The Day of Horror

Many of my Facebook friends have been changing their profile pictures to pictures of JFK to honor him this day, the anniversary of the assassination. In addition, they have been relaying their memories of that day. My personal memory of that day is a little foggy simply because I was 9 when it happened and obliviously not fresh in my mind.

I do remember being in school.  I believe I was in 5th grade.  Our teacher was called out of the room and then came back with tears in her eyes and told us.  I remember at some point after that a large television was brought in and we all watched the news about it.  I don't remember what went on when I got home, but considering my mother's liberal leanings, it was probably not the best of days.  I remember watching the funeral procession days later and thinking to myself that he must have been a wonderful, powerful man to have such a procession through our nation's capital.  I suppose being 9 years old, the severity of the event was somewhat lost on me.

We all have memories of world events that shape our lives.  Some of them such as the assassination of JFK, 911, and Columbine are things that one is likely to remember for years to come.  They not only shape us but shape the world.  I only hope that those horrible days do not repeat themselves too often and that we can begin to heal our nation of the hate that surrounds us.

Old Town Norristown

I am reading Michael E. Tolle’s book called What Killed Downtown?  It is a study of how Norristown’s economy was ruined, and is quite thorough in its description.  Mr. Tolle starts at the very beginning.  The very beginning before Norristown was even Norristown and sets up his story with a description of the intention for the town, and as many people know, the town stood up to its intended use for many years.

I suppose the book is interesting to me because I live in the municipality and the businesses he talks about are ones that I have heard about and they were located at addresses I know and have passed many times.  Some of the buildings still exist like the Tone Building, the bank building, and of course the Courthouse, among others.  I am also familiar with the names of many of the people he writes about and the people who he interviewed for the book.  Most interesting to me is his explanation of the workings of municipal and county government because I have been one of the many trying to determine what went wrong and how to fix it.  But probably the most interesting part of the book is the answer, which I won’t go into here lest I spoil it for you.  He comes to a similar conclusion, with a slightly different twist from what I have been saying all along. Even though I have not gotten through all 256 pages of the book I was too excited to find the answer to his query and read a bit of the last chapter. 

I would call this book required reading for anyone who works at the municipality, or the County, or has any dealing with Norristown at all.  It gives a fascinating insight to some issues which are unique to our little struggling burg.  I can’t say that a silver bullet exists to help the situation but knowing from whence we came is always a key in determining where we should go.  History does have a way of repeating itself and some of the actions he talks about in the book bear a striking resemblance to things that have been tried since I have lived there.  I just hope that the history that repeats itself will not come out with the same result and that we can learn from our mistakes and work toward a solution to the problem rather than becoming another one.

Boo!

I belong to an organization that was formed to save the Selma Mansion located in Norristown. The house was built in 1794 and is one of the most important historical structures in the town.  During the late 1980s, the organization was formed because the house was in danger of being razed.  A deal was struck by the original organization members and a builder to erect an apartment complex on the property of the mansion with the plan to renovate the house to be either office space or a community center for the complex. The builder pulled out of the project before the renovations to the house were started and the organization has been trying to obtain rights to the mansion ever since.

Some time ago, someone posted on the group’s Facebook page claiming the apartment complex was built over a graveyard.  Since it was not uncommon in the days when the mansion was young to bury family members in a plot on the property of a large house like Selma, it is extremely possible that such a graveyard existed.  The person making the claim grew up in the area and delivered the local newspaper to the last resident.  He had the opportunity to speak to her on many occasions and was often treated to cookies and iced tea, as well as hearing many stories, when he made his deliveries.  He came out to the mansion shortly after the posting and showed us where the graveyard was reported to be; under the rear drive to one of the buildings and he said he distinctly remembered seeing the workers pulling up the gravestones and putting them in a dump truck along with shrubs and trees not wanted during the construction phase.  If this is indeed true, that area is hallowed ground and paving or building over it is illegal.

