10 Years Ago
Week of June 20, 2013
SUGAR GROVE
Superstition
Was Rampant Among
Pennsylvania Germans
Among the Pennsylvania Germans, superstition was rampant at one time. These European immigrants believed in and feared evil spirits and witches. Allow one to take a look at the superstition regarding babies.
•It is considered unlucky to cut a baby’s hair or nails before it is 12 months old.
•When taking a baby from the room in which it was born, it must be carried upstairs before going down, so that it will rise in the world. The first time a baby is taken outside, it must be carried upstairs or up to the street, not down stairs or down to the street.
•Never weigh the baby before it is dressed. This is very unlucky. The clothes should not be put over the head when first being dressed.
In some variation, the following verse is probably known worldwide. It has been a form of a nursey rhyme dating back into the 1880s.
“Born on Monday, fair of face; Born on Tuesday, full of God’s grace;
Born on Wednesday, the best to be had;
Born on Thursday, merry and glad;
Born on Friday, worthily given; Born on Saturday, work hard for a living;
Born on Sunday, shall never know want.”
On another note of superstitious folk beliefs is wishing a sneezer well. One belief had it that the soul could escape the body through the nose. Saying, “God bless you” would prevent the devil from capturing the person’s freed soul.
Another belief had it that evil spirits could enter the body through the nose during a sneeze. Thus, a blessing prevented the occurrence.
Some even believed the heart momentarily stopped during a sneeze and the blessing would revive the life.
Statehood for West
Virginia: An Illegal Act?
The admission of West Virginia in the midst of a war was an unusual event in the history of our nation. The circumstance of its admission leaves doubt as to whether the granting of statehood to West Virginia had a basis in law.
A relatively unknown political entity played a key role between June 17, 1861, and October 24, 1861, in the creation of West Virginia. We must look to the history of that government to determine the legality of West Virginia statehood. The restored Union-oriented government of Virginia lived briefly and with little notoriety during the War Between the States. Its fragile existence, however, was crucial in the dismemberment of Virginia and the admission of West Virginia.
Even President Lincoln had doubts about the legality of admitting West Virginia to the Union.
The legality of West Virginia’s creation and admission was obviously in doubt. Perhaps granting statehood to West Virginia was illegal, but its existence today attests to the durability of that very disputed decision.
30 Years Ago
Week of June 24, 1993
Baited Japanese Beetle Traps Should Be Used Community Wide
You can count on them for the Fourth of July—ants to invade your picnic and Japanese beetles to start chewing on your roses, hollyhocks, flowering crab, fruit trees, raspberry bushes, grapevines and Rose of Sharon.
Most of all, these ravenous beetles love hybrid tea roses, both leaves and blossoms. However, they’ll readily shift to many other plants if roses are not available.
Japanese beetles started the spring season as larvae chewing up grass roots in sunny areas of your lawn. They begin emerging in mid-June as adults to start the two-month, above-ground episode of their life cycle.
Garden centers and hardware stores sell baited traps for Japanese beetles. But, they should not be placed near plants that you want to protect.
The West Virginia University specialists suggest that these traps be used on a community-wide basis. Otherwise, you’ll be attracting all of the Japanese beetles in the neighborhood to your yard.
By mid-August, a new generation of grubs is starting to hatch from eggs laid in the sunniest parts of your lawn. You can help to keep the eggs from hatching and thin out the larvae population at this point—if the weather is hot and dry—by not watering your grass.
You can avoid lawn chemical insecticides by seeding new lawns with K-31 tall fescue instead of bluegrass. Fescue carries a fungal endophyte, which makes it more toxic to surface-feeding insects. It also appears to have more resistance than bluegrass to root feeders like the Japanese beetle grub.
Week of July 1, 1993
Man Rides Wheel Chair 11 Miles to Raise Funds For Ambulance
A recently conducted Walk-A-Thon raised a total of $2,050 for the Franklin Rescue Squad Support Team. Of the $2,050 collected in the effort, wheel chair-bound Allen Eye, turned in $1,015.50. He rode his wheel chair 11 miles on the Smith Creek Road in the effort. Eye lost a leg and was paralyzed as a result of injuries sustained in an automobile accident several years ago. Bruce Smith, president of the Rescue Squad Support Team, said they will use the money raised in the Walk-A-Thon to start a fund to purchase a new ambulance for the Franklin Rescue Squad.
Others participating in the Walk-A-Thon were Eye’s wife, Angie, Harvey Whetzel, Ersley Whetzel, Erica Smith, Darren Hedrick and Kay Boggs.
40 Years Ago
Week of June 30, 1983
Seneca Visitors
Urged to Be Receptive
To Surroundings
By: Richard Marzolf
USDA—Forest Service
I’ve been asked to write a brief commentary this week concerning some aspect of the work being done at the Seneca Rocks Visitor Information Center.
Thus, in response to that request, I would like to share with you, the reader, a few personal observations that I have made during my first few weeks of employment as a guide with the Monongahela National Forest.
Certainly one of the most important aspects of our work is carrying on a meaningful dialogue with the hundreds of people who pass through our doors each day. We meet folks from just about every kind of life situation imaginable.
