to widen part of the Fruitville Pike to accommodate a new shopping center. Recently the two women decided to propose rather than oppose. They propose to resurrect the village of F......
2009-04-24 11:38:00
Jack Brubaker, The Scribbler
You may have read about this spring's gold rush in California. You may be dreaming of joining prospectors congregating on the South Fork of the American River and at hundreds of other places where nuggets "worth their weight in gold" might be found. Before you chuck your ha......
2009-04-21 11:40:00
Jack Brubaker, The Scribbler
Dear Dr. Scribblerdunkin':
Have you seen the new visitor sign on the Heritage Center building? It is totally distasteful and out of character for the significance of Penn Square and the historic integrity of the building. It's totally tacky and reflects the Route......
2009-04-14 14:06:00
Jack Brubaker, The Scribbler
This is the tricentennial of the first workings of the Pequea Silver Mine. The Pequea Indians did the original digging in 1709, according to historians. The Indians weren't looking for silver. They were hunting quartz. They used quartz to make weapons for hunting animals. ......
2009-04-07 14:18:00
Jack Brubaker, The Scribbler
Evangelos Manolakis, one of Lancaster's first Greek immigrants, opened the Lancaster Candy Company with co-founder John Roumanis in 1907. Manolakis wanted to do business at 8 N. Queen St. seven days a week. He discovered he had to pay, repeatedly, for the right. Dr. Nikitas Zervanos ......
2009-04-03 11:52:00
Jack Brubaker, The Scribbler
Here's how the Associated Press described this week's announcement that the Lancaster New Era and the Intelligencer Journal will merge as one morning newspaper: "LANCASTER, Pa. (AP) — Two central Pennsylvania newspapers that share both a corporate owner and a newsroom pl......
2009-03-31 14:37:00
Jack Brubaker, The Scribbler
In the spring of 1887, workmen demolished a brick stable on Water Street, near Chestnut. In that stable, a brief story in the Lancaster New Era reported, an exceptional suicide occurred during the Civil War. Harry Whitby, part owner of a nationally renowned circus, had kept performing horses a......
2009-03-27 10:32:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
Anyone who spends much time with the Amish knows that, while they don't necessarily use the latest technology, they know all about it. And they are adept at adapting what's available to suit their own, very particular, needs. Amish don't use much real electricity, for example, ......
2009-03-24 14:36:00
Jack Brubaker,The Scribbler
Hundreds of "Seagoing Cowboys" — many of them members of local Brethren and Mennonite churches — volunteered to tend livestock shipped to war-torn countries after World War II. Jack Shoff, of Millersville,was one of the cowboys. He made three trips overseas with ships full......
2009-03-20 09:42:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
The Scribblers regularly hear owls hooting in the trees in our woods along the Little Conestoga Creek. A blue heron swoops almost daily along the water. Plenty of other avian creatures, including window-crashing cardinals and way too many loose-boweled Canada geese, enliven the woods and the cr......
2009-03-17 14:10:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
As workers erect a canopy for vehicles arriving at the new Marriott Hotel on the southeast corner of Penn Square, one imagines a limo slithering beneath the overhang, expectant guests preparing to emerge, a doorman stepping forward. But scenes at that site have not always been so sedate. W......
2009-03-13 07:58:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
Dear Dr. Scribblerslate:
We just returned from a trip to the South and stopped in to see Biltmore. What a place! Someone there informed me that the roof slate came from Lancaster County, in good old Peach Bottom. I done a double take on that one. Did yo......
2009-03-06 14:29:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
When he isn't trying to sleep outside in sub-freezing temperatures, the New Era's Ad Crable enjoys Web surfing for weird Lancaster County connections. Recently he ran into Michael Depoli, a World Wrestling Entertainment wrestler who was born on Long Island but bills himself as hailing ......
2009-02-20 14:32:00
Jack Brubaker, The Scribbler
Dear Dr. Scribblerfence:
How long has it been since you saw snow fence? Turn north at the Good's Furniture Store on the west end of New Holland and go less than a mile and watch on your left. I don't know if the township did it or the farmer......
2009-02-17 11:03:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Doctors once had some weird ideas about the spread of disease. A century and a half ago, most physicians thought cholera was spread by "miasma.'' That is, they believed that foul air emanating from filth dispatched cholera victims. A prominent Lancaster surgeon was one of a fe......
2009-02-13 15:07:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
Dear Dr. Scribblerplaque:
I moved from Lancaster several months ago and only returned to visit family this past Thanksgiving. I noticed that all of the bronze builders' plaques (date of construction, engineering group, etc.) have been removed from the wonderf......
2009-02-11 14:56:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
Eight generals and admirals were born in Columbia, an exceptional record for a small town. Now add a World War I flying ace. Second Lt. John Knox MacArthur was born in Columbia on the first day of the year 1891. He died in the summer of 1918, days after he was shot down over France. M......
2009-02-04 13:11:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
More than 1,000 Amish babies were born in the Lancaster County settlement in 2008. That's according to a correspondent for The Diary, an Old Order Amish monthly newspaper published in Gordonville Katie Beiler, of Paradise, provides a variety of statistics related to the local settlemen......
2009-01-30 12:29:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Early this month the Scribbler launched a Lancaster Liars Contest. The idea was to tell a whopper of a tale with a local angle. The Scribbler expected to be bombarded by lies. But Lancaster must be populated primarily by feeble fibbers. Only seven real liars entered the contest. All are......
2009-01-23 13:48:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
You may have read with some amusement the Jan. 9 New Era story written by the fellow who stayed overnight in a "hotel room" installed in the Guggenheim Museum. That was Henry Eshelman, son of John B. and Rosa Eshelman, of Manheim Township. He grew up in Lancaster, attended Lancaster C......
