Saturday's postcard: Mountainhome, Pennsylvania (1909)

Today's postcard, mailed in August 1909, features the sprawling Woodlawn House in Mountainhome, a census-designated place in Monroe County, Pennsylvania. You could fit a lot of John-Boys and Mary Ellens in that house. 

According to the Monroe County Historical Association, the three largest villages in Barrett Township "are Canadensis (named for the scientific name for the hemlock tree, Tsugas canadensis), Cresco (once known as Oakland), and Mountainhome (once known as White’s Tannery)."

Woodlawn House advertised aggressively in the Brooklyn (New York) Eagle in 1913 (and probably in other newspapers). The advertisement read: "WOODLAWN HOUSE, Mountain Home, Pa. High elevation. Acc. 25. Trout fishing; 1 mile from sta. Mrs. M.A. Cooper, Prop."

An earlier advertisement touted Woodlawn's farm eggs and milk. I couldn't find any evidence of Woodlawn House still standing today. If you have information, please leave it in the comments! 

This postcard was mailed in 1909 to Mrs. Paul Clemons at the Clemons Silk Mill in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The short cursive message states:

dear Mrs Clemens

we arrived hear [sic] safe hope you are well as it leaves me at present

with love from 

Mrs Rouch [or Roach]

The silk mill made the national news in 1913. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that on March 25, "a fierce storm that acted every whit like a Western tornado swept over Scranton and vicinity. ... The Clemons Silk Mill, owned by D.G. Derry, of Catasauqua, was unroofed and a 150-foot section of the roof was deposited on the adjacent engine room, partially demolishing the structure. There were 150 girls at work, but outside of bruises and scratches they were uninjured."

This postcard was published by Fred D. Mick of Mountainhome and made in Germany.

Saturday's postcard of a long-ago motel in North Miami

Motel Rotunda — or is it Rotunda Motel, as printed on the back? — looks like it would have been a swell stopping spot for weary travelers. Perhaps for a family that had just spent a long day driving south, south and further south down the length of Florida, toward the tip. Or an exhausted door-to-door Bible salesman.

As this postcard, snapped by photographer Dick Deutsch and published by Pan American Publishing Corp., details, the motel was centrally located to area attractions, had color TV and featured a "delightful" recreation room. 

I can't find much about the motel's history, though. And it's long gone, like so many other roadside motels that once dotted America. Postcards are about all we have to document its history, and that it even once existed. Without these images, the structure might fade entirely from memory and history, like David Hemmings at the end of Blow-Up.

The caption on a different postcard indicates that the motel was completed in December 1950 and that other amenities touted included tile showers and bath, and free ice cubes in the sitting lounge. The owner at that point was an M. Lanzalotti. And a Florida archives postcard has Jesse N. Koehler as owner and manager.

Today, a peek at Google Maps finds that the former location of Motel Rotunda is an intersection with six or seven lanes of traffic in all directions. Businesses there include Walgreens, Five Below, Denny's, Jivana Nails & Spa, a BP gas station, Vitamin Shoppe and LA Fitness. They will all be ephemeral, too.

Is Motel Rotunda too long gone for anyone to have memories of working there or staying there overnight? It would be great to know more and record it for posterity.

Historic Montoursville church is closing its doors

Episcopal Church of Our Saviour in Montoursville, Pennsylvania, is the subject of this undated, never-used postcard from my collection that was published by Merrimack Picture Post Card Co., of North Springfield, Vermont.

I'm posting it because I read on Facebook over the weekend that the church is closing its doors on Christmas Eve (tomorrow night).

Our family connection to the church is slight. We attended services there for a very short period in the early 1970s when living on Mulberry Street. But the tiny church on Loyalsock Avenue is iconic, perhaps the most beautiful one in Montoursville. Although it can be hard to spot because it's so small and tucked away on a mostly residential street, it's always been a landmark for me when driving back through town on infrequent visits.

Steve Bagwell, who is Montoursville's mayor but also an avid historian and talented photographer, posted this message on Facebook, along with a number of beautiful photos of the church's interior:

"The Church of Our Saviour has been celebrating Christmas services since 1870. That would make this year the 155th time and it will be the last. The church is a special place, it looks very much like it would have shortly after the Civil War. The last Christmas celebration will be on Christmas eve at 7:00."

