Special Edition: Your Favorite Markers

Well, friends, today the blog is seven years old exactly! Time flies when you're having fun. Fruit flies like a banana. Anyway, I had seven responses to my inquiry about your favorite historical markers on the PHMC Trails of History, so that's what we're going to discuss in this week's post. Thanks once again to longtime reader (and retired PHMC employee) John Robinson for suggesting this.

The split is roughly even between markers I've already covered and markers that I haven't. So this will be an image-free post (that should be pleasant for those of you on mobile) - if I've already covered the marker, I'll link to my post, and if I haven't, I'll link to my friends at the Historical Marker Database. Either way, you can see the markers and learn a little more about them by following the relevant link.

What I had asked, if anyone missed it, was for my readers to tell me which of the historical markers is their particular favorite and why. I got some very interesting and varied answers. Possibly my favorite submission came from Debbie Shankar, who championed the marker for the founding of Mother's Day. The marker is in Philadelphia, since the holiday was originated by Philadelphia resident Anna Jarvis. This submission didn't come with an explanation for why the marker is her favorite - but seeing as how Debbie happens to be my mother, I think we can call it self-explanatory.

Kaylee Lindenmuth, the intrepid force of nature behind the Shenandoah Sentinel, jumped at the chance to share her feelings for the marker commemorating the 1902 anthracite coal strike. There are actually two markers for the same event; she was specifically referring to the one in her hometown of Shenandoah, Schuylkill County. "Of the four in Shenandoah, it's probably the one closest to the heart of Shenandoah's history," she explained. "Almost everyone here has some tie to the anthracite mining industry, whether they directly worked in it or an ancestor did, including my great-grandfather." She also sent a photo of the marker, so as soon as I can get a picture of the related one in Lackawanna County, I'll be doing that post.

Erin Wohler is one of my fellow Zenkaikon enthusiasts, and in fact is one of the board members and an incredibly kind and helpful person. She chose the marker for the oldest surviving photograph in the United States, which was developed in Philadelphia in 1839. When asked why she liked it so much, she explained that she just so happened to stop and read the marker on the 180th anniversary of the photo being developed, and it's always been a bit special to her for that reason. 

After I wrote my blog post about Charles Sheeler in Bucks County, I had a very friendly email from a gentleman named Albert Sperath. He was delighted to have come across my post, as Charles Sheeler held some importance to him during his college days, and he offered this story for me to share with all of you.

First, my family moved to New Galena, just west of Doylestown, in 1955 from Philly. I attended Lenape Junior High the first year it opened, and then Central Bucks High. After serving in the Navy I went to college, studying photography at Ohio University in Athens. As part of an art history course, we were supposed to pick an artist and do a lengthy term paper on that person. After discovering Sheeler lived in Doylestown, I decided to use him as my subject. On one of my visits home, I went to the county tax office and got help looking for him in those records. I found his address and went to the home and introduced myself and told the owners at the time about the famous artist that used to live there and the photos he was famous for of the interior. I showed them the underside of the spiral staircase and the stove images. The stove gone, but the staircase was intact. I do not recall [the owners'] names, unfortunately. They had an antique shop in Buckingham and were very interested in what I had to tell them. Great visit and the following day went to their shop. They had a perfect condition older wooden tripod camera that I bought and used periodically in my studies. Not sure what grade I got for the paper, but it enhanced my love for his work. Unfortunately, the paper disappeared during one of my moves!

Of course, I couldn't do a post like this without consulting with two of the people who have been most invested in the blog's success. I did ask my husband Kevin, but he insists he doesn't have a favorite; he just likes seeing me get excited about all of them. 

My best friend Andrea chose as her favorite the marker celebrating the birth of the banana split in Latrobe, Westmoreland County. Andrea and I are both fiends for ice cream, so this didn't surprise me. She said that she picked it because banana splits are her favorite dessert, so of course it had to be her favorite marker too, and we need to go get banana splits sometime soon.

Rachel Durs, meanwhile, was the very first outside contributor to this blog, helping me gather pictures and providing me with information for one of the earliest posts before the blog was even confirmed to be happening. At the time, she said she knew it would be, but I was still waiting on official approval from the PHMC. Her favorite marker also didn't surprise me - God's Acre, the Moravian cemetery in Bethlehem, Northampton County. It means a lot to her because of the happy years she spent working as a tour guide in Moravian Bethlehem, but also because of her involvement in helping me with the blog post. "I knew I was being part of something special."

My final contributor for this collection is Scott Frederick, who is also on the Zenkaikon board of directors. Specifically, Scott is in charge of live programming, so when I'm at the convention and doing my assorted presentations, he's kind of my boss. He's also a friend, or something like one; my official designation for our relationship is that he's "the little brother I never wanted." (He's a foot taller than me, but four years younger, so he's a big little brother.) Anyway, Scott came up with a couple of possibilities, and I went with the first one of the abolitionist Atkinson family near Ambler, Montgomery County. "It's neat," he said. In true younger sibling fashion, he gave me no further commentary, instead telling me to "enjoy the research."

And if anyone was wondering, I have a hard time selecting my own favorite because I always end up enjoying the stories. There's also the fact that a fair few of them are connected to my own family. But probably the one that has held the most meaning for me is that of Fred McFeely Rogers in Latrobe, Westmoreland County. He was a hero of my childhood, and every day I try (with mixed success) to be the person he seemed to believe I could be.

My deepest thanks to everyone who participated in this activity! If more of you would like to share your personal marker stories, I'd be happy to do another one of these in the future.

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Except where indicated, all writing and photography on this blog is the intellectual property of Laura Klotz. This blog is written with permission of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. I am not employed by the PHMC. All rights reserved.