-
Samuel Pannebaker’s car
Many of the papers in my grandfather’s collection came from John and Beulah Patterson, aunt and uncle to my great grandfather, both of whom died childless. Beginning in the early 1950s, my great grandparents lived in the same East Waterford house as the Pattersons, after moving from Harrisburg back to the old hometown. Following John’s and Beulah’s deaths, these papers, I surmise, stayed behind in the old home. When my great grandmother moved to spend the final decade of her life in the single-level house my grandfather built in Honey Grove for just that purpose, the papers moved with her. She died in 1994; my grandfather moved in for the final…
-
Continental traveler
A yellowed but intact envelope from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Highways was marked, in big, loopy, penciled writing, “Important Don’t Destroy.” Inside was a very important looking document indeed–a title for a 1922 Buick sedan, registered to John J. and Beulah Patterson of East Waterford, Pennsylvania. It’s dated 11-24-23. JJ Patterson was the brother of Grace Patterson Henry, my great great grandmother. JJ and his wife, Beulah Pannebaker Patterson, had no children and lived in a beautiful, rambling house in East Waterford that became the home of his nephew, my great grandfather John Patterson Henry, and wife Margaret Adam Henry, my great grandmother. The Pannebakers and the Pattersons were East Waterford business…