According to the Society of Architectural Historians, the church was designed by the Rev. John Henry Hopkins Jr. That website notes: "Boldly articulated framing members and long vertical boards, an elongated bell-cote, and a sharply peaked vestibule give the small church a tall and imposing presence on a crowded residential street. The church's small size dictated its nave plan."

An online PDF from earlier this year states: "RESOLVED, that the dissolution of the parish of Church of Our Saviour, Montoursville, Pennsylvania, as approved by a vote of at least 2/3 of the parish members and as recommended by The Rt. Rev. Audrey C. Scanlan and Canon Chad Linder, Canon for Finance and Operations, and, subject to confirmation by resolution of this 154th Convention, be and is hereby approved."

I'm not sure how it might happen, but we can only hope that the building is preserved and maintained for its great historic value, even if it will no longer serve its function as a church.

UPDATE: Bagwell posted some additional beautiful photos of the church's exterior.

Postcard: The haunted hotel that spooks Bryce Harper

This vintage Micro-Color postcard features the "friendly lobby" of The Pfister Hotel Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It opened in 1893, has the largest hotel collection of Victorian art in the world and has AAA Four Diamond standing.

And it's haunted.

According to HauntedUS.com, the list of paranormal occurrences at the Pfister include electronic devices, such as TVs and radios, turning on and off without warning; sounds of mysterious footsteps; apparition sightings in hallways; knockings that cannot be accounted for; and even objects moving around.

The hotel also spooks a lot of visiting Major League Baseball players when they stay in Milwaukee for games against the Brewers. Some players even refuse to stay there again.

In a Halloween 2021 article on MLB.com, Michael Clair details some of the stories that baseball players (by definition a superstitious lot) say they have experienced at the Pfister. You should go read the whole article. But, for an appetizer, here's the story about the Philadelphia Phillies' Bryce Harper, from his days as a member of the Washington Nationals:

"While staying in the Pfister in 2012, Harper had laid out his shirt and pants on a table by the end of the bed before going to sleep for the night.

"'When I woke up in the morning — I swear on everything — the clothes were on the floor and the table was on the opposite side of the room against the wall, Harper said. "I was so flustered. I honestly thought there might be someone in my room. I had no idea what the hell just happened, so I actually looked around, and then I checked to see if the door was still latched, and it was.'

"Harper thought that perhaps it was a prank from a teammate, but no one came forward. The slugger then requested to be moved to a different room."

(Hopefully they didn't move him to 237 or 1408.)

A postcard of Earle W. Cook's house, for some reason

OK, here's a bit of a head-scratching mystery.

Why did Dexter Press produce this postcard of the house of Mr. and Mrs. Earle W. Cook, on its triangular plot of land in Kingman, Arizona?

According to Diane Allmen's Dating Dexter Press Postcards webpage, this card (55990-B) was produced in 1962. Other than the Cooks' names and "Kingman, Arizona," the only things listed on the back are the address — 215 Caminodelascolinas, which should be more properly stated as 215 Camino de las Colinas — and the publisher, Fritz Studio of Kingman.

Based on the address, I'm not sure this house still exists.

Earle Wayne Cook Sr. (1902-1966) died just a few years after this postcard was published, of a heart attack on the Fourth of July 1966. The main item of note I can find about him is that he was a Democratic Arizona state senator representing Mohave County. His businesses included bottling, ranching and mining.

And here's a plot twist the postcard publishers certainly couldn't anticipate: In 1967, Cook's son, Earle Theodore Cook Jr., attempted to murder his wife, Jeanne, by blowing up the airplane she was traveling on.

You read that correctly.

It's 2024, and these miscellaneous old postcards can still take you down some serious rabbit holes, folks.

The first article I came across was in the November 19, 1967, edition of The Arizona Republic. The headline states "Bomb Suspect Son of Mohave Senator." The subhead reads "Earle T. Cook Recalled in Kingman as Bright Young Man."

The first paragraph states: "Earle T. Cook, 37, held in Chicago under $100,000 bond for an alleged attempt to bomb a jetliner, was a native of Kingman and the son of a veteran Mohave County senator who died last year."