2009-01-16 12:26:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
Last weekend the Scribblers walked along Washington's Pennsylvania Avenue, on which Barack Obama will lead the inaugural parade from the Capitol to the White House next Tuesday. We noticed that painters had just put a fresh coat of brown on all light poles and had hung up "wet paint......
2009-01-13 12:47:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
Lee Jay Stoltzfus, a Lititz dealer in rare books, has created a fantastic Web site featuring anything you might want to know about Lancaster County printing. His subjects range from books to newspapers and virtually all other materials that have been printed here. And the site has a ter......
2009-01-06 12:30:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
Three turn-of-the-year experiences: • During Countdown Lancaster 2009 Wednesday night, Jonathan Burns entertained with something he called "stunt comedy." The finale featured Burns hoisting a standard toilet seat, which had been removed from the toilet, and pulling i......
2008-12-30 09:26:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
The boys of Womelsdorf celebrated the new year with guns and girls. And if the boys of that Berks County town did it, you know the boys of Reinholds, Denver, Ephrata and other northeastern Lancaster County towns probably did it, too. Phebe Gibbons wrote about Pennsylvania German holiday......
2008-12-26 14:32:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
WGAL meteorologist Joe Calhoun was talking the other day about precipitation to be expected north vs. south of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. The Scribbler wondered, not for the first time, what that's all about. Why is the turnpike a meteorological dividing line? If the forecast is 3 f......
2008-12-23 13:28:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
Three readers recall when they lost their childhood belief in Santa Claus. These stories seem humorous now, though they were not funny at the time. nKerry Glenn, now of Columbia, grew up in Parkesburg. Bill Alexander was his postman. Alexander called Glenn "Little Roy" because he remi......
2008-12-19 14:33:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
Dear Dr. Scribblerstreet:
Something has been "wondering me" for years, and maybe you can ferret out the answer. Has anyone besides me ever noticed that the house numbering on the north side of the city is a little "ferhoodled"? On North ......
2008-12-16 12:48:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
John Patrick Stanley, author of "Doubt," the Pulitzer Prize-winning play and now a movie, says doubt can be "a passionate exercise." Well, no kidding. The Scribbler cannot remember precisely when he first doubted the reality of Santa Claus. But he can remember the ......
2008-12-09 12:04:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
Last spring the Lancaster County Planning Commission launched a study of the Route 30 East tourist strip. The plan is to improve the appearance of the highway and the conglomeration of visitor attractions along the highway. The ambitiously-named "U.S. Route 30 Gateway Enhancement Plan"......
2008-12-05 14:35:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
Dear Dr. Scribblerheater:
I've been studying the full-page ad headlined "Amish mantle and miracle invention help home heat bills hit rock bottom." The ad has been appearing for a while. It was in Monday's New Era again. I'll bet you $10 against a nicke......
2008-12-02 09:11:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
The Scribbler got a haircut the other day. The haircut was good, but the story that came with it was better. The hair cutter explained how she is saving money during tough economic times. She is cutting the hair of a seamstress. The seamstress is not paying her cash. In exch......
2008-11-25 11:58:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
A former Amish man got fed up with the way Amish were being portrayed in print and wrote his own book. It was 1940 and "Rosanna of the Amish" was headed for long-lasting success. Herald Press has just released a paperback edition of "Rosanna" by Joseph W. Yoder. This ed......
2008-11-21 14:20:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Dear Dr. Scribbler lion:
I count five different kinds of lions' heads on the Watt & Shand facade. Check them out. Why are the carvings so different?
Vic Nigro
Lancaster Newspapers
Dear Vic:...
2008-11-18 12:49:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
Lancaster City Council is considering extending the ban on bicycles and skateboards to more downtown sidewalks. Here's another idea: add motorized wheelchairs to the list. Or, probably more realistically, regulate the speed of wheelchairs on sidewalks. If you haven't experienced th......
2008-11-14 14:31:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
On Sept. 13, 1942, F.W. Dinkleberg hauled a cannonball from his house at 22 Howard Ave. over to the old Pennsylvania Railroad cut along East Chestnut and North Duke streets. He dumped the heavy ball onto growing pile of scrap that included tires, bedsprings, newspapers and iron grills from the ......
2008-11-11 14:54:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
Victor Kegel credited his father, Lancaster Fire Chief Charles Kegel, with keeping him alive during tense days in the trenches near the end of World War I. It was a backhanded compliment. Victor and his brothers, Thomas and James, marched off to war with the 109th Machine Gun Co. in Pennsy......
2008-11-04 12:22:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
Dear Dr. Scribblerclock:
Two of the landmarks of Lancaster City are the clocks at Hamilton Watch Company and also the one at Bowman Technical School. Neither of them is in operation. Maybe you could put on your Sherlock Holmes hat and find out what's going on....
2008-10-31 11:48:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
New York Sun columnist Benjamin Sarlin suggests that John McCain spend more time wooing the Amish. In "McCain's Last Hope: the Amish Vote," Sarlin says President Bush succeeded in getting more Amish to register to vote four years ago and McCain could be the beneficiary now....
2008-10-24 13:37:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
Denver, Iowa, is one of the prettiest little towns John Leid has ever seen. "I could move there right away," he says. "It's a very nice community. Denver, Ill., is one of the ugliest little towns Leid has ever seen. "My wife would not let me take photos there,......
2008-10-17 14:08:00
JACK BRUBAKER, The Scribbler
When Edward Brubaker retired as professor of drama and English literature at Franklin & Marshall College two decades ago, he decided to do two things. He and his wife, Mary, moved from Lancaster to Ashland, Ore., where he had worked for many summers as stage manager, producer and director a......