Now we have the job of trying to substantiate his claims.  There is much research that is needed up to and including x-raying the ground to see if bones can be seen. Since the county’s historical society has done an exhaustive inventory of all the graves in the county, the research should not take long at all.  If we do find out that there are bodies buried there, then a decision has to be made.  One way or another, a paved over graveyard could really help toward the renovation efforts.  Who knows, maybe those bones will take on a new form.

Welcome to the USA

Two people with whom I work received their US Citizenship; one just yesterday.  Our team went all out and hung red, white, and blue banners over their desk and arranged a USA Themed lunch.  I asked the most recent one what the process was and he told me that he had to have had his green card for at least 5 years and then take a test.  As a curiosity I looked up the possible questions to see how difficult they were.  There are actually a few sites on the web with information about citizenship and one has a list of all the potential questions (and answers) that could be asked. Ten of these questions are asked and the goal is to get six correct. 

These questions are relatively easy, at least for me because I am pretty well versed in American civics.  But there are few which I don’t know the answer to.  For example I was not sure who said “Give me liberty or give me death” (Patrick Henry).    I also did not remember the name of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (William Rehnquist).  Some of these things are pretty trivial in respect to our daily lives.  I wonder how the average fifth grader would score on these questions.

Being an American is important to many who come here both those who come legally and undocumented.  Knowing our history, pledging allegiance to our flag, and voting is something that people born in this country sometimes take for granted.  No, it is not important for living our daily lives, but it is important if you want to call yourself an American. Check out the questions and see how you score.

The Highlands

Over the weekend, my husband and I traveled to The Highlands, an 18^th century Georgian mansion and gardens, owned by the state.  They were having a community day and had free house tours and special demos throughout the day.  We wandered through the formal gardens and then attended a tour given by one of the volunteers.  It was really interesting to hear about the history of the house, and to see the progress made on the restoration of the house.

I am somewhat familiar with old house restoration as I am involved in restoring Selma, which was home of Revolutionary War General, Andrew Porter.  Like The Highlands, Selma is of the same age, but unlike The Highlands, Selma is nowhere near in the state of preservation as The Highlands are.  The building is totally useful and sustainable.  I suppose as it is owned by the state, there are more resources available.  That is until recently when all its funding has been cut.

I think it is important that people realize our history.  Houses like The Highlands and Selma give us a unique glimpse into our past and allow us a way to understand where we came from.  It was a great experience to be able to tour the grounds and be sent back in time wondering what life must have been like.

History Day

On Saturday, June 11, 2011, the Norristown Preservation Society (NPS) presented their annual History Day event.  I can’t remember which History Day it was, but it was a good one.  The event took place at the Selma Mansion, which NPS has been working very hard to restore.  The weather held out for the most part as far as the rain was concerned, but the humidity was almost unbearable – at least to me. 

I put together a video of this year’s event, being the (unofficial) organization’s video person as well as the treasurer.  I tried to show that we had a great turnout as well as a variety of interesting topics that were presented.  For example, Bruce Stockton gave a talk on the History of the Constitution.    I like to think that I have a fair grasp on our country’s history, but his talk put things in context to me.  I knew about the various documents; the Declaration, Articles of Confederacy, etc, but I did not really know about the timing of them and the importance of them as well as the type of people behind them.  It was fascinating.

Doug Seiler gave a talk on architectural styles in Norristown.  He went over the types of styles, their history, and showed examples of them in the town.  He showed the particulars of each style and talked about why certain features existed.  For example, did you know that the reason windows have a mutton in the center?  Well it's because the window was made to look like a casement window from the outside.  You could have the practicality of a double hung window that had the glamour of a casement.  I never knew that. 

But the big thing was the Ghost Hunters!  Steve Foersch and Lisa Terio of the Pennsylvania Underground Paranormal Society gave a great presentation on the investigation they did for the mansion.  They showed the equipment they used and showed the standing room only crowd clips of video and audio that showed evidence of paranormal activity.  I am sure that many of the people at the event were there just for that presentation and that’s fine.  I hope they also got an appreciation for the mansion and the historic significance of our town.