The federal trial was incredibly swift. Just a few months later, on February 6, 1968, Earle Jr. was found guilty and sentenced to 20 years in prison. The details are summarized in a modern-day Chicago Tribune article by Colleen Connolly. Earle Jr. had apparently been trying for a while to kill his wife of 15 years and the mother of his two sons. He contacted a hit man and considering drowning and shooting as other murder methods.

Finally, Earle Jr. took things into his own hands and built a bomb at home.

I'll let the Tribune take it from here:

"What happened next is unthinkable in today’s world of air travel. Cook took his wife to O’Hare and checked her bags while she waited in a lounge, according to a Tribune report. An FBI agent said Cook then removed the contents of one of the bags, placed the homemade bomb inside and handed the bags to an airport porter who checked them. There was no search of the bags whatsoever. Ironically, the same porter who took the luggage without checking it handled it roughly, causing parts of the bomb to dislodge and malfunction, the FBI surmised.

"When the bomb went off in the luggage compartment, it made a loud noise that caught the attention of the pilot and passengers, but nobody realized it was a bomb. The pilot thought the plane struck a downdraft, so he kept flying. It was only when they arrived at their destination in San Diego that the crew found the bomb parts and wreckage in the luggage hold."

Earle Jr. was busted. His likely affairs with other women, conversations with the hit man and multiple insurance policies on his wife didn't help matters during the trial.

According to the Tribune, before being sent off to prison, Earle Jr. said: “I feel that I have been given a trial under a system I believe in. I believe in our form of government. The only thing I am sorry about is that I am innocent. The evidence presented didn’t quite portray my innocence.”

Earle Jr. remarried in 1977 and died in 1981 at age 50. I couldn't find an obituary. All I have is this unused postcard of his parents' house in the Arizona desert.

From the readers: Sasquatches, Yetis, Star Trek and more

Happy New Year! Papergreat has made it to 2024! It's a good day for a roundup of reader comments from the fourth quarter of 2023. Thanks for all of your feedback!

Examining "The Abominable Snowman" from all sides in 1977: Tom from Garage Sale Finds writes: "As a kid, I devoured any books on Bigfoot/ASM. I'd check them out from our library and order them from Scholastic. I somehow missed this book. The book whose cover traumatized me was Strange Abominable Snowmen by Warren Smith (pictured at right)." 

I wasn't familiar with that Warren Smith book. In fact, I wasn't familiar with Warren Smith at all, which is kind of bonkers. His list of books is quite the amazing rabbit hole of cryptozoology and the paranormal titles from the heyday of the 1960s and 1970s. Just some of his titles: Strange Women of the Occult, Strange Powers of the Mind, Strange Hexes, Myth and Mystery of Atlantis, The Hidden Secrets of the Hollow Earth, Secrets of the Loch Ness Monster, UFO Trek and Let's Face Facts About Flying Saucers. I'll be keeping an eye out for some of these!

Lamenting what we'll never know about Phyllis J. Stalnaker Harris: Unfortunately, I had to shut down commenting on this post, because some commenters were getting nasty toward each other and some were being disrespectful of Phyllis' memory. That's not in the spirit of this blog at all. Most of the old comments are still up. One of the final (anonymous) comments was: "You have no right to surmise what her life was like. Unfortunately, the authorities gave her a label and they didn’t even really know anything about her. ... She may have been a nice person and was at the wrong place at the wrong time."

New edition of Ruth Manning-Sanders' "A Book of Witches":  Anonymous asks: "Does it have all of the great original illustrations? I've seen reviews of some of the other reprints of Ruth Manning-Sanders that have omitted the illustrations, and the illustrations are so amazing!"

Yes indeed! The 2020 reprint edition of A Book of Witches by MAB Media features the original Robin Jacques illustrations. Follow MAB Media on Facebook for more info on upcoming reprints.

Unfortunate apparel of 1980: The official Star Trek duty jacket: EJD1984 writes: "I had the T-shirt!! Have spent years trying to find a picture of it to prove I'm not going senile. I believe I picked it up at a 1980 Star Trek convention when I was 15 years old. Thank You SO MUCH for posting this!" 

