Golden Glow Cafeteria Glows in York Memories

Posted on February 1, 2012 by june lloyd

Food stands high in York County memories. Friend and former shop manager at York County Heritage Trust, Carl Preate, emailed me about the popular Golden Glow Cafeteria that was at 38 N. George St. in downtown York from 1928 to 1972. He said he still remembers having his first crab cake there.

York County Heritage Trust Assistant Librarian, Victoria Miller, found quite a few local restaurant photos for her current case exhibit on York County restaurants, so I checked the YCHT photo collection for the Golden Glow. I haven’t come up with any photos yet, but I did find some scrapbook pages with lots of colorful little ads for local restaurants, including the Golden Glow. They may have been trimmed off matchbook covers.

I also found a lengthy article in the YCHT files about the Golden Glow. It was written by Mary G. Stephenson, probably for the York Sunday News, when the restaurant closed after 44 years. It says that the 1972 owners were Al and Ida Knoch, and the cafeteria was founded by Al’s aunt, Grace McNeal and Mrs. Grace Keisey. Customers chose the name from the golden glow given off by parchment lampshades made by the partners.

McNeal’s sister, Mrs. Alfred A. Knoch, soon became a partner as later did her son, Alfred R. Knoch. Fresh fruit and vegetables often came from the Conewago Township truck farm of the elder Alfred Knoch, local musician and long-time York High music teacher. Continue reading →

Posted in 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, advertising, Conewago Township, food, restaurants, schools, Universal York, York County | Tagged , | Leave a comment

York Soldier gassed in France

Posted on January 28, 2012 by june lloyd

On November 29, 1918, Cornelius L. Stambaugh wrote back home from a military hospital in Toul, France to his friend Daniel Hildebrand. He sent the letter in care of the Gazette and Daily, where Stambaugh thought Hildebrand still worked.

Unfortunately, Hildebrand had passed away, but his widow shared the letter with the newspaper, allowing York County to hear from its native sons, who was recovering from .

It reads:

Dear Dan: Since I have not written to you for over six months, or very near that long, I suppose you think I have been pushing up the daisies somewhere in France. However, I have been so blamed busy that I have hardly been able to keep up my correspondence with my relatives.

I have been in some of the fiercest scraps the 28th division has been in. I went clean through the Chateau Theiry drive without a scratch up till the night before the division was relieved, and that night the Dutchmen sent so much gas over, and I was so busy, I couldn’t help being gassed, and of course I had to get a little of it into my lungs and was sent to the hospital.

I belonged to the signal platoon of the 110th regiment. I have done anything from operating telephones, telegraphs, both the regular wire outfit, the ground telegraph, and the wireless. I also have used the flashlight system of telegraphy, and also have been shooting trouble, that is repairing wires in the heaviest kind of shellfire. I also have acted as a messenger on foot, and in an auto, or side car.

Since I have been gassed I have been spending my time in four or five hospitals recuperating. At present I am attached here as a clerk for one of the doctors. I am quickly becoming proficient at taking temperatures, counting pulses, bandaging all kinds of wounds, as well as taking care of all the patients medical records and all other paper work, and anything else that comes up in a large hospital.
Continue reading →

Posted in 1910s, Army, France, hospitals, liquor, newspapers, soldiers, Universal York, York County | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

From York to La Scala

Posted on January 26, 2012 by june lloyd

Leonardo (Lee) Wolovsky was a well-known bass-baritone opera star, acclaimed in this country, and even more so in Europe, where he lived and worked for many years, appearing with the likes of Maria Callas and gracing the stage of many of the famous opera houses, including La Scala in Milan. He is another example of all those roads leading back to York.

Wolovsky was born in York in August 1923, the son of William and Rose Wolovsky. The family lived first at 501 W. King Street, then 612 Madison Avenue. Lee graduated in 1940 from William Penn High School and attended Oberlin College. After serving in the U.S. Army, he studied music in Italy. He eventually took up residence in Florence, where he passed away in May 2008.