Last week it was my privilege to lead a young group of mentally handicapped children on a short hike around the base of Seneca Rocks. We walked slowly along a wooded trail listening to the North Fork’s constant murmuring while catching glimpses of towering pinnacles of ancient quartzite through scattered openings in the treetops. We felt the sandy soil beneath our feet, smelled the soft purple clover, and watched a red-winged blackbird fly against a morning sky.
When the walk was over and we were making our way back to the Visitor Center, a young man about sixteen years old, in an act of appreciation for all that we had seen, reached down, took up my hand, and kissed it.
A simple, humbling gesture, and yet one that I will never forget, for in it, this young man expressed in a most powerful way the essence of understanding and gratitude for the sacredness of life.
When you come to Seneca Rocks, it is my hope that you will take the time to absorb all of the beauty and mystery of creation that surrounds you…but most importantly, that you will be as receptive to your surroundings as was the young man who needed not words to express his appreciation for what he saw. If you are able to “see” as he did, you will leave a richer person than when you came.
50 Years Ago
Week of June 28, 1973
School Board to Employ 15 Students
For Summer Work
The Pendleton County school board received word from the Governor’s office Friday that they would be able to secure 15 positions through the Governor’s Summer Youth Program. Students working for the school board must be 16 to 22 years of age.
60 Years Ago
Week of July 4, 1963
100 YEARS AGO
By LON K. SAVAGE
Editor’s Note—The following is one of a series of articles on the Civil War. Each weekly installment covers events which occurred exactly 100 years ago.
War’s Biggest Battle Fought at Gettysburg
It seemed to start by accident 100 years ago this week.
The Confederate army of Gen. Robert E. Lee, spread out through Pennsylvania in the midst of an invasion, began pulling together in the vicinity of the town of Gettysburg while the Union army of Gen. George Gordon Meade moved northward from Maryland. Detachments of the two armies brushed against each other at Gettysburg the morning of July 1 and started shooting at each other.
Like magnetic attraction, the shooting pulled the two huge armies together, and the fighting grew until 150,000 men were there in the biggest battle ever fought in the western hemisphere—the Battle of Gettysburg. It was a Union victory.
Confederate Gen. A. P. Hill launched one of the first attacks on July 1, sending his men from Seminary Ridge just west to Gettysburg, into the town. Confederate Gen. Richard Ewell simultaniously charged in from the north, and the Federals fell back.
But Federal Gen. Winfield Hancock arrived with more of Meade’s army and ordered a stand along Cemetery Ridge, south of the town. There, the Federals held on until dark while Meade and the rest of his army came up and solidified the Union line.
July 2 came, hot and sultry, and Lee ordered a fresh attack, against the wishes of his top subordinate, Gen. James Longstreet. Longstreet and Gen. John E. Hood attacked from the west while Ewell came in from the northeast against Culp’s Hill. Ewell was driven back.
Longstreet hurled troops into a peach orchard and wheat field and drove out Federal Gen. Daniel Sickles, who lost a leg in the slaughter of the day. Toward dusk, both armies scrambled for two hills, Big Round Top and Little Round Top. The Federals won the scramble and gained control of the field.
Dashing “Jeb” Stuart, Lee’s cavalry commander (who had been away on a raid during the first two day’s fighting) attacked Culp’s Hill on the third day and was driven back by a 24-year-old Union officer named George Custer, who later was to become famous for his last stand in the West.
On Seminary Ridge that day, Lee organized a new attack. Figuring Meade would have his main force at the flanks, Lee ordered Gen. George E. Pickett to assail the Union’s middle on Cemetery Ridge. Lee laid a bombardment that made the earth tremble to soften the Yankees for Pickett’s charge.
In the afternoon, Pickett and his 15,000 went over the top of Seminary Ridge and moved into the shallow valley, marching proudly as if on parade, their banners tipped forward. Rank upon rank of men in gray, like a human sea, moved into the valley as the Federals went to work on them.
Federal cannon tore huge holes in Pickett’s lines. As the Confederates reached the valley bottom, Federals spewed canister into them, knocking them down by hundreds. But on they came.
As the Confederates came up Cemetery Ridge, Federals opened with musktry, knocking down still more hundreds, but still they came. The slaughter went on until a handful of Confederates broke the Union line to be killed or captured.
Then the attack, and Lee’s campaign, fell apart at the seams. As Pickett’s men streamed backward in retreat, leaving 5,000 of their fellows dead or injured on the field, Lee came forward. “It’s all my fault,” he said.
Next day, the Fourth of July, Lee’s army started back toward Virginia. The battle had cost 43,000 casualties—8,000 of them killed outright and many more suffering fatal injuries.
Farmers’ Market May Be Established in Pendleton
Representatives of the State Department of Agriculture were in Pendleton County last week studying the possibility of establishing a Farmers’ Market in this area.
Representative Gus R. Douglas told the group of approximately 25 persons in attendance that the state department has set up Farmers’ Markets in various areas of the state and that they have grown into sizable institutions that are making important contributions to the state’s economy.
“The purpose of the Farmers’ Markets,” Douglas said, “is to help the farmer sell his produce at a fair price.”
By stressing the importance of quality and attractive packaging, farmers are encouraged to upgrade their product which leads to higher prices.