The elementary school in the City Behind the Fence: Carolyn writes: "I went to Cedar Hill for a brief time in 1972 when we lived in Oak Ridge. We were only there for three months, but I have such great memories of that place!"

The Lost Corners of Paul Crockett: Those who have been following this post and the tale surrounding the Manson Family may be interested in a new video link that was shared in the comments. 

Someone asked "Any links to these comments that Paul Watkins allegedly made about Paul Crockett?" In response, Anonymous posted a link to a YouTube video titled "Paul Watkins Manson Family Self Recorded Conversation 1988 to a Fan."  

Update on an amazing house in Coudersport, Pennsylvania: Anonymous writes: "When I worked for Farm Credit, one of our branches was in Coudersport. I can't believe I didn't spot this."

Take a ride with Edwards Motor Transit Co.: Butch Joyner writes: "My dad drove for Edwards for over 40 years. It was a family business, we were all close. I remember vividly Bill, Bob and Wes. I have some lasting stories of this 4-year-old boy and my dealings with Wes. Hope this finds you well, Wesley! To the good times!" 

Postcard for Haag's Hotel in Shartlesville, Pennsylvania:  Anonymous writes: "In 2007 I took my daughter to Roadside America, which she totally enjoyed. We then had lunch at Haags Hotel, which was very historical and we both enjoyed. Sad to hear it closed."

Indeed, neither the hotel nor Roadside America is in business anymore. Very sad.

Receipt and more tucked away inside 1967 sci-fi paperback: Anonymous writes: "Ross Music was at Eastland and Northland malls and closed both stores in the mid-1980s, as the owner was retiring. I worked at the Eastland location and have very fond memories of the owner Irving, and Melissa Press Downey, the manager, and my co-worker Jimmy Grindstaff."

Coupons from the E.H. Koester Bakery Co.: This early Papergreat post drew a lot of great comments and memories a decade ago. A new one from Anonymous: "My father's first job was at E.H. Koester Bakery Co. I have his pay stubs from 1949."

Board for Parker Brothers' 1936 version of the game Finance: Anonymous asks: "What is the value of this game?" 

Looking through eBay, there are many listings for pieces and/or replacement boards for Finance. All of those are relatively inexpensive. As far as the complete (or near-complete) game, I see some listings for 1950s editions of the game that are as low $25 to $30 (price plus shipping). Some near-complete versions of the 1936 edition (including the box) are as low as $34. So it's definitely attainable for collectors.

Update on an amazing house in Coudersport, Pennsylvania

From the Facebook page www.facebook.com/fwknoxvilla, posted November 23, 2023.

During a fun trip that Joan and I made to northern Pennsylvania in May 2013, I snapped a photo of a dilapidated house in Coudersport, Potter County. I added some filters and posted it here as a quickie snapshot of a "creepy old house." Later, I made it available as a postcard on Redbubble.

But it's no longer creepy!

Thanks to a post by On the Road in Pennsylvania that showed up in Facebook feed in early November, I learned that this house is undergoing an amazing renovation. 

The restoration is being documented on Facebook, Instagram and a blog so that everyone can follow along. I'm so glad I found out about this! Without that out-of-the-blue Facebook post, I probably wouldn't have known any of this. Now I want to help spread the word in my small way.

It turns out that there is a good bit known about this house. Located at 4 North Main Street in Coudersport, it's an Italianate house built in 1880 by Franklin W. Knox, a prominent lawyer and businessman. It was also formerly the Old Hickory Tavern.

According to the blog, "Construction began in 1878 and was completed in May of 1880, only a few weeks before a fire swept through the town." Knox had seen a similar house in Pittsburgh and wanted one for himself in Coudersport, built with locally sourced "maple, cherry, black birch, pine, oak, hemlock, chestnut and butternut." The estimated costed was $10,000, which would be a little north of $310,000 today (though I suspect using so much valuable wood would send the price far higher).

The house was electrified around 1905. After a couple of transfers of ownership, it became Coudersport's second Old Hickory Tavern around 1928. After a string of additional ownership changes over the decades, it was purchased by those who are currently renovating it in 2016.