2008-10-03 13:08:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Republican presidential candidate John McCain is struggling in Pennsylvania, according to the new Franklin & Marshall College poll released this week. And the main man behind that poll, F&M professor G. Terry Madonna, says he doesn't see how McCain can win the election if he can'......
2008-09-23 12:26:00
JACK BRUBAKER
An Elizabethtown couple enjoyed the New York Yankees-Chicago White Sox game in Yankee Stadium Thursday night, but the game was hardly the main event of the evening for them. Bill Davis asked Kate Cannon to marry him. He did not ask her discreetly. When he popped the question, it was broadc......
2008-09-05 10:32:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Dear Dr. Scribblarriott:
Early stories about the Marriott Hotel on Penn Square said it would be taller than the Griest Building, making it the county's new tallest "skyscraper." But three years ago the newspaper reported that the hotel would be t......
2008-08-29 12:53:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Summer will limp along for another three weeks, but we all know that Labor Day weekend actually marks THE END. To help ease the sweet sorrow of this season's sayonara, the Scribbler provides informative and entertaining reader commentary based on previous columns.
...
2008-08-26 14:11:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Dear Dr. Scribblerphonics:
What has happened with East Petersburg since I had been a little fellow living out there 75 years ago? Haydn pronounced his name just like Zook except that he sounded a 'g' rather than a 'k' at the end. Now the J......
2008-08-22 13:12:00
JACK BRUBAKER
In the summer of 1954, the Scribbler's Aunt Barbara took him to see "Rob Roy, the Highland Rogue" at the Joy Theater in Mount Joy. The Scribbler remembers two things about that show. 1. The colorful and courageous Scottish revolutionaries who slashed their way through less impassioned E......
2008-08-19 10:11:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Early on the morning of July 3, 2007, a dump truck driver crashed into a horse and buggy on Route 340 in Leacock Township. The young mother driving the buggy suffered a serious head injury. Her 12-year-old brother and 10-month-old daughter were treated for lesser injuries. That ac......
2008-08-08 13:39:00
JACK BRUBAKER
The Landises of Landis Valley were the ultimate collectors. Landis Valley Museum showcases their assembled artifacts related to the culture and agriculture of the Pennsylvania Germans. Henry K. Landis, one of the brothers who established the museum collection, also collected photogra......
2008-07-25 14:48:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Abe Buzzard, one of the notorious Buzzard brothers who terrorized the Welsh Mountains and vicinity from the late 19th century well into the 1930s, seems to have had two callings: 1. Chicken stealing. 2. Evangelizing. If the Scribbler had not had access to digitized issues of the old N......
2008-07-22 10:06:00
JACK BRUBAKER
As Lancaster County's growing Amish population (about 24,000 and rising) also has expanded geographically, the courting distance for some young men has become substantial. It's a far piece from the southern to the northern ends of the county. It's even farther from northern Maryland......
2008-07-11 10:51:00
JACK BRUBAKER
A slug of improperly treated human sewage closed parts of Forida's Gulf Coast to swimming last month. An algal bloom caused by a flood of nutrients crippled the Olympic sailing course in Qingdao, China, this week. Evidence of E. coli bacteria in the Susquehanna River forced indefinite ......
2008-07-08 14:49:00
JACK BRUBAKER
You may have read an article last week about an archaeological dig at the Christiana "Riot House." An undisclosed detail of that dig is especially interesting. Jim Delle, Kutztown professor of archaeology, and a group of his students located the house's foundation and thousands of artifacts dur......
2008-07-01 12:01:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Six years ago, archaeologists dug up an old cistern in the first block of South Queen Street. The cistern is adjacent to Thaddeus Stevens's home and law office. The archaeologists and others suggested that Stevens modified the empty cistern and used it to hide fugitive slaves before the Civ......
2008-06-27 14:37:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Behind every great man, according to the old chestnut, stands a great woman. Jacob Grosh's second wife didn't stand behind him. She stood, or sat, in front of him to teach him English. And that opened his way to becoming a community leader. Jacob Grosh, Lancastrian Juanita Gri......
2008-06-20 10:04:00
JACK BRUBAKER
One of the saddest stories about Lancastrians who left home in search of riches belongs to the Grosh brothers of Marietta. They may have found a fortune, but they died before they could collect. Ethan and Hosea Grosh were the sons of Aaron Grosh, a Universalist preacher, and his wife, Hannah......
2008-06-10 16:53:00
JACK BRUBAKER
A barn swallow upstaged the Barnstormers at Clipper Magazine Stadium on Sunday afternoon. The Barnstormers rallied from behind to win 7-4. But for thousands of amazed and amused fans, the biggest play of the day occurred far above the field. It's near the end of the game. The Barn......
2008-05-30 14:55:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Dear Dr. Scribblerdopp:
I have a question about Pennsylvania Dutch pronunciation. I've always heard "dopplich," for clumsy or awkward, but the Pennsylvania Dutch dictionary that I have says "doppich." Which is it?
...
2008-05-23 09:42:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Tuesday's Scribbler column poked some fun at the tourists who butter the county's economic bread. Let's continue pulling on that thread. In still another glossy guidebook explaining the Amish of Lancaster County to visitors, Elizabethtown College scholar Donald Kraybill says t......
2008-05-16 14:43:00
JACK BRUBAKER
A couple of years ago, Wendy Eshleman was working at the Lancaster Public Library's book warehouse, called the Book ReSort, when she received an unusual telephone call. "It was the most interesting call we ever got," recalls Eshleman, publicity chairman for the annual sale of donated books in s......
