Rooted in Family History: Archivist Reflects on Four Decades of Genealogical Research

Posted by on Apr 9, 2020 in | Comments Off on Rooted in Family History: Archivist Reflects on Four Decades of Genealogical Research Jonathan Stayer had been working at the Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society for several weeks in 1985 when he received a call from the Pennsylvania State Archives. The PHMC bureau wanted to hire an archivist with experience in genealogical research and Stayer, who had previously worked for the archives surveying county records, was already immersed in the growing field of genealogy. Stayer...
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Leroy Horlacher, World War I Conscientious Objector

Posted by on Mar 13, 2017 in | Comments Off on Leroy Horlacher, World War I Conscientious Objector During World War I, by the time of the first national registration on June 5, 1917, approximately 6,000 American men applied as conscientious objectors. Leroy Horlacher (1894–1981) was one of them. Horlacher was born in Hazleton, Luzerne County, where he began working at an early age in the silk mills as a weaver. In 1915 he became a member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, or the...
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Pennsylvania: A Military History by William A. Pencak, Christian B. Keller and Barbara A. Gannon

Posted by on Mar 13, 2017 in | Comments Off on Pennsylvania: A Military History by William A. Pencak, Christian B. Keller and Barbara A. Gannon Pennsylvania: A Military History by William A. Pencak, Christian B. Keller and Barbara A. Gannon Westholme Publishing, 304 pp., cloth $35 In 16 incisive and insightful original essays covering wars among Indians to the recent conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, the authors reveal a Pennsylvania that was and is very different from the “peaceable kingdom” image of art and myth. Indeed,...
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No Summer Solstice: War Stories of the Home Front Survivors

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on No Summer Solstice: War Stories of the Home Front Survivors War stories. Before epic movies and documentaries changed its connotations, the phrase once implied a personal exchange, the kind that took place in barber shops, on porches, or in front of the court house on hot summer afternoons when the fish weren’t biting. They were the kind of stories that grew better in the telling, each time preserving another aspect, perhaps, of a day in a...
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