Writing on the blog in 2021, co-owner Holly Mauser states, "I’m thankful for that, that so many people can see the beauty in an old house. They saw that beauty years ago when it was really not looking it’s best. I’m thankful that they saw potential like we did. I hope more people keep seeing the potential in these amazing buildings wherever they live." (The full post is quite wonderful.)

If you're interested in learning more, I highly recommend checking out all that's been documented on Facebook and Instagram about this epic renovation. I think we're all looking forward to the day when its 1880 beauty is restored as fully as reasonably possible. Coudersport is already a great place to visit, and the restoration of the old Knox house is just one more reason to take that road trip.

Saturday's postcard: Coney Island's long-gone Dreamland

I've written before about postcards featuring some of the attractions from a century or more ago at Coney Island (Part 1, Part 2).

This is card was published by I. Stern of Brooklyn, New York, prior to the start of the split-back postcards in 1907. (The back of this card is for the address, only.)

It offers a spectacular view of Dreamland, which was only in operation for a relatively short time in the grand scale of amusement parks — 1904 to 1911. It opened as a direct competitor to Luna Park. But a devastating fire in May 1911 ripped through the wooden structures and brought an end to the Dream. By 1921, the site was a parking lot. 

The large central tower shown on this postcard was called Beacon Tower and was illuminated with many electric lights at night. (I've read estimates of the number of bulbs that range wildly from 44,000 to 1 million.) At around 375 feet, it may have been the tallest structure on Coney Island at the time. Here's a short excerpt from Jeffrey Stanton's excellent history of Dreamland:

"Beacon Tower ... was a replica of the famous Giralda tower of Seville, Spain. The 50 foot square tower that cost $100,000 to construct was painted pure white and studded with 44,700 electric bulbs that made it a tower of light after dusk. Electricity costs were $1 per minute. A rotating searchlight at its top was a beacon for all of New York City. Unfortunately its alternating red and white beam too closely resembled that of Norton Point's lighthouse. The city feared that it would lure ships onto Coney Island's beaches and ordered it removed. Visitors could ascend via two elevators to its observation deck for a magnificent 50 mile view including all of Coney Island and in the distance the island of Manhattan."

Photos of Sutton, West Virginia, and the Flatwoods Monster Museum

In late-August 2020, Ashar and I got out of the house for essentially the first time since the start of the pandemic and traveled to a state park in West Virginia to visit my dad and stepmom, who similarly needed a chance to fend off coronavirus cabin fever (by traveling to an actual cabin in the peaceful woods). 

On the way back home to Pennsylvania after the visit, Ashar and I passed a sign for the Flatwoods Monster Museum, and we immediately knew that we had to leave the highway and see where this very rural West Virginia exit took us. 

The answer was Sutton, a town of fewer than 1,000 people in Braxton County.

And it is indeed home to a monster museum. The Flatwoods Monster doesn't have the same level of notoriety as Mothman in United States urban legends, but it's pretty interesting. The Braxton County Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, which would very much like your tourism dollars, describes what a group of teenagers purportedly saw on a night in 1952:

"Upon reaching the site of the crash, the group saw a pulsing red light. Lemon shined his flashlight up the hill, and the group witnessed a terrifying sight — a ten-foot-tall creature, with a head shaped like a spade and what appeared to be a dark, metal 'dress'. The creature’s hands were twisted and clawed, and what seemed to be its eyes glowed an eerie orange color. It appeared to levitate off the ground. A strange, sickening mist hung in the air. The creature hissed and glided quickly toward the witnesses, the group then turned and fled in terror."

Here are some pictures I took at the museum...

The sign says, "Absolutely no Seances."

Sutton itself, which sits on a hillside, was just as interesting as the museum. I wish we'd had more time to explore, but we still had many hours of driving to get back to Dover. These are some of my snapshots of the struggling Appalachian town (I played around with filters on a couple of them.)