2008-04-25 15:01:00
JACK BRUBAKER
One million Stoltzfuses. Imagine that! The organizers of an annual benefit auction for the Nicholas Stoltzfus house in Wyomissing, Berks County, estimate there are nearly one million descendants of the first Stoltzfus to settle in America. Nicholas and his family emigrated to Ameri......
2008-04-15 10:21:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Ballot Box Stolen
Ballots All Burned
Dark Work Done
In Manor Township
Well! The Democratic candidates for president this spring are slinging mud by the fistful. Election......
2008-04-08 10:46:00
JACK BRUBAKER
As the decades have passed since Charlton Heston acted at Mount Gretna during the summer of 1948, stories about his short stay in the picturesque Lebanon County village have become legend. Two memories have surfaced just since the actor, who later played the film roles of Ben-Hur and Michelange......
2008-04-01 15:00:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Today is Knittin' Day in Ronks, where old and young, but mostly old, take out needle and thread and knit swim trunks in preparation for the pool season. As we observe this fittin' day for knittin' trunks in Ronks, the Scribbler reminds all readers that long before April 1 was known ......
2008-03-25 13:53:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Only 23 Amish families left Lancaster County last year. This moderate migration followed a more extreme exodus in 2006. Three dozen families packed up their belongings and waved good-bye in 2006 — a record number and quite a departure from fewer than two dozen families who usually le......
2008-03-21 14:33:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Hillary Clinton mispronounced "Lancaster" twice during her talk Tuesday night at Millersville University. Otherwise, her delivery was nearly flawless. Overpracticed, perhaps, but nevertheless persuasive. The senator played her voice like an instrument, ranging from moderately loud to ......
2008-03-14 14:25:00
JACK BRUBAKER
If you want to know how the epileptic Julius Caesar fell in Rome's public square, read "Julius Caesar" by William Shakespeare. If you want to know how the vainglorious General Custer fell at the Little Bighorn, read "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" by Dee Brown. I......
2008-03-07 13:52:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Behold, contrasting views of the early town of Lancaster:
The spirit of cleanliness has not yet in the least troubled the major part of the inhabitants, for, in general, they are very great sluts and slovens.
— fr......
2008-02-29 10:22:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Forty-five years ago Dr. Charles Winter did something exceptional. The Lancaster New Era reported it. But the reporter neglected to name the doctor. This column rectifies that oversight. Winter, a retired orthopedic surgeon, has been handing out copies of a June 27, 1963, New Era......
2008-02-26 12:44:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Joel Hartman, professor emeritus of rural sociology at the University of Missouri, says "rivel" is wrong. "Any self-respecting Dutchman knows that 'rivvel' has two 'v's'," notes Hartman, a Lancastrian who graduated from McCaskey in 1947, Franklin & Ma......
2008-02-15 14:48:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Among other accomplishments, Bob Wilcox has: • Preserved more than 1,000 cigar bands. • Catalogued more than 2,500 jokes. • Eaten in more than 4,000 restaurants. But until recently the Willow Street resident and retired Armstrong advertising exec didn't know th......
2008-02-12 11:43:00
JACK BRUBAKER
If Betty Botter bought a batch of bitter butter to bake her rivels browner, would Betty Botter's browner rivels also have been bitter? Probably. When it comes to brown rivels, bitter or not, the only sure thing is that they are made brown by toasting an ingredient. Whether that in......
2008-02-05 10:29:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Dear Dr. Scribblerivel:
Having grown up in the rivel capital of the world, perhaps you can help. As you are aware, in Lancaster County rivels frequently appear in chicken corn soup, ham and bean soup and sometimes even vegetable soup — not to mention &qu......
2008-02-01 10:36:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Let's rub some numbers together. • From the Susquehanna River to the Gap in the hills, Lancaster County contains 602,000 acres of land. • The county's population is expected to top 600,000 by 2030, rising from about 500,000 now. That means that in 22 years, give or t......
2008-01-29 10:27:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Some things you have to experience personally. War is one. At least, John Piersol McCaskey's brother thought so. The Lancaster high school principal who would give his name to a new city high school and become the city's mayor visited Gettysburg shortly after the battle in the summer ......
2008-01-25 12:50:00
JACK BRUBAKER
The manuscript of the first detective story ever written led a precarious life in Lancaster for several decades at the end of the 19th century, J.M. Johnston, a Lancaster business man, repeatedly rescued Edgar Allan Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" from disaster. Poe'......
2008-01-22 14:19:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Some things you hear about the Amish are pure baloney. What Tom Smith, a Drumore Township farmer, tells you about the Amish in "Liberty Square Observed and Noted'' is the real thing. As promised, here is a second column about Smith's book of reminiscences. The first col......
2008-01-18 08:53:00
JACK BRUBAKER
The Scribbler spends a fair amount of time reading and writing about Lancaster County's last native American Indians, the Conestogas. Twice, the very thoughtful Littler Scribbler has given the Scribbler plastic bags of plastic Indians to inspire his work. The first bag, provided severa......
2008-01-15 10:07:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Barry Kornhauser was re-reading John Durang's autobiography when his eyes "popped out." Durang, the first professional actor born in America — in Lancaster, actually — called one of his acting troupes "The Durang Company of Barnstormers." Kornhauser, the......
2008-01-11 10:00:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Thomas Welsh, one of six generals to hail from Columbia, endured a rough childhood. He went to work in a nail factory at age 8. He managed to attend only four or five years of school while working as an itinerant carpenter throughout his teenage years. But this relatively unlearned young m......
2008-01-08 14:03:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Now that the seasonal shopping binge is over, you may be feeling squeezed for cash. There's a reason for that. The typical worker in Lancaster County earns 17 percent less than the average Pennsylvanian and 20 percent less than the average American, the U.S. Department of L......
