Questions? Want to leave me a comment? Click here.
I found this newspaper clipping when I was sorting through my father's old papers. I'm estimating the date as the early 1940s.
(Click on the image to see it larger).
When I was a very small child I remember going to this house/store. The memory is very vague, but I was really impressed that there was a whole home behind the store. You went out through a side door in the store, down a couple of steps and then you were in the living room of the house. I remember sleeping in a big bed with my sister. There was a railroad close by. I remember fireflies in the garden -- we didn't have those in Brooklyn. Someone took us to the river for a swim, I think in a speedboat. It was the first time that I remember the water holding me up and really understood what swimming was all about.
A map from 1872 shows that W. Miller owns the plot of land mentioned in the article. Verna Miller is in many of the family pictures. Friend? Relation? At this point I don't know.
Update: March 2010: Verna and Hazel are first cousins. Verna's mother Carrie and Hazel's father Harry are sister and brother. I found the clue to this in the 1910 Census, where Charles Miller and his wife Carrie L. Miller are living with their two children, Verna and Walter. Also living there is a Sadie Garretson, aunt. And that is the connection -- Josephine Garretson is Harry's mother's maiden name.
I then started looking through all of the photos and found many from Wormleysburg with a white clapboard-sided house in them.
Hazel and Helen Putt
Hazel Putt (same picket fence as above, and a good shot of the houses across the street and possibly the railway line)
Left: Frank, Sr. and baby Verna. Yes, they named their daughter for Hazel's cousin Verna. Right: Hazel, Verna and Bill (Verna's husband).