Past photography posts

• Sonoran Desert snapshots
• Ephemeral artwork seen on a late-night stroll through Brooklyn
• Old City Cemetery in Lynchburg, Virginia
• Oak Hill Cemetery in Vermont and Phoenix Cemetery Tioga County, Pennsylvania
• American Autumn (a 2014 photo essay)
• American Autumn 2020
• 2015 York Fair: My favorite photos
• Psychogeography, snickelways of Miami, Arizona: August 2021
• Alpine Road Cemetery (Bender Burial Ground) in York County, Pennsylvania
• Snapshots from a foggy morning at Prospect Hill Cemetery
• Return to Prospect Hill Cemetery
• Mount Zion Lutheran Church cemetery
• Manipulated photos of a graveyard at dusk
• Dilapidated structures of Southern Jersey
• The abandoned Great Barrington Fairgrounds (Massachusetts)
• Creepy & dilapidated structures of the eastern United States, Part 1
• Creepy & dilapidated structures of the eastern United States, Part 2
• Old house in Coudersport, Pennsylvania
• Artsy-fartsy photos from a night on the town with real artists
• Instagram snapshots of Ruins Park in Glen Rock, Pa.
• Atomic Warehouse photo gallery
• Timeline Arcade photo gallery

Saturday's postcard: Le Trocadéro in Paris

Here's an E. Le Deley postcard with a front view of a long-gone structure in Paris, France, that I first mentioned in a post way back in July 2012. 

The Palais du Trocadéro existed in full from 1878 to 1936. (The postcard I referenced in 2012 called its demolition "a perfect vandalism!!!") According to Wikipedia, "The palace's form was that of a large concert hall with two wings and two towers; its style was a mixture of exotic and historical references, generally called 'Moorish' but with some Byzantine elements. The architect was Gabriel Davioud."

This building was expensive and not well-received. You can read much more about it in this excellent 2019 post titled "The ugliest building in Paris" on the Parisian Fields website.

1977 children's book about actual (maybe) haunted house

Raintree Publishers had a little run in the 1970s with books for children about the paranormal, cryptids and UFOs. And who can blame them for trying to make a buck? Those topics were all the rage, with Leonard Nimoy's In Search Of... one of the leaders of the pack. 

A couple of years ago, I wrote about Raintree's The Case of the Ancient Astronauts. You can check out some of the other Raintree book covers at The Trash Collector and this 2012 post on The Haunted Closet blog.

Today, as part of Mild Fear 2021, here's another Raintree offering...

• Title: This House is Haunted!
• Author: Elizabeth P. Hoffman (1921-2003). More on her in a bit.
• Illustrator of awesome cover: Lynn Sweat
• Publisher: A Contemporary Perspectives Inc. (CPI) book distributed by Raintree Children's Books, Milwaukee
• Year: 1977
• Pages: 48
• Format: Hardcover
• Original price: Unknown
• Interior illustrator: Wayne Atkinson
• Interior photographs: Courtesy Elizabeth P. Hoffman
• Chapter titles: The Dream, We Find Our House, Knives and Scissors, The Lady in the Hall, Clara!, Arthur Ford Pays a Visit, Eileen Garrett Helps Us.
• First sentence: The author of this story claims that it is a true one.
• Last paragraph: Our house is now haunted by happy memories. And who knows, in the next hundred years more ghosts may turn up! Maybe they'll be our own ghosts!
• Random sentence from the middle #1: We went through a lot of housekeepers during the next few years.
• Random sentence from the middle #2: When the rocking chair moved, we shouted at her to go away.
• Amazon rating: 4.8 stars (out of 5)
• Amazon review: In 2018, "rg7722" wrote: "Lived right next to this house as a child. Early 60's through early 70's. The book is more of a documentary than a children's nighttime story. True to the talk about town at the time. It is said a girl drowned on the property as well. Not true. She was pulled from the concrete pond by a woman 7mths pregnant who couldn't swim. My mother." 
• So, where is this house? In the book, Hoffman describes it as being in "Beechwood, Pennsylvania." A 1992 article by Melanie Novak in The (Allentown) Morning Call is much more precise: "A professional librarian and amateur ghost hunter, Hoffman speaks of her paranormal experiences in a disarmingly matter-of-fact manner. Perhaps it comes from sharing a house with the ghost of an irascible widow named Clara. Clara plagued Hoffman's family for several years of their residence at Beechwood, a former inn in Havertown built in 1757." (Havertown is an unincorporated community in Haverford Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania. Beechwood is one of its neighborhoods. Pennsylvania names and places are very complicated.)
• More about Hoffman: That Morning Call article is the most in-depth piece I found on Hoffman, and it includes information about the other paranormal books she authored. According to this obituary notice, she got her undergraduate degree from Dickinson College in 1942, was an elementary school teacher in Pennsylvania in the 1950s and early 1960s, and received a library-science degree at Drexel University in 1961. It continues: "She was then hired as coordinator of the division of school libraries for the Pennsylvania Department of Education in 1966. In 1975 she joined the faculty at Villanova University as an associate professor of library science and chair of the department until 1978, and the next year she became director of the [Haverford] Township Free Library in Pennsylvania until her retirement in 1991."
• Quote from Hoffman: According to this 2003 post by Jade Walker on The Blog of Death, Hoffman once said, "I write books to encourage children to read. No one wants to read about broccoli. I want to write about what kids read."
• Memories of Hoffman: A 2017 post on the Facebook group "Growin' up in Havertown, PA" asked the question "Who remembers the librarian, Mrs. Hoffman? They did a story on her haunted house!!" The post drew more than 100 comments. Here are some of them:

"She was my neighbor! I was at the house all the time, it was old but not haunted."

"She was the best, we were neighbors for many years and yes the house is still there."

"I used to hang out with Wes and spent quite a few nights at their house. Spooky it was."

"I remember her well! Attended a fall party at their home when I was in high school. Mrs. Hoffman sat by the fire in the basement room of their amazing home and told us wonderful stories of their resident ghost."

"I was in that house several times. There was a cold spot."

"Glad there weren't any flying scissors in the house when we were there."

"Worked on her house back in the 80's. Nice lady, but that place thoroughly creeped me out. ... Told her the chimes of her grandfather clock were off time. She then told me she didn't have one."

"She was the best librarian and fostered my love of reading which continues to this day!"

Photos from inside This House is Haunted!

Postcard: House on the Rock in autumn

This postcard was mailed 37 autumns ago, in October 1984, the month that the Chicago Cubs tried unsuccessfully to break the Curse of the Billy Goat in the National League Championship Series. 

Pictured is the famous oddity known as the House on the Rock, in southwestern Wisconsin. Here's how the attraction's website describes it: "For over 60 years, the House on the Rock has been a majestic work in progress. It began in 1945, when a man named Alex Jordan had a towering goal: to build a man-made retreat as awe-inspiring as the view from the rock upon which the house would eventually be built. From that spark of imagination, the House on the Rock has evolved to include displays and collections of the exotic, the unusual and the amazing that can be viewed as three separate tours."

The attraction gained some further widespread renown when it was featured prominently in Neil Gaiman's 2001 novel American Gods.

This postcard was mailed to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with a 13-cent stamp and this message:

10/26

We had a beautiful day on Tue 10/23 for our trip to see "The House on the Rock." It really is something to see. Understand the man is always adding to his displays in the Alley of Yesteryear. We've been having a lot of foggy mornings & then day is hazy. Also have had rain also. Had a nice visit in Sept. with Bob and friend in Aurora Co. Got home before they had all their snow. Write sometime.

One good website where you can learn and see more about the House on the Rock is fangirlquest.com.

House on the Rock is definitely on my bucket list of places I'd like to see in the continental United States. A lot of my bucket list focuses on architecture, so it also includes the likes of:

• The Biltmore Estate in Ashville, N.C.
• Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, Calif.
• Fallingwater in southwestern Pennsylvania

Of course, I've already been fortunate enough to see many cool places in my half-century on Earth, so I'm doing pretty well in that regard. I've see Lucy the Elephant, Wall Drug, the World Trade Center, the Haines Shoe House, the Gaffney Peach and the Jolly Green Giant in Blue Earth, Minnesota, among many other nifty locations. So I'm pretty darn lucky.