I used to hate history when I was in school, but I am sure it was just the way it was presented.  Once I started doing my family history and learning where I came from and what events shaped my family, it really put things in context.  Had I been able to partake in an event like yesterday’s event when I was younger, I might have been able to gain a fresh perspective on how important it is for us to know what came before.  History is not a thing filled with dry old facts that we have to memorize.  It’s a record of what has shaped our lives and our views as a country and as a people.  

History Day

For the last 20 years or so, I have been involved with the Norristown Preservation Society (NPS). It is a small organization founded to preserve the legacy of many of the Norristown forefathers as well as increasing the awareness of architectural history. Some of those notables are Gen. Andrew Porter, David Rittenhouse Porter, James Madison Porter and the Porter family. Also, Thomas P. Knox, state agricultural society president and developer of the West End, and Joseph Fornance, who served as a congressman and a borough council president. Most importantly, the organization was founded to save their home, the Selma Mansion at 1301 West Airy Street in Norristown.

When my husband and I first moved into the town, I was pleasantly surprised to find that such an organization existed. At first they did things like house tours, which were always lots of fun because one got to see the insides of many of the finely kept homes. I think though that people felt uncomfortable with strangers traipsing through their residence and that event was eventually stopped. Nothing bad ever happened as far as we know, but it did become quite a challenge to convince people to put their domicile on display.

I have always loved old houses. I suppose growing up with a mother whose family still owned the home she grew up in, I learned to appreciate what has come before. I learn to recognize some of the architectural styles and furnishing, and felt very comfortable in surrounding myself with old pieces. My dream was to own a Queen Ann house, although I am not sure that dream will ever come true.

At any rate, NPS will be presenting their History Day on June 11, 2011. This year, the event will be held at the Selma Mansion, which has had quite a few clean-up days to prepare for it. I did a video of one of the last ones. There will be exhibitors on hand to show various artifacts of local history and some vendors selling glass bottles and paper ephemera. This year, unlike past years, we will have a variety of speakers presenting mini lectures on historic colors, Norristown architecture, the Constitution, and evidence of paranormal activity at the mansion. I hope you will come out and take a peek at the best of Norristown‘s past.

For more information, you can check out the NPS website.

Ghost Hunting

There was another cleanup at the Selma Mansion on Saturday.  If you haven’t seen my video from the last cleanup, click here.  Anyway, the people who did the paranormal investigation were there helping out and I had a chance to get to talk to them.  I am not really sure if I believe in the paranormal, but I can say I have had some strange experiences that can’t be explained which could have been paranormal.  

My husband and I were visiting some friends in Lodi New York right on the coast of Lake Seneca.  They were running a vineyard and were living in an old Victorian house high on a hill overlooking the lake.  It was a little run down, but a great house and they had lots of land.  My husband and I were given a room to sleep in the rear of the house across the hall from a room that was not used.  During the night I think I awoke – it could have been a dream – and saw someone standing at the foot of the bed looking down at us.  For some reason I was not afraid and didn’t scream but went back to sleep.  The figure was that of a woman in long dress with an apron and a white bonnet type hat.  In the morning I mentioned this “dream” to our hosts.  They remarked that we must have seen the ghost who rings the bells.  They went on to explain that at the bottom of the stairs in the front was a curio cabinet with small hand held bells that our hostess collected.  Occasionally while she and her husband are in another part of the house, these bells rang.  I did not see the apparition at any other time while we were there, but I never forgot the experience.

