1940s: September 2009 Archives

Freedom Train Scrapbooks

In a recent York Sunday News column I wrote about the 1948 Freedom Train visit to York. I mentioned that there were scrapbooks about the train at the York County Heritage Trust Library/Archives.

There are two scrapbooks, created by junior high students. They won first and second place for the best scrapbooks on the Freedom Train. Each volume is about one and a half inches thick. According to markers still in the books, First prize was won by Nancy Rahe and second place by Donna Springer.

I was pleased to recently hear from Nancy Rahe Lipschutz. The email she sent is quoted, with her permission, below:

Remember Charles Chips?

I have been posting brief histories of York County potato chip makers and fellow blogger Jim McClure has touched on them too. Jim took the subject to the York Daily Record online Exchange community forum, which has stirred up more chip discussion. One exchanger commented on the home-delivered Charles Chips. That brings up memories for my family.

When my children were growing up, the Charles Chips man stopped by our house regularly, bring a one pound tin of very fresh chips and picking up the empty tin. We kept it on top of the refrigerator, probably to save space as well as to keep short young people from overindulging. I remember them as being similar to Utz chips, my favorite.

My husband remembered helping a relative who had a Charles Chips route deliver to homes in Red Lion, including the day a tin escaped and rolled the whole way down East High Street from Main Street to the borough limits.

Who made Charles Chips and what happened to them?

Former Senft's potato chip factory on Sheridan Street

After a recent post on the Bon-Ton/Bickels potato chip plant, I received some comments on Senft potato chips, including a question about where the Senft factory was located. After digging through the file on local potato chips and some city directories at the York County Heritage Trust Library/Archives, I came up with a few facts on the company.

The photo above, of the World War II victory celebration in the Philippines Islands Leyte Gulf, was sent back home to the editor of Red Lion Echoes by John H. Eberly, Y 3/c, USS Vesuvius AE-15. It was published, along with the letter below, in the October 1945 issue. For more on the USS Vesuvius, click here.

York Welcomes the Freedom Train--that's the title of the 40 page narrative report written for York's 1948 Freedom Train Committee by Anna Lynch Morris. The cover above shows the streamlined train that carried precious documents of freedom on a nationwide tour from 1947 to 1949.

York Countians embraced the opportunity with their usual enthusiasm and organization. They even rolled out York's Liberty Bell for the opening. A special train car filled exclusively with York County history was put together by staff and volunteers of the Historical Society of York and displayed alongside the freedom train. Downtown merchants gave out information on the history of their locations, such as the Bon-Ton, site of Hall & Sellers printing press and Woolworth's, site of a German Reformed church service attended by George Washington. Schools were involved with displays and programs, including radio broadcasts. The list of activities goes on and on.

See below for my recent York Sunday News column on the October 9, 1948 Freedom Train visit and for more photos of the train and crowd. The photos were taken by Gazette & Daily newspaper photographers that day.

Please share your own memories of that historic visit in the comment section below.