Another late entry. I just thought I’d surprise everyone.
9410 Some of the old German Tombstones in the Jerusalem Lutheran Church cemetery.
9411 This old German Tombstone has always been one of my favorites.
9417 Blast Furnace Row in the old Bethlehem Plant. I could see these from my bedroom window about 10 miles away atop Gauff’s Hill. When they fired them it was a great show of flame and sparks.
9422 The Orange Car building, Allentown, PA. My mom’s family got their Christmas oranges here. They came in a boxcar straight from Florida.
May 11 – Emmaus, PA. Are you noticing that my area of PA has a lot of Biblical names for their cities? The area was mainly settled by Protestants who were driven out of their homes in Europe during the religious wars. My ancestors were driven from Bavaria during the 30-Years War (1618-1648). They eventually wound up in the Netherlands although records regarding this migration are sketchy. The Reformation had taken so well in the northern areas of what is now The Netherlands that initially they welcomed the homeless Protestants. But as their numbers swelled the Dutch became a little worried about the number of immigrants. (Apparently they are smarter than we are.) Just in time a solution appeared. After William Penn was given The Provence of Pennsylvania (Commonly known as the Pennsylvania Colony) because the Royal Family couldn’t repay a debt owed to Penn’s father. Penn offered farm land in Pennsylvania to those who would immigrate shortly after its founding in 1681. The German people who settled much of eastern Pennsylvania were very strong Protestants of different denominations, mainly Lutheran and Reformed. But others came as well, Hussites from Moravia (Known as Moravians here in the US) and Huguenots from France (not in large numbers). The East Jerusalem Lutheran/Reformed Church was founded in 1683 and a member of my family tree is on the founding documents. The earliest tombstones in the church’s cemetery are all in German. For the last time, the Pennsylvania Dutch are mostly Germans. The British just couldn’t say Deutsch. Very few of them are from the Netherlands. I don’t know of any. There are some Swedes and other Anabaptists, like the Mennonites. I’ve got to tell you that few things are more complicated that the religious belief systems of the Reformation Period. Everyone had their own slant, Calvinists, Quakers, Baptists, Anabaptists, Lutherans, Reformed, it was a real free-for-all.
We stopped by the old church, my Mom is buried there. Someone has been revising history at the church. It is no longer the East Jerusalem Lutheran/Reformed Church. It’s now named the New Jerusalem Evangelical Lutheran Church and all the dates have been revised. I guess it no longer has Reformed services. When I was a kid they alternated services between Lutheran and Reformed. The same minister led both services. Granted, I was too young at the time to notice the liturgical distinctives. All I remember is that on Lutheran Sundays the minister wore robes and on Reformed Sundays he was in a suit. I always knew that building that existed in my youth dated from the mid-1800s because the building from the mid-1700s had burned down. It had been a wooden building, the new one is stone and masonry. It was renovated in 1884 and changes have been made since to accommodate disabled persons.
It appears that the dates have changed to emphasize the building as the date for founding the Congregation is the date the building was erected. Actually, according to my family history the congregation met in farm houses long before the building was built and the new sign does not account for any existence prior to the building. This is very unlikely as clearing land, building homes, barns and other activities to get the farms going probably took precedence over building a church. To this day, many of the groups under the PA Dutch umbrella still meet in homes just as they did in the early days of the Jerusalem Church.
Today we went to the Sands Casino and Outlet Shops Complex in Bethlehem. Actually, we drove down to the former site of the Bethlehem Plant of Bethlehem Steel. Some of the old buildings remain as well as three of the blast furnaces. The Bethlehem Plant was the specialty fabricator for the company. They produced some regular steel beams and large rolls of hardened steel but when anything special or one-of-a-kind was needed, they made it. An example would be that they made the 16-inch gun barrels for the USS Missouri and other WWII battleships. My grandfather on my dad’s side worked there most of his life as a rolling engineer, a very hot job for sure.
On part of the plant site that was demolished the Sands Corp has built a hotel, casino and outlet store complex. After taking some pictures of the old furnaces of the steel mill we parked in the back lot and walked in to the outlet mall through the hotel. The entrance to the casino is on the second floor of the mall so the women have to walk past all these shops to get in. The shops were fairly busy but not crowded. D actually bought a pair of shoes and a blouse. The prices were certainly good. I looked around the Bass Shoes Outlet and they had some $125 boat shoes on sale for $40. Of course they were last year’s styles and colors but most men are not fashionista enough to notice such things. I didn’t buy any because I’m very happy with my current pair of Dunlaps.
We decided to eat lunch in the food court just outside the casino. I was very surprised to find that most of the gamblers were Chinese. Of course, it’s the middle of the week and the middle of the day so most people are working but these Chinese did not appear to be locals. They looked very much like either residents of China, Taiwan or Hong Kong or very recent immigrants. Their manners and style of dress looked very mainland China. A fair mix of Hispanics and Blacks made up most of the rest of the crowd. I saw about 7 Caucasian men in the crowd coming and going through the casino entrance. I think we’re underrepresented
I decided to drive through Bethlehem and Allentown on the way to Darrell and Connie’s house in Emmaus, sort of a nostalgic tour to see what remains of the old landmarks. On the way we encountered one that I thought would have been demolished long ago, the Allentown Orange Car. When I was a kid we did not routinely have oranges or bananas. They were considered to be exotic and were only purchased around Christmas when they would be stocking stuffers. I think that might have been a pervasive tradition in the community as oranges would be available in bulk at the Orange Car. I could never figure out why it was called a ‘car’ as the building is actually a shed like structure but it was painted orange with green trim. It was in the Allentown railroad yard right on a rail spur. At Christmas time freight cars (maybe the source of the building’s name) filled with large bags of navel oranges would be on the spur and the sales were limited to full bags. Each bag was about 4 feet long and 18 inches in diameter so they held a lot of oranges. The building’s orange and green paints were faint reminiscences of original vivid colors but the building is still standing. The surrounding rail yard is long gone. There’s no sign that tracks were ever there. I’m sure I haven’t seen the building for at least 50 years. It was fun to see it still standing.
We spent the evening with Darrell’s son and his family. Matt and Anna’s three kids are a great source of entertainment. They’re funny, well-spoken and extremely well behaved. The two year old seems much older in every way but size.
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