If Selma is haunted, or has sprites in the house, they must be friendly spirits.  In the many times I have been there, aside from feeling a little creeped out when going up to the third floor, I have not experienced anything odd.  There have been no bells ringing, no loud noises, no things flying around the room that I might attribute to a ghost.  I do have an open mind to the fact that there are things in this world that one can’t explain and since we humans are always needing an answer for something, so I have never ruled out the possibility of existence of the spirit world.  I read a book a short time ago called the Journey of Souls by Michael Newton.  In it he talks about his work with many patients who talk about their past lives and their souls.   There is a section about those souls who do not go to the hereafter, but stay around because they don’t want to leave but he doesn’t go into detail.  If the spirit of Mr. Knox and family is at the mansion, I hope they are pleased with the efforts that we are going through to save the building.  I hope that it won’t keep people away because the house is a valuable piece of history that needs to be honored.

Old Things

 In the West End of town, just on the border sits a building built in 1794 called the Selma Mansion.  The house was the home of Andrew Porter, a soldier during the Revolutionary War, and a co-founder of the Marine Corp.  The Norristown Preservation Society now owns the building and has been working to restore the house.  This past weekend, a group of about 12 people scrapped, stripped, and dusted all of the rooms in the house.  The reason this was done was to get the building in some semblance of order for Norristown History Day in June.  I did a video of the cleanup  to help get a little attention to it.  Several more of these kinds of event are being planned as a way to work to restoring the building into a usable space.

After we were finished for the day – still a long way from the building being finished – the group expressed a great feeling of satisfaction about getting things in order.  Everyone worked really hard and I am sure each one of us had some sore muscles over the weekend.  The one thing that struck me about the day was that everyone was so enthusiastic about the house and its history.  Generally, we as Americans have a throw-away mentality where most of us think “oh, it’s old, let’s just tear it down”.  There was nothing evident of that kind of thinking for anyone who worked there on Saturday.

The Selma Mansion represents a great period in history about Norristown.  If you go to the Wikipedia entry for the town, you can read a section devoted to Selma.  Other than that reference there is not much written on the home, but there is a fair amount written about the inhabitants.  Selma has a history and should have a permenant place in the town.  The building needs to have a breath of fresh air breathed into it and the current board of the Preservation Society seems that have what it takes.  I look forward to a new start to the renovation, and I hope you will join me in what you can to help.  You can donate to help with the restoration by going to the NPS site and sending a check to the address listed.  Let’s do what we can to preserve our past so that our children will not forget what our ancestors did for them.

Honor Your Dead

Death is a much bigger business than people think it is, but it seems as if nowadays, once you are dead, you’re dead and no one is going to pay attention to you any longer.  That seems to be the sentiment of one local cemetery in Norristown. 

Back in the Victorian times, cemeteries used to be places where families would go to be with their dearly departed and spend a lazy summer afternoon.  You can see evidence of that if you go to one of the large cemeteries in the area such as West Laurel Hill where the grounds are meticulously maintained.  According to one site I looked at, “views and practices related to death and burial in America paralleled those of Europe and began to change significantly in the early 1800s”.  Graveyards were made elaborate and landscaped like parks.  People had various customs they would follow, such as wearing mourning clothes for a specific period of time depending on your relationship to the deceased. 

Nowadays death is something we rarely talk about.  It is a difficult subject to talk to your parents about, and certainly one you don’t discuss around the proverbial water cooler at the office.  Many people seem to have a fear of dying; I know I did until a few months ago.  But that’s not what this entry is all about.  This entry is about the abysmal shape of the Tremont Cemetery on Sandy Street in Norristown.  A few days ago, I happened to be in that area and wandered through the graveyard.  I was shocked and dismayed at the condition.  As you can see in some of these pictures, the grass is overgrown, headstones toppled, and trash strewn about.  Is this any way to honor our dead?  Tremont has some incredible history there.  Yes, most of the people buried there were poor, in fact it is rumored that there is a mass grave of the people who died from the flu in 1918.  But it is significant as Tremont is a cemetery where blacks and whites are buried together side by side.  That was almost unheard of in the 1800s.  But the minister at the First Baptist church at that time was very forward thinking and demanded that it would be that way. 