2008-01-04 14:45:00
JACK BRUBAKER
The current issue of Indie Slate, a magazine for independent film and TV production and distribution, describes the shooting of Derrick Warfel's first feature-length film. The native Lancastrian couldn't get anyone else to make the movie, so he made it himself. The result, a spirit......
2007-12-28 13:55:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Barb Schober's students have a question. They want to know who allowed the Paxton Boys to kill this area's last native inhabitants and escape punishment. The 7th grade students at Warwick Middle School asked their question after Schober provided them with historical background....
2007-12-21 14:12:00
JACK BRUBAKER
The Scribbler requested Christmas tree stories. You delivered four terrific ones. • Cathy Love, of Willow Street, recalls that her mother wanted a white tree &tstr; then in vogue &tstr; one Christmas in the 1940s. So her dad simply sprayed a recently-cut tree with white paint.......
2007-12-18 14:20:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Tom Kelley spent a long weekend half a century ago bowling 429 consecutive games. From Dec. 13 through Dec. 16, 1957, 29-year-old Kelley bowled nonstop, with blisters on his fingers and bandages on his toes, and set an unofficial world record. Why did he do it? "It was a chall......
2007-12-14 11:15:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Is Franklin & Marshall College's bill for tuition, room, board and fees higher than Harvard University's? Is the sky F&M blue? If you are a freshman attending Harvard this year, you are paying $45,620 for everything. If you are attending F&M as a freshman, the c......
2007-12-11 11:13:00
JACK BRUBAKER
What do Lancaster Mormons think of Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate who made a speech last week seeking to allay concerns about his Mormon faith? "I think the members of the church are intensely interested," says David Kenley, one of three bishops of the local ......
2007-12-07 14:17:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Some people dream of chucking their day jobs and doing what they really want to do. Others quit dreaming and just do it. When he was 48 years old, J. Richard Steffy stopped laboring as an electrical contractor in his hometown, Denver, and began pursuing his lifelong passion full-time....
2007-12-04 14:25:00
JACK BRUBAKER
This Scribbler has been writing about Lancaster's Christmas traditions for nearly three decades. Each year he invites readers to submit personal stories related to the holiday. Topics have included everything from Christmas stockings and gifts to Belsnickel and Evel Knievel. (Just joshing ......
2007-11-30 09:04:00
JACK BRUBAKER
What would you do if, at age 55, you discovered that you had been misspelling your name all your life? If you think you could simply correct the error and have a goofy story to share with your friends, you have another think coming. Ask Dave Stauffer about that. Dave was born a Stouff......
2007-11-27 10:55:00
JACK BRUBAKER
When the Myers family moved into the Dogwood Hollow section of Levittown, Bucks County, in 1957, the mailman communicated the event. "It's happened. (Blacks) have moved into Levittown!" he shouted as he walked up and down the streets. Daisy Myers, the matriarch of that first ......
2007-11-23 09:15:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Thaddeus Stevens waged the Civil War with a single-minded determination to end slavery and make the South pay for its enslavement of blacks forever. At the same time, Lancaster County's congressional representative defended Mennonites who refused to fight the conflict he pursued with such fi......
2007-11-06 10:29:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Harry W. Rutt, author of a new family reminiscence called "Back Porch Memories," grew up as a Black Bumper Mennonite. His family's church, more properly known as the Weaverland Conference Mennonite Church, permits its members to own cars, but only if they are painted black. That i......
2007-11-02 13:44:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Evelyn Ay Sempier, the Ephrata native who became Miss America in 1954, won her first beauty contest at home. She was crowned queen of the Ephrata Fair in 1950. Her crown was fashioned to look like tobacco leaves. That unusual crown soon will take its place among hundreds of exhibits i......
2007-10-30 14:01:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Philadelphia Electric's Web site for Muddy Run Park welcomes you to enjoy: "700 acres of beautiful woodland and rolling fields surrounding a scenic 100-acre lake nestled within the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch farmlands in southern Lancaster County." A chapter in Tom Smith'......
2007-10-26 10:30:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Late in the summer of 1918, as World War I was running out of gas, the federal government asked all patriotic Americans to observe "gasless Sunday" and only drive cars if absolutely necessary. Most Lancaster County motorists followed the request, the Lancaster Daily Examiner reported ......
2007-10-19 14:29:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Here are a couple of interesting stories related to Lancaster County's two most prominent 19th century residents, the polar political opposites President James Buchanan and U.S. Rep. Thaddeus Stevens. The first concerns Buchanan's 23-acre estate, Wheatland, in Lancaster's West End. Buchana......
2007-10-12 09:48:00
JACK BRUBAKER
In the late 1920s, Lancaster Mayor Frank Musser proposed a city transportation innovation that went far beyond the ordinary. Musser wanted to purchase the Pennsylvania Railroad right of way through the city and turn it into a subway. The Pennsy used to run right through downtown Lancaster,......
2007-10-09 13:12:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Back in mid-September, the Scribbler discussed the first black student to attend the institution that would become Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology. There's more to that story. Edward Sebastian was born in Marietta in 1900 and graduated from Stevens with high honors in 1920....
2007-10-08 08:51:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Michael Werner has actively cultivated the Pennsylvania German dialect for 15 years. Dr. Werner does not live in Pennsylvania. He lives in Germany. Why is a magazine publishing executive from Mainz, in the German Palatinate, interested in the way Pennsylvanians speak t......
2007-10-02 12:19:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Following the shootings at the Amish school in Nickel Mines a year ago today, Robert C. Denlinger told the Scribbler he was thinking about writing a book. He had several ideas, but one seemed unique. Denlinger associated the killing of five young Amish girls with the five people who fell t......
