Bakery
Our first stop was at the Malone bakery. Donna's husband's (Joey) grandfather bought it and his sons continued it but there is only 1 son left which is Joey's uncle. I wish I could remember when it was purchased but it has been running for 3 generations now. My Dad used to get sent to the bakery everyday for the families loaf of bread and one of the sons would always throw him a hot roll as a treat. My dad would immediately rip the roll in half and begin eating the middle out first while it was hot and fresh and then eat the shell. It is one of his favorite memories as a kid. It Looks like stepping back in time. It is very old and they don't do as much business as they used to. They don't have a store front it, is all delivery. They sell our their goods at wholesale to surrounding restaurants and grocery stores. You can also single order if you call ahead a couple of days. Their pizza is baked just enough and then for resale and then you bake it again when you get it home. The house they used to live in is attached to the bakery off to the side, they no longer live in it, but it is used as an office. After our tour and talking with the only remaining son, we got a bag of rolls and ate one
like the kids used to.
This cemetery only had Laurence Witman. The one that stated it all. He was born in 1781 in Germany and arrived in Philadelphia in 1817. He died in 1849 at the age of 68. The handy little app for Ancestry said there was a Mary buried there who was William's son who was the son of William who was the son of Laurence. We found a Mary next to him but thought there was another. There was a groundskeeper there that we stopped and talked to and found out about the history of the church and he also looked in the directory for us to see if we were missing the right Mary. Turns out we weren't. I took a picture inside the church contemplating if my grandfather Laurence had been in that spot. It turned out he wasn't because the original church burned down after he died. But he likely walked around there because you usually were buried where you attended church. It felt like a connecting moment. If nothing else, I was standing in the very spot of his final resting place. We were together at last and I was trying to get to know him better in this sacred place. Donna and my Dad were trying to read one of the tombstones to see who they were. They tried to do a tracing of it to see if they could read it better, but we didn't have the proper equipment. We were confused as to why there were tombstones connected by a cement base. Turns out that was part of a rehabilitation effort to keep the tombstones from falling over. Just because they are on the same platform, doesn't mean they are related. Again, so good that we ran into the groundskeeper so that mystery could be solved.
Lunch
We went to Doyle for lunch. We went to a bbq place and had a nice lunch. We had a nice view of the downtown area and had fun people watching. Watching people try to decided where to go for lunch was very amusing as we saw them walk up and examine the menus of the different establishments and then walk to another and then return to another. Looks like everyone has a hard time deciding where to eat.
Font Hill Castle
This was completely made of cement. The man who built it had no formal training and just experimented with different techniques. He made the forms and the entire thing was poured. He designed it by room and then connected the rooms so it ended up looking like it did because of the interior not the other way round. He made tiles for a living and used them on the interior. It was fun to see all the tile work that he put into it. It was a bit overkill, but at the same time it was like a piece of history seeing all the different types of tiles and most of them told stories. I wish we were allowed to take pictures, but you can see the interior online. It was extremely hot and muggy in there which was surprising since it was made of cement. He did have a lot if windows though. That was what the builder considered a modern castle- more windows not so dungeon like. That huge castle was for him, his housekeeper and her husband. That's it. Also people that would come long distances to buy tile would stay at his house.
After that we stopped by his tile mill and I bought a couple of tiles. I bought a tree to represent family history and the purpose of my trip and then there was a turtle and I had to have that.
After the castle and the tile we went to the man's museum. He built a museum for all the things he collected. His interest was in the tools of America. I didn't take any pictures in there- I'll have to snag one from my dad. By this point I'm getting really tired and my body is aching.
Ice cream
We made our final stop on the ice cream ascension of goodness. Nate had called me so I was on the phone for the entire process. I ended up getting a chocolate raspberry which just had fresh raspberries in it. I was hoping for chocolate peanut butter so I had an apples to apples comparison with the other 2. I wasn't that impressed because it mostly tasted of the raspberries. It's nice to have fresh ingredients like that but I wanted to taste the ice cream which was the creamiest of them all. I was happy with the cheap ice cream and I was even more happy with the middle one. The first had darker chocolate which I liked but the peanut butter wasn't as prominent. The second had a lighter chocolate but the peanut butter in it was the bomb. Aunt Barbara and my dad liked the first place the best.
Stake sandwiches
You can't be this close to Philly and not have cheese stake. It's even huge in Allentown and the whole state really. I was a little surprised because the ones we got looked more like hamburger and had chopped onions in it. There is also a tomato sauce that is poured on to. They were made with Malone hoagie rolls. We also had perogies which were delicious. Of the two stake sandwiches I had while there, this one was the best!
After dinner we got to visit the old steel mill where grandpa Witman worked and my great grandfather Oliver troop worked. Oliver moved his family to Bethlehem specifically to work in the steel mill. Tobias was working in another factory there in most likely the silk mill where he met Olivia. After they got married he went to work at the steel mill. Oliver was an electrician at the mill before he had a heart attack after that he handed out the tools to the workers. Oliver died while at work in the room where he handed out the tools.
After the tour of the steel sacks we went back to Donna's and watched some old home movies. Sometime in the early 90's there was a trend of taking home movies into someone to have them edit it and make it into a movie with music. The music was cracking us up and whoever edited it didn't do it in any kind of chronological order. It was all over the place. But, it was cool to be able to see my dad in his teens playing the drums and see my Nana. I only wish we could have heard their voices instead of the funky 70's music.
No comments:
Post a Comment