I had a chance to communicate with the new pastor of the First Baptist Church, who owns the property. They have a small congregation and with limited resources they can’t maintain the grounds and only mow the grass in the spring and summer.  I know of several groups who used to help out, but don’t any longer.  We have a wonderful peaceful place in our community and it is falling apart.  It could be a beautiful park if people could get over their fear of death and just go and sit and contemplate in this small open space.  And since the owners of the property don’t have the resources to help, they need help from us.  After all, evidence of our past is there, including some people who fought and died for our freedom and they are being forgotten. 

Sharing History

Last night I attended the Norristown Bicentennial Dinner held at the Savior Hall.  It was the first in a series of events that are being planned to commemorate the 200 years of Norristown’s history.  It was a fun evening and my husband and I had a great time eating, dancing, and talking to people we have known for some time.  The band was Jump Street, and they did a variety of music covering bands from the Temptations to the Black Eyed Peas.  The food was provided by Zone’s Catering and it was quite tasty.

Norristown was established on March 31, 1812 and I am sure that things were quite different back then.  For one thing there were far less people than the current 39 some odd thousand souls, then being about 500. Some early statistics show that it was subsequently enlarged in 1853 and 1909. In 1900, 22,265 people lived there; in 1910, 27,875; in 1920, 32,319; and in 1940, 38,181 making it the most populous community for a borough.  Many people don’t realize that Norristown was not a borough starting in 1986 when they established their first home rule charter.  It changed to a municipality, but everyone still called it a borough until 2004 when the new charter was established.  It was at that time that the actual name started to be pushed.  But I am sure that people will always call it a borough as old habits die hard.

Norristown was at one time a bustling town with many downtown shops, a hotel, two movie theaters, and much industry.  Being the county seat, many people came here to do a variety of things involved with government.  Norristown has its fair share of notables that include actors, sports figures, revolutionary generals, and musicians.  Now the town is in a decline and has suffered many setbacks in the last 5 decades.  But I have faith that the powers that be will work to improve things for the future. 

I was not born in this town, but I am sure that I will die in this town.  I have faith that all is not lost as some would have you believe.  Maybe it’s the fact that I live here and I want the best for my house value, but I have a gut feeling that things will eventually turn around.  Norristown has a great past and a promising future.  It only takes faith and people who believe.  Let’s enjoy reliving the past 100 years and making plans for the next century.

This Weekend

This weekend I helped work on the Selma Mansion, the ancestral home of Andrew Porter. Mr. Porter was many things; Revolutionary War general, surveyor for the state of Pennsylvania, and founder of the Marine Corps. The Selma Mansion, located at 1301 W Airy St, in Norristown, PA is a house built in 1794. For years it has languished, vacant and gathering dust. The Norristown Preservation Society (NPS) was formed to save the property after the owner of the property died back in the 70s when it was in danger of being torn down. Several years have gone by and the organization now finally owns the mansion.

With a new infusion of members on the board, efforts are being made to stabilize the property and clean it up. This weekend’s efforts were centered on making the first floor clean and bright so the people can come and see the potential of the place. The main goal is to house a collection of Civil War artifacts and create a house museum that will highlight Norristown’s history and bring visitors to the area as well as create a place where community groups can meet. On Saturday members of the NPS board and members of the West End Association, of which I am a member of both, went into the house and scrapped loose paint, took down the wallpaper that was hanging from the walls, and cleaned up the mildew that has grow on the walls due to a leak in the basement. We also cleanup the horse carriage house and cleared up the code violations that the municipality has saw fit to charge us with. On Sunday with the help of a crew from Cabrini College, we did more of the same to the four rooms and main hall on the first floor. The place looks fantastic and is well on the way to becoming a useful property.

It was great to see the energy in the place over the weekend, despite the fact that it was cold and rainy. I know the new NPS board members are excited to see that there is so much support from the community to get this house back to where it should be. Now comes the arduous task of raising the money needed for the renovation of the property and the creation of the museum.