Sotheby's house listing that's perfect for this time of year

As Mild Fear 2021 creeps closer, Ashar and I enjoyed seeing this unique house listing come up this week. The Sotheby's description for the 1836 dwelling provides the lowdown:

"Every so often an opportunity presents itself to possess an extraordinary piece of cultural history. The true story of ‘The Conjuring’ started in this very house, in Harrisville, RI. The critically acclaimed original movie was based on accounts taken from inhabitants of this fourteen-room farmhouse. Rumored to be haunted by the presence of Bathsheba Sherman, who in the 1800’s lived in the house, 1677 Round Top Road is one of the most well-known haunted houses in the United States. The chilling stories from this house have inspired dozens of books and movies. Many qualified paranormal researchers have been invited into the home — most famously Ed and Lorraine Warren, who founded the oldest ghost hunting team in New England, and in the 1970’s were hired to rid the home of its evil. The Warrens confirmed that the events depicted in The Conjuring movies (the third just recently released) actually transpired. The current caretakers have reported countless happenings in the house, and have turned overnight guest bookings and group events on the property into a steady successful business."

Says Ashar: "This is AWESOME. ... Can you imagine actually owning a haunted house?"

Of course, ghosts come with a price, and I'm not talking about being scared out of your socks.

This house costs $1.2 million.

And, horrors, you only get one full bath for all that money.

In looking at the photos and taking the 360-degree virtual tour in the house listing, one of Ashar's favorite things was this wall, signed by folks who have visited or stayed at the house:

And here are some pictures from the listing that I liked:

Finally, and to be clear, if you lived in this haunted house, you'd also be in the middle of nowhere...

RELATED POST: Update on my dream house

Dad's memories & Pappy's photos of Hurricane Diane in 1955

(All of these captions are written by Dad) Northampton Street in downtown Easton, looking east toward Phillipsburg, NJ, and the Northampton Street bridge. Parts of this bridge were destroyed by debris floating down the Delaware River.

The Northampton Street bridge, showing sections underwater.

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Those living in the United States are still recovering from the impacts of Hurricane Ida and its rainy remnants. That recovery will go for a long time in many places that suffered the worst devastation and flooding. Hurricanes and tropical storms are overwhelming natural disasters that work their way into the fabric of our history and the tales we pass down to each generation.

Of couple of days before Ida even formed in the Atlantic, Dad sent me his latest installment of childhood memories. In this case, coincidentally, it involved memories and his own father's photographs of Hurricane Diane, which hit the northeastern U.S., including Pennsylvania, in August 1955 — 66 years ago.

Here's what Dad wrote: 

How did I spend my 8th birthday? In August of 1955, Hurricane Diane hit the mid-Atlantic states and  a good portion of eastern Pennsylvania. Rain from the hurricane flooded the Delaware River valley and surrounding streams that drained into the Delaware. The worst flooding occurred August 19, 1955, my 8th birthday.

I found these photos. I believe Dad took the photos and I was with him.

At that time, there were three bridges crossing the Delaware between Easton, PA, and Phillipsburg, NJ. The 3rd Street bridge (the southernmost bridge), the Northampton Street bridge (this was the main street in Easton's downtown) and the relatively new Route 22 bridge (north of the Northampton Street bridge, connecting Route 22 in NJ to the new Route 22 in PA).

It took several days for the flooding to subside. Traffic between Easton and Phillipsburg could only use the Route 22 bridge for a long time. (How long, I can't remember.) My grandfather's house still stood after the flood and, after cleanup, became livable again. 

I had a rather low-key birthday that year.

Northampton Street in downtown Easton and the Northampton Street bridge.

The 3rd Street bridge south of Northampton Street. I believe this bridge was completely washed away and never rebuilt.

This is the Route 22 bridge, again looking east toward Phillipsburg, NJ. On the far left of this photo is a water tank. Not shown but two blocks away from this water tank was the three-story brick home of my grandfather, Frederick Hartford (my mother's father). It was on the Bushkill Creek that flowed into the Delaware River. At the height of the flooding, only the top of the chimney was above water.

3rd Street in Easton and the 3rd Street bridge.

***

For the record (and for search engines), the following businesses and signs are visible in the above photos: Epstein's; Hotel Easton and Hotel Easton Tap Room; Army & Navy; Coastal [something]; Lyons (carpets, linoleums, rugs); Pep Boys; Packard; and Kowitz Furniture.