Lee did come back to this country, not only to visit friends and family, but also to perform. In 1949, not yet 26, he returned to sing Bach’s Mass in B Minor with the Boston Symphony in March and the same work at Carnegie Hall in April. According to newspaper clippings at the York County Heritage Trust Library/Archives, the 40-year-old performed at the San Francisco Opera in October, 1963, singing the role of Wotan in Wagner’s Die Walkure.
Continue reading →

Posted in 1920s, 1940s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, entertainment, Europe, Germany, Italy, music, opera, Universal York, York County | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Adams Express connected York County with the rest of the world

Posted on January 21, 2012 by june lloyd

When researching regional history, you often come across the name of Adams Express. From the mid-nineteenth century until World War I, that is how private citizens and businesses shipped items large and small. Think of them as Parcel Post, Priority Mail, UPS and FedEx all rolled into one. See my recent York Sunday News column below to find out more about the company, including an an excerpt from a letter of gratitude a York County soldier wrote, detailing the fresh food his brother sent from here to Port Royal S.C. for his Christmas meals in 1862.

Adams Express also handled a lot of money. I found an Adams Express receipt book at York County Heritage Trust for C. A. Morris Co. drug store. It is about 89 pages and runs from July 1863 to December 1864. The money sent each time averaged around $500. Johnson, Hollow & Cowden were wholesale patent medicine dealers, and I suspect that most of the payments made by Morris were for stock from various suppliers. The medicines may have also arrived via Adams Express.
Continue reading →

Posted in 1850s, 1860s, 1910s, 1920s, business, Civil War, drugstores, trains, transportation, Universal York, York County | Tagged , | Leave a comment

More mid-twentieth century York restaurants

Posted on January 18, 2012 by june lloyd

Two of the restaurants York County Heritage Trust Assistant Librarian Victoria Miller has included in her case exhibit of 1930s-1960s photos (see previous post) bring back memories in my family. Maybe yours too?

I remember the Ramona Restaurant, mostly how grown-up you felt while you sipped your ginger ale with a maraschino cherry in it. The father of one of my best high school friends, Jane, was a movie projectionist, working in Red Lion through the week but at the Strand or Capitol many Sundays. We would go along with him on Sundays, watch a movie or two, and then go across the street to the Ramona for a sandwich and soda. I don’t remember what sandwich I would order, maybe tuna fish salad, but I can still taste that ginger ale.

The Ramona Restaurant photo above was taken in 1939. It was at 19 N. George Street then, now the location of Bistro 19. (Originally the home of John Fisher, the esteemed clock maker of the late 18th and early 19th century.) I think the Ramona moved slightly north down the block, on part of the Judicial Center site, maybe in the 60s. I’ll check the city directories at York County Heritage Trust and update.

My 98-year-old mother-in-law often talks of taking her two boys to the Dinner Bell. She was a single mom, working at Peoples Drug Store on the square. Money was tight, but she managed to put enough aside each week to treat the three of them at the Dinner Bell, 155 S. Queen Street, a block or so from their apartment on Pine Street. She says she varied her meals, having pot pie or other specials, but both boys invariably ordered hamburger steak and French fries. That would have been in the early 50s, just a few years after the 1948 photo below was taken.
Continue reading →

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Remember these York restaurants?

Posted on January 14, 2012 by june lloyd

Remember getting all dressed up to go out for a good dinner with the family or the place you ate all those hamburgers, fries and milkshakes when you were a teenager? York County Heritage Trust Assistant Librarian Victoria Miller has created a case exhibit of enlarged photos of some of those restaurants we remember from the 1930s to the 1960s.

The photo above shows the York Diner being moved in 1949. The one below captures the stationary diner about a decade before.

Remember the Tremont, Lau’s in Dover and Bortner’s on West Market Street? You can see these and more in the case right outside the YCHT Library/Archives door from nine to five Tuesdays through Saturdays. (250 East Market St., York.)

I don’t think you can dispute that York County people like to eat–what and where was your special restaurant meal?
Continue reading →

Posted in 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, food, restaurants, Universal York, York County | Tagged | 4 Comments

Many Fraktur were made for York County area children

Posted on January 10, 2012 by june lloyd

I am doing research for an article I’m writing on the prolific York County Fraktur artist Daniel Peterman, who did the certificate above. So far I have recorded 79 examples of his work. His hand-down Taufscheine (Birth and Baptismal Certificates) cover six decades of the 19th century, from the 18-teens to the 1860s.

One of the most fascinating aspects of his illustrations is that he used paired women on just about all his certificates, in place of the angels used by many Taufscheine artists and printers. As the decades passed, you can see the changes in fashion and hairstyles worn by these distinctive women.

