Carroll Yesteryears 1 August 2010 Newspaper, Resident Recall Rationing During World War II by Mary Ann Ashcraft Scrapple must have been one of the unrationed meats during World War II because my family certainly ate a lot of it – so much that I couldn’t look at a slice for years no matter how thoroughly it [...]
Carroll Yesteryears 18 July 2010 Cape May Attracted Vacationers by Mary Ann Ashcraft It was not Ocean City, Maryland, but Cape May, New Jersey, which attracted affluent Carroll County vacationers during the 1870s. Ocean City was just beginning to establish itself as a resort with the opening of a small inn in 1869 followed by the [...]
Carroll Yesteryears 4 July 2010 Spectacular Festivities Marked 99th Birthday by Mary Ann Ashcraft We should be grateful that not everyone in the nineteenth century threw out their copies of local newspapers and that recycling was many years in the future. Those old papers give us an idea of how our great grandparents in Carroll County [...]
Carroll Yesteryears 20 June 2010 Western Maryland Railroad Played Role in Gettysburg Victory by Mary Ann Ashcraft Each year as the end of June rolls around, we are reminded of the many ways in which the Civil War impacted our area. In three successive years – 1862, 1863 and 1864 – parts of the Confederate cavalry [...]
Carroll Yesteryears 6 June 2010 Sharing Stories Helps Bring the Past to Life by Mary Ann Ashcraft Interesting people with fascinating stories to share have played an important part in creating this column. Edward Bachman, who has spent his ninety-plus years in Carroll County, phoned me several months ago. Wentz ancestors on his mother’s side have [...]
Carroll Yesteryears 23 May 2010 Spanish Flu Swept Through by Mary Ann Ashcraft In 1918 at the age of ten, my mother contracted Spanish flu, collapsed at the home of neighbors, and was nursed back to health by her parents who practiced the Christian Science faith. She lived another 87 years, fortunate to have survived one [...]
Carroll Yesteryears 9 May 2010 Remembering the Hard Work Done by Farm Women by Mary Ann Ashcraft In this era of dishwashers, washing machines, rototillers, and gas or electric stoves, it is hard to envision the daily lives of farm women a century or more ago. As today is Mother’s Day, it only seems fair to [...]
Carroll Yesteryears 25 April 2010 Diverse Beginnings by Mary Ann Ashcraft So much attention is paid to the Pennsylvania German heritage of Carroll County that we often forget other ethnic groups which migrated into this area at an early date. Piney Creek Presbyterian Church, located on the main road between Taneytown and Harney, is a reminder [...]
Carroll Yesteryears 11 April 2010 Ads Give Insight to Life by Mary Ann Ashcraft Charles Sower published a newspaper in Uniontown during the second decade of the nineteenth century known as The Engine of Liberty and Uniontown Advertiser with a yearly subscription rate of $2.00. Issues published between 1813 and 1815 reveal what local people knew [...]
Carroll Yesteryears 28 March 2010 Waterways Help Define County’s Outline, Character by Mary Ann Ashcraft Ouch! Many apologies to readers of this column for mistakenly calling the stream which runs past the Shriver Homestead in Union Mills “Double Pipe Creek.” As a forty-year resident of Carroll County I have no excuse. It is Big Pipe Creek [...]