2007-09-28 13:35:00
JACK BRUBAKER
A PennDOT crew repaved West High Street in Carlisle this week, effectively burying a Dickinson College plan to create a traffic island down its center. The college had proposed the island to help calm traffic along the busy thoroughfare and make student crossings safer. Dickinson's dis......
2007-09-25 12:28:00
JACK BRUBAKER
The Amish response of forgiveness following the schoolhouse shootings at Nickel Mines stunned the world. The authors of a new book about Amish forgiveness were stunned themselves to learn that, though they had anticipated the response, they did not fully understand its roots. The Amish imm......
2007-09-21 14:11:00
JACK BRUBAKER
In Washington, D.C., in the winter of 1852, a teenager died of pneumonia. He was dressed in a white cotton suit, his face covered by an oval glass plate, and buried in an air-tight, cast-iron coffin. Since his amazingly well preserved body resurfaced two years ago, researchers at the Smithsonia......
2007-09-18 09:50:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Dear Dr. Scribblerbell:
Where is the bell that sounds the Big Ben tune, followed by the number of gongs to the hour? No one seems to know. David R. Morrison Landisville
Dear David:
The Westminster Chimes, as recorded f......
2007-09-14 11:25:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Have you ever heard of a housetrained cow? Not a cat. A cow. Naseema Shafi's parents grew up in a city in northern Pakistan. Naseema grew up in America. She's one of the Little Scribbler's best friends in Washington, D.C. In Pakistan, Naseema's father's family......
2007-09-11 10:19:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Thaddeus Stevens, the great 19th century statesman who represented Lancaster County in the U.S. House, set aside $50,000 in his will to create a school for homeless and indigent orphans. At this school, he dictated, "no preference shall be shown on account of race or color.... They shal......
2007-09-07 13:53:00
JACK BRUBAKER
The troubles started when the Little Scribbler moved from Lancaster to Washington, D.C., seven years ago this week. Terrorists have assaulted the town only once, but the Little Scribbler has endured continual attacks on the proper pronunciation of the names of her native county and the religiou......
2007-09-04 11:05:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Along Valley Road, the scenic highway that connects Quarryville and Green Tree in Bart Township, stand two old Presbyterian churches. The Middle Octorara Presbyterian Church stands south of the road. The congregation dates to 1727 and the oldest part of the church to 1800. It still hosts Sun......
2007-08-31 10:12:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Carl Jung said, "Nothing has a stronger influence on children than the unlived life of the parents." But maybe the psychiatrist didn't get it quite right. Let's see. In the early '70s, before the Scribbler and Mrs. Scribbler got hitched, we independently traveled to the West Coast....
2007-08-24 13:32:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Something essential to Armstrong World Industries' sprawling floor plant in northwest Lancaster City died long before the plant itself. Remember how that part of the city used to smell? It smelled like linoleum. It smelled like Armstrong. And to at least one Armstrong empl......
2007-08-17 14:17:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Celebrating bicentennial of Fulton's steamboat success Two hundred years ago this month, Lancaster-born entrepreneur Robert Fulton drove a steamboat up the Hudson River and transformed transportation in the United States. This weekend, Clermont State Historic Site will mark that histor......
2007-08-10 12:57:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Mrs. Scribbler long ago decided that everything that happens in the world has a Lancaster County connection. Here's a prime example: On Tuesday night, Barry Bonds hit his 756th home run, breaking the major league record for career home runs, with a little help from his friends at th......
2007-08-07 13:08:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Major Gen. Samuel Peter Heintzelman, one of the more obscure Civil War corps commanders, lost contact with his rapidly retreating soldiers during the Battle of Second Bull Run. And that is how he lost his role as a field commander. "Age, confusion in the Union command, but most of......
2007-08-03 13:17:00
JACK BRUBAKER
A new publication by Stackpole Books, "100 Things to Know: The Battle of Gettysburg," answers a question millions of Americans with bad hearing have asked. How did Pennsylvanians far removed from the Gettysburg battlefield hear the massive cannonade that preceded Pickett's Charge on July 3, ......
2007-07-31 13:41:00
JACK BRUBAKER
He was a respected architect and accomplished watercolorist. But the British-born Francis Howse Cruess has not received his just due, notes Paul Montigny, who owns most of Cruess's watercolors and pen and ink sketches. Neither has Cruess's daughter, Helen Rutter Cruess, also an ......
2007-07-27 13:24:00
JACK BRUBAKER
The Scribbler dropped by the Lancaster Public Library on Duke Street to check out a free movie and a book covering Oregon's early history. On a whim, he also checked the rack of free handouts near the door and discovered several interesting items to share with readers on this 102nd birthday......
2007-07-24 14:13:00
JACK BRUBAKER
A century ago, public watering troughs were commonplace. Horses drank from them. Early steam-operated automobiles drew water from them. Even early gasoline-powered cars used their liquid to cool overheated engines. But the day of the public watering trough is long past, and when Mount J......
2007-07-20 13:55:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Dear Dr. Scribblerschmutz:
Wikipedia, the online dictionary, calls schmutz, or schmootz, a Yiddish word meaning "dirty,'' but I disagree. Schmutz is anything spread thick, or the process of doing so (schmutz some cup cheese on the bread for me now). If ......
2007-07-17 14:49:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Lancaster's 19th century congressional representative Thaddeus Stevens remains renowned for his acerbic tongue 140 years after he died. The man knew how to fire a phrase. Stevens was serving in the Pennsylvania House during the so-called Buckshot War of 1838. He led the Whigs opposing D......