I’ll write more about Peterman later, but to give an overview of the Fraktur artists and printers of the York County area, I’ve attached my York Sunday News column about them below.

I have recorded about 2,000 birth and baptismal certificates for children of the York County area (York and Adams counties and northern Maryland), but I am always happy to know about more that I haven’t yet recorded. A certificate you have might identify an unknown artist or maybe contain family information recorded nowhere else. I can be contacted through the blog comment section or emailed at ycpa89@msn.com.
Continue reading →

Posted in 1810s, 1820s, 1830s, 1840s, 1850s, 1860s, Adams County, artists, Fraktur, German Reformed Church, Lutherans, Maryland, printers, religion, Taufschein, Uncategorized, Universal York, York County | Tagged , | 2 Comments

York Merchant Offers Combo Plant Stand/Step Ladder

Posted on January 4, 2012 by june lloyd

This one must be included in the “what were they thinking” category.

The full-page ad above is from a late 19th century York, Pa. city directory–it shows Samuel Dick’s “Daisy” folding flower stand. Mr. Dick was selling it at his establishment on South Duke Street; he may have also been the inventor of the contraption. It could be had for the reduced price of $2.25.

I don’t think it is very attractive, but tastes were different in that era. After all, the stand would hold two windows worth of flowers. (Never mind that the plants were apt to languish crowded together away from light—you put plants on window sills for a reason.)

What I found rather amazing was the large bold print “And Can be Used as a Step Ladder.”
First, the stand looks like it would hardly support the weight of a cat. Secondly, when you magnify the illustration, it rests on little wheels. Product safety doesn’t seem to be a consideration.

Does anyone have a Daisy plant stand that might have come down in the family or has been found in an antique shop or a public sale? Just please don’t use it as a step ladder.

Click here to see some other rather interesting York County inventions.

Posted in 1880s, furniture, inventions, retail stores, Uncategorized, Universal York, York County | Tagged | Leave a comment

Yorker William Gibson Barely Survived San Francisco Mutiny

Posted on January 2, 2012 by june lloyd

William Gibson came from a talented York family. His great-grandfather, Dr. David Jameson, was a colonel during Revolutionary times. Grandfather Horatio Gates Jameson was a distinguished physician and surgeon. Mother Elizabeth Jameson was said to be one of the two most beautiful women in Baltimore when the family lived there. (The other was Elizabeth (Betsy) Patterson, who married the brother of Napoleon Bonaparte.)

His other grandfather, William Gibson, and father, John, were well-known Presbyterian ministers. Brother Horatio Gates Gibson was a Civil War officer, becoming a General. Judge John Gibson, the editor of the massive 1886 History of York County, Pennsylvania was another brother. Uncle Robert Fisher was another long-time 19th century York County judge.

Still, William, naval officer and acclaimed poet, probably let the most exciting life of them all. See my recent York Sunday News column below for an episode of mutiny and mayhem from which William barely escaped alive.
Continue reading →

Posted in 1840s, 1850s, 1880s, Baltimore, California, Civil War, doctors, ministers, Presbyterians, Revolutionary War, sailors, U.S. Navy, Uncategorized, Universal York, York County | Tagged | 2 Comments

York County Goes West

Posted on December 23, 2011 by june lloyd

Where did all those people to the west of us come from? A lot of their families started out here, in south central Pennsylvania, a couple of hundred years ago. Some of them: the Morrows, the Ruhls and the Kinselys are highlighted in my recent York Sunday News column, which you can read below.

For more Ohio settlers from this area, see the three Gone to Ohio South Central Pennsylvania Genealogy Society publications compiled by Gloria Aughenbach. They can be read at the York County Heritage Trust Library/Archives and are available for purchase through www.scpgs.org.

Teresa Cook, Copy Editor at the York Daily Record/York Sunday News informed me that Conrad Richter’s fiction trilogy: The Trees, The Fields and The Town follows a family with similar story, with one of the sons becoming governor of Ohio. Richter (1890-1968) won a Pulitzer Prize for The Town, and his books have been described as “accurate portrayals of frontier life.” He was from Schuylkill County, Pa, but he lived in Ohio for a good many years.
Continue reading →

Posted in 1790s, 1800s, 1810s, 1820s, 1830s, Adams County, authors, Bedford County, books, migration, Ohio, Universal York, York County | Tagged , | 1 Comment