Small-town high school students prepare for the journey of a lifetime in the middle of the Great Depression (Part 2)
Twenty-six students from Arendtsville Vocational High School set out on a cross-country journey to Alaska and back on June 18, 1937. The trip had been years in the making and for the boys, many of whom had barely ventured to the furthest reaches of Adams County, no matter what happened, it would be well worth the wait. They first headed east in their Ford half-ton flatbed truck, which had been specially outfitted to carry all of the boys, their teacher Edwin Rice, and everything they would need for their journey. Rice had taken his students on a number of summer trips over the years, but the 9,000-mile trip planned for 1937 was by far, the grandest trip that he had undertaken. The traveled along the Eastern Shore of Maryland, Delaware, and down into Virginia. They stopped at Virginia Beach where Read more…
Small-town high school students prepare for the journey of a lifetime in the middle of the Great Depression (Part 1)
Arendtsville is a small town in south central Pennsylvania 3,800 miles from Alaska. In 1937, a group of teenagers set out from their little community with Alaska as their destination. The teenagers were students of Arendtsville Vocational High School. The school had first opened as a two-year high school in 1911 on the second floor of the elementary school. Enrollment quickly grew and within a couple years the students moved to the second floor of the fire house on South High Street, according to the National Apple Museum web site. The students got their own building in 1914 when the school board voted to build a high school on South High Street. The course work was expanded to a three-year program. This was due to the urging of Edwin Rice, who was a student a State College. His arguments convinced Read more…
Frederick County's (Md.) last slave, part 3
Ruth Bowie had grown up as a slave during the Civil War. Even after gaining her freedom, she had remained with a former owners until she married Charles Bowie in 1880. By the turn of the of century, the Bowies were listed as living in log home along Lewistown Pike in Lewistown, which is where they would call home for their rest of their lives. They had had four children together, but none of them lived to adulthood and then Ruth had to deal with the loss of her husband in 1920. The Frederick News was reporting that Ruth was over 100 in 1946. The newspaper ran a short article noting that Ruth’s doctor had decided that she was too old to continue living alone. Her sight and hearing were still considered normal, but she had hurt her hip shortly Read more…
Saving the Marine Corps
This is a short excerpt from The Last to Fall: The 1922 Marine March, Battles, & Deaths of U.S. Marines at Gettysburg. The Marines had fought valiantly in World War I like in the Battle of Belleau Wood in France. After the deadly fighting there to drive the entrenched German troops from Belleau Wood, Army General John J. Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force, said, “The deadliest weapon in the world is a Marine and his rifle.” However, that didn’t stop Pershing and others from wanting to disband the Marine Corps after the war had been won. “Right after World War I, when John A. Lejeune was appointed commandant of the Marine Corps, there was a push by General Pershing and President Wilson to have the Marine Corps abolished,” said Gunnery Sergeant Thomas Williams, executive director of the United Read more…
A policeman, an owl, and a cow go out one night…
It sounds like the opening line for a joke. A policeman, an owl, and a cow went out one night. However, while not funny, it is certainly odd. Bedford Police Officer James Young was station near the corner of Pitt and Julianna streets in the town one early morning in April 1950. Around 2 a.m., he watched a large owl dive out of the night school and crash into the window of Murdock’s Jewelry and Gift Shop. The store had been around since 1910 when J. F. Murdock took over the J. W. Ridenour dtore. “His gifts are especially well known for their unique and pleasing qualities,” the Bedford Gazette said of Murdock’s. As Young watched the large owl flopping around groggily on the sidewalk, “It occurred to Officer Young that owls are birds of prey with a bounty on Read more…
A coal town collapse, part 3
Help had arrived at Shallmar, Md. Trucks began arriving daily, braving the steep, narrow roads to reach the isolated coal town. A Baltimore meat packing company sent a load of fresh beef. The Maryland Jewish War Veterans collected toys. The Amici Corporation in Baltimore sent $50 to the Oakland Chamber of Commerce to purchase candy for the children of Shallmar. Plus, Amici employees raised another $1,000 for the town in general. The Baltimore American Legion collected so much food and clothing that it filled a room at the War Memorial Building. Among the donated items was 300 pounds of bacon, 250 loaves of bread, 200 quarts of milk, cases upon cases of canned goods and groceries, 100 pairs of shoes, 20 men’s overcoats, 12 women’s fur coats and blankets, not to mention toys for the children. From New York City, Read more…
Find out how the Marines would have fought the Battle of Gettysburg
The Last to Fall: The 1922 March, Battles, & Deaths of U.S. Marines at Gettysburg is now available for sale online and at stores. Thomas Williams, executive director of the U.S. Marine Corps Historical Company, said, “Every American is familiar with the iconic battle fought in Gettysburg during the American Civil War, some are even aware that two Marine officers and the ‘Presidents Own’ Marine Band accompanied President Abraham Lincoln to Gettysburg in November 1863 to dedicate the National Cemetery there. However, few people are aware that 59 years later the US Marines would “reenact” the battle. “In 1922, General Smedley Butler would march over 5,000 Marines from MCB Quantico, Virginia to the hallowed fields of Gettysburg. Conducted as a training exercise, but more importantly to raise public opinion and awareness, the Marines would travel to the National Battlefield and Read more…
LOOKING BACK 1917: Bank robbers get away with a haul from small town bank
Around lunch time on a nice May day, three men walked into Charles Spragne’s restaurant in Kitzmiller. Their faces were blackened with cork and they wore miner’s caps. They were unfamiliar to Charles and his wife, but they were used to seeing new miners in town from time to time. Spragne’s wife spoke to one of the men, “thinking he was a local miner but did not notice that either of them were masked,” the Republican reported. The men finished their lunches, paid their bills, and then walked across the street to the First National Bank of Kitzmiller around 11:45 a.m. As they entered, the men drew large revolvers. One of the men stepped around Cashier Barclay V. Inskeep’s desk and pointed his pistol in Inskeep’s face. Sue R. Laughlin, Inskeep’s assistant, screamed. A second man pointed his pistol at Read more…
"Looking Back" column appearing in a new newspaper
Another newspaper – The Oakland Republican in Oakland, Maryland – picked up my “Looking Back” column on a monthly basis last week. I’m pretty happy about that because I love researching the stories and writing about them. For example, I found a story about a man who was called the “Champion Miner of the World” in the 1920’s because of how fast he was at mining coal. I wrote about his story for The Republican, but in researching it, I found out that this man’s son, was a frontline reporter in WWII who won a Pulitzer Prize. He also got his reporting start at another newspaper that carries my column so I had two columns from one idea. Right now, four newspapers – The Catoctin Banner, The Gettysburg Times, The Cumberland Times-News, and The Oakland Republican – carry my column, Read more…
1933 Chicago World's Fair
Although the 1893 Chicago’s World Fair is the famous one because of all of the innovations introduced during the fair, Chicago hosted it’s second World’s Fair 40 years later. This World’s Fair celebrated the centennial of Chicago’s incorporation and also had it’s share of wonders. I was introduced to this World’s Fair when a gentlemen I was interviewing told me about his visit there in 1933 when he was 10 years old. After the interview, I went looking for more information about the fair so that I would be able to ask him better questions about the fair. Here’s a link to a site with some fun information about the fair. Take a look at some of the information there. I would have liked to visit the fair even today. There were houses of tomorrow, babies in incubators, a giant Read more…
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