2007-07-13 13:23:00
JACK BRUBAKER
The Scribbler has been accused from time to time of overly disparaging the record of the 15th president of the United States, Lancaster's own James Buchanan. As if anything the Scribbler could say would match the vilification most historians periodically heap on the man. Most of this cr......
2007-07-10 14:55:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Benjamin Groff Herr's first view of Lancaster City in the early 1820s astounded him. The teenager was particularly fascinated by the old courthouse on Penn Square. Later in life he wrote in his journal: "The marble steps and pedestals, the solid, high, and continuous walls, th......
2007-07-06 12:58:00
Jack Brubaker
With the development of television, and the technical advance which made it possible to receive and transmit simultaneously on the same instrument, private life came to an end.
— George Orwell, "1984"
Confirm your suspicions! Want to k......
2007-06-29 11:46:00
JACK BRUBAKER
The Patriot Daughters of Lancaster, arriving at Gettysburg soon after the battle ended to nurse and feed a legion of wounded soldiers, encountered what one described as "a field of blood." The nurses' 61-page account of their experience — "Hospital Scenes after the Battle of Gettysb......
2007-06-22 13:41:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Just when you thought every battle of the American Civil War has its own book club... And four years before the renewed publishing outburst that is sure to accompany the war's sesquicentennial... Stackpole Books and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission have printed a genui......
2007-06-15 12:28:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Whether English should be designated the nation's "official" language has been debated since the early days of America. In 1816, that debate provoked a riot. A Lancastrian presided over the trial that ensued. In the winter of 1816, German Lutherans and a group of fellow congregants wh......
2007-06-08 14:03:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Bold effort to rescue cat in tree results in feline tragedy If you ever wonder why many fire companies no longer respond to calls to remove cats from trees, here's your answer. A Georgetown resident spotted a strange cat in a tree and called the Bart Fire Company, according to Yonie Esh, G......
2007-06-05 12:45:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Each June, when honeysuckle blooms and fireflies flourish, the Scribbler hears the great outdoors calling. School's out, the great outdoors calls. It's time to come to camp. On Saturday morning, the Scribbler heeded the call and spent a couple of pleasant hours in the woods at the ......
2007-06-01 12:46:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Five young oak trees along North Duke and East Orange streets by the Lancaster County Library and St. James Episcopal Church have no life left in them. A ginkgo has croaked outside Central Market. Two linden trees expired in the first block of East King Street, across from the old county c......
2007-05-30 09:05:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Joe Mackall, director of the creative writing program at Ohio's Ashland University, has written a thoughtful and sometimes humorous book about the Amish. His primary subject: Swartzentruber Amish, the most conservative of all groups, who happen to be concentrated in Ohio. Mackall's neighb......
2007-05-25 12:51:00
JACK BRUBAKER
They also serve who farm for those who fight. On this Memorial Day weekend, let us recognize conscientious objectors who helped on the home front while others waged World War II. Gideon Fisher was a well-known Ronks farmer, author of a locally popular book, "Farm Life and Its Changes,......
2007-05-22 12:41:00
JACK BRUBAKER
This column turns 88 years old Thursday. You may throw your own celebration, complete with cupcakes and frozen yogurt. Just don't throw the food. Robert E. Miller, who had just returned to Lancaster from the Great War, wrote the first column called "The Scribbler" on May 24, 1919. That col......
2007-05-18 14:00:00
JACK BRUBAKER
When the Scribbler heard Tuesday that Jerry Falwell had died, he thought immediately of R. J. Barber Jr. Those preachers were two peas in a pod. The difference was that Barber remained in the pod, while Falwell broke out in spectacular fashion. In the autumn of 1970, the Scribbler moved to......
2007-05-15 12:39:00
JACK BRUBAKER
The Scribbler, Mrs. Scribbler and some kayak buddies recently paddled down scenic Pequea Creek to the concrete pad that held the Martic Forge Hotel before it burned three years ago. We docked our boats and continued walking along the creek on the Conestoga Trail. Near what is generally kno......
2007-05-11 12:49:00
JACK BRUBAKER
The old story about the Pennsylvania Dutch taking better care of their animals than their children probably originated because German farmers often built barns before houses. That way they could shelter both children and animals while building their homes. It might not have worked so well ......
2007-05-08 12:31:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Katie Stoltzfus is an eighth-generation descendant of Nicholas Stoltzfus, the first member of the Stoltzfus family to emigrate to America. She is a quilter and operator of Country Lane Quilts on South Groffdale Road. She is the author of a new recipe book that includes songs and poems abou......
2007-05-04 12:28:00
JACK BRUBAKER
This week's agreement to preserve the facade of the county's old almshouse at Conestoga View actually is the second easement donated by the property's private owner. Complete HealthCare Resources earlier granted an easement to allow the Conestoga Greenway to cross its property along......
2007-05-01 13:31:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Although Lancaster has no whale or walrus, it does have a spectacularly appropriate city seal. A likeness is displayed prominently on city buildings, vehicles and documents That seal turns 100 today. The Scribbler wants to help it make a big splash on its birthday. The city's Commo......
2007-04-27 13:49:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Dear Dr. Scribblerjustice:
My wife was on jury duty recently at the Lancaster County Courthouse and noticed a carved wooden head in the corner of Courtroom A. No one seemed to know what it is. One story is that it was found in Buchanan Park. It was rotting, so it was c......
2007-04-20 14:05:00
JACK BRUBAKER
As Earth Day 2007 approaches, an early participant in Lancaster County's recycling program remembers how LEAF began. LEAF — the Lancaster Environmental Action Federation — was launched on Earth Day 1973 by Dr. John H. Moss, recalls Bruce Holran, former F&M public relations d......
