Our Second Sunday Program is on June 12. Historian Bruce Teeple will give two presentations. “History and Meaning of Pennsylvania German Family Names” is at 2:05 p.m. and “History of Pennsylvania German Powwow Practices” at 3:05. Please be prompt!

The Second Sunday program will be held in the Poorman Gallery, the former German Lutheran Church next to the Heisey, from 2 to 4 p.m. Come and learn a lot and view our current window restorations. Find out how you can help with the preservation of these early 1900s stained glass windows.

July’s Second Sunday Program is on July 10 at the Farrandsville Furnace. On the National Register of Historic Places, and placed on the 2016 list of Pennsylvania’s 10 most endangered places by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, the furnace was the first and largest dry masonry hot blast furnace in North America. The time is 2 to 4 p.m.

In May, Masonry Preservation Services conducted their assessment of the condition of the Farrandsville Furnace. We thank Bill Simcox for helping extricate their crane from the mud!

Since then, the fence at the furnace was damaged by a vehicle. The state police have considered this to be criminal mischief. If you have any information, please call them at 570-726-6000.

GARDEN TOUR

Mark your calendars for June 26, the date of our ever-popular Garden Tour! Pre-sale tickets are $10 and are available online at www.clintoncountyhistory.com and at the Heisey.

Seven private gardens are featured, plus the Heisey’s grounds which include the herb garden maintained by the Clinton County Herb Guild (thank you, Deb Liguori and Traci Allen!) and Central Mountain student Savana Sutton’s heirloom vegetable garden, her senior project.

A self-guided tour, the gardens will be open from 1 to 5 p.m.

Richard Probst has donated a fountain to be placed in the Heisey’s front yard, and the unveiling will be at 1 p.m.

RECENT GIFTS

We recently met Catherine Fabel Marshall whose family had been members of the German Lutheran Church. In fact, there is a window with T. Fabel’s name on it.

Catherine gave us an oil painting of Wilhelmina Eberdina Krum, her grandmother and 1880s immigrant from Germany. She gave late 1880s German books, a Bible and other items. One book looks to be medical in nature, and we’d love for someone with knowledge of German to help us decipher what it is.

Thanks to Walker’s Hardware for donating a three-gallon sprayer to the Clinton County Historical Society. Last month’s rain gave the weeds a good head start!

Thanks to Lewis Steinberg for donating six Lock Haven Flood Protection Project manuals. We will be passing them along to the Geology Department at Lock Haven University. The levee office at City Hall also has two sets of the manuals which are available to the public.

HISTORY OF FATHER’S DAY

June 19 is Father’s Day. The first observance of a “Father’s Day” to honor male parenting was held on July 5, 1908 in West Virginia. In the ensuing years, various small towns set aside a Sunday to honor fathers, especially after a town’s loss of life due to mining or other disasters.

A bill to accord national recognition of the holiday was introduced in Congress in 1913. In 1916, President Wilson spoke at a Father’s Day recognition in Spokane, Washington, and wanted to make it official, but Congress resisted, fearing that it would become commercialized. In 1924 President Coolidge recommended that the day be observed by the nation, but stopped short of issuing a national proclamation. Two earlier attempts to formally recognize the holiday had been defeated by Congress. In 1957, Maine Senator Margaret Chase Smith accused Congress of ignoring fathers for 40 years while honoring mothers, thus “(singling) out just one of our two parents.” In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson issued the first presidential proclamation honoring fathers, designating the third Sunday in June as Father’s Day. Six years later, the day was made a permanent national holiday when President Richard Nixon signed it into law.

Until next month: See you at the Heisey! Be sure to visit our website at www.clintoncountyhistory.com. Our phone number is 570-748-7254. Email us at info@clintoncountyhistory.com.

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JoAnn Bowes is president of the Clinton County Historical Society.