2007-04-13 12:41:00
JACK BRUBAKER
On March 8, 1915, members of the Rawlinsville Lyceum gathered to debate a topic that seems incredibly naive by today's standards. Lyceum members debated a resolution that "country life is preferable to city life." The judges decided unanimously — no surprise here &mdash......
2007-04-10 13:26:00
JACK BRUBAKER
This just in from the U.S. Department of Agricultural Subgroups. USDA Secretary Mike Johanns will discuss the department's 2007 farm bill proposal Wednesday morning on the Dale Herr farm in Kirkwood. A media advisory notes that the proposal would make conservation programs "more effi......
2007-04-03 12:54:00
Jack Brubaker
John A. Sutter, older biographies will tell you, was one of America's great pioneers. He helped obtain Mexican California for the United States. The gold rush began on his land, which was then stolen from him. But newer biographies will tell you that Sutter enslaved and murdered Indians, abused......
2007-03-30 13:59:00
Jack Brubaker
When the Jonathan Kings traveled from Shipshewana, Ind., to attend a wedding in Lancaster County a few weeks ago, a relative gave them a booklet of newspaper stories. The booklet — "Lost Angels: The Untold Stories of the Amish School Shootings" — reprinted the in-depth series on the......
2007-03-27 13:24:00
Jack Brubaker
Only one Lancaster City police officer has been shot to death in the line of duty. Lt. Elwood Gainor was murdered because he did the right thing. Early on the morning of March 29, 1927 — 80 years ago this week — Gainor's still-warm body was found along a road in Delaware County....
2007-03-23 13:51:00
Jack Brubaker
The Amish are great genealogists. They not only know who their second cousins twice removed are or were, but they know who their great-great-grandfather's second cousins twice removed were. Credit natural curiosity for providing some of this knowledge. Credit Amish and Amish Mennonite Genea......
2007-03-09 15:42:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Before dancers take to a slick floor, they dip the points of their shoes into a rosin box. Rosin, the hardened sap from trees, helps them get a grip. But here's news of a different kind of rosin box. Lancastrian Herbert Long's neighbor recently got married. Long asked him where he planned ......
2007-03-02 14:12:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Before Sharron Nelson, who was the last person appointed to complete an unexpired term of an elected county commissioner? That's an easy one: G. Terry Madonna, now director of Franklin & Marshall College's Center for Politics and Public Affairs, served as commissioner from March 1971 to ......
2007-02-23 14:34:00
JACK BRUBAKER
The Scribbler grew up on a farm full of Pekin ducks along muddy Mill Creek. In the summertime, with more than 100,000 ducks quacking in outside pens, every passing Long Island tourist could see, hear and smell precisely what a fowl farm was all about. Dairy, corn and tobacco farms surround......
2007-02-20 14:02:00
JACK BRUBAKER
At Lancaster County's apex on Texter Mountain, where Lancaster, Berks and Lebanon counties join, lies Hans Jakob's Orchard. This high point also is known as Hansyaricks Baamgaard. That's a Pennsylvania German designation that some promoters of the dialect believe should be posted on......
2007-02-16 14:14:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Two weather-related observations:
We are poisoning our water supply because we don't want to go slow in snow.Pennsylvania applies about 750,000 tons of rock salt to roads during a typical year. Counties and municipalities apply tons more. Lancaster City alone a......
2007-02-13 12:45:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Lydia Hamilton Smith will have to wait a week for her roses. Smith, who served as the housekeeper and confidante of Thaddeus Stevens, Lancaster's Civil War-era U.S. representative, was born and died on Valentine's Day (1813-1884). When a group of Lancastrians gathered at her gra......
2007-02-09 14:10:00
JACK BRUBAKER
One of the most successful industrial technology programs in American high schools needs help. Or, to put this plea another way, a native Lancastrian who runs one of the most successful industrial technology programs needs help. For two decades, Kirk Marshall has been teaching and helpi......
2007-02-06 13:43:00
JACK BRUBAKER
After the Paxton Boys murdered the last of the Conestoga Indians in December 1763, local observers felt compelled to discuss the character of the deceased. Some described the last of the Conestogas, a group of 20 impoverished men, women and children, as a "miserable remnant" of the gr......
2007-01-30 12:51:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Russia and the Old Confederacy could take lessons from Lancaster County farmers! So proclaimed "Pennsylvania Beautiful," Wallace Nutting's ode to the old in the Keystone State. From time to time, this column examines how writers in various ages viewed Lancaster County and ......
2007-01-26 13:40:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Today’s topic is: unusual sandwich makings. The most unusual sandwich the Scribbler ever ate was at a Primanti Brothers Restaurant in Pittsburgh. The Scribbler was a vegetarian at the time, so no meat sullied that sandwich. Instead, the bread was stacked with cheese, cole sla......
2007-01-23 15:16:00
JACK BRUBAKER
Dear Dr. Scribblertribe: Can you tell me what the name Pequea means? What language does it come from? Joan King Puzzled in Pequea
Dear Puzzled: Pequea is an old Scots-Irish variation on Peck’s Way, an early 18th century foot path that skirted the Susquehanna River......
2007-01-05 15:13:48
Jack Brubaker
So here’s an effort to turn bunions into bunionade. Actually, there’s only one bunion. More specifically, there’s a painful excess of bone on the outside of the big toe of the Scribbler’s right foot. Most bunions develop because tight shoes restrict the big toe, prompting additional bone growt......
2007-01-02 14:09:58
Jack Brubaker
For years I have wondered about the name “Nickel Mines.’’ When was Nickel Mines there? When did it stop? Is Nickel Mines still there? The only other nickel mine I have ever seen was in Canada, where a nickel about 10 feet tall was placed in front of the mine. Don Ober Manheim
Dear......
